Oddly inspired.

I've been on hiatus for a while...well the blog has been at least. But under orders to "be inspired" I figured I should write something. It's hard to force inspiration. Sometimes I'm just moved to write, often it is a result of a classroom discussion or current event. Sometimes I'm just too busy. Or sometimes my own thoughts are too incoherent to actually put into a public forum. But I love to write. I've been writing all sorts of non-academic pieces since I was in middle school. I started writing a novel in the 8th grade. I've currently got two half finished novels sitting around waiting to be finished and dozens more outlines. One day I think I probably will finish them, but not right now. It's that inspiration thing again. I have to be inspired to write. There have been times where things just clicked and I wrote entire chapters at break neck speed because the words were coming so fast. Then there are times where I can barely put together a coherent sentence. I suppose it's what you would call writer's block. Writer's block isn't very fun, especially if you are passionate about writing. It can be incredibly frustrating to not be able to get the words to paper. Sometimes you might even have the idea, you just can't find the write words. I feel if you can't write something well then you should just slow down. Good work rarely comes out of forced imaginatioin and creativity. I think one of the greatest dangers for popular authors is the fact that they are popular. Their fans demand more and they are forced to produce work quickly, but often with a lower quality (and their name lets them get away with it.) Two recent examples of this would be Michael Crichton and J.K. Rowling. As much as I anticipate their work, I wish sometimes that they would ignore the public demands and spend more time with the pieces. I don't believe that a famous name should give you the right to produce bad work (alright so it wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't their best). I guess that says a lot about my own feelings towards school, art, and life. I hate doing poorly. When it comes to projects and papers I would almost prefer to not turn it in rather than turn in a poorly completed work. I think it is wrong to not do your best. Now doing something to the best of your ability and still failing is a different thing, but knowingly sacrificing quality for popularity is a bad thing. On a tangent, sacrficing quality for the message is also wrong. One example of this is Christian entertainment, particularly film and theatre. I think we've all seen our share of really really awful religious programming. Sure the message is great, but I'd usually prefer to eat fried grasshoppers than watch most of it. The Christian world has allowed themselves to believe that a good message is a license to produce mediocre work. Frankly, I'm disgusted by this failure to us our gifts and talents. How shameful it is to see the beliefs we hold so dear, portrayed so poorly. Christians complain that "secular media" is so immoral, yet they produce no valid alternatives. There have been a few exceptions, but the majority of the religious/ clean alternatives are...excuse my french...Crap! If I were God (which I most certainly and thankfully am not) I wouldn't want my name on some of that stuff. A nice message is no excuse to produce bad work. We need to be stepping into the ring with the big dogs and put good, valid, well produced, and clean art out there. >>> End Rant.
I've so horribly diverged from my original point (if I had one), but I suppose I found some inpiration today. Hope you find some too.

I'm going to make an attempt at linking to some really hilarious (possibly sacreligious) videos that a church produced a few years ago. I honestly laughed a lot. There's a lot of discuss to be had here, but I give this as an example of Christians making fun of other Christians poor attempt at art. http://youtube.com/watch?v=FuD-pt8babg