Some Happy, Some Sad

Some happy stuff for today, and some sad. I nearly cried at work yesterday. That’s the sad part. Lets talk about the happy first.

I’ve been able to get some fiction writing done the past few days. It feel very great, much better than my usual “I’m going to write today” followed with “Eh, maybe tomorrow”. Yay me. I know exactly why I’ve been so productive the past few days too. I have a deadline.

Yep, I’m one of those people that needs deadlines. They help combat my horrible procrastination problem. The reason why I got so much writing done during NaNoWriMo is the very tight deadlines. Deadlines are my friends.

My deadline for this month is my upcoming writing group meeting on Monday. I really want to share some of my writing, and I’m working on a totally new chapter of my novel, so I better have it done by then. I’d say I’m 80% there. Yay me again!

Here’s a little excerpt (two sentences) that made me laugh as I was writing them. I may need to clean it up a bit, but I’m happy with it.

The words had barely left his mouth when a tremendous thump shook the cottage’s heavy wooden door. The knock was less of a “please let me in” and more of a “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you unless you enjoy being crushed with large objects made of wood.”

Now on to the sad part. John Challis, the 18 year old boy with cancer who got a hit in a varsity baseball game who I wrote about in May died Tuesday. He made the most of his last few days though. He got to attend a Stanley Cup Finals game, he met Mario Lemieux and Big Ben, he hung out with Alex Rodriguez in New York, and he founded a charitable organization to help kids in similar situations. He was even featured on ESPN.

If you don’t know the story, I encourage you to take some time and check out some of these links. Here is John Challis’ obituary. Here is a nice article about John from the Beaver County Times. Here’s a link to The Burgh Blog, where I first read that John died.

Here is an excerpt from the piece ESPN did about John (this is the one that made me cry at work):

In his own words:

Courage + believe = life.

Amen.