Not the summer blockbusters, but rewatching movies from our family
collection. That includes RUNAWAY BRIDE. (I should note here that my wife and
daughter are also writers – my son is more of a DOer, but that’s a different
story.) You’ve probably seen it at some point, but in it Richard Gere plays a
columnist for USA TODAY whose purpose is to “push the envelope” but who has recently
mostly directed bitter diatribes at the opposite sex. One diatribe is directed
at a hardware store clerk played my Julia Roberts – and Gere loses his job when
Roberts threatens to sue for libel.
Among other things, we typically note that we own an awful
lot of movies that center on writers: ALEX AND EMMA, NORTHANGER ABBEY, STRANGER
THAN FICTION, SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, BACK TO THE FUTURE, FINDING FORRESTER,
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, THE DEVIL WEARS
PRADA, 27 DRESSES, YOU’VE GOT MAIL, LETTERS TO JULIET, and THE PROPOSAL (to
name some of them). I’ve also noticed that persistence is typically one of the
messages that accompany the writer’s life. While that isn’t usually the main
point of the movie, it always finds its way in there.
Despite being hammered with that message – and hammering it
home to the children I teach at summer school in my Writing To Get Published
class – I’ve forgotten it. In fact, the whole idea of persistence is one that’s
drifted entirely off my radar lately.
It’s not that “life” hasn’t demonstrated time and again that
what I NEED to do is the best job that I can while still pursuing the things I
want. The job I’ve had for the past three years is a case to point: I’d wanted
to be a school counselor since I decided to get my teaching license so that I
could get into the counselor program. That was in 1978 and 33 years later, I
finally sat my butt in my own office chair, a full-time high school counselor.
*whew*
From my writing life: I started writing (in cursive with a
pencil) in 1969, moving eventually to learning to use a manual typewriter, then
an old electric, then an electronic typewriter, an Apple II, and from there to
my current Toshiba laptop. I seriously started submitting in 1990 and in 1993,
saw the publication of my first “professional sale” in a magazine named HiCall.
Since then, I’ve fired off 820 submissions with 45 manuscripts seeing
publication or production. A year ago, I finally got an agent.
Even in high school and college God (or “life” if you
prefer) was busy teaching me this lesson: after getting my teaching degree in
1981, I didn’t get a permanent teaching job until 1987 (not for lack of
trying!). In high school, I didn’t make the top choir my junior year (even
though boys were supposedly badly needed) and had to wait until my senior year.
I was passed over for promotion to “stocking” by a friend of mine – who I
helped get the job as a bagboy and didn’t move up to stock until I moved
stores. I applied for countless jobs as youth director – even in my own church –
and was repeatedly thanked for my time and sent packing. After a year-long
substitute teaching job at the high school I graduated from, I was told that “it’s
too bad you’re not a woman” and let go at the end of the year.
Again in my writing life: my agent has been shopping a
manuscript that won me a spot on Red Fox’s roster a year ago with nothing to
show for it but polite rejections. Another manuscript resides in the “we’d like
to look at it more closely” pile at BAEN BOOKS.
Persistence. Patience.
Even the Bible advises me with verses I KNOW I’ve read…but
have forgotten:
“Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret
because of him who prospers in his way.” Psalm 37:7
“The end of a matter is better than its beginning; Patience
of spirit is better than haughtiness of spirit.” Ecclesiastes 7:8
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness…” Galatians 5:22
“We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the
fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” 1 Thessalonians 5:14
“And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.” Hebrews
6:15
And finally:
“Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the
Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient
about it, until it gets the early and late rains.” James 5:7
So Hollywood, Folksy Aphorisms, Life, and God teach
patience.
In the play, LIFE OF GALILEO by Bertolt Brecht (it was made into a movie I saw and showed hundreds of
times as a science teacher) that centers on writing, the scientist Galileo
challenges not only the Church, but ALL current science when he discovers that
the Sun is the center of the Solar System, not Earth. He is arrested, endures,
recants, then (according to Scientism), recants his recantation, but regrets
his decision at the end of his life:
“As a scientist, I had a unique opportunity. In my time astronomy
reached the market
place. Under these very special circumstances, one man's
steadfastness might
have had tremendous repercussions. If I had held out,
scientists might have
developed something like the physicians' Hippocratic oath,
the vow to use
their knowledge only for the good of mankind. As things
stand now, the best
we can hope for is a generation of inventive dwarfs who can
be hired for any
purpose.”
Patience then is not only a virtue -- it's part of science, it's taught in Scripture, and hundreds of writers urge it and practice it.
How is it then that I forget it so easily?
Patience then is not only a virtue -- it's part of science, it's taught in Scripture, and hundreds of writers urge it and practice it.
How is it then that I forget it so easily?
References: *Said to have originated in the PSYCHOMACHIA, a
poem by the Roman poet Prudentius (aka Aurelius
Prudentius Clemens) around 392 AD; http://buehnenkunst.ohost.de/auditions_coming_up_files/Life%20of%20Galileo%20by%20Brecht.pdf
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