Yes, I know they’re both companies, and so technically can’t be stupid, but their systems and employees are both stupid and clueless. When they can’t figure out that they’ve made an error, and instead push it off on the homeowner, they’re moronic.

Try to follow along. Ocwen can’t.

In January 2007, we bought a house in Grove City. Saxon Mortgage Services made the loans. We actually had to do two loans – hereafter called the Big Loan (for about $250k) and the Little Loan (for a little less than $50k).

In January 2008, I was laid off from my manufacturing job. Such is life. We had some savings, and made our loan payments just fine for the next couple of months. Ironically, when we called Saxon Mortgage Services to explain out situation, they said they couldn’t help us, because we didn’t have enough income. Well, yes. That’s why we were calling you in the first place.

In July, I asked the trust officer in charge of my trust to start making loan payments for me, and they did. They sent a single check to Saxon Mortgage Services with both loan numbers written on the check. For August, September, and October, everything was fine. Both loans were paid appropriately.

In October 2009, Saxon Mortgage Services sold our loans to Ocwen Loan Servicing. Interestingly, when I saw who was getting the loan, I Googled Ocwen Loan Servicing, and in the first 15 results, saw 5 hits to company websites, 3 or 4 to news articles, and 5 or 6 to complaint/scam/ripoff boards complaining about the lack of service from Ocwen Loan Servicing. That wasn’t exactly confidence-inspiring.

When Saxon Mortgage Services processed the last payment they got, they applied the entire amount of the check to the Little Loan. I don’t know why. Maybe they thought they were doing someone a favor. Maybe they thought the Little Loan had an inferiority complex. Whatever. Saxon Mortgage Services screwed up posting the payments.

When Ocwen Loan Servicing got the loans, they said “Oh, Big Loan is a month behind. And Little Loan is three months ahead. Well, we’ll just let the owner know that he’s a month behind, and we’re sure he’ll clear it up.” The day I got the first statements from Ocwen Loan Servicing, I pointed out the apparent error. I explained that my trust fund had been making payments, and that those payments hadn’t changed, so there was no way for me to be behind on payments. They said they couldn’t see back beyond October, because all of the paperwork involved with transferring the loan hadn’t be processed, but Ocwen Loan Servicing assured me that everything would be cleared up once all the paperwork had been processed.

Any guesses on what happened?

For the last five months, Ocwen Loan Servicing has called me almost daily to ask when I can make the payments to bring Big Loan up to date. Every now and then, I’ve gotten a call from one rep, while I’m talking to another rep! Every time they call (and I actually break down and answer), I explain the whole situation to them. I’ve probably explained it to a dozen different CSRs. I doubt any of them have made any notes on my case, because every time I ask them, they say they have no information on any problems. I’ve lost my temper several times. It hasn’t been pretty.

Last week, I sent a 20-page packet of information and history to Ocwen Loan Servicing’s Research Department. Sent it Certified Mail, return receipt requested. The day I got that receipt back, I got a certified letter from Ocwen, notifying me that they say I’m in default on the loan.

In case Ocwen Loan Servicing hasn’t figured it out yet, I dispute the validity of the debt. I am NOT in default. Saxon Mortgage Services made an error in October 2009, and failed to correct it. I’ve notified Ocwen Loan Servicing multiple times of that error, and pointed out that I can’t fix it from my end. They have refused to correct the error.

I’ll send out another certified letter today, explaining in clear terms yet again that Saxon Mortgage Services, and Ocwen Loan Servicing is aware of the error, and that I’m not in default on my loan, but I’m not really hopeful that things will get cleared up without legal action. I’m not hopeful. Anyone know a good attorney?

My desktop computer has internet access, which means Facebook, Global Affairs, and all sorts of news and writings sites, as well as several games that have recently caught my attention. There are plenty of distractions there to keep me from being productive.

With all the noise and distractions, where’s a person to write?

One thing that’s helped me tremendously, I think, is a laptop computer. My wife and I bought a used Dell Inspiron 6000 several months ago, and we decided then that this was going to be for business use only. The only games installed are those that came with Windows. We’ve got wi-fi in the house, and the laptop came with wi-fi capability, so there are still the potential distractions of the internet. But I find that for some reason I can control what I do on the ‘Net when I’m on the laptop better than I can when I’m on the desktop.

The other capability the laptop has given me is that I can go elsewhere and still be productive. When I was away from the house, I used to use my Palm T|X and an infrared keyboard, but the Palm is getting old, and the infrared capability has died. I had considered trying to get it fixed, but we got the laptop first, and this is serving me well. At the moment, I’m hiding in the basement, which has reduced the noise considerably.

I also have an MP3 player that serves me well. My wife and kids got me a set of active noise-cancelling headphones for Christmas. I find I can put those on, kick off a random playlist on the MP3 player, and crank out words like there’s no tomorrow. When I’m in public, like waiting for the kids at the local rec center, I find that headphones not only make it easier to hear the music, but they tend to deter others from casual conversation better than earbuds. I’m not sure why that is, but I happily exploit it on occasion.

So where do you write best? What works for you?

A couple of people are going to drive from San Diego to San Francisco. I know it’s an 8-10 hour drive one way, but they’ve only really got the weekend to get up there, meet someone, and get back. They’re thinking about heading out early on a Friday evening.

What makes more sense for them? I-5? 101?

What about LA traffic? What’s the best way around or through there?

Neither person is a California native, but they’ve both been there for a while. The driver has probably been in California for 10 years or so; the passenger for about 4, off and on.

Comments or suggestions? Where might they stop if they leave Friday night? Give me some local color!

I posed a version of that question to my friend/editor Joy, and she pointed me to several authors: Brandilyn Collins, Dee Henderson, Terri Blackstock, among others. I’ve read a few of Dee’s works, and just finished Terri’s Cape Refuge (and liked it a lot). Dee’s O’Malley series involves a violent stalker. Cape Refuge opens with a double murder. Collins writes Christian suspense. Can I do this?

Brandilyn had a great post the other day about a great fan letter, which in turn linked to a not-so-great fan letter, and that one was the one that really moved me. It was especially heartening to get an encouraging comment from Brandilyn on Facebook.

So I’ve been reading Brandilyn’s blog on a regular basis lately, and today there was a link to Mike Duran’s excellent blog, Decomposing. He’s got some great posts about some topics I’ve really been struggling with, so I’ve got some reading to do. Between his and Brandilyn’s blog, and the AFCW reading lists (social issues and author comparison, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

Don’t Stop Believin has a strong religious story arc, despite the adult entertainment background. One of the main characters learns about God’s love for her, and then make some difficult decisions about how to deal with the changes salvation brings into her life. Even if a Christian publisher won’t accept it as-is, I think it could be re-written without too much difficulty into an acceptable story.

I haven’t found that angle yet for Sad Girl yet. But I have some time ago determined that I’m not going to write a book that doesn’t glorify God in some way so I need to pay attention to that as I continue the outlining process. I’m still learning about the main character, named Danny Cumberland, and his girlfriend Teresa Chadwick, so maybe there are some things they haven’t told me about themselves yet. I hope so. It’s disconcerting to think about putting so much effort into a story that I won’t be able to write.

Three hundred and sixty weeks.

101, 380 words.

Actually, no. I’m off by two words. Forgot to count “The End.”

Yes, roughly 60,576 hours later, Don’t Stop Believin’ is done, or at least the first draft is. Time to back up that file, and start thinking about another story or two before I start rewriting this one.

It’s been an interesting week, quite honestly. My mother-in-law passed away Friday, on her ex-husband’s birthday, which turned out to be the day after I wrote the last words. The moment itself was…humbling, and surreal. My first thought was, “Holy crap, I’m really done.”

It was certainly an intriguing journey. In the real world, I’ve changed jobs twice, and added a child to my family. In the book, two people have died, one gave her life to Christ, and another is almost there. It took me almost seven years to tell a story that only spans 65 days. That worked out to 151 days of actual writing, spread out over the aforementioned 2,524 days, or about once every 16 days. When I was writing, I was cranking out an average of about 670 words a day. But there were long stretches of no writing, for different reasons. Most of the time, I blamed my muse for no longer speaking to me. In her defense, I didn’t really try speaking to her, so it’s fair for her to keep quiet, I suppose. Ah well.

For the next few days, no more writing. Visitation is Tuesday, and the funeral is Wednesday. It’ll be a long week. I’ve already got the basics for the next story in mind. It’s a short I wrote a couple of years ago, and I think it’s worth turning into a novel. At least I hope it is.

For some, that brings doubt not about the Shroud of Turin, but about the new discovery. I am certain that some will think that because of the differences between the clothes, they will think that the newly found shroud is fake, because they “know” the Shroud of Turin is Jesus’ burial shroud.

This announcement comes just two months after an Italian professor of organic chemistry made it known that he had produced an almost identical copy of the Shroud of Turin, using various pigments and common painting techniques. Professor Luigi Garlaschelli says now that he has the process down, he thinks he could create another reproduction in about a week.

In my younger years, I felt sure that the Shroud of Turin really was what people believe it is. It made sense to me that whatever Godly energy that radiated from Jesus when He was resurrected could have left an afterimage on the cloth that surrounded him at the time. As science worked more on the Shroud, I held to my faith. Surely God would have left some physical evidence of one of the most important events in the history of Christianity.

As I’ve aged (matured?) though, I’ve begun to have doubts about the Shroud, as well as the many other religious relics attributed to Jesus Christ. That is not to say I’ve doubted the existence or the deity of Jesus. But I doubt that we will ever find any object that can categorically and convincingly be tied to Jesus’ time on earth. I honestly and truly believe that we’re never going to find the real tomb of Jesus, or anything relating to the Crucifixion or Resurrection.

Why? God commands against idols, and He knows how we as humans would idolize the sites, and the objects. Witness the thousands of years of bitter controversy about the Shroud. Much of the New Testament is about faith, and faith doesn’t need objects, but rather experiences. Faith is defined as “confidence or trust in a person or thing,” or “belief that is not based on proof.” This latter definition is the more important one, I think. Having physical proof of Jesus’ presence on earth would negate the need for faith. Jesus told Thomas after the Resurrection, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:24-29 NIV).

If Jesus said this to Thomas, would He make it easier for us to believe by seeing?

I know what December funerals are like. My mother died December 21, 1998. I had about 20 months prior to that date gotten saved, converting from a non-practicing Lutheran to an evangelical Protestant denomination (Church of the Nazarene). My father was Lutheran; my mother was, I think, Presbyterian. Religion wasn’t that big of a thing in our family, although my dad had always required us to go to church. I had been baptized as an infant, and gone through confirmation. But nothing ever clicked for me.

Dad had died in 1994. My mom had health issues of one kind or another, leading her to be hospitalized in mid-December for venous bypass to help save her legs from the ravages of advanced and out-of-control diabetes. It was only moderately successful, and as she was recovering, she suffered a stroke.

She was dying that Monday.

I had driven from Columbus to Marietta the day before after a rambling phone call from the ICU nurse about how my mom was “decompensating,” and frantic calls to my brother in Oregon. My wife stayed in Columbus with our two small children.

One of the things most evangelical churches teach is that if you present the Gospel to someone, and ask them to make a commitment of their life to Christ, and they refuse, they’re condemning themselves to Hell. The thinking is that they’ve refused salvation. My mom was not overly religious, and at the time, I felt that I needed to “get her saved,” as I understood things. But I didn’t want to have a salvation talk with her, for fear she would refuse the commitment at the end. She had been confused over why I wanted to be baptized again as a born-again Christian, even though I had been baptized as a baby in the Lutheran church. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on matters of religion.

So I had hemmed and hawed about it, and now it was too late. My brother and I, along with the parish nurse and the visitation pastor from the local Lutheran Church were in the ICU room watching my mother die. The pastor was at the foot of the bed. My brother was on the right side, and the nurse was next to him. I was on the left side. I was bawling my eyes out, convinced that my own fear and weakness had kept my mother from hearing the salvation message that I thought I had a duty to tell her.

It was not long after nine PM, and I was holding her hand, and telling her I loved her, and that I was sorry. And at that moment, just before she died, I felt a hand on my shoulder, as though someone had come up beside me on my left side, and put their arm around me. And a quiet or “still, small” voice said to me, “It’s OK. She’s with me now.” Perhaps a minute later, her heart stopped.

Could I have imagined it? Could I have created that experience out of an intense desire to know that I would see her again in heaven? I suppose.

Could it have been Satan, taunting me? I doubt it. I believe in Satan, just as I believe in God, and the resurrection of Christ. You can’t logically believe in God, and not believe in Satan; you can’t have good without not-good, or evil. But it’s not Satan’s style to say something like that. He’d have been screaming “She’s mine now, you fool! You failed!”

I am convinced though that what I experienced that night in a lonely ICU room was a loving, merciful, compassionate God tending to His child in the best way He could. I didn’t want my mom to die. I miss her and my dad terribly. But her body was worn out. Yes, He could have healed her, just as Christ healed so many. But physically touching me was much more miraculous than anything he could have done for her. My God, the Creator of the universe, the Great I Am, presented Himself to someone who was hurting and alone one night. How can I doubt a God like that?

So that is what I choose to remember in December. I could focus on the loss, and how my mother won’t be around to see her grandchildren grow up, and how they won’t have as many loving grandparents in their lives. I could focus on the anguish of watching her lie in a bed, her body refusing to give up. But instead, I choose to focus on the way my God showed His love for me. Isn’t that the better way to deal with Christmas ghosts?

I’ve heard the word tragic used to describe the incident, and it certainly was. It was tragic that over 50 people on a US military installation were unable to defend themselves.

In a combat zone, soldiers aren’t without their weapons. That rifle or sidearm gets carried everywhere the soldier goes, because they never know when they’ll need that weapon. We trust them in a combat deployment to handle their weapons safely, and to know when to shoot, and when not to shot.

I’m told that it wasn’t that long ago that officers and non-commissioned officers always carried a sidearm with them, on post or off. I suppose it’s been quite a while, as I served some 20 years ago, and no one I knew carried a weapon off duty. But it used to be a matter of honor for personnel to carry a weapon; they would never be caught without one.

But on 5 November, many were caught without one. Some were caught dead. Fort Hood Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley and Sgt Mark Todd responded to reports of gunfire within three minutes. There’s no question that their speedy and heroic response saved lives. But what of the lives lost in those three minutes?

I’m not faulting the response of Fort Hood Police at all. But they can’t be everywhere. Sgt Munley happened to be within three minutes of the SRC. But what if she had been farther away? How many more would have died?

I am outraged that a member of the US Armed Forces would turn a weapon against his fellow soldiers, violating his oath as an officer, and the Soldier’s Creed.

I am even more outraged that members of the US Armed Forces were disarmed on their post, unable to respond to a threat. There is no excuse for Major Hasan, and no excuse for the inability of his victims to defend themselves. What have we come to as a nation that we would disarm the very people who are sworn to protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic?