Thursday, September 20, 2007
That Old Panicky Feeling
Yesterday was my son's Jr. High Open House so that's what I was doing last night. I didn't get much writing done. Maybe three hundred words, and then it was really just too late. I don't want to get behind on my sleep. With soccer season on, I don't think I have any weekends for quite some time during which I can sleep in.
This morning I went to the gym and while I biked I notebooked and mapped out the ending for Scandal. I have that blocked out in my chapter outline and now I'm working my way there. I want to be done by Nov. 15 so I have a month to edit and polish. Meanwhile I have some chapters to fix, and one that is currently homeless, but soon won't be.
Back to work.
Oh, and I guess one last thing. People want to live their lives and be happy and avoid conflict and unpleasantness. But there are events that must not be left unremarked and wrongs that cannot be met with silence or inaction. It's not enough to think someone else will surely be more eloquent or is better placed to act. Quite probably that's true. But the point isn't to wait for someone else's eloquence or the action. The point is to add your voice somehow so that your silence doesn't add itself to evil. Forget eloquence. Act if you can, but speak out. So I'm speaking out.
It really makes me just spitting mad when people say or do things that insult, demean or denigrate another race or gender and then remark, with all seriousness, that gee, they didn't mean it
that way. Don't you get that it was a joke? You know, like those white kids in Jenna, Louisiana thought those nooses were a joke. Or the adults who actually said people are overreacting to a prank. Well, it wasn't a joke to the black kids. Right now the legal system in LA is failing all of us. A felony charge? Those nooses were powerful symbols of hate. And quite frankly, if the people of Jenna are really the non-rascists they claim to be, why the hell were they glaring from their porches (as was reported) instead of marching? That's another symbol and I understand it loud and clear. And that's just something I can't let go unremarked.
Labels: editing, hate, Scandal, writing
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