I must say that this is one of the few online quizzes where I’m happy with the results. (At least to an extent.) I’d like to think that what I’m writing…or at least what I’m currently thinking of what I’m writing…fits this description quite nicely.

I found this on the writing journal, “Mama Write.”

GOTHICS! - Deep, dark, mysterious and melodramatic.
You are drawn to write tales of the shadows and
what might lurk there. Could it be Love? Or
Madness? Anne Rice and Brahm Stoker are your
guides.

What Kind of Novel Should I Write?
brought to you by Quizilla

Here’s another test I found while browsing online. My score on the Commonly Confused Word Test was:

Advanced
You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 66% Expert!

You have an extremely good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of each of these three levels’ questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don’t use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.

How did you do?

Some of the big names of literature would have been pulled from library shelves. Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal are just a few of the authors whose work would have been banned from public school libraries simply because they either are written by gay authors or they present stories in which homosexuals play some role.

CBS News reports that Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen, who calls homosexuality “an unacceptable lifestyle,” proposed a new bill to prevent schools from offering such books. Allen originally included some of Shakespeare’s works in his ban, but changed his mind after criticism.

Claiming that the homosexual lifestyle is bad for America, and getting frustrated from reading “book after book” that contains what he calls the “homosexual agenda,” Allen became “alarmed.”

Fortunately for literature, when it came time to vote for the bill in Alabama’s legislature, there weren’t enough lawmakers present for a vote to be taken, so the measure died automatically. (I suspect some lawmakers didn’t support the bill but didn’t want to go on record as having to vote “no” out of fear of offending their Republican constituents. Good for them.)

The sad thing here isn’t so much the fact that the target of such a ridiculous bill would be any story that contains a homosexual character, but that stories simply written by someone who happened to be homosexual would have been banned as well. What kind of thinking is this? Just because an author is gay does not automatically mean he will write only about gay characters. Sometimes heterosexual authors include gay characters in their work. Writers write about life experiences; the experiences need not be only what they themselves experience. The sexual orientation of the author of a work shouldn’t be a reason to ban the work itself. What’s next? A ban on all black authors’ works that display the “civil rights agenda?” Or perhaps those good old boys will knock their “womenfolk” back a peg or two and ban any work written by females who might push the “women’s lib agenda.”

Literature is supposed to make us think, experience the world through other people’s lives. Very often in the process of reading a good book, we learn something about ourselves whether there is the first character we fully identify with or not. Perhaps if our children could be exposed to more diversity through good literature, it might lead them to be a little more accepting of other people in this world.

To accept one person’s right to live their life their way in no way compromises your own values. Too often, people forget that.

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

It is one of the most joked-about sentences in writing circles, but it actually was a real opening line to a real novel:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

–Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Those words have taken on a life of their own, especially at the English Department at San Jose State University, where wretched writing is celebrated with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The object is simple: create the worst opening line you possibly can.

Dave Zobel wins the top prize this year, and worked in a mention of Martha Stewart to boot! His entry, along with the runners up, is here.

Many people who have never experienced any serious bout of anxiety hear the term “panic attack” and can’t really grasp what a panic attack is. One of the best definitions appears at the website, Anxietypanic.com:

A panic attack is a sudden surge of overwhelming fear that comes without warning and without any obvious reason.

Symptoms of panic attacks vary from person to person, but some of the most popular symptoms include:

• 
  

  Sudden terror

• 
  

  Feeling you are about to lose consciousness, even die

• 
  

  Racing Heartbeat

• 
  

  Dizziness

• 
  

  Tingling in Arms, Hands, Fingers (and sometimes legs and feet)

• 
  

  Trembling/Shaking

• 
  

  Excessive Sweating (”Cold Sweats”)

• 
  

  Sudden Chills

• 
  

  Chest Pains

• 
  

  Shortness of Breath

• 
  

  Fear you are about to go crazy

• 
  

  Restlessness

So you now have an idea of how pleasant a panic attack can really be. But notice something key in the description above: “…that comes without warning and without any obvious reason.”

This is the key.

We all get stressed out from one thing or another. People who have panic and anxiety disorders have stress levels to the nth degree by comparison. But a panic attack can come on after a crisis has been solved: when most people without the disorder would begin feeling normal and “unstressed” again, one who suffers from one of these disorders could suddenly undergo one of these attacks out of the blue. They feel like a serious medical condition: a stroke or a heart attack, for instance. The reality of the symptoms and the seemingly lack of direct cause for such an attack is enough to convince the average anxiety patient that it’s not an anxiety attack but the “real thing.” Many rush to emergency rooms, convinced they are about to die, only to be sent home with anti-depressants and a lot of shame for having allowed themselves be fooled by their own psyhce. They have no real reason to be ashamed, of course, but when they realize their own mind has duped them, that is often the result.

What’s worse is that though most panic attacks only last for a couple of minutes on average, because the body can only maintain the high levels of brain chemistry that produce the “fight or flight” response, those levels can recharge several times over the course of an hour, which leads to multiple attacks over a period of time, putting the sufferer through sheer hell.

If any of these symptoms sound familiar to you, I would recommend that you visit anxietypanic.com for more information about Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. You should schedule an appointment with your doctor so that it can be determined whether you really suffer from the condition. There are many medications out there that can make a real difference in dealing with these terrible illnesses. You owe it to yourself to feel better.

The “Saturday Six” is back at “Patrick’s Place” where it will remain. Those of you were were concerned when it was hosted in the alternate journal will be happy to know that the experiment is over. I was surprised to have gotten as much of a response as I did at the Blogger journal, but I think it best that we keep the ‘Six’ as an AOL entity. (Of course, if you have a journal that isn’t on AOL, you can still play along!)

Last week, Cat was the first to play by virtue of posting either a specific link to the entry in which the questions were answered or by answering the questions in the comment. Congratulations, Cat!

I know that it was Drew’s first time playing last week. It was also a first time for Jade. Some of the others who might have played for the first time didn’t sign their names or say so, so I can’t be sure about who they are…one unfortunate part of the experiement.

(If you are playing this week for the first time, please say so in your comment…sometimes I miss new players.)

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six.” Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! If you don’t have an AOL journal, you can still play, but of course you’ll at least need an AOL screen name, which you can get for free with AOL Instant Messenger, to be able to leave a comment here. To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. (Again, if you’re playing for the first time, please be sure to say so in the comment!) Enjoy!

1. What do you tend to focus on the most?
A. The past.
B. The present.
C. The future as you think it will be.
D. The future as you are afraid it will be.

6. RAPID FIRE Question #2: Who or what is the most annoying:
a) Politician
b) Late Night Talk Show Host
c) Color
d) Habit
e) Female Celebrity
f) Male Celebrity
g) Television Show
h) Commercial
i) Fashion Statement
j) Word

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), click the e-mail link on the About Me bar and send it to me.

MY ANSWERS:
1. D

There hasn’t been much in the way of writing updates lately because I took an unplanned hiatus from writing. There’s a lot going on at the moment, and much of it has taken away some of my writing time. I have added to this problem, naturally, by not finding enough inner discipline to write when there might otherwise have been time.

I’ve revised five pages and have written a few new pages, but I don’t have any new counts, yet. I’ll update them this weekend, by which time I hope to have at least eeked out ten pages and made my weekly goal.

A former coworker is trying to write a novel. She’s completed it, in fact, but it’s in need of major rewrites. No, really…major rewrites. Trust me on that.

When she heard I was interested in writing, she asked if I would consider reading her book, since she was trying to build a readers group to critique her work before sending it off for publishing. I assumed, of course, that she was sending it off to her agent so that it could be accepted or rejected.

I was wrong.

What I received from her was not a typed manuscript but a printed book in trade paperback form. The cover was printed in full color and the book was professionally bound.

Huh??

She explained that she was “self-publishing.” The printed book I held was an “experiment” because she wanted everyone to comment not only on her story but also on the complete package, cover, title and all.

Apparently, she had already shelled out $500-$750 dollars for professional copyediting. A friend had designed the cover, which looked average, but did not jump off the shelf at me. The printing had cost probably another $500 or so, but when all was said and done, and she rewrote as needed, these costs would be worth it to insure good sales.

The book fell into a genre I don’t typically read: Black Romance. I found some of the dialog contrived to sound “overly Black.” She had high-paid black executives waiting for their white colleagues to leave the room so that their speech patterns could degenerate into a “hip” form of “jive.” It felt unnatural.

The lead character, a strong-willed woman determined to have her way at all costs, much like “Gone With the Wind’s” Scarlett O’Hara, was exceptionally harsh and abrasive, even toward the family member threatened by the events of the story…and it was her protection of this family member that made up the major portion of the storyline! I was perhaps a quarter of the way through the story (maybe less) when I realized that I almost wanted the lead character to fall on her face…or out a window. Not good.

But even more surprising was the number of grammatical errors, both in sentence structure and punctuation. Sure, she’d paid for a copyedit, but it was clear that all the “copyeditor” had done was run the entire thing through a spell-checker. None of the words was misspelled, but any fifth-grade English teacher would have still been appalled at how they were used and punctuated.

No reputable publisher, even as an “experiment,” would have invested their time and energy putting this clearly unfinished story in salable form. That told me a lot about the self-publishing industry…and why they’re still fighting to avoid being called “vanity presses.”

I’m sure there are plenty of reputable ones out there. They certainly make a good point about authors getting a bigger share of profits for their work. But I also know that there is such a thing as “paying dues.” I consider most of the successful, million-dollar authors who started off the “hard” way. They’ve gotten better, in part, because they’ve had to be competitive to get traditional publishers to give them the time of day. They’ve been driven by the chance not to be published to produce work that is usually worth being published. There’s something to be said for that kind of motivation, I think.

When a press will print anything you want so long as you’re willing to write the check, I can’t see how that makes you better as a writer.

Found this at “Aunt Nub’s Empty Head“…

You’re a slightly tarnished metal key, and you
unlock the wardrobe. At first glance, you seem
to present only simple, everyday things, but
anyone who looks deeper will find much more.
Just don’t expect everyone to believe in you,
and those who don’t may not grasp your worth.

What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

Since I started volunteering with FLAG, an animal shelter group where I adopted one of my dogs, I have met some wonderful dogs who have been in need of a home. There are a few of them who keep returning week after week to the adoption events that happen every two weeks, because people, for whatever reason, pass them by week after week.

As a lifelong animal lover, those are the dogs who I have a special attachment to. “Eddie” is one of them.

Eddie is a deer Hound. He’s the first hound dog that I’ve spent any significant amount of time with, and I must say that before I ran across him, I had a picture of Hounds as being lazy and uninterested in anything besides sleeping and eating. I never pictured them as being overly affectionate. (Those of you who are Hound owners must cut me some slack: I’d just never been around one before.)

Eddie completely changed my mind about that preconceived notion. He had been a hunting dog. His previous owner took the time and care to stencil a number on his left and right side in hair dye, a common practice for hunters who have several hunting dogs. The sad thing is that many of these hunters never name the dogs; they simply refer to them by number. At the end of hunting season, Eddie, along with two other dogs like him, were abandoned in the woods. He had been found on a cold night, shivering, hungry and exhausted. He was turned over to a pound and Flag rescued him.

It’s hard to imagine someone doing this to a dog, but this is the world in which we live.

It only took about ten minutes for me to imagine why he was abandoned: he must have made a lousy hunter! He’s interested in affection. When you pet him, he leans toward you to make it easier for you to pet him some more. If you sit down on a chair, he sits at your side, occasionally resting his head on your leg in case you’d like to pet him again. If you rub his ears, he will lean towards you and try to give you a kiss of thanks. If you indicate to him that you like him, this fifty pound dog will literally try to climb in your lap as though he were a little poodle.

I was looking forward to seeing Eddie again this Saturday, but I’ve just learned that he won’t be there: he got adopted last Thursday. I’ll miss seeing him, but I’m glad he got a home where people will treat him well. A dog like Eddie doesn’t deserve to be left to die in the woods.

In an earlier post, “Tantrum on Tape,” I wrote about the case of the five year old kindergarten student recently handcuffed by police when she refused to cooperate with school officials and went on a temper tantrum during which she ripped papers off of bulletin boards, threw toys and supplies around the room, climbed up on desks and repeatedly struck an assistant principal who was trying to calm her down.

The child’s family hired a lawyer who promises to bring legal action against the officers who handcuffed the child, who he says had begun to calm down by the time the officers produced the handcuffs.

I suggested in that earlier piece that our schools have been stripped of the authority to do much of the discipline that most of us grew up with. Teachers must rely on “time outs,” it seems, more than anything else to quiet children who are acting up. The problem is, a time out is a passive punishment requiring the cooperation of the child, unlike, for example, spanking, which is done to the child: a time out requires that the child would willingly place herself in an area of isolation and be quiet.

I suggested that in this situation, with a child that would not quiet down and potentially posed a threat to others, that the officer’s actions weren’t necessarily wrong. A few readers responded that if it were their kids, they would have been outraged. I’m no parent, but I share their view on that.

But I’d be more outraged that my child acted in a manner that required police to be called to the school in the first place, whether handcuffs were used or not! I’d like to think that I would be able to produce a child who might respect authority, even if she didn’t necessarily agree with some rule or command she had been given. And if I may go out on a limb, I suggest that the majority of parents who are outraged about the use of handcuffs have taught their children how to behave and how not to behave, so it’s an issue that likely wouldn’t affect their family, anyway.

Today on an afternoon news magazine, I saw more footage from this tape. It runs 30 minutes long, and for roughly six minutes, it shows the school’s teacher and assistant principal calmly trying to coax her out of the room that she had previously turned upside down with her antics. The child, at this point, seems to have calmed down and is perhaps even listening to what she is being told. When the child is finally coaxed out of one room, she starts right up again in another one, attempting to climb up on a desk seven times, according to the report, and hitting the principal who is shown trying to calm her. The tape shows the child making contact with the principal, and I must say that the principal is much more patient than I would have been. (Of course, that’s why I don’t work as a principal.)

It amuses me that anyone would think that I would advocate handcuffing children. Perhaps someone thinks that I actually supply my local schools with handcuffs…just in case. I don’t. And that’s not at all what I’m saying.

The point I was trying to make was this: We have taken away from our schools the ability to effectively discipline students. Years ago, I was asked to speak at my old high school at a career day. While I was talking, I noticed clusters of students in the group of roughly sixty or so, who were talking, misbehaving and being generally inattentive. The teachers watched, sometimes whispered to the children to stop, but didn’t always. I was more annoyed with the teachers who did little to bring their children under control than the children themselves. Some of the teachers were younger, and probably inexperienced. Others were teachers that I had when I had been a student there, and were in no way incapable of controlling a group of students.

But what is the real penalty kids today face when they misbehave? A time out is a wonderful punishment if the child has been raised to understand the reason behind it by parents who take the time to explain it. A child who doesn’t respect authority won’t listen to anyone who orders them to take a time out. A child who has been properly taught the value of other people’s belongings won’t destroy them. A child with a background of proper discipline will not act unruly for thirty minutes, striking at teachers and destroying property. Those of you who have been taught to know better surely knew at age five what was and wasn’t acceptable behavior. I know I was.

Could the police have handled the situation differently? Of course they could. But what would you have had them do? What would you have had the school do when it learned that the child’s mother was at work and not immediately available? How would you have handled the situation when you were dealing with a child who would not listen, would not calm down, and would not stop behaving badly?

Via, Terence’s Blog, here’s the simple way to build a plot, attributed to author John D. McDonald:

STEP 1: Get your hero up a tree.

STEP 2: Throw rocks at him.

STEP 3: Get your hero out of the tree.

In my story, which I’ve been spending far too much time away from lately, the rocks are sailing through the air. I need to get back to it to make sure I get my hero to remember to duck at least a few of them.

I found this test and thought I’d give it a try. There are no happy answers, so consider yourself warned in advance if you decide to try it out!

You are sad because of the loneliness in your life

Why are you sad? [amazing pictures] For darker people
brought to you by Quizilla

One of the things people with anxiety disorders of various types here from those who sympathize (but do not understand) their condition is this:

“You should just stop worrying so much.”

That advice, while it certainly means well, isn’t a help at all. It’s not like those with anxiety disorder choose to worry; a natural redhead didn’t make a conscious decision to be a natural redhead in the womb, although that situation can be chemically remedied. In some cases of anxiety, chemicals can help, too, as well as therapy.

But worry comes natural to some of us. In fact, some of us can’t imagine not worrying. It is more than those typical considerations the average person makes, if he makes any at all, about the consequences of an action he is about to take. Those with anxiety disorder play out countless scenarios about what a single action will cause, and what that reaction will cause, and so on. Often, we come to the same answer: we will be hurt drastically by any action we take, so we get scared to take any action at all.

Some of us worry too much about other people’s feelings, to the exclusion of our own. We worry about our health to the point of making ourselves sick. We worry about specific illnesses we’ve heard of until we create our own symptoms that feel as real as the “real thing” would.

The term “vicious cycle” is one that applies in many ways to anxiety. This type of worrying — and worrying about worrying — is simply one of many examples.

I have recently received two messages from readers, one in the form of an email and the other in the form of public comment left at “Patrick’s Place 2” that I think should be addressed. This is being posted in the AOL version of “Patrick’s Place” as well.

The email reads as follows:

Hi Patrick

I was going to leave you a comment but it couldn’t all fit. Here it is. Feel free to address any of it if you like as if it were a comment all could see.

Hi Patrick

You bet there is a dark cloud hanging over the land. It didn’t start last week with what happened to Armand, it has been present since last autumn…when long established journalers began to disappear. People will come and go, but in about a four month spread I counted at least 10 people gone. No doubt a number of reasons played into their decisions, and I don’t hold any ill will toward those who have left, but I did notice a general drop in morale. The election time was rough, and not everyone behaved themselves as well they could, again I am not the behavior police, but if you are jogging through the neighborhood and there is back stabbing and mean spirited comments here and there…it promotes a morale problem. This thing that has happened to Armand has me concerned, recent issues on my own journal have me concerned, I feel like I have been in some sort of transition for a very long time. The situation with Mara being taken down as a Journal Editor’s Top 5 pick because she used a bad word, the situation with Dan Wheeler, and on and on and on. Speaking for myself here…I don’t know what will fix the MANY questions and problems that started months ago, and as much as I feel bad about what happened to Armand, and I am sincere about that, I don’t know that the constant dwelling on the subject with no new info helps us feel any better. The constant pondering’s of our friends about whether they may or may not jump ship doesn’t help…it makes me want to never jog the neighborhoods I love here in the land because maybe I will find my neighbors all moved in the middle of the night. If I don’t go and visit those I admire…will they still come and visit me? Will I wake up and be completely alone like when I first began Ellipsis and hope someone finds me? Or maybe I am better off it they don’t. Is it ok to say, I can’t do neighborhood jogs anymore because it hurts to see my friends leave but by all means take the time to come and see me. How selfish would THAT be? Maybe there is something to be said for the coldness and non-community feeling of the other blog services. I just want to be a writer, but it’s nice to have friends to share your writing with. people you can count on…but at what personal cost?

Carly

The reason I am dwelling on this situation is not to “rub AOL’s nose” in the mess, nor do I expect any kind of public apology for what has been done. I am simply trying to find out what the rules “officially” are. And that’s a lot easier said than done.

If this were some kind of straw poll, it would show that there are far many supporters in this little drama than those who wish it would go away. But even I wish it would go away…to the extent that I wish it would never have happened in the first place.

Let’s be clear about something: I am not trying to be the “voice” of the AOL Journals’ community. I am not trying to speak for anyone other than me. I am sharing with you what I have been told so far for two reasons:

First, I think it is important information those who journal within the AOL space should be aware of. Second, those of you contemplating contacting AOL on your own should have some warning — in my opinion — of what you will likely be up against. There is no easy way to get answers.

There is definitely a nice sense of community within the AOL journals group, and it is one I would like to remain in. I do not think it unreasonable to make sure that I understand what the rules are so that I can stay; nor do I think it’s unreasonable to question rules for clarity when I am not clear, (or if it seems AOL’s own employees aren’t clear) about the specifics of the rules currently in place.

“Blogger,” from what I can tell so far, doesn’t have much of a sense of community at all. “LiveJournal” seems to have one, but I’m not wild about most of the layout options I’ve seen there.

The point is, I’m not looking for a hosting service with a better community, or even one as good as AOL. I’m merely looking — and have found — service where I can back-up my content. If AOL should decide that “Patrick’s Place” is in some way offensive and violate its own policy by deleting the entire journal without giving me the chance to remove the specific violation, then I will not have lost my journal completely. If I “simulcast” on two different hosting services, that doesn’t mean that I’ve left either community.

I understand the concern about losing people in the “neighborhood.” But even if some of us were to move across town, I have to believe that the friendships formed within the AOL Journals community would transcend AOL itself. That is, people would continue to read each other’s journals no matter where they ended up. We live in a society that is no longer brand loyal. It has been suggested that I am something of an oddity because I have maintained an AOL account for ten years. It is inevitable that some of us will relocate. I would never consider ending a friendship with someone online simply because they moved their journal. Those who have kindly suggested that they would follow me hopefully know the feeling is mutual.

The comment at “Patrick’s Place 2” reads:

I usually enjoy visiting your journal. I recently started participating in your “Saturday Six.” But I will not do so here. I know my opionion may not matter to you~ and I don’t care. I know that AOL did something that may be “unforgivable” to some, especially you, but truly, to up and leave AOL journals and all of the faithful readers you have their IMO is quite childish. Get over it. Things happen. Not everything has an explanation. I agree AOL has SOME customer service issues… several in fact… but you are dragging this out and making a big deal out of something that did not even happen TO YOU. I understand your concern. So does everyone else. But be an adult. Keep asking questions to get the same answers (none) if that makes you feel better. But at some point you will have to make a choice~ and you will have to move forward with it. Hope I didn’t step on any toes.
Princess Niaylah
http://journals.aol.com/princessniaylah/Justtosay/

The first thing I would say is this: when you call me “quite childish,” tell me that I need to be an adult, suggest that your opinion may not matter to me but that you don’t care whether it does or not, then basically threaten to leave my journal if I make a move from one service to another — a move, incidentally that has not even happened — then it is clear that you do wish to step on toes…mine.

Let’s not play games with pleasantries.

The “Saturday Six” will, hereafter, stay at the AOL version of “Patrick’s Place.” I thought I was clear in the explanation that this was an experiment, not the definite look of things to come. I wanted to see how it would work. That’s all. If you can’t forgive me for making one experiment, then I’ve clearly already lost you as a reader. Too bad.

My question is, why would you enjoy — and play — the “Saturday Six” at the AOL journal, but not be remotely interested in playing if the same content was on a different blog? My identity for my readers shouldn’t be “AOL” or “Blogger,” but rather “Patrick.” I wouldn’t change anything about my writing style depending on who was hosting my blog. Does this mean that if I moved my journal — at some point in the future — to my own website, you’d stop visiting there, too? Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction on your part? (I’ll do you the courtesy of not calling your logic “childish.”)

If your favorite musician had always published their music with American Gramaphone Records, then signed a new deal to publish future albums with Capitol Records, would you stop listening to them? How is their identity defined by the company that distributes their song?

My point here is that you either like what I have to say or you don’t.

It’s as simple as that.

If you disagree with me and wish to take the time to say so in a comment, that’s fine: I’d be happy to read it. If you take offense to something I’ve written and decide never to come back, I might eventually notice that you were no longer leaving comments (if you ever had) and might wonder why. But there are plenty of lurkers who read for months and never leave a comment; I might just as well think that you were one of them. But if you really do enjoy this journal and my take on things, it shouldn’t matter where I host those views.

Why would you call me “childish” if I were to leave AOL, then turn around and tell me that if I did so, you would be leaving my journal? Isn’t it the same thing? If I’m wrong to leave AOL over this, isn’t it as wrong for you to leave me as a reader because my address changed? I don’t understand the difference.

I do not consider it “abandoning” my readers when I make clear what the alternate journal’s address is. I would consider “abandonment” a case of me cancelling my account, deleting everything overnight, and telling no one where I’d gone. That won’t happen…unless AOL kills my account without giving me the chance to mention a forwarding address.

The only “abandonment” implied in the comment is the reader’s abandonment of me. And I must wonder why that would happen.

And one final note: as I have tried to explain before, though I am not Armand, and that my journal wasn’t deleted, if AOL employees do not have a clear understanding of what does and doesn’t constitute a TOS violation — not to mention the normal procedure for investigating an alleged violation — and if we can’t get clear definitions of what a violation and the proper procedure is, then how can we assume that we couldn’t be next? Are we supposed to just go on as if nothing happened and pretend that we couldn’t sign on some day and find that the same thing had happened to us?

Sorry, I value the work I put into this journal, and those of you who share the AOL community with me, to simply walk around in rose colored glasses and pretend that everything is as it always was. If that in itself makes you want to stop reading, then I’m very sorry to have lost you as a member of my audience. I can only ask that you give it some time and visit again one day. I promise that I do not intend to talk about this forever.