Writing Gooder

We had a Voices of Darfur thing tonight at my college and it really helped get a lot of people involved in the happenings of the genocide.

To date in Darfur, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed, 2.5 Million have been relocated to IDP Camps (Internally Displaced Persons) in Sudan and refugee camps in Chad in this government supported Genocide.  The Janjaweed surrounds entire villages and burns them to the ground, raping women and young girls, and killing everyone and anyone they can.  Outside the villages they kill all livestock, burn all food supplies, and poison all the water wells they can making it nearly impossible for those who manage to escape the attacks to survive long enough to reach safety.  These are innocent people losing their lives in the most violent of ways because of their government.

So what can you do to help bring aid to Darfur?  It doesn’t have to cost money to help save a nation:

-Become part of the Save Darfur community.  At www.savedarfur.org you can sign up for regular updates and look for events in your area, or join a team.

-Spread the Word.  Check out www.voicefromdarfur.org and share it with anyone you can.

-Keep Darfur in the News.  1-800-GENOCIDE or www.1800genocide.org will allow you to connect to the White House and member of Congress and other officials–tell them something needs to be done!

-Join the divestment movement at www.divestfordarfur.org, sign the petition.  This encourages investment firms to withdraw from companies that help fund genocide in Darfur. 

-Urge China to use it’s influence with the Sudanese government as Beijing prepares to host the 2008 olympics at www.savedarfur.org/torchrelay.  China and the Sudanese government have an oil agreement, and China refuses to pull their money from Sudan, which aids the government in continuing this Genocide.  China is also part of the UN, so their opinion hinders what aid the UN is allowed to give to Sudan.  There is talk of boycotting the Olympics if necessary.

-Contact the presidential candidates and ask them to speak more of Darfur at www.askthecandidates.org.

-Join an advocacy group, or start your own!  www.savedarfur.org can also aid in this.  At my college we have a STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur) group that was just started.  You can make a difference.

But the truth is, if you want to have some creativity brewing you need to be Ambidextious.  Take this article by Michael Vaughn:

In the 1970s, neuroscientist Roger Sperry conducted studies on epileptics who had undergone split-brain operations—a severing of the corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. The studies revealed remarkable differences in the ways the two hemispheres process the world. The left operates in a linear fashion, piecing things together in a logical, sequential assembly of parts; it also contains the mind’s center for language skills (both written and spoken) and calculation. The right hemisphere operates through images, concepts and patterns; it possesses a much higher capacity for ambiguity and complexity, as well as a special aptitude for spatial relationships.

Sperry’s conclusions found an immediate place in popular culture; people began calling themselves “right-brainers” and “left-brainers” in the same way that one would say “Virgo” or “Republican.” Artists tend to jump on the right-brain bandwagon, which, especially for writers, can be an egregious misnomer (remember those left-brain language skills?).

The secret for the creative writer isn’t to lean inordinately on one hemisphere or the other, but to manipulate the lively conversation going on between the hemispheres, through the corpus callosum.

Read the rest of the article here.

Confused when it comes to using the semicolon? This site offers an explanation of when to use it. It is acceptable in two instances: the more common “when connecting two sentences” and also the supercomma!

Somehow I don’t think that gets anyone very excited…except for maybe grammarians.

I was looking through a list of banned books today and…I guess it just kind of surprised me.  Many of these books are those we are taught to learn as classics nowadays, and some are ones that are ‘bad’ but…still should not be banned (at least, in my opinion…banning is bad no matter what the book).  Below is a list of a few books on the list that are familiar.  Know that most of them are not banned now, but were at one point.  It goes Title-Author-Country Banned In-Reason.

The Age of Reason – Thomas Paine -UK – blasphemy

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis – Australia, Queensland – crime

The Anarchist Cookbook – William Powell – US – recipes for explosives

Animal Farm – George Orwell – UK, Germany, Yugoslavia – anti-Stalin

Bible – various authors – Saudi Arabi – not Muslim

Black Beauty – Anna Sewell – South Africa – “Black” in title

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley – ? – continuous criticism of censorship and lack of freedom of speech

Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson – ? – language and Satanism

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury – US – criticism of politics, censorship and lack of freedom of speech, criticism of increading reliance on technology

The Lorax – Dr. Seuss – parts of US – allegorical political commentary

Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller – US, South Africa – sexually explicit content and vulgarity (the rest of his work was banned, as well)

Unlce Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe – Russia – allegedly racist portrayal of African Americans and language

And a more recently controversial work….Harry Potter!  I see this banned more and more often in school due to magical content that ‘sways children towards witchcraft’.  Stupid.

For more, go here.

Now! 8pm EST on ABC!!  Woo! …did you know this was once booed upon and set the tv networks into a frenzy because it was obviously focused on the Christian religion and did not include canned laughter? 

What’s your favorite animated Disney movie?  My friends and I are going to have a Disney ‘classics’ marathon here before too long (yes, we’re 20 and we still watch Disney movies…we understand our lameness).  What do you consider to be the ‘classics’? 

Personally, my favorite is the Lion King!  Hakuna Matata!

…on the Writer’s Strike?

 Check out Chad Gervich’s Scriptwriting Blog for all the information! 

Apparently the writers are going back to the negotiating table tomorrow.

As writers, we all love to read good books for inspiration. What book inspired you as a writer and why?

“All you need is love.   But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”

 -Charles M. Shulz (1922-2000)