I AM DONE!!!!!

Holy shit, what a sprint that was to the finish. I realized yesterday that I had a huge problem, which was that I had wasted way too many words and only had 2000 words to wrap up. But I wanted, nay, I NEEDED to finish today. This morning I sat down and wrote, and wrote, and wrote my little heart out, and my book, such as it is, is finished.
It really is a horrible mess, but I love it. I love the characters, I love its absurdity, and mostly I love it because I did it. Somehow, even though it is the sixth time, I feel just as proud of this accomplishment as I did the first one. I officially kicked ass this month, triumphed over adversity, and accomplished something ridiculous but astonishing. I wrote a novel in 29 days!!
I came in at 52,909 words, so I wrote almost 5,000 words TODAY ALONE.
I really don't care about giving anything away, because my book is stupid and makes no sense, and no one really knows what it's about anyway, so I will include a chunk of the epilogue here for your reading pleasure.

Tom recovered quickly, and the documentary release and charity launch went off without a hitch. In fact, it was a smashing success. Many NHL stars were in attendance, and it was the beginning of the end of the iron grip of fear that Five for Fighting had held for decades. Once some courageous people are willing to step into the light, the darkness begins to lose its power. Several former members of Five for Fighting who had been transformed by Annie’s stirring speech at the Karaoke Cabana joined Annie and Tom on stage as they launched “Annie’s Wish.” Their presence, as much or more than the presence of NHL superstars, marked the end of an era of fear, repression, and violence.
Annie had avoided Ryan since the day at the Karaoke Cabana, but when he approached her, looking ruggedly handsome in his tuxedo, she knew she could avoid him no longer. He asked her to dance, and she accepted. It was not much, but it was a start. She felt something in her heart stir that had been asleep for some time. It was something like hope, and it was something like love. Whatever it was, it was beautiful.
In the days that followed, there was a class action lawsuit filed against the NHL by 10 players who had suffered concussions in their careers. The NHL, they argued, had known about the dangers of head injuries, but had been remiss in their efforts to protect the players. Between the lawsuit, the documentary, and the charity, Annie, Tom and the others felt certain that Five for Fighting was done for good.
But not everyone felt that way. And not everyone who attended the gala that night was as happy about the events as all the others. From the darkest of corners, a young man watched the festivities with a cold sneer on his face. He wore incredibly skinny jeans, very very low; below his hips, in fact, revealing a shocking amount of underwear. There was a chain between his back pocket and his front pocket, as though he feared that someone might try to steal his wallet. This was of course ridiculous, since he didn’t even carry a wallet, or money, or keys, or anything at all. There were others paid to take care of all his needs, and they did their job well. An oversize toque completed his look, perched devil-may-care atop his perfectly coiffed hair.
He called over a waiter with a snap of his fingers, and gave him instructions, as well as a note to pass to the star of the night, Annie Donovan. The server recognized the young man, and wordlessly did his bidding. It wouldn’t do to disobey the young man, it wouldn’t do at all.
Across the room, Annie, looking beautiful and vibrant, sat at a table with her brother Tom, and his best friend Ryan. It had been a long time since the three of them had spent such a happy time together, and their happiness made them radiant. It made them shine.
A waiter approached with a single stem of champagne. He passed the glass to Annie, who took it with a smile. He then passed her a note, and a look of confusion crossed her face. She set down the champagne, and opened the note. She read it, and looked up to ask the waiter who had sent it, but he had already disappeared, he was in the wind.
“What does it say?” Ryan asked, reaching for the note.
“It says… Ducks Fly Together,” she responded absently, as she looked around the room for either the waiter or for the person who had sent the note to make himself known. But there was nothing, and there was no one, just a cryptic note and a feeling of unease in her heart.
“Are you okay?” Ryan asked, and she turned back to him, and smiled. It was a glorious night, and she wouldn’t let someone’s silly idea of a joke ruin it.
“Yes, I am,” she responded, and as she spoke the words, she realized that they were true.


Here is a photo of a hockey term I came across in my rigorous research into the world of hockey slang:



'Just Dangle' became something of an inspirational mantra for Annie. To 'Dangle' in hockey means this: To use exemplary skill and stickhandling ability to manoeuvre oneself around the ice. To Annie, this becomes a metaphor for life. Good luck to those of you who have left to finish.

The End!!!

46,000 Words... and A Rough Day Yesterday

I reached 46,000 words yesterday, but did it on a wing and a prayer. I am so close to the end, but really had no time for writing yesterday, but forced 1000 words because I really want to finish early. I would really like to have the weekend free of writing!! I was very uninspired, and just ended up cutting and pasting a bunch of stuff from the gongshow hockey website- their t-shirts are de rigeur among the Five for Fighting set. Here is an example:


Since everything I wrote yesterday was stupid, here is an excerpt from the day before. Hope you like it:

“I would like to speak to my brother,” she said, and the others squinted and nodded at her. Smart move, their squinty eyes said. Well played, their nods communicated. She squinted and nodded in return.
“He can’t come to the phone right now, he’s…. otherwise occupied.” The man responded, his voice carrying the tone of West Coast, laid back surfer culture. But now that Annie was paying more attention, she thought that there was a ring of untruth in it. And there was that snickering. They kept laughing every time he spoke. She was about to reply in an angry tone, perhaps hang up, when he spoke again.
“But we are very anxious to see you, we hope you’ll join us soon. That would be… radical.” Annie was convinced more than ever that the whole ‘surfer’ thing was put on. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but if she knew one thing, it was that you should never take dating advice from your gay friend who just stole your girlfriend. This she had learned from a close watching of Dawson’s Creek. If she knew two things, the second was that information was power, but only if you played your cards close to the vest, and only if you played them very well. Like most valuable life lessons, she had not learned this from a close watching of Dawson’s Creek.
“I would be very happy to join you,” she said, playing along, “perhaps you could be so kind as to give me your exact location, and I will be along tout de suite.” She cursed herself for her use of French, she just couldn’t help it, she was nervous. Now they were going to think she was uppity. She had been accused of this before, on more than one occasion. The last time had involved a leather jacket smartly paired with an evening gown and a beer throwing competition gone awry. You do the math. The surfers either chose to ignore her faux pas, or they already believed she was uppity and were unconcerned.

43,350 Words, and Here is My Knife in the Snowball

Well, I had to write it in, but as I said, my characters are in the desert, so it was a bit of a struggle but I managed. I actually wrote this on the weekend. Here is Jackie, explaining the origin of his 'lucky knife.'

Despite all of these things that passed through her mind, and despite Jackie’s decidedly unhinged appearance, Annie found that there was a question plaguing her, one that drove all other logical thought out of her brain. After a moment of stunned silence, she asked it.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous to go rolling through alleyways with a knife in your mouth? I mean, it makes running with scissors look like a goddamn walk in the park.” She wondered if perhaps this was the answer to the eternal question of how the Joker had received the scars on his face. She momentarily wished that she had both a doctor and a comic book geek in the near vicinity, so she could ask for their expert opinions on this theory. But isn’t that always the way? When you don’t want them around, it seems there are doctors and comic book geeks everywhere, maddeningly offering their opinions of every little thing, but when you need them? Nowhere to be found.
Jackie rose to his feet, seemingly completely nonplussed by the question, or his own bizarre behaviour. Rather, he seemed to relish the opportunity to provide an explanation.
“This is my lucky knife. I’ve had this baby with me for years. Once upon a time, an assassin had an ingenious idea to try to take me out by embedding a knife, this knife, inside a snowball, and then throwing the snowball through a window into a room I was in. Now I know what you’re thinking, how could that plan have possibly failed, right?” In fact, no one was thinking that at all, quite the opposite. “Well, that’s why it’s lucky. Somehow, despite all the odds that were stacked against me, the knife snowball broke through the window, missed me completely, and landed in the middle of the room, where it melted, revealing its deadly core. I knew that day that someone was looking out for me, that I had work left to do on this earth. So I picked up the knife, made a promise to always use it for good, and I’ve carried it with me ever since.”
“That doesn’t explain why you carried it in your mouth. That still seems dangerous to me.”
“Well, my skinny jeans are too tight for me to carry it in my pocket. And I needed my hands for combat purposes.” He explained, a note of petulance entering his voice.


Here is something I wrote more recently. More from Jackie:

“As Ms. Donovan so astutely pointed out, I have strategically placed around my hotel various ‘odes’ to violence. In Brady’s room, there is the crocheted wall hanging, I have also used welcome mats, key rings, shower curtains, and wall art. I brilliantly took advantage of the Edward vs Jacob craze that overtook the nation during Twilight mania. I used one of those creepy full size ‘Edward’ wall stickers that is the size and shape of a grown man’s shadow. I placed it on the wall and stenciled the words ‘I Don’t Dial 911’ on it. It was a smash hit, and I’ve been thinking about doing that in every room.” The others were looking on in various stages of active discomfort. Annie was visibly shuddering at the thought of a creepy, sparkly, eternally teenaged vampire creeping into her room in the middle of the night and whispering that he didn’t dial 911. “In any case, besides really knocking my hotel décor out of the park, I had a purpose. I have been trying to infiltrate ‘Five for Fighting’ or at the very least lead them to believe that Jackie’s Place is a safe harbour for them.

“The ECHL does indeed have rock bottom budgets for player accommodations. With the Las Vegas Wranglers so close by, and with my modest pricing, Jackie’s Place has become de rigeur among the ECHL set. That is to say, I have many, many hockey players pass through here from October to June, and the message has spread. Jackie’s Place is a place where all those with violent inclinations can feel right at home. And while I haven’t necessarily infiltrated Five for Fighting, I have gained their trust. They have let their guard down here.


By the way, my characters are still in the Flying Monkey bar... but hopefully they will leave there today.

36,744 Words... Are We There Yet?

Today I am heading up to Hillsdale, which is a lovely place to write. It will be snowy, there will be a fire going, and I intend to have plenty of Bailey's in my coffee as I write the next installations of my novel. The problem with Hillsdale, however, is that is in a black hole of internet access. Even my ability to perform google searches is severely limited. I will be reduced to trying to use the browser on my Blackberry, which I believe shows just how desperate I am to perform the relevant searches. My imagination is running on empty these days, and google is often my saviour!
Regarding my story... I am in the place I believe Indigo was last week. It has become a gigantic mess of too many characters and too many mixed motivations. And yet... I do feel that something is beginning to take shape. My biggest stumbling block right now is likely going to be how in the hell I am going to make sense of the surfer kidnappers from the film 3 Ninjas.

A couple of short excerpts from my writing over the past 2 days... first, the crew is on their way to The Flying Monkey, but Annie has time to think something long, irrelevant, and something you all will find familiar from last year. I coped and pasted from myself.

“We are going to the Flying Monkey… it’s a bar on the strip just down from where the arena is located.” Ryan explained as they walked down the street at a very quick pace, so quick that Annie feared being left in the dust. “Stella is our coach,” he explained, “and she has a pregame ritual that she follows before every single game. At each town we visit, she has a specific bar that she visits, usually near the arena. She sits, has a glass of sherry, puts on her reading glasses and pores over her accounting books and player rosters. She then comes up with her game plan, which she delivers to us pregame. In Bakersfield it’s “Snake’s Christmas Club Lounge”; in Kalamazoo, it’s ‘The Devil’s Lube’, and in Las Vegas, it’s the ‘Flying Monkey’. I am sure we will find her there, though I doubt she’ll be happy to see us. She doesn’t like to be interrupted.”
Annie was surprised by many aspects to Jake’s explanation, not the least of which was that she had never heard of Stella Marleybone… she must have been more out of touch with her brother than she had realized. When had the Jackals hired a new head coach? Also, the names of the bars struck her as interesting. She wondered if ‘The Devil’s Lube’ was a tribute to the

ridiculous film based on an identically titled episode of 2 and a Half Men, in which Emilio Estevez had played foil to brother Charlie Sheen when he dropped dead on the balcony of his beach house. Hagrid delivered a heartrending performance of identical strangers who ill advisedly switch places, only to have one of them die, thus ensuring that the other was trapped forever in a role he was never intended to play. Of course I am referring to Hagrid, the monomynous actor, not to be confused with Rubeus Hagrid, of the famed seven volume Harry Potter series. The line “what’s comin’ will come, and we’ll meet it when it does,” was considered utterly forgettable by Annie and yet had somehow made it into most top ten lists of ‘most memorable film quotes’.
As though reading her thoughts, Jake murmured “What’s comin’ will come, and we’ll meet it when it does”. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise, for although she had never been fond of the line, it struck her as incredibly a propos, given their current situation. If she felt certain of one thing, it was that they would indeed meet whatever was coming when it came, and that they would stand tall and stand true.. If she was certain of two things, the second would have been that Jake was really horrible at delivering Hagrid’s well known ‘West Country’ accent. Though the words rang true, the accent sounded at best like a butchered cockney.

Second short excerpt... Jackie has returned to the fray:

“Do you think that Jackie is secretly involved with the organization ‘Five for Fighting’? Or do you think he just has a fondness for inappropriate art glorifying taking matters into your own hands in violent, gun toting ways?” Just then, directly in front of them a man rolled out of a narrow alleyway that none of them had previously noticed. His wiry hair was standing on edge and his eyes were full of grim determination. He appeared to have a knife clenched between his teeth, and his hands were held out at angles from his body, like those of a 5 year old pretending to do karate. He remained poised on one knee, his eyes darting around, hypervigilant, as he took in his surroundings, trying to determine whether there was a threat in the immediate vicinity, or rather, what the nature of the threat was, since he was a man who believed that there was threat everywhere. It was Jackie, grumpy proprietor of the infamous Jackie’s Place and proud activist for the local food movement.
He looked over at the stunned foursome, and began to squint and nod in a knowing manner. “Well done, Miss Donovan. Well done, indeed.”

35,222 Words and Stella has Arrived!!

Hi everyone. I have been so busy keeping up with just my writing it has been hard to keep up with the blogs. I just took a quick peek and saw that you are all amazing and writing incredibly funny and creative novels. I will try my very best to get caught up and stay more on top of things... we all need support as we approach the finish line!!

Today I wrote some sad back story of Annie and her pathetic love life, and had more fun writing Stella in. I have known for some time that I was going to use her and am really happy she is on the scene. My characters FINALLY left the Boo(!)-Bie Mansion, but I think it's so funny to have them leave one bar only to head to another that I have sent them to 'The Flying Monkey' where they will meet up with... you guessed it... Stella Marleybone!!

Here she is...

Stella was a short woman, her salt and pepper hair clipped close in a pixie cut that emphasized her sparkling blue eyes. What she lacked in stature, she certainly made up for in presence. She was often described as formidable, and it was a moniker that fit her like a glove. She spoke in the clipped tones of the British upper class, which was where she hailed from. Many people wondered when they first met her how she had come to be a men’s hockey coach in a small town in the United States, in a league that was a mere step or two above beer and pizza rec hockey leagues. Great Britain was not well known as a place from which the great hockey players or hockey minds sprang. Additionally, there are very few women coaching men’s teams (or women’s teams) period. She also did not have the resume of the traditional hockey coach either.
Her background was in accounting, and it was rumoured (though not confirmed) that she had been the special accountant assigned to Her Majesty, the Queen of England. It was also rumoured that for her exceptional service to the Crown she had been granted the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. This also was unconfirmed, though widely believed, and explained why many who spoke of her referred to her as Dame Stella Marleybone, though never to her face. It was unclear how it was that she came to become a hockey coach, and she rarely answered the question, if anyone had the gall to ask. It was rumoured that she was under the impression that the continent of North America remained a colony of Great Britain, and that she firmly believed that service to the Crown including time spent developing the moral character of colonial citizens.

While she might have been an unlikely hockey coach, Stella certainly seemed to be possessed of the soul of an accountant, and used her accounting book as a way of taking stock of her own and others achievements in life as well as those of the hockey players in her charge. Her process was simple. A good act earned one credits, the number of credits dependent upon the value of the good act. Winning a face off, for example, might earn one 2 credits, clearing a puck out of the defensive zone might earn one 5 credits, earning a goal might be worth 10 points, a game winner worth 15. In similar fashion, one could accumulate debits with acts that demonstrated bad form, selfishness, or laziness. Sloppy play in the neutral zone could lead to a deduction of 5 credits, failure to attend a practice would lead to a deduction of 10 credits, and missing a game could lead to a deduction of 50 credits. In this way, she kept an ongoing account of the contributions of each player to the success of the team. A player who was ‘in the red’ more often than not would find he no longer had a spot on Stella’s team.
Stella on the whole was intolerant of unpredictability, her method had always proved to help her take the measure of a person, of a player, in a truly objective fashion, and she was never wrong. For this reason, Tom Donovan had proved to be quite a conundrum to the no nonsense coach. Tom defied the concept of predictability, with wild swings on both the credit and debit sides of the column. Just when it seemed he had achieved a debt he could never dig himself out of, he would go on a spree of such good behaviour and positive contributions to the team that he would quickly be well out of debt, and indeed in possession of such a quantity of credit that a future ‘in the red’ seemed unlikely. But he always got back there.
Now, as she stared down at her accounting book, she saw that Tom was firmly ‘in the red’, had been for some time, and she was contemplating the difficult decision of cutting him from the team. Any other person would have long since been cut, but there was something different about Tom. She knew she should remove him from the team, he was simply too unpredictable, but she just couldn’t do it. And this was why she both loved and hated Tom. Watching him play had awoken something in her she hadn’t even been aware was there. She had hope, she had belief, and more than anything, she wanted to be there to watch when Tom turned it around again. She wanted to see the fire in his eyes and the grace in his every movement that came when Tom was on."

30,667, and God Bless You Cut and Paste

Over 30,000 tonight, thanks to Katie's novel from last year, which has provided us with a veritable gold mine. Here are a couple of excerpts. Ryan, Annie, Gordon and Jake are all together at the Boo(!)-Bie Mansion. I hope to get them out of there tomorrow. Here they are bonding...

“It was for you Annie, he wanted to do this for you. He wanted to show you that he had something left to give back. And he wanted you to know how much he loves you and appreciates all you have sacrificed for him over the years. He said without you he would be nothing, and he wanted to make you proud of him again. He decided to call the charity “Annie’s Wish”, in honour of the sister who stood by him through everything.” Annie and Ryan were both unable to contain their tears any longer, and both cried quietly, feeling both shame for their lack of faith and love for Tom, that brave, brave man. Their quiet dignity was quickly overshadowed by a loud honking sound that appeared to be emerging from behind a large polka-dotted handkerchief. Gordon was weeping loudly and dramatically from his perch on his desk.
“It’s… just… so …. BEAUTIFUL!” he wailed, using the corner of his cape to wipe his tears. Annie realized that Gordon’s unearthly pallor was the result of makeup as opposed to being undead, as he now had two skin-coloured half-moons visible beneath his eyes where the tears had washed the makeup away. “Come on,’ Gordon said, motioning to the other three in the room, “bring it in, come on, don’t be shy. GROUP HUG,” he managed to utter through his hiccupping sobs. Annie and Ryan moved reluctantly toward the vampire, and he quickly swept them into his arms, wrapping his cape around them. He looked up at Jake, who shook his head and said “No, I’m good.”
Gordon admonished Jake silently with a look, and said “Jake, I will brook no argument from you, join us in this group hug, my brother, my friend.” Jake reluctantly approached, and was swept into the hug. In that moment of shared emotion (and shared cape), they became one. They knew they would do whatever it took to get Tom back, and to make sure that Annie’s Wish became a reality. And they would do it for the children, not in the weird, creepy way that mommy bloggers stalk their children, but in a genuine, loving way, in a real attempt to make the world a better place. And aren’t the best friendships found on such principles? I like to this so.


And here is an excerpt of how I cut and pasted from Katie's novel and made it my own (sort of). I copied and pasted a lot more. Trust me on that, but it was too long of an excerpt to include, plus you saw it last year on Katie,s blog.

“There’s more. Have any of you ever heard of the organization, ‘Five for Fighting’?” Jake asked, and Gordon gasped dramatically, then placed his cape over his mouth before the others could assault him again with their fierce glares. Clearly, he had heard of the organization. The others looked blank, so Jake nodded at him to explain. Before he began, he made a mental note not to reference his dissertation, lest he infuriate the pretty brunette with the fearsome temper. It turned out to be a rather difficult promise to keep.
“Well, I first learned about the organization when I was doing underground research for my…” he winced, “for my Master’s thesis,” he said slowly and carefully, clearly lying. He quickly moved on. “That was the time I learned the true meaning of fear.” He shuddered, but continued. “I was doing some research on the phenomenon of ‘mommy blogging’ with a colleague of mine. It was a truly discomfiting movement, and my colleague and I were lucky to escape unscathed.” Annie was nodding, though the other two looked perplexed. Annie had once lost a dear friend to the mommy blogger movement. She had begun with simply wanting to share her experience with others, to form a community of support for mothers, but she quickly became brainwashed by the movement. The last time Annie had seen her, she had been babbling incoherently in what sounded like a sort of horribly conceived rap, her fingers and clothes permanently stained by homemade organic dyes, a vacant, haunted look in her eyes. Oh yes, Annie knew about the dark underworld of mommy bloggers. Gordon continued.
“Even worse than the mommy bloggers though, were the hockey fans. Hockey fans scare me. Those goons sure do love their hockey fights, and they will do anything to make sure that no pinko commie lefty gets in the way of them.” The other three nodded. Though they all fit into the category of ‘hockey fan’, they knew that were extremists who had captured and transformed the moniker to their own twisted devices. Much the way Rob Ford, Stephen Harper, and Tim Hudak had transformed the ideals of conservatism (which were terrifying to begin with) into soulless, heartless, and relentless pursuits of wearing terrifying sweater vests, cuddling with defenseless kittens, lowering people’s wages, and sampling crack cocaine whilst in a drunken stupor.

Past the Halfway Mark and Feeling Fine

I received the unexpected gift of free wi-fi at the hotel, and the additional unexpected gift of some time to write today. I am at 26,792 words, and just might try to get a few hundred more in tonight, since tomorrow will be a travel day and busy, busy busy getting ready for school and work.
There is actually a fairly complex plot at play (who knew?) so I haven't even been able to get back to the surfers. And my characters are STILL in the Boo(!)-Bie Mansion as I went on an extended 2 day writing spree of a conversation that had taken place between Jake and Annie a year ago. It is important to the plot though, and was easy to write because I basically just made Jake go on an 8 page rant. Lots and lots and lots of inaccuracies in what I'm writing, but, really, who cares?
Here is Jake's part in the storyline:

Annie had met Jake about a year before they crossed paths again in Las Vegas. He had contacted her about being interviewed for a documentary he was making for ESPN’s series 30 for 30. The series (which was actually into its second volume) was a set of 30 sports documentaries that had been made for the purposes of chronicling stories from throughout ESPN’s 30 year history, and featured stories that had shaped the sporting landscape, but were little known, or had received a great deal of attention at one time, only to be forgotten. They had decided to make one about Tom. It was called ‘The Best That Never Was.’ All it took for Annie to say no was to hear the title. She said no immediately, and almost slammed the door in Jake’s face, but there was a kindness in his eyes and a softness in his voice when he said “Wait… hear me out.”

And here is an excerpt from his rant:

“Look at what has happened in Ontario, where the OMHA has removed hitting at the PeeWee level, and removed it altogether from House Leagues. People lost their everloving shit.” Annie nodded, as much as she had tried to avoid the backlash, for fear of flying into a rage she could never recover from, you would have had to have been a drunk baby to avoid the veritable flood of crazies who came out of the woodwork to loudly vent against the move on behalf of the OMHA to ‘pussify’ hockey. It had been profoundly, profoundly disturbing.
“That is removing hitting from rep stream hockey for 10 and 11 year old boys. Adult men and women everywhere, up in arms, because we are no longer allowing children to hit other children. Sick, sick people,” Jake continued, shaking his head in disgust. In fact, if Annie had been pressed to describe Jake’s facial expression, she would have said that he looked as though a chipmunk had just farted in his face. She didn’t know it, but she had a similar expression on her face. “Now we are talking about rep stream, at the Pee Wee level. And even in rep, even in the AAA stream, we are talking about an extremely small percentage that will ever play hockey beyond their junior careers, and NHL? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. We are talking about a minute, minute percentage of kids that even have a hope in Hell of playing in the NHL. Fewer than 0.001% of kids will ever make it to the NHL, but yeah, let’s just have 10 year old boys knock the piss out of each other in the meantime, almost certainly experiencing at least minor brain damage… yeah let’s go ahead and do that. Just. In. Case.”
None of this was news to Annie. She was a sport sociology teacher for Christ’s sweet sake (to quote the inimitable Jake Dempsey), she had gone on similar rants many, many times to students, colleagues, managers, people in line at the supermarket, and just generally anyone foolish enough to get within shouting range, but Jake was a compelling speaker, and she respected his passion for the topic, so she remained silent, and let him continue.