Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Writer's Voice

You may have heard of the ‘Writer’s Voice’. This is the voice in the writer’s head that assembles the words and sentences to write from all the ideas, plot, story line, characters etc. floating around in the mind.
Well this morning after frying eggs for breakfast when the pan was rather hot and made the edges of the eggs delightfully crisp I put them on a plate and grabbed a knife and fork. In my haste, or was it my sleepy state, the knife was the short one used for buttering bread instead of the normal longer one for eating with. While I was reprimanding myself for the mistake or perhaps it was my mother’s voice scolding me from the past, my writer’s voice popped into play and suggested “Cutting Egg Technology.”

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Writer's dilemma

When writing a work of fiction that is allegorical in design how far may the author stray from the truth?
More particularly how close to the truth should the Story of Sam Goma stray from the regular teachings of acceptable doctrine?
So what is the problem? Well Sam is a witch doctor. He declares that what the missionaries told him was unacceptable to him. He was looking for the spiritual side of his nature to be relevant for his current and present situation. Stories of ancient history that did not repeat in today’s world – unacceptable – so where is faith and hope. We understand faith to be the stuff that makes unseen things real today and hope is the stuff that makes future things real today. History is not unseen nor future (except when it is repeating itself). More specifically are the miracles such as walking on water and healing the sick and ascending up into the heavens part of these things “greater things than this shall you do”? I see no reason why not. It is these sorts of miracles that demand faith. Certainly the children of Israel looked back at the past and drew their faith from history – the works of Moses and the like. The new testament faithful look forward for their hope and at today’s activities for to exercise their faith or not?