Telling Truth to Popcorn Eaters

     Last night I re-watched "American History X", a 20-year old film that I saw and thought highly of twenty years ago. I thought well of it this time too. It's a film that condemns the Skinhead / Ultra Right / White Power movement that was on the rise a generation ago. And it applies just as well today as it did then.

     But in watching it a second time, I noticed something I may have missed the first time. Which is: the film rejects this movement for all sorts of reasons that aren't directly related to the essence of the movement. Meanwhile, it gives the espousal of the movement's philosophy full voice, without ever allowing full expression to the logical repudiation of this philosophy.

     I don't criticize the heart or intent of the film. It provides a hard look at a difficult subject, and one that's difficult to fully break down and analyse. I just wish it had tried a bit harder to do so.

     The way I viewed it, the arguments that the film presents as to why the Ultra Right is to be rejected are:

- it's a movement that stems from anger and that seeks targets for that anger

- it gives its practitioners an 'other' to blame for their hardships

- the practitioners of this creed do horrible things to people

- some of the people 'selling' this creed are self-serving or are cowards

- and that being associated with this life-style puts one into association with crude and violent, anti-social, ignorant freaks.

     Now, all of these are reasons why one might legitimately decline to follow a life-style, or to buy into a creed or social organization. However, none of them in any way undermine the fundamentals of a belief system itself. All of the reasons above can equally apply to followers of particular movements that have grown out of Christianity, Buddhism, Anarchy, Capitalism, Communism, whatever. There are people who follow all of those creeds for the wrong reasons, who do horrible things in its name, and who avoid the painful reality of their lives in doing so. It doesn't make those philosophies wrong.

     The shame of it is, the film does such a great job of showing Derek Vinyard, the protagonist as portrayed by Edward Norton, making very intense and powerful arguments that I'm sure are the very arguments that in fact successfully brought in so many of it's followers. But those in the film who oppose the philosophy either express their views weakly or they are preoccupied with the emotional/social/relational problems of this protagonist. Or worst of all, the character best able to attack the philosophy at its core, by demonstrating its factual and intellectual weaknesses, that being Dr. Sweeney, as portrayed by Avery Brooks, isn't given the opportunity to do so. What a lost opportunity.

     Sweeney is depicted throughout as an intelligent, perceptive, caring, professionally skilled educator. It is he who points out the most potent of the reasons why Derek's clinging to White Power is misguided. But he isn't ever given the screen time to actually enunciate why the arguments of the Far Right are wrong.

     I will be guilty here of committing the same error, in that I'm not going to make that analytical breakdown here. Maybe the film - as I do - presumes that its consumers know the argument. Maybe we're both right. My defense though is that I didn't set out here to break down the Ultra Right, as I believe the film set out to do. My purpose here is to point out how a really good film fell just short of a mark it might easily have reached. And one of the main reasons I make that point here is that it isn't really an isolated fault in popular entertainment.

     "Unforgiven" is an outstanding film that is said to be against violence. But I don't see that it ever really makes an argument about violence being inherently wrong. Instead it shows how being violent has corroded or destroyed the lives of particular individuals. A great argument is made, yes, but without resorting to the direct argument that it might have employed.

     "Django Unchained" is another example. In particular, I recall the scene in which the plantation owner played by DiCaprio makes a case that Blacks demonstrate their inferiority by their failure to rise up when outnumbering their oppressors. That argument leaves out so much of reality. But the counter-arguments are never presented. Instead, the oppressor is simply destroyed in a manner that satisfies the lust for vengeance, but doesn't even bother to address reason.

     That's my rant. Great movies that I wish had been a little greater. Maybe I need to just shut up and make my own movie. Or at least write one. Or a book.

Final Lap of NaNo

     It's been almost four weeks since I started NaNo - National Novel Writing Month. With 3 days left, I've produced 45,578 of the 50K word target, just slightly ahead of pace for finishing on the 30th.
And I'm really liking my novel.

     But beyond simply being happy with the result, I feel I've learned a lot about writing. I feel much more comfortable with the idea of setting deadlines for myself and being able to produce. The reluctance I've had around that in the past has had a lot to do with getting stuck upon encountering problems in the production of a particular piece that I didn't know how to solve.
   
     Barbara, a fellow writer in my first writing group, used to always advise 'writing through' any such problems. And while I thought I understood what she meant, I get it on a much deeper level now. Because each of the problems I've encountered this month, with plot, character development, continuity, eliminating contradictions, what have you, have been solved by writing through them.

     The difference has been that, 1) I've given myself permission to write badly, and 2) the commitment to producing the daily word count of approximately 1,700 words a day has forced me to keep on writing when I'm writing badly. That's amounted to a potent combination because, incredibly and with remarkable consistency, I've learned that I can only write badly for so long before I stumble across something that isn't quite so bad. And that not so bad opens the doorway to something better.

     The result is that, these bad writing days have always generated something that led into a good writing day, which is another way of saying: to a solution to a writing problem that was blocking me.
Writing and writing and writing, however I might feel about it in the moment, has led to me finding solutions to a dozen or so really challenging problems in the development of this novel. And I'm going to finish up with a manuscript that, while short and incomplete, has substantial idea content, a few dynamic characters, and a decent plot.

     There will be lots to do in December, but I'm going to insist to myself that I not let this project drag on for much longer than that. Perhaps I'll set myself other deadlines.

     Many WriMo's come back to it year after year. That was surprising to me when I first heard it, because I thought of this as a kind of quirky, un-serious, bucket-list sort of thing. But I get it now, and can already see myself doing another round next November.

     I'm extremely grateful for what this month has been. My writing Life is certainly reinvigorated. I have so many ideas for books I'd like to write, that at my previous pace were total dream-stuff. Now I see that it isn't inconceivable that I could produce 1st drafts of all of them in one year! I don't think I'll reach that far. I'm going to unchain the editor and let him at it, after all. But things are looking good in Novel Writing Land. Better than ever before!

My NaNoWriMo

      On a sudden inspiration, I decided to do National Novel Writing Month this year. To participate, you set out to complete a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. That makes for a fairly short novel, but a good chunk of work for just about any month. It comes to 1,667 words a day, or about 7 double-spaced, type-written pages.

     I heard about the challenge years ago, and have met a couple of people who tried it. But I'd never considered attempting it myself. Not with work, a fairly eventful personal life, and on-going writing projects that I struggled to make time for. I realized a while back that I was never going to be that writer who gets the job done while holding down a job. It's not that I wouldn't like to be. Just isn't in my character or my skill set.

     Looking back over my writing history, the few times I accomplished forward progress were all periods when I was either un-employed or under-employed. I accepted some time ago that multi-tasking is not my thing. A good writing day for me is anything but efficient. I get it done in chunks ranging from one to three hours long, with equally long chunks of mostly unstructured time between them, during which I might be reading, or walking, or running around doing chores, or not doing chores, or doing crosswords, or catching up on news, or sending emails, or out on my bike, or walking, or visiting with a friend. On just sitting somewhere thinking about things. That's a process that works for me really well.

     I discovered during my first forays into writing that it's these varied periods of not writing that generate ideas and insights. It's when I stumble into solutions to writing problems. I can then return to my typewriter or computer ready for another hour or two or three, after which I'm spent again and unable to continue. The same sorts of ideas and insights have always come to me while working, and I've jotted down a thousand of them over the decades, and have gotten a start developing dozens. But I've brought very, very few of them to any kind of completion. In fact, the main reason I started this blog was to take on short subjects that I could complete and offer up to readers in a day or two. And it's been wonderful for that.

     But I was never going to develop into any kind of writer with this process. Which brings me to now, to retirement. It's been more wonderful than I can express. For the first time, I'm able to structure my days in a way that facilitates my writing, and not feel that it causes issues in other areas of my life. For the first time, I'm able to live as the writer I want to be, for more than just a month or a few weeks. And I'm loving it. Which brings me to NaNoWriMo.

     Having arrived at this point of freedom, I was still stuck in a slow and ineffective writing pattern. Every substantial piece I've written has been completed over a period of weeks or months. My cynical and over-critical inner editor has become more and more of a tyrant over the years. I have a novel - one I actually think is pretty good - that I've been dusting off and pulling out to work on since 1996! That's so long ago that what was originally intended as a totally contemporary work has become a period piece. I have so many pieces and versions of it on my various computers that; they're like pieces of a fossilized missing link that I'm struggling to piece together. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it. But what I know is that I must get past the glacially slow production method that produced it.

     So when I came upon a mention of NaNoWriMo in a recent edition of Poets & Writers, it struck me as the perfect thing. I would force my obnoxious inner editor into a month long hiatus, if not outright retirement, and simply write, write, write for a month. And hopefully, by the 30th, I'd have established some flow, some rhythm, and a habit of cranking out several pages every day, regardless of quality. And 12 days and 21,000 words in, I feel that I'm accomplishing just that.

     The non-profit behind NaNoWriMo maintains a website that's full of acknowledgment and encouragement for participants, including chat rooms, and schedules for the meet-ups happening all around the world, for writing together and a bit of socializing. There are veterans there to advise and encourage newbies like myself, and a word counting feature for us to track our progress. I was initially concerned that I was approaching the month with nothing more than an idea that came to me about a year ago, that I'd done nothing at all to outline it. But I've never been a planner anyway, but rather one of those writers who figures it out as I go.

     One of the pleasures of these 12 days had been watching this seed of an idea grow and branch out, session by session, as characters take shape and do things that introduce new elements and considerations. Yes, there's the increasing challenge of holding it all together, and this generates some tension, but only so much as it also generates possibilities.

     I expect that I'll post again as the 30th approaches, and report on how it's gone. I gave myself full permission to write badly, but so far, I kinda like what's taking shape. Another invitation/gift to myself was to try something different. I During my twenties and thirties I read lots of great, classic science fiction, but never gave a serious thought to writing it. But the idea that came to me a year ago, and that I decided to run with, is just that: a sci-fi romp in the tradition of the old masters: Asimov, LeGuin, Delany, Sturgeon, Arthur C. Clarke!...and I'm feeling their influence as I freestyle to my heart's content.

     Thank You NaNoWriMo, for your crazy inspiration!