The most chilling movie I've ever seen was so boring, it made me fall asleep.
After dozing off, I woke up to a sequence from Joe Gould's Secret that was brutal in its honesty. It was like my own Christmas Carol; I've seen The Ghost of Christmas Future.
New Yorker staff writer Joe Mitchell finally confronts this charismatic, irascible son-of-a-bitch Joe Gould.
Gould is a local legend with the artistic elite in 1940s New York City. He's labored for years on his "oral history of the world." Gould has devoted his entire life to producing a real history, derived not by chronicling titans, but by talking and listening to common folk.
Gould claims his tome runs over a million word long, but no publisher will read it.
Mitchell intervenes and gets a publisher to meet him on the street as a personal favor. Joe Gould freaks and offers weak excuse after weak excuse - no one will read it, my handwriting is terrible, the manuscript is scattered all over Long Island with my friends - until you realize, there is no manuscript.
You've heard incisive, moving excerpts of the "oral history" throughout the film. You want it to exist. But it's all in Gould's head. It doesn't exist.
The film doesn't stop there though.
Later on, Mitchell confronts Joe Gould: the manuscript doesn't exist. It doesn't because you've been too lazy to write it down.
Joe Gould stares out the window with a silent sadness that only a failed writer knows.
I don't want to ever stare like Joe Gould. And right now, if my life ended. I would.
I've had professors, peers, even one of the producers of The Godfather films, say I have a gift for writing. They want to see my work.
But I write little. I finish less. I publish and share nothing. I am Joe Gould.... for now.
Earlier this year, I posted about my excitement about the New Baptist Covenant. And I encourage as many people as possible to attend next Janurary's celebration.
But I am not in a celebratory mood.
Across the nation, an ugliness is emerging that I hoped was long gone. There's a palpable anger in America and it's increasingly directed at non-whites. Draconian anti-illegal measures have become law from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma.
Cowards are again hanging nooses to intimidate African Americans... and a lot of people don't consider that a hate crime.
Rumors circulate that Iran's next in our so-called "War on Terror." And some are using that to condemn Muslims as "Islamo-fascists" that pose a greater threat to America than Hitler, Stalin, or any other past enemy.
I worry for my wife, a legal immigrant from Mexico, in this poisionous environment. We're stirring up a hornet's nest of fear. People in that state don't ask for a green card before acting on their hatred. I worry for innocent Iranian women and children.
And while I worry... Baptists are celebrating.
We're finally organizing. We're finally willing to do something and counteract a conservative movement that's besmirched our savior's name, bankrupted our country, and led us into an unneccessary war. While all this goes on, we pat ourselves on the back that we can sit in the same room and get along.
The world doesn't need another Baptist potluck. It needs old-school Baptists who understand the separation of church and state and know how to engage with their society prophetically.
I wish everyone attending the event well. But, don't bother me until we're willing move beyond nice words and act.
The New Baptist Covenant could not come at a better time.
As a twentysomething, I have known nothing but a world where my faith tradition has been defined by SBC fundamentalists.
It's hard to claim being a Baptist when your denomination is best known for boycotting Disney, questioning the sexual orientation of Teletubbies, advocating an exodus from public schools, and blindly supporting America's war machine.
The New Covenant means I no longer have to apologize for being Baptist. I can easily support an organization working to support racial unity and advocating compassionate ministry.
We need more people working to speak out and affirm Baptist principles. Silence is no longer an option if we want the gospel to remain good news.
Indeed, if we are honest, we would admit that we may have waited too long. For many of my generation, Baptist (even more so Southern Baptist) is a pejorative. Even worse, I am beginning to see similar reactions when I simply claim to be Christian.
The covenant is a promising start, but sustained action is needed.
As a writer, my work often revolves around this theme -- standing up for our values and not letting warmongering theocrats speak for my religion and my culture anymore.
What can you do?
Writing is a mysterious, idiosyncratic practice. Our biggest challenge, especially as beginners, is to silence our inner critic and what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance.
(Resistance is the inner killjoy that pounds your resolve into shreds. We're all put on this planet to pursue some dream, or calling, and 90% of us resist it. Instead, we resist these longings - to become a novelist, to open our own business - and opt for safety and comfort.
A confession: I subscribe to this because I cannot believe in a God that calls so many people to be lawyers.)
Every writer must overcome Resistance and our pinche inner critic in their own way. Finally, after a year of floundering in grad school, I think I've found mine. My nefarious tag team needs more sleep than I do. If I wake up after a decent night of sleep, I have a 15-20 minute window where I can think and create unencumbered. The same applies to that window of time that I lie in bed, in the dark, before I fall asleep. (The idea germinated from a Seinfeld episode I watched last night.)
I noticed this today when I woke up and, while I was still wiping away my eye boogers, I was hit with BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Simultaneously, I had the realization I've already described above, the plot to my screenplay congealed, and I discovered a solution to the impasse that exists with my first novel.
The problem? Like three hungry baby birds, they were all vying for my unfettered attention. My mind loops and wanders, so I was barely able to transcribe a third of what I sensed before Dumb and Dumber crashed the party.
I'll have to try a tape recorder instead.
It was almost painful the other night to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sing about a war whose purpose Americans never really understood, started by a president who didn’t tell the truth and then waged the war ineptly. And that was before they sang about Iraq.Andrew Rosenthal of the NY Times offers the most incisive and cogent analysis of the current (lack of an) anti-war movement in his opinion column "There Is Silence in the Streets; Where Have All the Protesters Gone?." A variety of reasons are cited, including lack of a draft and media manipulation.
However, the most haunting reason is this: politeness. My generation has been reared to believe that moderates and liberals are tolerant, polite and, above all, non-judgmental.
Yes, Jesus himself, instructs us not to judge others, but he still held ideals passionately. His passion overflowed into justified anger when he overturned the money changers tables in the temple.
Everything is not relative. We can and need to acknowledge the wide palattes of grays in real life, but some things are BLACK and WHITE. Right and wrong.
Fighting war, other than as a LAST resort, is wrong. (This eliminates every war/conflict we've fought since combating Hitler.)
Tortuing "enemy combatants" is wrong.
Holding them indefinetly without charges and a lawyer is wrong.
Remaining silent while atrocities are committed in your name is wrong.
Spending more on wars than public education is wrong.
There is no gray here. Being "subtle" or polite is not a virtue in the face of unquestionable evil.
I have done very little to oppose this war. I believe my creator will not accept "But, I was busy with grad school!" as an excuse. My lack of activism will be corrected shortly.
I returned from my writing tutorial session. My prof tore me a new one. I have a lot of work to do on the following: theme, scene structure, conflict, internalization, point of view, and how a story should progress... just to name a few.
I appreciate the honesty. We talked and created a plan of action for the next week and will do so each week for the rest of the semester. This is what I wanted.
Still, the truth friggin' hurts. So, I'm gonna mope and listen to Idlewood Blue (Don'tchu Worry About Me) on repeat for about ten minutes.
Then, I willl get back at it. :)
Every tome on writing riffs off the same basic premise. How do you learn to write? By Writing. A lot.
For some reason, I always resisted this. The pragmatist in me couldn't see how knowingly barging ahead in the wrong direction is a good idea. So, I would read and re-read Story by Robert McKee, the Writers Digest books on craft by Jack Bickham, online articles, etc. In short, anything I could get my hands on to learn the craft.
Funnily, conventional wisdom is right. After years of reading on writing more than actually writing, I have made little progress. You can't sell your reading notes to a publisher.
My professor, Deborah Chester, gave the same platitude in a way that finally seeped through my thick skull yesterday. "You have to wallow through a million words of junk, before you reach gold."
An image of a McDonald's-syle sign flashed in my head when I heard this. It looked something like this:
Prescott's
34,000 words wasted and counting...
Excuse me, I need to go add to my tally.
I am a regular participant in a new group blog called Mainstream Baptists. We have pooled our efforts into creating a recognized site for those interested in religous liberty, separation of church and state, and mainstream social issues.
Michael Westmoreland-White compiled each of the contributors' data into brief bios. Check it out here.
I have been in a funk for the past year: unhappy with the lack of resources in my grad program, particularly the lack of instruction; overworked and underpaid; and worrying enough to drain years off my life.
I have been eerily bipolar lately. I call ecstatic and happy about my meeting with KJW and my first classes with Professor Chester. Then, the next day I come back venting and angry again.
We talked and it turns out that two years into our marriage, we still have to learn some things about each other. I do not know Monica, the worker bee. Turns out she is happy with her job and situation, happy with our current income and rather spartan amounts of disposable income (for now), and in no rush to go back to school or have a baby. If I need to stay a third year at OU, do it. If I want to go on and get a MFA, more power to me. When Moni decides she wants to go back to school, she'll do so, come hell or high water.
I think in my rush to put myself in her shoes, I transferred my own darkest fears and concerns rather than actually look at my wife's desires and needs. My own personal hell was paved with the best intentions: I want nothing more than to love and cherish my wife and serve her.
I resolved to find my way out of the funk. To stop being a worrywart. To read my Bible again. To get off my ass and back onto the basketball court. To sneak behind my Resistance, slit its throat, bury it in a nondisclosed grave, and make writing fun again. (Sorry for the graphic imagery, but writer's block is an evil second only to AT&T's customer service department.)
I resolved to be happy again and my boy, Jonathan, called out of the blue and we yukked it up on the phone for TWO hours. Good times.
