A few years back John Green wrote a book called Looking For Alaska. In that book, he had a quote from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edna’s family still owns the copyright to her poems, and John’s publisher told him the quote was too long to count as “fair use” so he either had to shorten the quote or pay Edna’s family. He shortened the quote because he didn’t have money.

In real life, that was the end of it. But let’s say that John Green published his book, and several years later Edna St. Vincent Millay’s family got mad and wanted money for the quote, even though he had shortened it. As copyright law works now, John would go to court and argue that his quote was fair use. Edna’s family would argue that they wanted money and the judge would decide whether John owed them money or not.

Here’s how it would go under SOPA: Edna’s family says that John Green violated their copyright. Because of that, they track down every copy of Looking For Alaska, and every copy of An Abundance of Katherines and every copy of Paper Towns and they halt the printing of The Fault In Our Stars and every copy of every book that John Green ever wrote is piled up and burned. And after that, John can take Edna’s family to court, if he has the money for a lawyer now that his livelihood has been destroyed.

Notice how they didn’t go to court until after John’s life was destroyed? Notice how John Green was presumed guilty and punished without trial? Also notice how everything he ever wrote was destroyed, not just the one thing with potential copyright infringement? This is what congress wants to do to the internet. This is why you should be calling your congressperson and telling the president that if it goes through congress, he needs to Veto it. SOPA is unconstitutional and wrong.

Actually, I’m working on 3 different books, but the one I’m furthest along on, and the one I’m enjoying the most is a book written for Americans to explain the things they will find in Great Britain that will annoy, confuse or surprise them. I’m covering basic things like words that are different (like pavement instead of sidewalk), to how the government is structured, to which celebrities the British talk about that the Americans have never heard of. I’m trying to make most of it funny and light, a bit like my British Food web site.

I’m also planning to intersperse my text with famous quotes about Britain, and maybe some original illustrations. I don’t have a publisher. If there are any interested, let me know. If need be, I will self-publish. (The actual publication could still be a few years off, realistically.)

Also, I don’t have a title. If you come up with a title for me and I use it, I’ll make sure you get a free copy and a mention in the “thank you” section. If you can think of anything about the British that annoyed, surprised, delighted, or confused you, feel free to post it in the comments, or hit me up on Twitter or Tumblr. I’ve already done about 160 topics, but there’s always a chance I’ve missed something.

So that’s what I’ve been working on that has kept me from posting here and on my book review tumblr as much as I should. With the help of a netbook I can use while I’m still in bed, and my patron saint of writing, Neil Gaiman, I’m actually properly determined to finish this book and see it in print.

I’ll back up for a minute. A few days ago Maureen Johnson posted on Twitter that she was going to give away a handful of amazon gift cards to people who were having financial problems this Christmas season. I wrote and told her the bare bones of my situation, and I was randomly selected to get one of the cards! Hooray! It was awesome. So I went straight to amazon and bought very late birthday presents for my brother and his family, since I hadn’t been able to afford birthday presents for them on their actual birthdays.

When I was done with that I had about $12 of the gift card left. Then later on, one of the Project For Awesome videos I watched was about Child’s Play, which I had never heard of. For this charity, you can buy toys and games from amazon to be sent to children’s hospitals all over the world.

Let’s back up again to my last blog post about Amber. I couldn’t afford to send flowers for her funeral. It’s hard to come to grips with a death like that when there’s nothing you can give or do (since I’m on the other side of the world). That’s where Maureen Johnson’s remaining $12 came in. I used that remaining money to buy a DVD (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe) to be sent to the children’s hospital closest to where Amber lived. So now I feel like I’ve done something for Amber.

In the midst of all this charity giving and stuff, I was randomly attacked by a troll on YouTube. Trolls are a plague on the earth and I will do whatever I can to eliminate them.

So I came up with an awesome idea to reduce world-suck in two ways. I call it “Adopt-A-Troll.” You see, I encountered this YouTube troll who had an angry vendetta against, of all things, guinea pigs. He spends his time posting rude comments about feeding guinea pigs to snakes on YouTube all day long. So here’s the plan: I posted on his YouTube profile page and told him that I’m concerned about his destructive and trollish behavior. In order to help him stop behaving in socially unacceptable ways, I will monitor his comments, and every time he makes a trollish comment, I will donate £1 to a guinea pig shelter.

So from now on, if this particular user abuses any more random strangers, he knows that his behavior is working against his own goals of eliminating guinea pigs (for whatever reason that is). I think that this could work more broadly among Nerdfighters and regular people. Each person can adopt a troll to follow, and donate to charities that that particular troll would hate everytime they act like a troll. If you adopt a right-wing troll, donate to the ACLU. For an atheist, donate to the Salvation Army. And so on. Most trolls are angry about something, and you can always find a charity against whatever they’re angry about. Instead of arguing with trolls, we just tell them that we are doing things for a certain charity that they would hate in their name.

Anyway, I’ve got to go find a guinea pig shelter to donate £20 to. Thanks internet troll!

If you think I’ve been too quiet up in here, you haven’t been checking my tumblr blogs (girlalivelinks and alanaisreading). I’ve been posting crap all over the place there. None of my friends have tumblr accounts and it’s lonely over there, talking to myself and my 8 followers. *hint hint*

Also, we might be getting another hamster after all. Details to follow.

I have a bunch of outstanding debt from back in the days that I was living alone in Seattle, combined with debt from moving to Minnesota and then to Scotland. I’ve been paying it down. My parents helped me to shift it from a credit card with a terrible interest rate to a loan. Now I owe about $200 a month on that loan. The problem is that I don’t have $200 a month. I haven’t gotten any unemployment benefits since May. My husband doesn’t make enough money to pay off my debt, even if I wanted to dump it on him (which I don’t). And there are no jobs. I’ve been applying for jobs and going to the JobCentre for a year and there is just nothing. And when I manage to get an interview, I’m still at the bottom of the list because everyone would rather hire a local than an immigrant.

The second part of the web site that is going to be added soon is a site all about my proofreading and editing services. At the moment, I have a few things set up to advertise my services. I’ve got one listing at Fiverr, and three listings at Gigswood. They work out like this:

• $4 for a 2000-word or shorter document (or collection of documents) through Gigswood.
• $5 for 3000 words or fewer, through Fiverr.
• $9 for 5000 words or fewer, through Gigswood.
• $19 for 10,000 words or fewer, through Gigswood.

So, I’m trying to make my own job, since there aren’t any jobs out there. Expect to see a red crayon on the front page soon, linking to a more detailed site about my proofreading and copy-editing services. Once I get that done, I’m going to be pimping myself on gumtree and craigslist and anywhere else I can think of. I’m even tempted to use my coupon for free Google ads.

I have to admit that I’m frustrated. I’ve been hearing for years and years that if you do what you love to do, and you stick with it, you’ll eventually be “discovered” and you’ll eventually be successful. I’ve been writing on the web since 1996. GirlAlive.com has been around since 2003. I keep doing what I love and I keep failing to produce anything worthwhile. Where’s the line between pursuing a dream and beating a dead horse?

Oh, and if that wasn’t depressing enough, my hamster is dying.