Now the thing is, iBooks Author is probably the first piece of software that Apple has come out with since iOS 4 that truly had me excited, and beyond that, it’s the most excited I’ve been since I first saw GarageBand or … OS X.3? Honestly I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel this way about software again. Now, I enjoy iOS a lot, I like Apple TV, and my goodness have I tricked out my MacBook Pro … but it’s been so long since a new product that let me create came out.

Part of it probably is also that I have a preexisting kick ass work of fiction that was just made for this app .. but, seriously, it’s awesome! If you’ve ever used Pages or Keynote then you can pick this up in a few minutes. With this, my Mom could create a professional looking piece of training material or just about anything else that you could think of, and email to any friend with an iPad.

The only caveat right now though is that there’s no iPhone exporting which is dumb, but I’m sure that they’ll introduce that eventually.

Either way, this puts my new graphic novel on a new path. Granted I’m going to have to spend a few days redoing some of the work that I did for the first several pages, but that’s fine, I wanted to redo some of that anyway.

]]> http://threeshadesofawesome.com/weblog/?feed=rss2&p=565 0 http://threeshadesofawesome.com/weblog/?p=562 http://threeshadesofawesome.com/weblog/?p=562#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:46:14 +0000 DMalcolm http://threeshadesofawesome.com/weblog/?p=562 Read the Rest...

The weird thing is, we document every call, (pretty standard practice) and you get a sort of short hand. You don’t write complete sentences. Heck some people barely use complete words. Part of this goes to having to do things quickly, some of it goes to doing things repetitively.
Now when I sit down to edit some of How to Break an Invincible Man, the first thing I always want to write is, “Customer says ______” or “Customer did ______” and it’s just harder. I’d almost debate starting to write a little story for each customer.
“It was a bright sunny day when Sheila happened across her modem, the send and receive buttons were blinking in tandem. She thought nothing of it until she launched Chrome and found that Facebook was nowhere to be found, much like her lover Fernando.”
I wish I had a lover named Fernando … though there’d be a lot of ABBA jokes.

I know it’s a cliché to write about not being able to write. Frankly at this point I’m doing this halfly to vent, and halfly as a writing exercise to see if I can effectively write. It’s also a lot of fun to use the word halfly, mostly because as far as I can tell it’s not a real word.
I just find that right now I’m not brimming over with stories. I kind of miss that. I think part of the problem could simply be that I’ve spent too much time on one book. If I went back to Leviticus Interrupted perhaps I’d have better luck. The fact is with How to Break I already know what happens, and I feel like I’ve rewritten parts of that a million times to the point of it just becoming more and more awkward.

The fun part about having a job though … I can buy stuff. I’m at that point where I’ve paid off enough of my credit card that I’m relaxing … a bit too much. In the last week I spent $210 on new pants, (which in all fairness I needed since one of my pants had slowly worn a hole in the crotch, the other ripped when getting into a car … and for however much of an exhibitionist I could be, I don’t think my coworkers need a satisfying view of my goods) I bought a new electric razor and electric trimmer, (incidentally Philips makes a killer and sexy black trimmer, it’s actually earned a place on my desk of electronics because I’m so in love with it, I probably didn’t even need the razor!) I also bought both a Blue Snowball mic, and a Samson Meteor Mic, each coming in at 100 bucks-ish. Granted the Snowball is going back because the USB port is defective, hence the Samson.
So either way, the credit card has been jacked up enough that I’m really longing for my next pay cheque. The goal is still to have all my debt paid off by mid November, but I’m going to have to tighten my belt a lil and spend the next month or so behaving a bit more impoverished to make that happen. Or at least as impoverished that someone can be in $100 jeans eating a $15 Chicken Burger.

I’m also running into some hickups when it comes to recording How to Break an Invincible Man. Apparently I don’t sound as good when I’m reading as I do to other people. I’m almost tempted to invite Lauree over to listen to me read simply so that I can read to someone while reading, I think it would actually make things easier. Hmmmmm, maybe I’ll try that with Logan tonight.
See that’s one of the good things about blogging. You get to talk things out and think of ideas. I imagine there’d be a bit more of a smile in my voice if I’ve got someone there to hear me read it.

I guess that’s what I should call it. It’s actually a bit of a shambles lately. There’s a few candles I’ve been lighting because my building is illegally not being heated, so I’ve been burning those to heat the room a little bit until I remember to get my heater back from my Dad … or my other one from Logan.  There are piles of CDs on the mantle of my apartment’s faux fire place, I’m seriously considering taking them to Music Trader and seeing if they’ll give me anything for em.

There’s a few books that I need to give back to people, which I haven’t read. Some comics I keep telling my ex to come pick up, I think I’m going to give him a deadline before throwing them out.

Right now my desk is a bit of a metaphor for my life … bus, and not well kept. There’s a lot of valuable stuff there, but i”m not really using any of it. Part of that is because I’ve been paying off the debt I racked up while being irresponsible. I mean, I’d be working full time either way, but I do confess I kind of look forward to winter when my hours will likely be cut back a bit and I’ll have more me time. (And I’ll be able to afford that having paid off my debt.)

What I will say is, I’m looking forward to finding more balance in my life, something I don’t have all that much of lately. I’ve put back on a lot of the weight I lost in college, and I’ve started working out, though I confess the ellipticals at the gym I started at are much less than awesome so I’m not totally sure how that’s gonna end up.

I will say that I have plans for my desk … a complete overhaul … one of these days. I’m going to throw my Samsung air conditioner which is teetering precariously on the edge of my couch. I’m also gonna be junking two printers, one a Samsung colour laser which has both run out of toner, and has also depleted my patience for it’s driver issues. I’m also gonna toss an old ghetto HP that I got as hand me down from my sister which I’ve been using as a scanner. Thankfully I’ll be getting Logan’s new Epson  (not a brand I love mind you) which he got free with his MacBook Pro but won’t be taking to England when he moves. Sigh, losing a best friend and getting a mid range printer … not quite a fair trade.

Most recently I’ve added a Cisco modem giving me Shaw’s 50mbps internet service (which tops out at about 7 mbps when using my ghetto Dlink from the bygone days, so I’m either gonna purchase the modem or buy a router, not sure which yet)

The thing I find really interesting is … how my wants expand with the cash I make. I’ve been averaging a good bit of money every month. Easily always paying down a good chunk of my debt, while affording rent and all the amenities, as well as eating out far too much. I find that I’m day dreaming of buying stuff a lot more, I suppose this is the hole which so many North Americans fall into. We think of the things we can buy with the time that we sell, slowly spending away our lives on things we’ll never have time to play with. I find myself thinking not only of the near term things I know I’m going to buy, (a Snowball Pro mic in aluminum for recording my book) to the things that I’d like but will at least put off for a while, (iPhone 4S, iPad 2 … which will be put off at least until the 3 is available, an LED TV which I want more because buying an LCD one this late into the game just seems silly. A PVR which I don’t really need given the fact that I already download everything that I actually want to watch …)

That and I’ve been thinking of buying a car, partially because I’m at that point in my life where being late for work genuinely bothers me, because I finally have a job that if I lost I’d be sad. (Can you believe I care about a job?)

You know it’s funny how busy life can make us. I’ll confess, I spent a lot of time in my younger life being suicidal, not knowing any reason why I’d truly want to live. I’ve found causes worth living for for years or months at a time, though I think I’m finally sliding into that strange place where those who plan to “get ahead” slide in. It’s not so much something to live for, but rather a state of being where you’re too busy to realize that there’s not much point to it. Which would probably be sad if I was giving myself much time to think about things?

All that being said, as I consider everything I’m wanting, coveting and pipe dreaming, I’m just glad that this year solid state drives have come down in price enough that I can give that to my mom as something she can buy me for Christmas.

The thrust of the song is about Christ’s redemption of the Church. Now, anyone who’s talked to me lately will know that my love of the Church lately is rather strained … I’ve most certainly been known to call her names, (skank, slut, whore, bitch) all of them deserved. The problem is that for years I’ve been able to make a distinction between God and the Church. The Church are the painted whores on Sunday morning who can convince themselves that God’s love of them somehow makes them better than the world around them, it somehow grants them the right to look down their nose at everyone who isn’t in their building. (AKA the people they’ve made sure know they’re not welcome) And God? Well God’s the sucker that due to his own tragically loving nature got saddled loving the bitch.

Here’s the thing though, “All her debts are cast on me, so she shall and must go free.” I highly recommend you download the song so you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about.

In all my years of being disillusioned with the Church as institution, as people, as donkeys in heat chasing after Rick Warren and James Dobson, as middle aged people making Christ up as a middle class SUV driving hypocrite, I’ve never had Christ’s redemption of these people stated so clearly.

“All her debts are cast on me, so she must and shall go free.”

For most of my life growing up I thought of God’s forgiveness as a God > Individual, sorta deal. God forgives the individual person so that they don’t have to go to hell. Around my third year of college I started getting crazy ideas from people like Brian McLaren that suggested that God’s forgiveness wasn’t simply about a “ticket to heaven” as Audio Adrenaline had so clearly stated, rather Christ’s forgiveness is about redemption and it permeates cultures. “Accepting” Jesus isn’t then about some sort of Hollywood style super natural possession where God in a swirl of light and harp music is sucked into a person’s mouth allowing them to now levitate and shoot laser beams from their eyes.
Accepting Jesus then becomes about understanding a truth, refusing to deny any longer. No longer even about answering a door, but rather simply leaving the door unlocked … and then choosing to step out of it when opened. If that makes sense?

Well I was fairly comfortable with Christ as saviour of not only the individual but the broader culture and social systems, and the notions that Christians, “true” Christians, could act as agents of Christ to improve the world.

It was with that approach to salvation that I joined the last church that I was a part of. Indeed I think I even tried to act as a redemptive agent within that “community”. I use that word simply because it reads a little better than loose connection of people, or painted shells, truthfully I don’t know that I ever experience of commonality or unity … truthfully I think it was my uncommonality that was the driving force behind my eventual driving out.
You see, despite a very welcoming and godly in the best form of the word, pastor when I began attending, after a year and a half at that church It was pointed out to me that I was gay (something everyone already knew) and that this, based on the prejudice of the unnamed, was grounds my position as a “lesser Christian.” (I think that’s the best way to phrase it) Previously to this, I didn’t even know that I’d been branded as such, heck I think I was one of four people in the whole church who knew what the exile was, you know that thing that takes up nearly a third of the Bible.

“All her debts are cast on me, so she must and shall go free.”

That church was the last straw for me and the Church. I’d always been careful to avoid ignoring Paul’s advice and stating that I didn’t need the feet, the hands, the eyes or the dicks of the Church. But there’s only so many times that you can get fucked over by the dicks of the Church before the eroticism wears thin and you just need to leave.
Now, obviously this isn’t the only lousy experience I’ve had with the Church … I grew up in a Baptist church run by a cornucopia of insecure middle aged people who wouldn’t know the gospel if it bit them in the ass while telling someone that they can’t come back because he moved in with his girl friend. (I’m sure if you dated the marriages of everyone on that elder board you’d find at least one kid who was born 8 months after the wedding)
I then went to a college where the major qualification to lead worship was a tight ass and the inability to love your neighbour. (Not to say that there weren’t great Christians at Prov who I still love dearly … there just happened to be several who provide great fodder for jokes involving the body of Christ and the word asshole)
During that time I also began attending an Alliance church where I was essentially unpaid staff until I was honest about the fact that naked girls on the internet did not act as a thickening agent for my nether regions. Soon afterward not only was I kicked out of ministry but I was also used as a test of orthodoxy. (If you ever ask them about David Puranen, all the good Christians will make up stories about how the last time I saw them I breathed fire and attempted to claw out their eyes … which is funny cause as far as I could remember the night had ended off with me paying for dinner and them smiling and telling me to keep in touch) Incidentally the guy who they know molested a kid still does the sound on Sundays, and the other guy who will openly advocate that all gays should be murdered still leads worship sometimes.

“All her debts are cast on me, so she must and shall go free.”

The cross as a vehicle for redemption is widely believed in the Christian Church. The notion that God in the person of Christ, died taking upon Himself the sins of either the world, or simply all those who currently or would eventually believe on/in Him. Now a million attempts to paint that picture have been made, some beautifully horrid, others just horridly trite. But ever since I’ve listened to that song … the whole thing just feels all the more horrid.
Most religions that I know about to some degree will advocate for forgiveness, release, or some sort of internal activity that allows one to receive closure where there is none to be found, where we are able to let go of bitterness, resentment, or that sense that those who hurt us shall still get their cosmic come-upin’s. If all the Church’s debts are cast on Christ, then that means that all the resentment, all my contempt, even the hatred should thusly be directed toward the person of Christ, rather than his whore.
I’ve grown comfortable over the years with the notion of hating the Church. Sure I’ve had moments, and even years where I’ve been able to see the Church in the best light that I’ve been told that Christ must see her. But every time I hear James Dobson on the radio, or hear about how another Evangelical pastor refuses to say anything against the Christians in Uganda who are trying to pass legislation that would perpetuate genocide against gays in their country, every time I hear some ignorant house wife talk down to another gay kid who she doesn’t know has been thinking of hanging themselves … I wonder what’s left for the Christian gay person. Did Christ make us as the one people group who would best understand just how absurd his love is? Is that the point of us?

The question then becomes, do I hate God, or do I forgive the Church?
“All her debts are cast on me, so she must and shall go free.”

I had never been mad at God until my first year of Bible College. I’d always thought people were crazy when they talked about being angry with God. After Adullam, (the church I spent a year and a half planting … yes it seems I can only stick with a church for a year and a half before we need to break things off) I remember feeling betrayed by God … but ever since hearing this song … it almost feels like God went behind my back and forgave people who He had no right forgiving. I mean … whatever they’d done to Him couldn’t be as bad as what they’d done to me … who is God to forgive them? (Yes I’m fully aware of the irony, I’m not claiming it’s rational.)

Of course as I write this, I remember, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”

I don’t know how to deal with that either, at least not yet. Granted I’ve known since before I could know things, that it was in God’s nature to forgive. I knew that every sin was firstly against Him, but this just casts it from a different angle. I’m still trying to figure out if I can forgive God for the sins of the Church.

I think while I pay down my debts that I required in my year of artistic irresponsibility I’m just going to have to deal with the fact that I’m not going to get to be as creative. I can’t just go to Kristina’s on Corydon and write for hours while George keeps refilling my glass long after any other waiter would have stopped. I have to instead sit at a desk and help people figure out why their internet isn’t working, (it’s that cheap Dlink, Linksys, or Netgear router you bought … sadly even if you’d have bought an expensive one it still woulda died) or why your TV isn’t working (hit input a few times, oh look it’s back).

Thankfully, I like my job.

I’m still getting used to saying that. It’s weird but I find I get an adrenaline rush at work because I’m generally trying pretty hard to meet the expectations that … well honestly nobody but me is really putting expectations on me. I’m finally getting used to my boss stopping by and not having to worry about whether I look like I’m goofing off or not because he seems pretty happy with the work that I’m doing. Which, I mean frankly every boss I’ve had should have felt that way, but … you know, that whole, “look busy” attitude that a lot of people have … I’ve always been bad at that.

That’s one of the great things about my new job, I’ve never once had someone tell me to look busy. In this case, there’s always something to do, and since that’s the case then I always have real meaningful work to do. At the same time, if I’m waiting for a customer’s set top box to restart it’s okay to talk about the weather with them, or if I’m waiting for them to find that one field to enter their SMTP server in, it’s ok if I reply to a Facebook post a friend made.

But like I said, the whole writing thing has kinda taken a back seat to my job. Which, I kind of feel bad about … you know, cause I wanted to do the whole writing thing. At the same time, I’ve done the writing thing. It turns out I’m good enough to have people say I’m good, thus far we haven’t proven that I’m good enough to have people try and sell the damned thing … hell, the number of people who I’ve given the book to, verses the number of people who have told me that they loved the ending isn’t a favourable ratio either … then again I haven’t finished Life of Pie, so maybe I just need to realize that most people suck at reading books.

Of course the nice thing about being focused on my job is that I don’t need to worry about whether the book sells a lot or if it ever sells. I’m seriously leaning toward just putting it up on all the eBook sites and seeing how the sales go. I mean, yeah I did like the dream of becoming a big time author (whatever that is), but at the same time I’d also just really love to get one fan e-mail from somebody saying that it moved them or something.

I’ve been toying with the notion of chopping the book into three smaller books, which it kinda is because I wrote it so intentionally as three separate acts, that each act seems to have it’s own first second and third act in and of itself. So it’s like a nine act story. Whoops.

I’ve got a bit done in redraft #5, though I’m honestly wondering if I have another draft in me. A lot of it would end up being unchanged, partially because my fourth draft was pretty bloody killer by my standards. It’s mostly the opening that I’m thinking of cleaning up … that damned opening … and perhaps a bit at the end. At the same time though, I really do love the fourth draft as it is, and part of me feels like at this point I’m rewriting it more so because I feel like I need to make it something that could sell to a publisher, and less because it’s the story I had to tell.

My ex Benjamin was actually, unbeknownst to me, reading it with a friend of his, and they’ve been making a list of apparent inconsistencies (or at least perceived inconsistencies) which is what I really wanted other people to do. So I may just wait until they’re done with their read through, get that feedback and clean up draft 4 for publication.

I think that’s about all I have to say now, I should probably get to sleep so I can wake up by the afternoon and go to work.

July 5th I got hired at Shaw Communications. What do I do there? I professionally tell people, “Okay we’re gonna get you to unplug your modem and your router.” for a living.

The fun part is, I love my job! Did you ever think you’d hear me say that? I didn’t. I remember years ago getting hired at Inspyer (the one of the least inspiring places I’ve worked) and working on a Telus order entry job. In addition to it being boring and stifling, I remember feeling as if I was just another cog in a great lumbering machine. Later I worked for a Rogers dealer, (note I don’t hate Rogers) which stuck me in a store by myself, where while I wasn’t a cog in a machine, I was on my own, alone.

At one point this year I found myself frequently contemplating whether or not I was simply incompatible with the notion of a corporation. Though if I’m not compatible with that, I’m pretty screwed cause I’m not exactly a good agrarian. But I’m happy to say that I’m genuinely enjoying Shaw. Everyone there comments about how you start there and you keep looking for a catch, and there isn’t one. I mean sure my hours are kinda all over the place, and now and again I get an unhappy customer who says unkind and cruel things because they feel they’re being wronged … mostly because their router isn’t working (which they bought themselves). All in all though, it’s a stellar place to work. My supervisor actually helped me find a ride to work last Sunday because he knew the bus is a bitch to get there on even on a good day.

They never yell at employees are demean them, if you do something wrong they look at it as a learning experience. It’s sometimes surreal to think that somehow there’s a company that figured out that happy employees will be productive. I remember when the recession hit, Rogers decided to cut a lot of commissions even though sales were still high and never did really decline.

But yeah, that’s where I’ve been lately. I genuinely like my job, and I genuinely like the people I work with. I’m also surrounded by super laid back people who in general are smarter than the average population. You really get a sense of belonging to someone … and you get paid for it!

All that combined with pay cheques that are way bigger than I’d been getting at the Rogers dealer I worked at, plus the chance to make extra cash if I want to work, means I’ll be able to pay off my visa and support my gadget addiction. (iPhone 5 here I come!)

Step 2: Profit.

I thought of making it a one step process, but I thought that step two was a pretty useful one … it allows you to kick more people out of your church.

Tonight I stumbled upon the Facebook page of Azariah Southworth, the former host of a small Christian music show where he interviewed bands like Superchick and Jars of Clay. Back in ’08 Azariah came out of the closet, sending … well I don’t’ know if you’d call them shock waves … but it certainly pissed a few people off. I mean, the dude wasn’t Ted Haggard or anything like that, and there was no scandal. The gays clapped him on the back, and the evangelicals turned up their noses and went back to lying about gays like they’d been doing previously.

Well, through the miracle of Facebook’s random suggestions … or something, I happened upon Azariah’s Facebook page and thus his blog. I found a very interesting blog post where he basically outlined why considering himself an Evangelical, or even a Christian might not be entirely correct or honest.

I find myself in a similar, though not identical boat. I’m not entirely sure of Southworth’s experience in Biblical Studies, if I understand his career path he basically got horribly mistreated at an evangelical church and then moved into TV. Now that’s not to say that he hasn’t done a lot of reading, but frankly, I think I probably was on the receiving end of a better biblical education. (Not to suggest that his was lousy, jut that mine was quite good)

The standard complaint which conservative Christians seem to level against people who reconcile their faith with their orientation tends to be the assumption that we simply ignore the Bible. Now, for me that wasn’t the case, for a very long time I identified as Christian first, and gay was much further down the list. I wasn’t willing to accept the gay part of my life until I could open up the Christian part of my life to it.

The thing is, for the last five or so years, there has been no real question in my mind about whether God had an issue with my sexuality. Not that I’m not capable of sinning sexually (and probably doing an exceptional job of it!), but rather I was confident that God judged me by the same standard as He did anyone else.

The problem that I’ve run into is: Christians are assholes. It’s really hard to be part of a soccer team when they keep kicking the ball in your face. (And you’re not the goalie) It’s also really hard to be part of the hockey team when they keep lighting your pads on fire. It’s really hard to be part of the debate team when your fellow nerds keep slicing your throat open and hanging you from the rafters of Old Man Ferguson’s barn … and it’s really hard to be a Christian when you keep getting kicked out, (or as is more common) run out, beaten up, and mistreated within the Church.

Now, I’m sure there’s lots of Christian platitudes that could be thrown around, “You’re blessed when you’re persecuted [by us]“, “When [we] ask you to carry something a mile, carry it for two!” But I’ll be honest, those really don’t help.

I remember after I got kicked out of Transcona Alliance, I’d often run into former members at the grocery store, or at various events around town. It’s remarkable to run into a conservative Evangelical after you’ve been kicked out of their church. They switch into this “evangelistic” role, which is disturbingly funny. They tilt their heads and ask, “Whatcha doing these days?”

“Oh, me? I’m planting a church that meets upstairs at a gay bar.”

“Oh.”

The reaction was always the same. The look on their face said it all. To these people, I wasn’t a Christian anymore, I had rejected God, because their pastor had told them I rejected God, which meant that I shouldn’t have been doing anything involving church or Jesus or burning bushes or anything really. I genuinely believe that these people would have been far more comfortable if I’d said something about going to the bar and getting hammer, or if I was involved in huge orgies on a daily basis, and I think they’d have been entirely happy being told that I’d contracted HIV. (I’ve never been hammered, never been in an orgy, and I don’t have HIV, just incase you’re wondering)

After my experience at a church in Winnipeg called the Table, I’ve pretty well sworn off church for the foreseeable future. At first glance, that church seemed like just about everything I wished that the one I’d been planting would have become … only with fewer homos … however after a change in pastors … slash the previous pastor ended up in the way of a very ambitious person with a vision that transcended people. (That’s a nice way of saying, he cared more about his vision than the people who’d participate in it)

There, I had a different experience of Christianity as an out gay man. I wasn’t initially run out with pitch forks and torches. In fact, the previous pastor actually welcomed me and tried to get me as involved in the church as he could. I remember distinctly once when he was under fire for not preaching about it being a sin to be gay, (which isn’t not) he had to deal with a prominent church member shouting at him from the back of the room for probably a good five minutes, it might have been more, might have been less … it did feel like forever then.

I had about a year where I honestly started to believe that heterosexual Christians genuinely cared enough about gays to simply allow us to be. But after my experience there, I simply can’t convince myself that it makes any sense to try out another church.

That, combined with the conversations ad nauseum about the ethics of homosexual engagement with people who after an hour of discussion simply say, “Well that’s very interesting, but I disagree.” Who never seem to be able to phrase anything rational to justify their disagreement, without realizing that they’ve basically said, “I disagree for the same reasons people used to say a black woman couldn’t marry a white man. Because I don’t like you.”

I remember a little more than a year ago, I had to block a friend on Facebook who was in the, “New Atheist Phase.” He was gay and had gone off to Bible College and gotten a degree. I think he probably went through a similar process where making justifications for staying a Christian when the majority of Christians seem to have wanted him about as much as they wanted jock itch, just got tiring.

Now, don’t worry I’m not about to start quoting Richard Dawkins without laughing. (Rational arguments against a belief system that isn’t grounded in post enlightenment thought is just comical in my opionion) But I will say that at this point, the notion of inviting someone to any Church seems like the most ludicrous thing I could think of, because quite frankly if they care about me enough to trust me enough to come to a church with me, there’s a good chance that they’ll want to punch whoever the pastor is in the face.

I’ll be honest and say, despite having “heard” God on several distinct occasions in my life, (Yes even after coming out) these days the last thing I want to do is hear anything from him. Mostly because there’s a chance that it might be something along the lines of, “I want you to forgive person X, I want you to be with them, and let them slowly realize just how wrong they are about Y.” The fact is, that sort of thing takes a hell of a long time. I remember the pastor at my last church seemed to think that if I just stuck around and got punched in the face day in and day out that people would come around and stop treating me like a second class citizen for being gay. I told him a far better idea of that, would be for him to perhaps talk about why it wasn’t okay to punch David in the face. (Just a thought)

Now, that’s not to say that I think God is nearly as big of a dick as my old pastor, but the fact is … sometimes it’s just a little too hard to be a Christian. It’s one thing when people you meet think your belief system is weird or confusing, or when they think that you think that the world was made via a poem that has since been converted into a children’s story.

I think there’s a reason why Christians tend to promote the idea of going to church regularly. It’s probably because if you don’t feel like you’re a part of a church, it’s really hard to keep caring about all this stuff … it’s even harder when you get kicked out of a church.

So if you’re still part of a church and reading this, next time your pastor wants to kick someone out for any reason at all … punch them in the face.

Now, incase any of my potential future employers read this, don’t worry I’m not inclined to do this sort of thing about the companies that I work for. Quite frankly, if management doesn’t care enough to make sure the company that I’m working for is going to do something better than circling around a big drain, why should I care? I mean … um … no I pretty well mean that. (Actually I’m really excited, my new job is at a company that is one of the few that actually impress me, and I already use their service because I like the company)

It’s interesting, the letter if you read it, is obviously to the co-CEOs of RIM … who both don’t get it. But you could just as easily have written the exact same idea letter to the Christian church. There’s a reason that Christianity is continuing to lose “marketshare” and why in many cases the only growth that you’re seeing is in the developing world where people there just want anything that’s cheap. (And yes, I do happen to think that for example the Christian pastors in Uganda are a perfect example of cheap Christianity, and the people of that country are paying the price)

1) Focus on the End User experience

Let’s obsess about what is best for the end user. We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice — the end user doesn’t care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren’t hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work. Android has a major weakness — it will always lack the simplicity and elegance that comes with end-to-end device software, middleware and hardware control. We really have a great opportunity to build something new and “uniquely BlackBerry” with the QNX platform.

Let’s start an internal innovation revival with teams focused on what users will love instead of chasing “feature parity” and feature differentiation for no good reason (Adobe Flash being a major example). When was the last time we pushed out a significant new experience or feature that wasn’t already on other platforms?

Rather than constantly mocking iPhone and Android, we should encourage key decision makers across the board to use these products as their primary device for a week or so at a time — yes, on Exchange! This way we can understand why our users are switching and get inspiration as to how we can build our next-gen products even better! It’s incomprehensible that our top software engineers and executives aren’t using or deeply familiar with our competitor’s products.

While the challenges facing the Church aren’t the same as the ones facing the BlackBerry, they are incredibly similar.

The church and Christian leaders have a habit of appealing to the same people that used to make the church’s “business model” work. They strive to appeal to social conservatives, even though Jesus was anything but. They appeal to the fertility cultists who are interested in pushing a hetero-manditory approach that alienates the gays, the singles, and anyone who doesn’t find their primary identity through banging an opposite sex partner and rearing children. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that)

The fact is, Christianity is lucky that we’re not facing off against Apple, because quite frankly we’d lose. Apple tells people to come as they are, and use what they’re selling. The dominant western church asks people to come as they are … and then become entirely different people, because God can’t work with YOU. YOU need to become like US. Now, don’t misunderstand me as suggesting that the one of the major goals of a Christian life isn’t to be conformed to the character of Christ, it is. But I think that looks dramatically different than what the church has been selling. We’ve been telling people that Jesus looks like us, so people need to be like us … or rather you, cause trust me most Christians don’t think Jesus looks a thing like me. (He probably was shorter)

Apple asks people to come in, and learn how to use their easy to use products and then ENJOY! The church asks people to come in, and learn songs that sound kinda weird if you haven’t been raised a Christian, and to abide by a whole lot of rules and ways of doing things that seem pretty damned confusing.

2) Recruit Senior SW Leaders & enable decision-making

I’m going to say what everyone is thinking… We need some heavy hitters at RIM when it comes to software management. Teams still aren’t talking together properly, no one is making or can make critical decisions, all the while everyone is working crazy hours and still far behind. We are demotivated. Just look at who our major competitors are: Apple, Google & Microsoft. These are three of the biggest and most talented software companies on the planet. Then take a look at our software leadership teams in terms of what they have delivered and their past experience prior to RIM… It says everything.

Software, for those that don’t know what it is, is what you see on your phone or computer’s screen. It’s everything that makes your phone do phone stuff, and do apps. Facebook is a piece of software, your phone’s dialler is a piece of software, your calculator is software, anything that isn’t a physical part of the phone, is software.

The experience of church beyond the building is software. Both the Evangelical and Catholic churches have BRILLIANT people who could be making the software of the church work. But their hands are tied. You could be coming to a church that every week feels engaging and like home, yet is new and worth being a part of every week. Now I realize that church technically should refer to the people, but for most church attenders, when they think of church they think of the meeting, so that’s what I’m talking about.

The church today competes with the school, the university, the work place, and the TV. The fact is that you can try and have your church’s music compete with American Idol, you can try and have your visuals compare to Pixar, and you can try and give your membership a sense of fulfillment that they simply don’t get from their every day life. But it’s damned hard, and it’s even harder when people are constantly run out of the church who can make things better, simply because they recognize the flaws inside the system.

The fact is, you can’t compete with school, university, work or TV. What you can do is provide something that’s unique, that’s life giving, and that’s unlike anything that any of the others are offering. But when you continually want to promote from within, and only do what’s been done before, with slight variations you’re only ever going to reach a very niche market.

3) Cut projects to the bone.

There is a serious need to consolidate our focus to just a handful of projects. Period.

We need to be disciplined here. We can’t afford any more initiatives based on carrier requests to squeeze out slightly more volume. Again, back to point #1, focus on the end users. They are the ones making both consumer & enterprise purchase decisions.

Strategy is often in the things you decide not to do.

On that note, we simply must stop shipping incomplete products that aren’t ready for the end user. It is hurting our brand tremendously. It takes guts to not allow a product to launch that may be 90% ready with a quarter end in sight, but it will pay off in the long term.

Look at Apple in 1997 for tips here. I really want you to watch this video because it has never been more relevant. It is our friend Steve Jobs in 97 and it may as well be you speaking to RIM employees and partners today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY

Oh my goodness, I wish the church leadership could abide by this. Barna Group did a survey a while ago, asking young people what they though Christianity was about. 91% of non church goers and 80% of church goers said that they felt the term anti-homosexual defined Christianity. This was the same study that showed that young people in general are more and more viewing Christianity in a negative light.

Yes we have emergent churches that are often filled with young people, some of these are socially progressive, some are filled with neo-cons that think they’re progressive because their pastor mentions oral sex. While in some cases these churches represent at least some growth in the right direction, in many cases they’re bound up in systems that simply don’t work.

You could go to many of the most progressive post-evangelical churches and still find someone who can recommend a good accountability partner, (and look at you funny if you don’t know what one is) or who have trouble with the notion that you don’t need to be a Creationist to be a Christian.

In an attempt to be, “not of the world” the christian church has gotten bogged down in a million fights with society that aren’t helpful, don’t make sense, and disgrace the name of Christ … because we’re wrong about most of those fights.

We tell mothers not to abort their babies, but we don’t offer them any assistance with their children. One of the churches I grew up in, refused to let a baby shower be held for a member’s daughter because she was unmarried.

We tell gays not to be who they are, but even if they stayed celibate we make them feel like second class citizens. (Or we just run them out of any chance to serve or feel as if they’re part of the community … at least that was my experience at a church that I think would like to see itself as progressive … cause they use drums)

When Jesus was asked what the greatest command was, he replied that we should love God and love our neighbour. It’s funny, Jesus told us to cut these side projects too … we just didn’t listen to Him.

4) Developers, not Carriers can now make or break us

We urgently need to invest like we never have before in becoming developer friendly. The return will be worth every cent. There is no polite way to say this, but it’s true — BlackBerry smartphone apps suck. Even PlayBook, with all its glorious power, looks like a Fisher Price toy with its Adobe AIR/Flash apps.

Developing for BlackBerry is painful, and despite what you’ve been told, things haven’t really changed that much since Jamie Murai’s letter. Our SDK / development platform is like a rundown 1990′s Ford Explorer. Then there’s Apple, which has a shiny new BMW M3… just such a pleasure to drive. Developers want and need quality tools.

If we create great tools, we will see great work. Offer shit tools and we shouldn’t be surprised when we see shit apps.

The truth is, no one in RIM dares to tell management how bad our tools still are. Even our closest dev partners do their best to say it politely, but they will never bite the hand that feeds them. The solution? Recruit serious talent, buy SDK/API specialist companies, throw a truckload of money at it… Let’s do whatever it takes, and quickly!

Our tools do suck. When’s the last time you tried to get a non-Christian to go to church? It’s hard! You know why? Because the best we’ve got is bible studies that most people don’t really want to go to, church services that are confusing for anyone who hasn’t been doing this for years, and a spider web of contradictory ideology that we try to indoctrinate people with.

Our books suck too. (Not the Bible) We have a million books out there that tell people how to be a Christian, in many cases by people who don’t seem to have a clue what it means to be a Christian. I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve met someone who’s “trying to be a Christian” and they don’t know what to do. In the end they settle for being a church person or they just drop out entirely.

Now this isn’t to say that all Christian books suck. If you’re looking for something good, I recommend Brian McLaren, as well as Harry Potter. (If you can figure out that Voldemort is bad, you can pretty well steer clear of most of the people who run churches into the ground)

5) Need for serious marketing punch to create end user desire

25 million iPad users don’t care that it doesn’t have Flash or true multitasking, so why make that a focus in our campaigns? I’ll answer that for you: it’s because that’s all that differentiates our products and its lazy marketing. I’ve never seen someone buy product B because it has something product A doesn’t have. People buy product B because they want and lust after product B.

Also an important note regarding our marketing: a product’s technical superiority does not equal desire, and therefore sales… How many Linux laptops are getting sold? How did Betamax go? My mother wants an iPad and iPhone because it is simple and appeals to her. Powerful multitasking doesn’t.

BlackBerry Messenger has been our standout, yet we wasted our marketing on strange stories from a barber shop to a horse wrangler. I promise you, this did nothing to help us in the mind of the average consumer.

We need an inventive and engaging campaign that focuses on what we are about. People buy into a brand / product not just because of features, but because of what it stands for and what it delivers to them. People don’t buy “what you do,” people buy “why you do it.” Take 3 minutes to watch the this video starting from the 2min mark: http://youtu.be/qp0HIF3SfI4

This advice is the only one that I wouldn’t say is true of the church. We have a huge marketing push these days. I’d sooner refer to the Steve Jobs video linked above where he was asked if Apple that year would market on TV. What Jobs said was that it’s more important to put great stuff out into the world, and then let the news programs and reporters write about them and give them free advertising. And it’s worked, half of Apple’s advertising is stuff that they don’t need to pay for, and it’s more useful than what they do pay for.

I think the church needs to stop hoping that people will say good things about Christianity, and start giving them a good reason to. We need to stop spending millions of dollars preventing gays from getting married, and we need to spend more time denouncing our worst members who enjoy parading in front of the camera. There needs to be a strong Christian voice that says what we’re about, which can back it up by showing what we do. And what we do needs to be more than getting together in buildings and diddling ourselves.

6) No Accountability – Canadians are too nice

RIM has a lot of people who underperform but still stay in their roles. No one is accountable. Where is the guy responsible for the 9530 software? Still with us, still running some important software initiative. We will never achieve excellence with this culture. Just because someone may have been a loyal RIM employee for 7 years, it doesn’t mean they are the best Manager / Director / VP for that role. It’s time to change the culture to deliver or move on and get out. We have far too many people in critical roles that fit this description. I can hear the cheers of my fellow employees now.

Christians, despite being vicious jerks half the time, are also too nice. We’re uncomfortable telling each other that we’re driven by bigotry and malice. I was run out of my last church because the pastor was more comfortable making it so that I had to leave, than he was with telling a few people that they were bigoted and behaving in ways that were clearly condemned by Scripture.

We have this attitude of telling people that just because they have a terribly fucked up view of what the Bible says, that it’s okay cause it’s what they believe. It’s actually not. The fact is, that if the bigots were a bit more embarrassed, they may stop making people feel like they didn’t belong at church, or in the church.

7) The press and analysts are pissing you off. Don’t snap. Now is the time for humility with a dash of paranoia.

The public’s questions about dual-CEOs are warranted. The partnership is not broken, but on the ground level, it is not efficient. Maybe we need our Eric Schmidt reign period.

Yes, four years ago we beat Microsoft when everyone said Windows Mobile with Direct Push in Exchange would kill us. It didn’t… in fact we grew stronger.

However, overconfidence clouds good decision-making. We missed not boldly reacting to the threat of iPhone when we saw it in January over four years ago. We laughed and said they are trying to put a computer on a phone, that it won’t work. We should have made the QNX-like transition then. We are now 3-4 years too late. That is the painful truth… it was a major strategic oversight and we know who is responsible.

Jim, in referring to our current transition recently said: “No other technology company other than Apple has successfully transitioned their platform. It’s almost never done, and it’s way harder than you realize. This transition is where tech companies go to die.”

To avoid this death, perhaps it is time to seriously consider a new, fresh thinking, experienced CEO. There is no shame in no longer being a CEO. Mike, you could focus on innovation. Jim, you could focus on our carriers/customers… They are our lifeblood.

The fact is, if you watch the media … they really don’t love the church all that much. What they do love is an idea of what church could be. You watch a David E Kelly show, or Glee, or any number of others you’ll see good Christian characters, played by non-Christians. This is because the outside world actually likes Jesus. They don’t know much about Him, they may not even know much about the type of love that He spoke of. But they know He was a good guy who got the short end of the stick … and then got nailed to it.

The media would have loved to report that the church was encouraging gay people to live moral and monogamous lifestyles, they’d love to report that churches were adopting single mothers to help them with their children. While it may get a lot of ratings, I don’t think most news casters truly love reporting that yet another controlling pastor was more extreme than people had thought, and was actually a pedophile. (My discussion on how pedophilia is linked to the church because the church is linked to control … shall be another post some day)

Democratise. Engage and interact with your employees — please!

Reach out to all employees asking them on how we can make RIM better. Encourage input from ground-level teams—without repercussions—to seek out honest feedback and really absorb it.

Lastly, we’re all reading the news and many are extremely nervous, especially when we see people get fired. We need an injection of confidence: share your strategy and ask us for support. The headhunters have already started circling and we are at risk of losing our best people.

Now would be a great time to internally re-brand and re-energize the workplace. For example, rename the company to just “BlackBerry” to signify our new focus on one QNX product line. We should also address issues surrounding making RIM an enjoyable workplace. Some of our offices feel like Soviet-era government workplaces.

This one is pretty easy to understand. In many cases church leadership isn’t listening to the laity … who incidentally often tend to get it more right than people think. There are a lot of people within most churches that want things to be better, and who have ideas that could be useful in helping those communities be better. But when people are yelled and screamed at behind closed doors for saying that things are broken … nobody will want to help. They’ll either leave, or worse … they’ll keep coming but only because they think they’re supposed to. And you’ll never know what you killed.

My new one, tentatively titled Callum, after the main character. (That won’t’ be the final title, I have a few other potential ones and I think there’s a decent chance an agent will tell me to pick something else) Is coming along nicely. It turns out I’ve only been working on it for 11 days, and I already have almost 15 000 words. That is pretty well an opening act. I haven’t totally decided what happens in the middle, though I’ve got a good idea, and as is always the case, I’ve got a good idea of what the climax shall be.

I’m really enjoying this one. I think one of the hardest things when you don’t lean on an already established speculative element, is to make your story not just about people being boring people, but rather to make your story being about how boring people aren’t so boring.

I don’t think that I’m going to stop writing speculative stuff, though to be perfectly honest right now I don’t have any big speculative ideas … ok sorry I have my unpublished book which could be made into several books with a little rejiggering, plus I have an idea that I recently came up with which is just super clever and could have a fun take on the whole paranormal high school … thing. Plus I also have an idea for a dystopian novel … well two anyway but those are mostly just kind of rough ideas.

Anyway … aside from the writing, not a whole lot new in my life. New job starts up next week … now I just gotta work at getting used to waking up at an ungodly slash normal hour. Money will be a bit tight until then, but my goal is to avoid borrowing any more from my parents.

I will say that apparently I’m so into my new writing project that I’m actually having dreams that have been influenced by it. Last night I had this awful dream where I was arguing with my mother, and I firmly believe I only had it because that day I’d written about one of my characters having a similar fight with his own mother … who incidentally is kind of based off of the worst of my own mother’s early reactions to me being gay. I haven’t decided how much that relationship is going to change over the course of the book. I have it in my head that by the end of the book she should be able to sit down with the narrator and actually talk out why she feels the way she does … and hopefully not stay just a flat one dimensional character who you don’t like. Of course that’s partly a desire that comes out of my own desire not to always paint parents as uncaring monoliths. I think it’s really important to avoid enforcing the notion that all parents mean to be cruel or unkind to their kids, especially in media that’s written for a younger audience.

It is funny working on yet another rough draft though. How to Break an Invincible Man has gone through 3 rewrite and the fourth rewrite was a line by line revision while working with someone else. Plus entire new sections were added and sometimes rewritten up to four or five times. Every other project I’ve worked on is still in the rough stages. How to Stop an Irresistible Man is so rough you could get splinters; (but the plot is done and it’s a gooder!) Leviticus Interrupted is fully planned out, and probably about 30-40% written; Killing Grace got a lot of planning, but ultimately lots of characters have been taken out of it and put into LI, which means that while the idea behind the book is still one that I want to do, with many of the same characters, I don’t think the plot is going to be quite the same.

On the one hand that probably looks bad … IE it seems to suggest that I don’t finish what I start. But really, it just shows that I’m good with creating an idea but not letting it control me … again. Fact of the matter is that I need a debut novel that showcases the best parts of my writing: unique characters, wry humour, clever social and psychological insight, all combined with an engaging plot. What I don’t need is to finish another novel where the agents I write to say that they like the writing but can’t think of who they’d sell it to.

I think with this one though, I have a real shot. While it’s not done, I really like my two lead characters. My protagonist could probably be compared to Holden Caulfield at first glance … though to be honest most people compare any angsty teenager to Holden. Mine isn’t nearly so foul mouth, (though he does swear, and I’m not sure what my mother will think of that, I think she loved that Vince didn’t swear) and he’s much more self aware … though he won’t always admit that to the reader. (‘Cause unreliable narrators are fun!)

After working on Leviticus Interrupted I’ve realized just how fun it is to write characters who are fundamentally likeable, who work based on a very subjective and unjustifiable moral code. Quite frankly I think most people work this way, but we refuse to admit it to ourselves. Most of us aren’t terribly interested in justifying what we do or why we do it, we’re at peace with it ourselves and that’s what matters. I think that readers really enjoy characters who have that sort of approach, even if their decisions aren’t necessarily the ones that we ourselves would make.

So that’s that. I think I might write a little more before I hit the sack.