Quark has a new writing VP

That’s right; her board name is Jimmy and she’s basically doing it the same way I did it–by jumping in the deep end first.  Joined quark last semester, went to a few writing meetings, and pow!  Writing VP.

Anyways, we had some interesting conversations after the last writing group meeting of the semester.  Basically, I think I convinced her to set daily writing goals the same way Aneeka convinced me.  She also decided to start a writing blog, so if you get a chance, you should check it out!  It’s called Dragons, Dirt & Bones, after the quote by G. K. Chesterton:

Fairytales are more than true–not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The funny thing is that we met each other two years ago and both totally forgot about it.  She was a high school junior visiting BYU, and came to Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class.  She remembers bookstore guy…and one of the writers whom the others in the writing group mercilessly ripped on.  Guess who that was?

In unrelated news, I am no longer homeless but am currently unemployed.  Dropped off a business card at Pioneer Book, though–told them I could help if they need extra work for the move.  Who knows, maybe that will lead to something.

I will probably end up getting a generic summer job, then upgrade to something more semi-permanent (and resume friendly) by August.  I’ll probably stay in Utah, using my writing and editing skills in some capacity.  I’d like to work as a grant writer for BYU, but they’re still under a hiring freeze.  Once that lifts, though, there are going to be a ton of job openings.

My primary plan is still to make my living as a published author, and I’m very optimistic about that working out.  Before the end of next week, I want to have Genesis Earth sent out to at least five new places.  My goal for Mercenary Savior is to finish draft 3.0 by CONduit at the end of May, but I will probably polish the first three chapters and start sending it out before then.

In the meantime, the real world awaits.  Scary, I know, but at least I’m graduating debt free, with a roof over my head, friends and family close by, and lots of exciting possibilities for the future.  I think things will turn out well.

Quick post from Provo

This is going to be quick, because it’s late at night and I want to get some sleep.

I made it to Provo.  I’m currently staying with an old roommate, sleeping on his couch.  To do: find a job and a place to live.  Fortunately, I’ve just about got the second one secured.

I talked with the editors at Leading Edge today, and they told me they’ve been having problems with the buy function on their website.  If you tried to buy a copy of issue 58 (the one with my story) before this month, they probably lost your address.  Don’t worry, they voided the purchase, but if you want a copy you’ll have to go through the process again.  Sorry for the hassle.

Wrote the last academic paper of my undergraduate college career today.  The last freaking paper. Hooray!

I dropped in to English 318 tonight, and a couple of Sanderson fans got engaged in front of the whole class.  It was pretty cool, not the least because they were cosplaying at the same time.  Good luck, Mi’chelle!  May you and your future husband have a wonderful life together!

Thanks for all the feedback on the new title.  I think I’m going to stick with it.  It’s weird to call the book by a different name after working on it for so long under the other title, but I think Mercenary Savior works much better.

Looked up Westercon today and found out it’s only $60.  Thinking seriously about going.  Should I?  Is anyone else planning on going?

To do tomorrow: get cap and gown, complete and file taxes, sign a spring/summer contract, meet up with old supervisors/professors in pursuit of a job, go to a bonfire and have a good time.

My mom always got depressed with to do lists; she always felt daunted when she saw all the tasks she needed to accomplish.  To counteract this, she made a “tasks accomplished” list at the end of the day to make her feel better.  So, on that note:

Accomplished: finished all Washington Seminar coursework, attended English 318 and obtained leads for Mormon Artist article, attended Leading Edge and caught up with the slushies, got a date for next Friday (totally unrelated), submitted Genesis Earth to an agent, wrote +2.2k in Mercenary Savior.

Not bad.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crash for the night.

Newsvomit

Alright, before I collapse from exhaustion and call it a night, here’s what’s up.

Today, I wrote more than 3k words in the revision of Bringing Stella Home (I’m going to change that title soon–I’ve got a new working title, but I don’t know what I think about it).  The whole time, though, it felt as if I was pulling teeth.  I was constantly distracted with one thing or another, and didn’t feel productive at all.  Blegh.

Tomorrow, all that momentum I built up today will probably start to kick in. Unfortunately, I’ve got so much other crap to do instead.  I’m flying out to Utah early Wednesday morning, so I’ve got to pack, do laundry, get a father’s blessing, finish as much schoolwork from Washington Seminar as possible (aka finish the portfolio)…the list keeps going.  It’s going to be a hectic day.

Anyways.  In unrelated news, Duke beat Butler by a measly two points.  The game was so epic even my parents watched it.  Somewhere in an alternate universe, Butler made the half-point shot as the clock ran out.  I’m thinking life must be a lot more exciting in that alternate universe.

In news unrelated to the unrelated news, I found something awesome on the internets last night: the end theme from Jurassic Park for the game gear!!  

Ah, the memories. The beautiful, 16-bit memories.

In other, somewhat related news (related to the writing, that is), I have a new working title for my novel: Mercenary Savior. What do you think? I kind of like it, but it feels like something is missing–something like Mercenary Savior to a ______, or Mercenary Savior in a _____ universe. I dunno.

My dear, trusted alpha readers, what do you think?

Old story notebook, part 2

Alright, here is the second part of my oldest story notebook, the one that I just found a couple days ago.  These ideas date from 2007 when I started pursuing writing as more than a hobby, up to the summer of 2008 when I went to Jordan on the BYU study abroad program.

The Singularity: it will lead more to a social change and conflict than a transformation of humanity–increasing disparity between techies and non-techies, and a tech/class conflict. What will the perspective be of those who look at us and our advances after the new dark ages? Or are we in the dark ages?

Interesting–if you believe in the technological singularity, that is. I’m not quite so sure I do anymore; that’s kind of what Genesis Earth

was all about.

An alien race of beings that have no sensory organs, but instead perceive the thoughts of beings with sensory organs, and thus do all their perceiving through others.

There is so much cool stuff you can do with aliens–stuff that nobody seems to be doing, because they always stick with the tropes. Or maybe I’m just not well-read enough.

The more advanced our society becomes, the more our education specializes so that it becomes harder to know the minimum necessary to understand everything. This leads to class/tech divisions, and to the potential for society to fall apart.

Have you ever wondered about this? I mean, it’s kind of crazy how complicated we’ve made life and living. And all this we call “civilization.”

When relativistic space travel becomes more widespread, society will develop new rituals and ways to mourn and deal with the separation that comes with people going forward out into space.

I think I had this thought while reading Speaker for the Dead or another of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game books. That series totally blew my mind.

If we lived in a telepathic society, we would learn to separate our deep thoughts from our shallow thoughts to put up a facade in public–but how would the relationship between deep and shallow change the way society works? If we had to hide even our thoughts?

Heck, what would a telepathic society even look like?

Aliens who shed their skin each year (or something else) and have derived a culture that treats each person as having a different identity each year.

Kind of like in Tahiti, where people change their names at different stages of their lives (childhood, adulthood, etc). I hear it makes family history work insanely frustrating.

We make contact with aliens who need a human companion with whom they merge telepathically, and the story is from the human translator’s point of view.

This would make a really cool anime.

First contact was made in the 12th century with the Abassids, and the explorer ship returned with Arab emissaries to the alien homeworld. Now those emissaries are returning to establish regular connections via ansible, and they are shocked to find the world in its current state.

Okay, I think this idea has some really cool potential. I’m not sure I’d be the one to write it, but it sounds like it could be really awesome, if it were done right.

An alien species incapable of lying.

It would probably turn first contact into an unmitigated disaster. After all, lying is the essence of diplomacy.

When we first go into space, colonies will be governed by multi-national corporations, not stats. Profit will come before the welfare of the colonists themselves, and the wars will be over trade routes and tariffs.

Sounds like something straight out of C. J. Cherryh.

An alien species* that considers it okay to show uncovered reproductive organs but obscene to show the eating organs. *Or, a human society

It sure would be weird, especially if it were a human society that did that.

An alien spaceship comes to Earth and it’s full of colonists.

Definitely been done already. Probably multiple times.

Dolphins are a post-alien species that came to Earth millions of years ago.

Has this been done before? I seriously doubt it. I’d write it, but any story set on Earth tends to bore me.

EDIT: Alright, yeah, it’s been done–quite a bit, actually. Looks like I need to get out from under my rock and read some more.

Aliens have colonies under the ocean.

Hey, if they have them anywhere, they’re probably down there.

Is a necessary element of our free agency our ignorance of ourselves, on the deepest level?

Perhaps.

A 19th century Mormon gets stuck in a time warp and ends up in 21st century Utah.

Oh, the horror!

I’d better stop here, since general conference is about to start. I’ll finish this list in the next couple of days, probably. Blogging keeps me sane. In the meantime, have a wonderful Easter!

Quarterly report

So I figure that since I want to write professionally, it would be a good idea to keep track of my writing and do quarterly updates on my blog.  Here’s the first one for this year:

The red line shows my daily writing word count, the blue line a running seven day total.  The graph starts January 1st and goes to March 31st.

For the first part of January, the seven day total was high for a week because I’d just finished Bringing Stella Home 2.0. It dropped down way low for a while because I was busy moving into the Barlow center, starting my internship, and starting a new novel at the same time.  Combining all three of those things at the same time made for very little progress, until about the middle part of the month.

Things progressed at a moderate rate (about 1k words per day) from the middle of January until snowmageddon, which hit us in the second week of February.  I got a lot of writing done while snowed in, and my work in progress at the time, To Search the Starry Sea 1.0, got a lot of momentum behind it.

That momentum started to taper off, as I realized that the story I was writing was different than the story I had in my head.  I swear, this happens EVERY time I try to write a novel.  I tried to stick with the story in my head, but the gap got wider and wider until I realized the story just wasn’t working.

At the end of February, I decided to put it on the back burner and let my ideas simmer for a while.  I’ll probably pick it up again at some point in the future, but not in the short term–I need to put it away for a while.  I’m sure I’ll finish it someday, though.

So then, in the beginning of March, I went through all the comments I’d received on Bringing Stella Home.  The HUGE spike you see right around the middle of the month represents all the revision notes I put together for the 3.0 draft.  I read through the entire manuscript in about a week and a half, made a detailed scene by scene outline, and figured out my strategy for the revision.

Things dropped off again pretty sharply the last couple weeks of March because that was right around when I was fired from my internship.  That was one hell of a stressful week.  They picked up pretty quick after that, though, because 1) I had a lot more free time, and 2) I’m REALLY excited about this project.

Looking ahead, I think if I push myself, I can finish Bringing Stella Home 3.0 by the end of April.  It will be difficult because I’ll be looking for an apartment and a job at the same time, but after next week I won’t have to worry about schoolwork anymore (potentially for the rest of my life…whoa).  Definitely, I’ll have it done in time for CONduit 2010.

One thing I need to work on a lot more is submitting.  I’ve got a list of agents to submit Genesis Earth to, I just haven’t got around to sending it to them all.  The responses I’ve received have been generally encouraging: all rejections, but about half form rejections, half personalized in some way.  I do think this book will find it’s way in print, though it may not be my first to be published.

Even though Bringing Stella Home will probably need at least one more major revision before the full manuscript is ready to be sent out to editors/agents, I can probably polish the first three chapters enough to shop it around sometime in May.  I’m not sure if that’s what I’ll do, but it’s an option.  It depends on whether I jump right in to the 4.0 revision after finishing the current draft, which I probably won’t do; better to let it sit for a while.

Instead, I think I’ll jump right in to finishing that novel I started in late 2008, Hero in Exile.  The title will have to change (as always), but I’ve got a lot of fresh ideas for it, plus the enthusiasm to pull it off.  In many ways, Hero in Exile is a non-linear sequel to Bringing Stella Home, so if I get a deal with the one, I can always pitch the other as the next in the series.  That’s a huge plus–and a major reason why I’ll be enthusiastic about the project, since the two novels build off of each other.

Anyway, that’s what things are looking like from here.  Somewhere in the middle of all that, I’ll read a couple of friends’ novels (I haven’t forgotten about you, Jakeson and Drek!), graduate, get an apartment, get a job (inshallah), write an article for Mormon Artist, go to a con or two, and maybe even get a girlfriend and/or figure out what to do with my life.

Old story notebook–found!

Guess what?  Last night, when I was looking through old boxes at my parents house (looking for my old ratty copy of On My Way to Paradise, specifically) I found my very first story notebook–the one I thought I’d lost on the Jordan study abroad two years ago!

Wheeeeee!!!

This notebook is a real gold mine–not just of story ideas, but of some of my oldest thoughts on writing.  I started keeping it back in the 90s, long before my mission.  I kept it up sporadically for a little while, but it really took off in 2007 when I decided I was going to pursue writing professionally.

For the 07-08 school year, I kept this notebook with me all the time.  I had a huge burst of story ideas as I finished my first novel, and I wrote the majority of them in here.

When the summer came around, I got a couple new notebooks in preparation for the study abroad.  Later, when I was established in the homestay, I searched everywhere for this notebook and couldn’t find it.  I thought it was lost.  The whole time, it turns out, it was in my shoebox of momentoes in Provo.

Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem.  So now, without any further ado, let’s go through this thing.

A boy learns how to consciously control his dreams and visit other people in theirs.

For a long time, this was my one big idea–the one that I was sure would turn into a fantastic book and make my entire career, if I could just keep it secret long enough to write it. It’s a pretty good story idea, but I’ve got so many other, better ideas by now that I’m not too concerned about making it public.

A girl falls overboard from a colony ship and is stranded on an island.

Kind of like a female Robinson Carusoe, I guess. I actually wrote the first fifty pages of this story, in the summer before I left for my mission. Never finished it, but at least I ran with it.

A secret organization of warriors fights to keep a mysterious enemy from taking over the land.

Hehe, sound familiar? I think every other fantasy story has some kind of subplot like this.

A kidnapped girl fights to make her way home.

Kind of like the Odyssey, but with the genders reversed. Hmm, maybe I haven’t changed all that much…

A band of foreign, elite warriors sells their services to a population, then slowly begins to corrupt the society’s morals to satisfy their lusts.

Kind of like Seven Samurai meets Ibn Khaldun.

Two brothers find themselves fighting for opposing armies.

Already done: Gettysburg, the movie.

A general fights to save his people and then his daughter is kidnapped by asymmetrical terrorists.

I’m not sure what the significance is with the terrorists–maybe conventional warfare vs. asymmetrical warfare or something like that.

The next few are all ideas for non-science fiction stories; I tried to brainstorm as many of them as I could, in case (for some absurd reason) I decided to write mainstream fiction. I’ll give them all at once:

A guy finds a girl and they click, but he has to convince her that the people she dates are bad for her (which is true).

A guy and a girl go on a road trip to find out more about themselves.

A guy tries to improve himself to attract a girl, then discovers he’s not interested.

A boy is chauffering people around and doing errands, then finds a life-changing thing.

A homeless runaway is taken in by a wise truck driver and learns to reconcile himself with the world.

A boy goes on a road trip to do research to reunite a dying relative with an old friend.

Moral of the story: If it’s not science fiction, it’s got to involve a road trip. Otherwise, it’s dead boring.

A soldier away from home makes his way back to his country, which has fallen into warlordism, and tries to rebuild his life and his homeland.

This was the novel I tried to write the year after my mission. It tanked really bad, but it got me to the point where I could write Ashes of the Starry Sea and actually finish it. If I were to try this idea now, I would take it in a completely different direction than I did then.

That concludes all the ideas in the notebook before October 15, 2003. The notebook then took a hiatus until the summer of ’07, which is where I’ll pick up next time.

Goodbye DC

So I have some crazy, unbelievable news to share: I got fired from my internship, under disputed circumstances.  That’s right: fired from my unpaid internship four weeks before it was scheduled to end.

The exact reasons for the termination were never made completely clear to me, but I suspect politics played a significant role and that’s all I’m going to say about it here.  If you want to know more, please contact me privately.

Fortunately, the Washington Seminar people have agreed to let me get credit for my academic work–which means that I’ll be able to graduate.  I’ve been sent home early, but I can still pass the class with a C/C-.

Oh well.  In some ways, this kind of sucks, but in other ways, it’s a blessing in disguise.  I learned everything that I needed to learn from my internship: that I don’t want to pursue a career in government or policy making.

Government work is long, hard, and very intensive.  It also involves office politics, sitting behind a desk, and fighting entrenched bureaucracies.  It’s not the kind of career that allows time for family, let alone writing.  And the payoff?  The common refrain I heard was that the work was “interesting.” Not “meaningful,” “life-changing,” “personally enriching,” or any of that–just “interesting.”

Nope.  Not for me.

I also learned that the kind of people who are attracted to Washington DC are not the kind of people I feel very comfortable around.  Generally speaking, Washington DC tends to attract people who are ambitious, self-absorbed, arrogant, loud, poor listeners, opinionated, and oblivious of the people around them.  This certainly wasn’t true of everyone, both at the institute and at the Barlow center, but I found they were the exceptions to the rule.

I will say a few positive things, though.  DC has some excellent museums and monuments–the best of any I’ve seen anywhere else.  In particular, I found the FDR memorial, the Portrait Gallery, and the science and innovation exhibit at the American History Museum particularly moving.

In terms of people, ironically, the ones that struck me as most sincere and genuine were all politicians.  In particular, I was struck by Congressman Matheson and Senator Bennett.  I’m not sure if I would vote for either of them–it depends on their stance on the issues–but they both struck me as intelligent, well meaning, good people.

I will also say that my respect for the military went up significantly.  After hearing so many people spout of so much self-important hot air about this or that political issue, it was remarkably refreshing to see people who were willing to put their lives on the line for their country.  To any servicemen reading this, thank you for all you do.  I have nothing but the deepest respect and admiration for you.

My experience in the Barlow center was generally quite positive.  I had an excellent roommate and made quite a few friends.  I’m sorry if I seemed kind of aloof most of the time–it’s probably because I was miserable for other reasons and didn’t realize it.  I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again back in Provo.

So, what’s the plan now?  Finish the academic side of things ASAP, then head back to Utah.  I’ve got a lot of old friends I want to catch up with before the summer, not to mention the last couple English 318 classes.  That’s one thing I sorely missed this semester–English 318.  Beyond that, I don’t quite know–a lot of things are still in the air.  I’m confident, however, that whatever happens, it will be for the best.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one.  Or at least as close as we’re goign to get.

“That’s what you said about the brother.”

“The brother tested out impossible.  For other reasons.  Nothing to do with his ability.”

“Same with the sister.  And there are doubts about him.  He’s too malleable.  Too willing to submerge himself in someone else’s will.”

“Not if the other person is his enemy.”

“So what do we do?  Surround him with enemies all the time?”

“If we have to.”

“I thought you said you liked this kid.”

“If the buggers get him, they’ll make me look like his favorite uncle.”

“All right.  We’re saving the world, after all.  Take him.”

Thus begins one of the greatest SF classics of all time, Ender’s Game. With such a spectacular beginning, it only keeps getting better.

I decided to reread Ender’s Game because a friend of mine in Washington was reading it.  I read this book back in high school in only two sittings–the first twenty pages in the library, and the rest back home, where I finished it wide-eyed at three in the morning.  I didn’t regret a single moment of it, then or now.

One of the most fascinating things to me about this book is the way that Orson Scott Card breaks almost all of the rules of writing.  On every page, he “tells” much more than he “shows”–some of the battles he glosses over in only a couple of paragraphs.  He gives only minimal setting details, and very few of these are visceral or concrete–it’s very hard to “get into” the world of Ender’s Game the way you would with a fantasy novel.  Most of the characterization consists of “navel gazing”–Ender thinking to himself about how bad things are, rather than taking action.

Breaking these rules, however, is exactly the thing that makes this a good book.  The story isn’t in the setting, or in the nitty gritty of the battles–it’s in Ender’s mind, how he reacts to the forces around him, and how those forces change him. “Telling” rather than “showing” allows him to keep the pace at a breakneck, thrilling speed while cutting out unnecessary details, and the “navel gazing” allows us to get an intimate picture of Ender’s mind.

It goes to show that good writing isn’t just about knowing the rules, but knowing how to break them.  And when it comes to plot, character, pacing, foreshadowing, thematic elements, and the hero cycle, Orson Scott Card proves his masterful brilliance in this work beyond a doubt.

One of the most fascinating things about this book is that it hits all eight points of the Campbellian monomyth.  This excellent article (originally published in Leading Edge) explains how.  The most incredible thing to me is that the year after Ender’s Game came out, Orson Scott Card did it all again–wrote a blockbuster book hitting all eight points of the monomyth–with Speaker for the Dead, which I think is a superior book.

Ender’s Game is a true classic of the science fiction genre.  Not only is it a highly entertaining story, it is deeply meaningful and insightful as well.  It’s one of those books you can reread multiple times, and it only keeps getting better.  Whether or not you’re a fan of science fiction, this is a book you will deeply benefit from reading.

With the Lightnings by David Drake

Daniel Leary, Lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, dreams of commanding a military starship one day.  Unfortunately, as the estranged son of a corrupt senator, and with almost no money to his name, he has virtually no chance of ever seeing it happen.

While serving in an assignment on Kostrama, a neutral trade world between Cinnabar and her mortal enemies, the Alliance, he meets Adele Mundy, chief librarian of the Kostraman capitol.  The title is virtual meaningless, however, as the uncultured Kostramans would give the position to anyone–even a political exile from Cinnibar such as Adele.  Her whole family was assassinated by Leary’s father, and she has sworn to take revenge.

Little do they both know, the Alliance has other plans.

Ever since I met David Drake at World Fantasy 2009 in San Jose, I’ve been meaning to read one of his books.  I must say, I picked a good one.  With the Lightnings is the first book in his RCN Series, which is basically David Drake’s take on Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels.  Think Napoleon-era naval battles and political intrigue…in space.

Does it sound good already?  Yeah, I thought so.

I was a little surprised at first, because the first chapter started with a bunch of info dumps.  It took until about the halfway mark for the action to really start, but when it did, it was awesome. A bunch of navy guys marooned on a hostile planet behind enemy lines, trying to survive a planetwide coup and blowing all kinds of stuff up along the way–yeah, it was cool.

The thing I enjoyed most about this book, however, was the insight into the minds of the officers and the way the officers and soldiers interacted.  You can tell that David Drake has experience in the military–lots of experience.

It was evident in the little things the main character noticed–the colors and patterns of soldiers’ uniforms, competency among his own men and incompetency in men not under his command, leadership style and how he dealt with crises–stuff like that.  The language was colorful, but when the soldiers swore, their language had a bite to it that went beyond the actual words.  The people felt gritty, but very real.

At World Fantasy, I mentioned to David Drake that I’d read some of Joe Haldeman’s works, and knew they were both Vietnam vets.  He remarked that Haldeman’s works are very much different than his own: Haldeman’s characters are constantly stabbing each other in the back, whereas in Drake’s works, there is always a sense of teamwork and unity, even when the going gets messy.

I could definitely see that in With the Lightnings–it’s one of the things that made the book so fun to read.  Yes, things get pretty tough and a lot of people die, but there’s always a sense of loyalty within the platoon (or whatever the unit is called).

With the Lightnings is a great space opera action/adventure story.  After reading it, I really want to read more books in the RCN series.  If you want a good, fun military sf adventure story, this is a great one to pick up.

Dinner with friends

I had dinner tonight with one of my classmates from English 318 last year, who is a frequent commenter on this blog.  He and his wife were kind enough to invite me over to their apartment, where we ate, talked, hung out, and had a general good time.

It was great to see an old friend from Sanderson’s class!  We talked a lot about writing, and that was way cool–I haven’t been around people who can talk writing since I left Provo (not counting the IM conversations I have with Chuck every other day).  At one point, his wife had to stop and say “wait, let’s put this conversation on pause and let me get to know this guy”!

He showed me this interesting online compendium of Wheel of Time characters, which blew me away; I haven’t read the Wheel of Time series yet, but just looking at how many characters are in the books, I have no idea how anyone could write something like that.  I guess that’s the direction Fantasy is going in–enormous worlds, long books, dozens and even hundreds of characters.

We talked about all kinds of other things, too–school and work, career decisions, future plans, social pressures, life in general, etc.  It was great being with interesting people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say.  I tend to be a little self-conscious about the fact that I talk too much, but they got me to talk a lot–about how I decided to be a writer, how I wrote Genesis Earth from story idea to the latest draft, my future goals as a writer, etc etc.  It was a lot of fun.

We also talked about my current project (working title: Bringing Stella Home), and I shared the 30 second story blurb.  I then asked them what they think the title should be, and together we came up with an interesting title idea: Saving Ben and Stella.

What do you think of it?  I kindof think it has a nice ring to it.  Mentions Ben and Stella, which shows that Ben’s storyline is important as well as Stella’s. Then again, it’s not much of a change from the previous one.

In any case, I had an awesome time with Stephen and his wife.  It’s great to have friends wherever you travel, and meet up with old classmates after graduating from college.  Thanks guys!