WORDS ARE YOUR TEMPLE

I've been on the prowl lately, digging through blogs and online articles, in search of my next influential character in the screenwriting profession, someone who can offer a piece of inspirational advice, give an unknown tip, a clue, or at least lead by example in what I consider to be, or should be, one of the highest regarded professions: working with words.

I navigated a labyrinth of URL's, swam a sea of scripts, and "Googled" until I considered "Binging" it (but trust me, I won't go that low), and came upon a great big nothing, an abyss, a black hole, a void. Oh sure, there were plenty of "posts", but you really couldn't classify them as articles. Reading about how much someone drank on the weekend or who they slept with might be juicy, but that's not an article in the sense of information. But maybe what I deem to be an article is totally different from the real definition, which I won't go into because I just looked it up and it's disappointing to me: articles do not have to contain information.

Nevertheless, my search was disappointing. Oh sure, I read through a lot of JOHNAUGUST.COM, sucked in a lot of Rossio's WORDPLAY.COM, but these are my standard professional screenwriters. I was looking for that undiscovered great scribe, the incognito Shakespeare, a diamond in the rough. Someone who put a lot of thought and content into their blog, not simply linking other good columns or scripts, or "Youtube". Come on, bloggers, if your post is a "Youtube" link then at least make sure it is something we can learn from or laugh at, not a bathroom full of partygoers shotgunning canned beers (yes, that was someone's blog post of their own weekend party).

Perhaps I just don't get it. Maybe a blog is meant to be a living journal, spewing with the "f-word" and typical hijinks of a "9 to 5er", who wants to use this technology to break out of their shell in the only way they see capable. Maybe expecting true web content from writers is setting the bar too high, and we instead should feel privileged to see deep inside their souls through their posts, many of which only occur monthly or weekly.

My background is decorative artistry: it's visual, all about composition, color, and value. There aren't any words involved, and I believe that people, especially Americans, love that fact. We are very attracted to symbolism and interpretation. With one look at a piece of art we become the judge, the official; whether or not we are artists, we quickly come to our own conclusion of whether something is "good art", and many of us are not afraid to voice it.

But with writing, I think that we are a bit too liberal. We're not as quick to criticize words as much as visual art; instead, we are more likely to empathize with a scribe spilling out the contents of their emotional sarcophagus, looming with skeletons and clunky chains. Some of the stuff I run onto out there is just downright creepy.

We know the saying that the "body is our temple". I'm sure there are plenty of idioms concerning words as well, but I'm done "Googling" for today. For the moment I want to visualize words as if they were a temple, as when I strolled "FORUM ROMANUM" with my Lovely Wife. Where, although a ruins, every cobblestone, column, and lintel was set with meaning, with a purpose. That place gives you pride about being a human being, it's the birthplace of democracy, set by ideas, words, and actions.

I'm the first to admit that I cannot "ace" a grammar test. I would be the last person to place first at a spelling bee. Talk "participle" anything and I am as lost as a hayseed visiting New York. But I'm trying to add content, I work hard at satisfying readers, I want to give you a reason to come here and then to come back, again and again. I have a thirst to learn, a hope to inspire, a will to succeed in these funny black "Courier" shapes over a white background. Join me in this cause to grow plants, not weeds, to build your own temple, not a shack. Feed me, scribes!

Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist WILLIAM SAFIRE died the other day. I didn't know much about the man except that he was considered a talented writer, and that he was a friend of our Aunt Sherry, who he would exchange letters with. Imagine writing him, and that was before spell check; had to be somewhat intimidating.

Safire was "old school", a presidential speech writer, a Syracuse dropout but you'd never know it from his writings. Now that's cool: a dropout who ends up writing Nixon speeches, only to be wiretapped by the same president in the "concern of national security". A writer who often duked it out on "Meet the Press". Someone who worked hard at delivering his words in the right placement and form. As put by one of his colleagues, "Whether you agreed with him or not was never the point, his writing is delightful, informed and engaging."

Build your own shrine, temple, or forum! Link your best post here, I don't care how old it is, put up a link to a worthy article, talk amongst yourselves, criticize, compliment, just do something!