Starving for Love (Promo)

I’ve said it a few times, but I feel like saying it again. I think that Starving for Love is the best story that I have written so far. I have received amazing feedback about the story from people who either have shared experiences with Sam, know someone like Sam or who credit Starving for Love for giving them a better understanding of people like Sam. Over the past few weeks, the story has received two new reviews and I feel the need to advertise for it again. I put it on sale for $0.99 for the next week. I want anyone interested in the book to be able to get it because I think it is an important story to be told. There are so many people struggling with depression and self-harm, but so few people want to talk about it and even fewer people understand the pain behind it. Sam’s story isn’t everyone’s story, but it is his story and it seems to resonate with people. The recent reviews tell me that there are still some people who are discovering Sam for the first time. 

I’m Free…for a few Months

I, the least likely to ever take a risk, have taken the biggest risk of my life. I quit my job! I have a few jobs lined up for August, but I’m hoping that I don’t actually have to do them. I’m going to spend the summer working towards my dream of being a full-time writer because I have the greatest amount of peace and happiness in my life when I am free to write at will. The last year of full-time employment was suffocating and at times depressing because I didn’t have time to devote to my true passion in life. I’m ready to grow as a writer and I know that won’t happen with me barely having time to write. 

I expected that I would be afraid, but I’m not. I feel like I am making the right move at the right time. I have a lot of goals for myself over the summer and I also have the comfort of knowing that I have a plan B. I hope that plan A works because writing is my dream job, but if it doesn’t at least I’ll be able to say that I gave it an honest try and I devoted months to improving my writing career. No matter how this turns out, this is one of the few times in my life that I am doing something solely for me. 

Wish me luck!  

Shank

I like sharing movies, especially ones that move me. I recently watched Shank. Shank is about a young man named Cal. According to the official summary of the movie, “Cal is an 19-year-old closeted gay gang member who has nothing in his life except drugs, sex, random acts of violence and a secret that he keeps hidden from his mates.”

Some parts of the movie were predictable, but many of the twists surprised me. I will warn you that there is a rape scene in the movie. The scene itself did not trouble me, but the fact that I clearly understood the rapist’s motivations did. The movie does a great job of setting up the tension between the characters. About halfway through the movie, it was clear that the main character and one of his former friends were on a collision course. Don’t worry this information doesn’t ruin the movie. Anyone with eyes and half a brain could see that someone was going to be raped before the end of the movie. Fortunately, the movie is far bigger than the rape. 

Shank shows a young thug’s slow acceptance of his homosexuality. Cal goes from beating gay people up with his friends, to stopping his friends from attacking a young gay man. Cal is deeply flawed and screwed up in so many ways that the audience can only imagine what things he must have experienced as a child. He is imperfect but he is coming in to his own as a person. He grows by leaps and bounds over the course of the movie. By the end, he has accepted who he is and he has taken responsibility for his shortcomings. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and I’m sure you will too. I usually don’t give movies higher than a B+, but this movie deserves an A-. I really can only find a few faults with the movie and none of them are big enough to warrant lowering my opinion of the movie.

Watch the movie for yourself and see if you agree: