I have recently completed a series of short stories all fiction and all from a Catholic point of view. I am now in search of a Catholic publisher that might pick up this sort of thing. After an exhaustive search there is no such animal. I have heard and read that there is no audience (outside of magazines) for this type of work. I have found some that will do Christian Poetry and one that specializes in Catholic fiction: Sophia Institute Press. They have some excellent guidelines for success; the most I’ve seen from any publisher Catholic or not. Their main point is to hide the faith or rather make it very subtle. Here are a couple of their tips for Writing About Faith and Faithful or Holy Fictional Characters: Some Recommendations

"...3.) The secular rule, which still holds true for us is: you can get away with any amount of preaching if the character doing it is sufficiently insane, off kilter, evil, or unexpected.

I'm not talking about using a colorful old Irish priest to present your rules on marriage: I'm talking about having a homosexual debaucher pointing out to the main character that he's losing his soul. (Evelyn Waugh brilliantly does this in Brideshead Revisited: "I warned you at great length and in great detail about Charm. It kills art. It kills love. And I fear, Charles, that it has killed you." Charm here is the socially-acceptable compromise with morality that Charles has embraced to escape his boring marriage: no one in the entire book points this out to Charles except for Anthony Blanche, the sinister homosexual character). Readers expect priests and nuns to stand for and speak of morality. They don't expect your villain or your loser or your sappy wallflower to do it. So, for maximum impact, use them, not your openly religious characters!

Don't show normality. Be wary of showing consolations in prayer.

Characters can pray if:

a) they are sufficiently under stress, or better yet, there is a situation causing stress - there is a fire, shooting going on, etc. Anyone, including atheists, can pray then! Having characters getting worked up and crying in prayer really only should be used when circumstances demand it: someone shedding tears mainly over their own sinfulness or someone else's is generally going to read as false.

b) the prayers aren't answered, apparently. This is almost always acceptable. A) works best, actually, if the prayers don't seem to help.

c) the character is sufficiently strange or unexpected

d) the characters are priests, monks, or nuns, whom the reader will expect to see praying and acting in a holy, upright manner. (In fact, if such characters are not seen praying, it might weird the reader out, especially if the nuns or priests are engaged in too many other "normal" activities like playing cards, riding bikes, etc. The reader might think, "If they're just like me, why are they wearing those funny clothes?") For better or worse, prayer is expected from religious, but lay people who are devout are still seen as abnormal.

e) prayer is used for irony: someone prays for chastity and then goes out and starts lusting. The juxtaposition has to be sharp in order to work. This isn't me being nasty: think of how many times we Catholic parents can go from praying devoutly for patience to screaming at our kids!

f) the framework is humorous. Think of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof chastising God, or the Mouse character in LadyHawke bargaining with the Almighty. If someone has a unique or offbeat relationship with God, constant prayer can be fine."

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Seriously, they have laid out some excellent points for any writer and probably should be used in any creative writing class.

I will continue my search for a publisher but my hopes are not as high as when I started. Or as my Dad used to say, “Now the real work begins.”

The Glenn Beck Conspiracy Generator

Promising “Fair and Balanced Paranoia on Demand,” the Glenn Beck Conspiracy Generator, from About.com’s Political Humor blog, is a fine example of internet technology in service of a greater good.

I don’t have a joke for this one. I just like it. Copy down these algorithm-base screeds, bust them out at your next party or faculty meeting and see if anyone notices the difference. Good, clean, American fun.

To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, when people stop believing in God they don't believe in nothing, they believe in everything ...The credulous and the gullible are having their day."

Heads up, culture warriors: The Secular Student Alliance, which promotes atheism and humanism among its more than 200 college chapters, is moving into high schools. The organization hopes to launch 50 high school chapters this year, to give young atheists the same social benefits of court-sanctioned after-school religious clubs. Barry Lasco, a senior at Stephen Austin High School in Huston, told USA Today he finally launched a chapter this week after months of administrative resistance.

Maybe he used Chesterton’s argument that ‘if there were no God there would be no atheists’ to win the administration over.

At these meetings, after the Sargent of arms declares there is no God and everyone cheers and congratulates each other on right thinking, what do they talk about?

“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.” GKC

I was going to regale you all with my latest hospital adventure but then realized the only thing more boring than old people telling stories about their grand children are stories by old people about their hospital stays.

So here is something more important:
I have mentioned before I hate when comic book heroes get killed off but not as much as when they are brought back to life a few issues later, ie: Superman and Captain America.

Oh, but now they have gone to far! Marvel announced last week (when I was hospitalized to avoid the confrontation) that Spider-Man will be joining the Fantastic Four as the replacement for the Human Torch, who was killed off last month. Spidey will join Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, and the Invisible Woman in a new series called "FF" - which now stands for "Future Foundation."

As loyal readers know we hate to editorialize here at Chesterton and Friends. But let us be frank - this the approximate equivalent of Bruce Springsteen joining KISS. And the new costumes would make Edna Mode go screaming into the night. We should not stand idly by.

Signs that the Apocalypse is upon us

In a time when Taco Bell is being sued for not having meat in their meat taco we come up with meat water. For those vegetarians out there do not despair for you can still join the fun of drinking food with a grilled cheese and tomato soup martini.

I just hope they finally solved the problems Willy had with his Three-Course-Dinner gum.

And they want to regulate crisis pregnancy centers.

No one has been beaten, raped or killed in a crisis pregnancy center.

We are not hearing from the MSM about this because They Know It's True.
and
The Grand Jury has summed up this conspiracy of silence in a single damning paragraph. “Bureaucratic inertia is not exactly news. We understand that. But we think this was something more. We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.”

March for Life

This has been the first time in many years since I did the March for Life. Last time I was there the march encountered several loud anti life groups along the march. There was a large visible presence of all the major networks. These are no longer there. The only media truck I saw was from EWTN and a few local news stations. The only anti life comments I heard were when we were walking to the mall I over heard a lady on her phone say, "Yea and they are making such a mess of the streets". - The other was when our bus (and several others) stopped 2 hours outside of DC I heard a trucker say, "I'm going to give money to the first pro-choice group I see." Hey, he was upset - a LARGE group of teenagers had invaded his truck stop.

The opposition has changed its tactics. They no longer confront because confrontation draws media. They now believe they are invincible and treat the pro-life movement as a child that does cute but stupid things.

When I first went there was a lot of political chanting - "End it now!" "No more Death!" etc. This year I heard several rosaries said, the divine Mercy chaplet was sung and I overheard one priest say to another, "We've lost Sister Mary Dominic." (OK that one just cracked me up).

When I first went the make up of the march was mostly middle aged white people. Now the majority of the participants were young and there was a large contingent of people of color. It was good to see the young there it lets me see this issue is being passed down and embraced.

I am not deluded to think that this issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court any time soon.

Certain demons can only be driven out through prayer and fasting.

Sonogram technol-oh-gee has come a long way. they can now pick up the faintest sounds in the womb

is it just me or are you excited and scared poopless at the same time by this

as if there were any doubt

Pope John Paul II Beatification in May!!!!!

Even at CNN they were gushing - although they tried not to.

Archbishop Dolan makes a passionate plea to make abortions rare in the face of

39 Percent Of NYC Pregnancies Result In Abortion

Yes, read the article also read the comments. It seems that Rev. Herbert C. Mueller III started a fire storm in his support for the bishop. The comment thread outlines how much work is to be done. Once reality has been inverted it is hard to get it upright again.

I also noticed that the group that does the xtranormal films are using the same guy they used as G. K. Chesterton for Geiko commercials now calling him Sexy Grandpa. Not sure if Uncle Gilbert would approve or be laughing.

It is not enough to tolerate you must MUST approve.

"A purely libertarian society that only protected individual rights might let homosexuals form contracts and call them "marriages," but it would also permit every citizen to react to homosexual behavior by avoiding it -- if need be, by not hiring someone, or not letting him rent one's home. In a truly free country, people have the right to make such arbitrary decisions. We do not live in such a free country." (emphasis mine)

why work does not get done at work

When I was in the business world, as marketing manger and creative director, I was often asked why I did not have a cell phone so other corporate people could get in touch with me. I told them it was because there is no such thing as an art emergency.

One of the things I did well for the company was to budget the cost of a project because I always factored in think time and unnecessarily interruption time. The later was always created by the higher-ups since they don't actually do the work but feel the need to feel that they do. Higher-ups need to assign the work and then walk away. If they can't do that they are are either bad managers or hired the wrong people which means they are bad mangers.

The problem that faces all creative directors is that since everyone knows which end of the pencil makes the mark they think they are all artists. Or they think the artist eats lead and drinks ink then poops art - "so what's taking so long?!"

This of course is not just a problem for the creative types but any one working in an office trying to get something done. As a mathematical formula the higher the number of vice presidents a company has the less work gets done.

"It is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways (in any special sense) of succeeding. One is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating. Both are much too simple to require any literary explanation. If you are in for the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, or manage somehow to pretend that you have done so." -GKC

Many companies have managers willing to cheat surrounded by those who don't want to.

This guy has got it right. but will 'they' listen

I began this past Advent and Christmas time with a Lenten approach. I would stop being snarky (man I'm glad that's over) and I would stop listening to angry talk radio, (I don't think I will go back to that).

Sooo, from 'what could it hurt' department: A new way of educating: "The school stresses student independence over teacher-led lessons, scientific inquiry over rote memorization and freedom and self-expression over strict structure and discipline."

The question is; how any one can do scientific inquiry if one does not learn what scientific inquiry is? This can only be learned through rote memoization of scientific principles, whether its first grade or a Masters program. Would you want to travel across a bridge designed by someone who had his engineering facts down cold or by someone who feels really good about his ability to self-express?

"A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching." GKC

Open class rooms were tried in the early 70s (I was there) and were an unmitigated failure. The kids did not learn and if the personality's of the teaches were not a perfect mix they pulled the wagon in different directions or fought over who rules the fiefdom. And I never saw a perfect mix because the incentive to get along is not there. Teaching is a job, not a marriage.

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” GKC

“Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.” GKC

G.K. Chesterton, on sola scriptura

a bad idea in a sad time

"They", the fanatically polically correct, are removing the "N" word and other offensive words from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". (here and here and almost everywhere).

I remember the uproar when Ted Turner started colorizeing all the Black and White films he owned. "It (colorizing) is a process of dissembling the historical and artistic fabric of our landmarks," Cates said. "Once you say you can add color, why can't you add a different score, add shots, re-edit it, or do anything you want?" Ted does not do this anymore.

The same can be said for books. Some publisher may not like the ending of a book so he changes it since the author is long dead - no law suit. No one owns the works of Mark Twain yet some feel it neccesary to change it, mostly those 'that have fallen off the left side of the boat white people'.

If this goes unchallenged imagin what They might do to Chesterton. Although most of Them don't know he ever existed.

In true fairness they should just remove all the Ns from Twain's work so the lead character will now be called Huck Fi.

Bentley: Clerihew

E. C. Bentley
evidently
knew just what to do
with a clerihew.

Just cause

I had a substitue assignment today with the High School music department - what fun! The String Orchestra is working on the Barber of Seville so this is what has been going through my mind all day:



"If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly." GKC

G K Chesterton, saint of the blogosphere

Thought you would enjoy this.

A key point is the charitable way in which he debated. Would that we all had such charity in our words.

G K Chesterton, saint of the blogosphere CatholicHerald.co.uk