Randall Wallace, director of Secretariat and writer of Braveheart among other good movies, answers a few questions for World. “If anything feels like it’s a Sunday school lesson, that would drive me away from a theater, let alone someone who isn’t disposed to the same viewpoint. When I go to the movies, I’m not looking to be exposed to somebody else’s dogma. And when I make a movie I’m not looking to explain my intellectual arguments of faith to somebody else.”
How the other half blogs
I apologize for the brevity of my posts lately. I’m going through what is, for me, an unusually busy time–I’m still writing posts for the Virtual Book Tour, I gave a lecture last night, have a meeting tonight, and have to drive to a meeting 3 1/2 hours away tomorrow. I guess I’ll get to rest on Sunday. Next weekend I’m driving to Chicago, for the International Vinland Seminar.
Am I nuts, I ask rhetorically.
And yet, I remind myself, other people (notably parents of children) endure much busier schedules for years on end. Of course, I’m older than most of them, but still.
A sharp reminder of my age came last night, when I suddenly developed a pain in one knee, which remains, lo, even unto this day. I greatly fear this is something I’ve brought on myself, by letting myself be overweight at an advanced age. Stress fatigue. If it had happened last week, I’d be able to say it was an injury from our combat shows. But all I was doing last night was giving a talk on Leif Eriksson to a Sons of Norway lodge, which is not, in most cases, a contact sport.
My Virtual Book Tour stop today is supposed to be Eccentric Eclectic Woman, but I don’t see anything showing up there.
5Q: Jonathan Rogers
Mr. Smith has Five Questions For Jonathan Rogers, Author of The Charlatan’s Boy.
SD–Fact: The Wilderking Books are gold for children (and adults) on many fronts. Truth? Check. Goodness, Beauty? Check, check. Were you inspired to write the trilogy by any concern over a lack of worthwhile fiction for kids, or was your motivation simply to make billions of dollars?
JR–I wouldn’t say any ‘concern’ about existing children’s fiction motivated me. I was quite ignorant of what was out there when I started writing the Wilderking books. I’m only a little less ignorant now. I will say I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how much worthwhile fiction is out there–though there is plenty that isn’t worthwhile. Here’s the thing, S.D.: I want people to like what I like. I think that’s a good enough reason to write stories. . . .
Waving as I sweep past
I gave a lecture tonight, and came home late. But I have a couple links.
Hal Colebatch, author of the Man-Kzin Wars books I’ve reviewed here and here, has an article on religion (or the lack of it) in Science Fiction over at The American Spectator.
And today’s virtual book tour stop is at Lori’s Reading Corner.
Designed for God's Glory
Bryan Chapell writes about taking grace for granted: “As a racehorse is made for running and a saxophone is made for jazz, we find our greatest glory when we do what we are designed to do and live as God in his grace has designed us. In godliness we find our truest and best humanity. Any other path leads only to ruin.”
We cannot prove our understanding or love of God’s gracious handling of us by indulging our sin. We must pursue holiness–imperfectly we understand, but still zealously. We were made for this.
Linkage
If there must be evil in the world, let there at least be more stories like this. All hail to Victor Perez for taking action to save a child. He should get a medal, and probably will.
As did Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller today, though sadly posthumously. The story from Threedonia blog is here.
On a far more trivial note, here’s the history of that traditional nuisance, the chain letter. Tip: Mirabilis. I note that, while a Methodist missionary school provides “one of the earliest known” instances, they apparently didn’t actually invent it.
Lastly, today’s Virtual Book Tour stop is Pump Up Your Book.
And with that, I leave you.
Australian Makes a Big Book
The last time a book this big was published, also an atlas, it was a gift for Charles II in 1660. Only 31 copies will be printed. How big is it?
Daughter of Feminist Author Suffered Growing Up
I don’t have any respect for The Color Purple, and now I have less respect for Alice Walker, but it’s good for some people to give themselves up as examples of bad ideology. Walker’s daughter, Rebecca, writes about how hard it was to live with a neglectful mother.
My mother would always do what she wanted – for example taking off to Greece for two months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that independent, or just plain selfish?
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me – a ‘delightful distraction’, but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.
According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio – some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.
Several links, mostly about me
OK, I’m back. On my way home from Minot, it became increasingly clear that I’d picked up something infectious and essence-sapping. I’m pretty sure it’s a bad cold. Still it was better than last year, when I drove home wounded. And it gives me an excuse for how tired I was by the end of the combat schedule.
If you’d like to see my interview, as broadcast on Minot Channel 13, the video is here. This was the 6:00 show. At 10:00 they did a shorter segment that just talked about my books. I had no objection to that.
The last day of Høstfest was crazy-making. The new family of club members who’d been helping us out had to go home early, at what turned out to be just the moment the hordes descended. People stood in long lines to have their pictures taken in Viking garb, and my own book sales weren’t bad either. It nearly killed us, but we went home laden with silver.
I’ve failed in my responsibility to keep you updated on my Virtual Book Tour appearances. Yesterday was the first stop, at Inkyblots blog.
Today I appeared at The Book Connection.
On a non-personal note, I have to mention the untimely death on Thursday of television producer and author Stephen J. Cannell, several of whose books I have read with great pleasure and reviewed here. R.I.P.
Boogieman as Censor
Loren Eaton talks about censorship in light of last week’s banned books celebration. Did you attend any book burnings or Protest The Read rallies? I was out of town, so I missed the usual fun.
From the Wall Street Journal article to which Loren links, complaints are as good as actual bans for the American Library Association (ALA): “For the ALA, what makes them censors is that they spoke up at all: ‘True’ patriots, presumably, would have kept quiet. Who, then, is afraid of discourse?” Indeed.