Entries from September 2008 ↓

That is the often quoted commencement address that Winston Churchill supposedly gave. According to the Churchill Centre the actual quote is a bit different and part of a longer speech:

Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Why do I post this? Because sometimes it just feels like the world doesn’t need any more words. There are enough books already. Why write another one? Why write anything at all? Why even finish this blog post?

But then I think about Richard Bach: “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.”

Never, never, never, never, never give up. Who cares if Winston really said it? Give me a cigar and a bowtie, because I’m going to keep quoting him.

When Tina Howard (spaghettipie and Blog Tour Spot) asked me to participate in a blog tour for Marla Alupoaicei, I happily agreed. I met Marla at Mt. Hermon, and we had a good conversation. She’s also a published poet.

That’s why I’m posting about her latest book, Generation Hex, written with Dillon Burroughs. I promised to post a review. I do have many concerns about the book, though. You can read an excellent summary of the book’s problems at John Morehead’s site. I share the concerns he raises, so I won’t rehash them here. But please, go read his post.

Continue reading →

Last week, I interviewed Michael Card when I was out at Laity Lodge. We’re looking to create a Laity Lodge podcast, and I’m exploring some tools here to see what that might look like for them. As a bonus, Sandy Wood of StarDate fame was also there, and she generously loaned us her voice for the intro/outro.

This one’s branded as Laity Lodge since it’s an experiment for them, but I’ll probably consolidate all of my other podcasts here over a set period of time.

Let me know what you think! If you’re interested in subscribing to this via iTunes, you’ll have to manually load the RSS feed (http://www.goodwordediting.com/?feed=podcast) in your advanced options. I’m not going to submit to iTunes for awhile until I have some more episodes to work with.

 

 Laity Lodge 1 - Michael Card [13:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last night, my wife and I went to see The Dark Knight. We’re a little slow about these things. We loved it, but we were both perplexed that the movie felt so long. At 2.5 hours, it was a little long, but not unusually long for movies these days.

And then, the typical post-movie conversation took place.

ME: I think the movie had too many acts.

HER: Too many?

ME: Well, more than I’m used to. I like three. But that was all over the place. Not in a bad way. But it’s hard to wrap my head around the narrative.

Then we spent a few minutes trying to recreate the plot… and we had a lot of trouble. We got lost trying to figure out how a major character ended up dying. So we gave up.

“It’s like the plot was intentionally a chaotic mess,” I said. “Again, not in a bad way.” Thus began an elaborate discussion (during which I missed the Starbucks exit because I can’t talk and drive).

We decided the chaotic structure of the movie supported the overall theme of chaos and anarchy. But not before we raised the old issue of plot versus character. Are the best stories character-driven or plot-driven? No doubt, both elements are important, but which is the most important?

Is a well played Joker enough to satisfy? Is a clever plot with paper thin characters enough to satisfy?

I’ve talked with folks about plot outlines. Mark David Gerson got me thinking about it again today. And I always come back to the same metaphor. When I start a story, poem, book, or even an essay, I have a destination in mind. Writing is a road trip so get a good map. (None of this crazy On Star stuff!) There will be hundreds, maybe thousands of different routes to get from the starting point to the destination you planned. There will be many, many interesting people to meet along the way, if you have the patience to take things slowly.

And of course, sometimes you get lost (in a good way) and end up settling in a different spot than you had originally intended. Which means you may have to retrace the journey several times to change the reader’s expectations at the beginning of the trip.

The analogy is wearing thin, but the question remains. In a good story, do you emphasize character over plot, or plot over character? Which is the most important to you… and why?

For just a minute, I’m going to adopt the role of pastor here. So file in. Take a pew. Sing a song by yourself. Say a prayer. Is your mind in the right place? Good.

Let’s talk about politics.

It’s that time. Now that both parties have had their convention, things could get heated. Here’s a reminder to folks to behave appropriately. Be careful when you change your status on Facebook to some politically cranky rant. Be careful on Twitter. Be careful when you leave comments.

I wonder if we should make a pact with each other? Let’s be accountable on our blogs and social networks to a higher level of discourse for the next few months with these Ten Commandments of Talking (or blogging) Politics.

(Also, I turned the commments off on this one. But you can go comment on the full post at HighCallingBlogs.com)