The Lost Cause

Throughout July and August I submitted several short stories, including "The Sentry", and earned myself some lovely rejections for my efforts. That's right, earned. They just don't give 'em away to anyone! You need to be highly qualified. You need to submit a story you have crafted with bone marrow, distract yourself during the interminable wait for the response by reading every word of fiction and non-fiction that's ever been published and noticing how your story doesn't measure up against any of it -- and then you get the rejection slip. "We appreciate your interest." Leave us the fuck alone!

And so it goes. Corporate work has been extremely busy. Working from 8 am to 1 am is not my idea of a slumber party.

So you want to capture every thought, every idea, every twist of perception. Surely that will give you something to write about, you think. You can people a thousand stories with a million words. But everything keeps falling through your hands before you can catch it. The lost cause is thinking that any of it makes any difference. You become a writer when you write. In the meantime you're just a shell.

I haven't been doing enough writing.

Richard Roeper called The Fountain "one of the worst movies of the year." My heart goes out to Daren and co. I think this is a seminal science-fiction film, a brave work of unusual beauty and substance.