Every time this time of year rolls around, there's a huge one night epidemic of binge drinking and flashing (as opposed to flash) mobs.
Then a whole passel of people swear off something fun, delicious, pleasant and generally attuned to a message of self-abnegation, denial and suffering to be more in with What Digby, er, What FSM, er, what Jesus Said.
Most of the focus is on guilty pleasures. Sinfulness. SATAN(!!!!)
But seriously: Consider the harm done by keeping the non-fun and the foul baggage in our hearts and minds.
All kidding aside, if the idea is to come out of the Lenten season feeling purer of body mind and purpose, well, let's come up with a list of things people have in their lives that they'd do well to swear off, like, oh...
1. Trace fallout from Fukushima and other reactors
2. High fructose corn syrup
3. Corporate taxfare
4. Tea Wees
5. Hostess Twinkies
6. So called diet soft drinks
7. Batterers and abusive people in general
8. List diaries... oh, wait....
You get the idea.
As for me, I am swearing off self-doubt and I will share why: I sent Part One of a story (200 pages) to my high school English teacher, a former publishing editor before he decided to take up the path of Socrates and corrupting the youth of Athens.
He said, in as many words: Dude. Stop writing and get an agent. It's publishable as is.
And that kinda made my day. :)
So if anyone happens to know a person who knows an agent looking for a science fiction (soft-ish) series pitch material, send them my way. Or, I'll find them soon enough.
I've got the rest of the book to write and I'm on a schedule. :)