I feel like I'm going through a drought period. There's so much I want to change in this world, so many wrongs that need to be confronted and changed. I feel that the best way I can do this is through direct confrontation and my writing.

The direct confrontation, of course, is immediate. Here and now. I see the city council allowing wooded areas to be bull-dozed for someone's mega-profit when, in the long run, it'll wreck havoc on the environment. So I go to City Council meetings, discuss, confront, protest, organize. Of course, all this needs to be peaceful. Martin Luther King, Jr. had that right. Gandhi had that right. And yes, Jesus Christ had it right. You don't change things for the better by violence. True, you can change things through violence--temporarily. Governments may be overthrown, changed, businesses shut down (pro-"life"rs are notorious here), but sustained, long-term changes come only through peaceful means. Look at the Civil Rights movement. Would anyone have cared about Rosa Parks if she had violently opposed changing her seat on a Montgomery bus 50 years ago? Would American have listened, had Martin Luther King, Jr. (and those with him) been violent in their bus strike, marches and protests? They might have listened, but the movement would have been denounced and blocked. Instead, America watched as peaceful protesters and marchers were attacked by violent police in riot gear. America was outraged. And so, non-violent civil disobedience won out.

The other way to change things that are wrong is by writing the truth. There are pros and cons to this. The up-side is that you reach a larger audience. (Example: People read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and Amy Goodman's Exception To The Rulers and are moved. A thinking person will find it difficult to read any of these books, along with hundreds, if not thousands, and not be changed by their reading.) The down side, of course, is that it takes time. First I must write. Then I must send off the writing (to a newspaper, to an agent, to a publisher, etc.). Then, hopefully, it will be picked up and printed in a timely manner. You're talking at best days (Letters to the Editors in your daily newspaper), possibly years.

I have a novel I'm attempting to get published. It deals with domestic violence, as well as women in non-traditional jobs (firefighter and, eventually, medicine, though there are more women entering medical school than in the past). I'd planned to give a percentage of the profits to a local domestic violence center (www.casa-stpete.org/). That would constitute activism in both realms--writing (novel) and financially helping a good cause. I've been trying for several years to get this published. But finances make it difficult. (Ink cartrages for my computer, decent paper, postage...the list goes on.)

Now, if only I could find a publisher and/or agent willing to take on my book.