Tag: human rights campaign

Publishing My Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn Autobiography, BooksLeave a comment

The time has finally come for me to announce that my book is FINALLY FINISHED!

Seven months of hard work has finally paid off.  Not only have I learned how to write, but I have also learned how to grammar… wait no that’s bad grammar!  But seriously, my grammar has greatly improved, compared to when I started writing anyway.

The only thing that is preventing me from publishing my book now is an author picture.  I don’t want to publish it until I can get dressed up in my gay uniform, that being my “Legalize Gay” t-shirt that I got from the Human Rights Campaign from when I volunteered with them a few months ago at the gay pride here in Bakersfield.  Although I am not set on that shirt as being the only thing in the photo, I may bring a dress shirt.  Who knows, I may combine them and wear the dress shirt unbuttoned on top of the Legalize Gay shirt.  We’ll see.

I was going to use my own domain xanapus.com as the hub, but decided to buy a new domain name www.diaryofagaynerd.com with links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Rainbow eBooks, GetGlue, Facebook, Twitter and here.  Of course I’m paying every month for 1 single html page lol.  That doesn’t seem fair since I have a lot of space over here, but whatever.

Oh I mentioned GetGlue, yeah I haven’t really talked to them yet but I sent a tweet to one of the GetGlue people that I know.  I want to offer a sticker for my readers.  I already have the sticker made, I just need to give them the file so they can give it to people when they check-in.  Although I don’t know if a lot of writers offer stickers for books, maybe I’m the first.  Wouldn’t that be awesome if I were?  How cool would that be?  I’m a GetGlue pioneer LMAO.

So I will just focus my energy now on getting that picture so I can publish it.  Hopefully tomorrow, but no promises.

I do have future plans for another book, actually a series of fictional stories about my character Xanapus from the game EverQuest.  Of course I won’t be able to write about Norrath, I will have to make up my own fantasy world.  That will just make it more fun to write if I make things up as I go.  I will probably start the first story with a short story to make sure I know how to write fiction, of course I will be taking a course on writing fiction first.  It was one thing to write an autobiography because I didn’t have to make anything up, a story based on one single character living in a world that doesn’t exist yet is going to be the difficult part.  If I can write a short story with one little tiny quest, then we will see if I have what it takes to write a 200-300 page novel, 8 of them in total to be exact.  Yes, I am aiming high lol.  Don’t hold your breath…

Until tomorrow when I have more news about the book that I already wrote…

Publishing My Book

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBookLeave a comment

I spent this summer writing my life story into a 289 page e-book.  It took a lot of time to write and it has taken even longer to edit because I am not what most would consider to be a writer.  I barely manage writing a blog, I have a difficult enough time thinking of what to write in a greeting card.

I have already copyrighted (pending) my book (title and unedited contents) so that when I am ready to publish it, I won’t have to worry about waiting for the copyright to kick in.

I have already signed up with Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a self publisher, which was so easy that anyone can do it.  I also wanted to sign up on the Rainbow Ebook website as a self publisher because I want to support them as an e-book store.  It’s nice to give back to my community in any way that I can.

As soon as it is completely edited, I will publish it and start advertising and promoting via here, twitter, Facebook, my space and anywhere else that I can advertise it for free.  I may even pay gay and gay friendly bloggers to advertise it for me.

I am not looking to get rich on this book, in fact I mean to do the opposite.  I can only make so much money per year on top of my disability so I can’t get rich off of it.  I am only going to sell it for $6.99 so that I only profit a few dollars from the sale of each book and 10% of those profits will go to charity.  10% from Amazon, B&N and Rainbow Ebooks combined will be split up to go to the Human Rights Campaign, ChildHelp.org and Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors fund.

My book will hopefully raise awareness to so many issues in our society about the way children are being raised to be as abusive, racist and bigoted as the parents who are raising them.  I feel it’s important not just to tell my story about the trauma I went through, but hope that it will help parents to change their hateful ways and views and know what they are doing to their children when they raise them full of so much hatred.

I wanted to be able to publish it before Christmas but then I got to thinking that it’s not the kind of thing you want to read during a happy time of year.  Instead, I will probably publish it after Christmas or maybe after New Years.  Keep in mind that it is still being edited so it is possible that I won’t have it ready to publish until January.

So until then…

Update: I signed up for the free trial of Grammarly and was shocked to see that they raised the price from $20 to $70.  I thought that I would just go ahead and do the trial and get it done as quick as I could but it was catching too many errors that weren’t even errors.  So screw that, if my grammar checker in Open Office doesn’t show me those errors then they aren’t errors in my opinion.  I will read it one more time and fix any errors I think need to be fixed and then publish it when my copyright goes through or January like I said before.

Gay Pride in Bakersfield with Human Rights Campaign

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

Today was the day that I volunteered for the Human Rights Campaign.

I got an email last week telling me that they will be in Bakersfield for Gay Pride this weekend and they were looking for volunteers.  I immediately thought, Hell yeah I want to volunteer.

I signed up for 1-4pm and of course I stayed until 5 because I didn’t want to leave at all because I was having such a good time.

The people coming up to the booth were just the most friendly people you would ever meet in your life.  Everyone had a smile on their faces.

Apparently, HRC has never been to Bakersfield pride so the event coordinator was thrilled that we were there.  I was shocked to find out that Bakersfield even had a gay pride.  I thought that was so cool and I was really glad I was involved.

What we were doing was we were getting people to fill out the petition for gay marriage for 2012.  If they wanted a free sticker, temporary tattoo, or a canvas bag they had to just fill out the little card or the petition sheet.

We were selling memberships and if you bought a membership you got a free t-shirt, cap, necklace or a bracelet depending on how much you paid for your membership.

I didn’t want to go but I left at 5pm with my “Legalize Gay” t-shirt on and a smile on my face the whole bicycle trip home.

If they ever ask me to volunteer for anything else I will do it in a heartbeat.

Hey, just because I’m not there anymore doesn’t mean I won’t still ask you to help them out. Please visit HRC.org and become a member today to help in the fight.  You know you want to.

Follow @HRC on Twitter and Like them on Facebook

Gay Pride in Bakersfield

On By Michel McDonaldIn gay prideLeave a comment

I had no idea that Bakersfield ever participated in Gay Pride until a week ago when I received an email from the Human Rights Campaign asking me if I wanted to volunteer.

“Of course I want to volunteer” was my first thought.

I got on AIM and told our good friend Venda that I would volunteer if she would volunteer, of course I was going to do it anyway, I just wanted to see if she would do it too lol.

She agreed that she would do it so I sent her the email from HRC so she could sign up.

You know it’s funny, I haven’t been to a gay pride in years.  The first and last time I ever went to gay pride was when I was 23 years old and that was in West Hollywood.  They had a parade and then they had like this fair afterwards with these booths where you walk around from booth to booth getting free stickers and what not.

The reason it has taken me this long is because when I lived in Hollywood, we just never had the money to go anywhere and then we moved here and we just figured that Bakersfield would never have a gay pride.  Well, they do now.

I’ve never volunteered for this kind of thing so I can’t wait for tomorrow.  It’s like Disneyland but the only mice you will find are really bears.

At first I thought I should be worried about protesters but it doesn’t matter, they can suck an egg for all I care.  I’m not even going to waste my time thinking about them or waste any of the fun I’m going to have when I’m handing out whatever it is I will be handing out.

If you are in Bakersfield Saturday October 15th, come see me at Stramler Park between 1-4pm.  I’ll be the bald guy with the glasses.

AFA Hates that Home Depot Supports HRC and Gays

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay Rights2 Comments

What has the American Family Association (AFA) become? They once used to be a respected organization but now they have turned into an alarmist group. They’ve turned into Glenn Beck!

They wrote on their website yesterday about the Home Depot sponsoring the Atlanta gay pride festival and about how Home Depot is supporting the “Homosexual Agenda” as if there is an agenda. Anything that they don’t understand or don’t want to understand must be an agenda.

Home Depot is one of the sponsors at the event and they have a booth with goodie bags to give to people. This is what’s inside the bags. As you can see in the very back the bag itself with the Home Depot logo on it. There are 2 brochures which I assume are for potential future employees, a sports bottle, a button saying “We’re Hiring” which is great because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is hiring, a Frisbee, key chain and a beer/soda can/bottle foam cooler. At least that’s what I think that is.

Ok, it’s not like they’re handing out iPads and cameras to people. But it’s not the gifts that the AFA is so worked up about, it’s the very fact that Home Depot is supporting gay people, that’s what they hate since they have become such a hateful organization. This is supposed to be an organization that helps families and I hate to tell ya but gay people have families. Lesbians are still women with a womb capable of creating life.

I once had Home Depot in my Boycott list because they were a sponsor of the so called “Dr.” Laura but I removed them because it was stupid to boycott any company who sponsored a radio show. What I realized is that they weren’t sponsoring a homophobic person so much as they were just sponsoring a person who played their ads on the radio. That’s what they are doing in Atlanta. They aren’t sponsoring the — as the AFA puts it — “homosexual agenda”, they are sponsoring the Human Rights Campaign and by handing out these goodie bags, they are handing out free advertisements for themselves.

My reason for boycotting Home Depot was for similar reasons as the AFA BUT once I realized they weren’t her sponsor for the reason I thought, I removed them. Same with all her other sponsors. I still have the boycott page only because I don’t want to spend money on gay haters. The AFA is doing the same thing that I am doing but in reverse. It just so happens that the AFA is listed in my Boycott page lol.

The AFA is asking people to call Home Depot and “Let the manager know that you will not be shopping at The Home Depot until the company stops supporting the homosexual agenda.” Then they have a link for the Home Depot website so people can find the phone number of their local Home Depot.

Look, it’s a 50/50 risk Home Depot is taking. 50% of Americans are anti-gay and 50% are pro-gay. I assume this based on the Prop 8 results in California where it was 51% for prop 8 and 49% against prop 8. So if they offend the straights by supporting the gays then they still have 50% of their customers. If they offend the gays then they still have the other 50%. I guarantee you that people won’t give a rats ass whether Home Depot supports the HRC and will continue shopping at Home Depot because they really don’t care.

It’s like when I had them listed in my boycott page. How many people am I going to convince to boycott anyone on that page? 1, maybe 2 people? Nobody reads my blog enough for me to convince anyone of anything. I personally believe the same thing about the AFA’s website. I’ve never even been to their website because I don’t care about them since they have no impact on how I live my life. Never have, never will so why should I go to their website?

Why am I writing about their website now? Well, I first saw this story on the (G-A-Y) Good As You website through Twitter. They wrote out a post and I couldn’t help but chime in and give my 2¢ on the subject. Here is the AFA’s hate post about Home Depot giving gifts to thousands of homosexual activists.

The Human Rights Campaign by the way isn’t just a pro-gay organization, they are a pro-human being organization. Any time a person is being wronged whether they are black, white, gay, straight or whatever, they are there to support your rights as a human being.  Get it? Human rights! Gay people are humans and we are being denied the same rights as straight people and that’s what the HRC is trying to fight for us.