The Afghan Women's Writing Project

It is my honor to be involved with this mighty effort! These are courageous, inspiring, and talented women whose voices need to be heard, and with help from Afghan Women’s Writing Project they will be! SUPPORT AFGHAN WOMEN WRITERS!

Below is some basic info from the project's blog site:

The Women
The Afghan Women’s Writing Project began as an idea during novelist Masha Hamilton’s last trip to Afghanistan in November 2008. Her interest in Afghanistan was sparked in the late 1990s during the Taliban period, when she understood it was one of the worst places in the world to be a woman. Masha first visited the country in 2004, and was awed and inspired by the resolute courage of the women she met. When she returned, she saw doors were closing and life was again becoming more difficult, especially for women. She began to fear we could lose access to the voices of Afghan women if we didn’t act soon. The Afghan Women’s Writing Project is aimed at allowing Afghan women to have a direct voice in the world, not filtered through male relatives or members of the media. Many of these Afghan women have to make extreme efforts to gain computer access in order to submit their writings, in English, to the project.

The Teachers
The project reaches out to talented and generous women author/teachers here in the United States and engages them, on a volunteer, rotating basis, to teach Afghan women online from Afghanistan. (We are using women teachers solely due to cultural sensitivities in Afghanistan.) Through this ongoing interaction, we hope to encourage the women to develop their voices and share their stories. Portions of the work will be put on a blog on a regular basis. Due to security concerns, we will use the Afghan women writers’ first names only, editing out all names of family and friends and removing locators. Nevertheless, the existence of the blog in the world is a key part of the project for several reasons. First, it is intended to instill a sense of pride for these women. Secondly, it is also intended to educate us, the teachers and readers of the blog, about what the Afghan women’s childhoods and young adulthoods were like under the Taliban, and what they feel about current conditions in their country. The blog is also meant to be a record of the project itself. Finally, it is intended to provide a positive link between Afghans and Americans at a time when those relationships have to some degree soured.

The Project

Everyone involved in the project has donated their time and energy, from Jeff Lyons, the California-based blog master, to Rose Daniels in Brooklyn, NY, who contributed blog design, to Terry Dougherty, the Indiana-based technical specialist who worked tirelessly to set up the online classrooms. The author/teachers themselves are teaching pro bono, making time in already very busy schedules. In finding the writers in Afghanistan, Masha sought the guidance and advice primarily of American Ted Achilles, founder of SOLA (School of Leadership, Afghanistan), who has been living for more than five years in Kabul and Kandahar. She also sought advice from other American friends living there who have connections with young writers at Kabul University. Sally Goodrich, of the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation, provided the link to Ted Achilles and others. Mrs. Goodrich, along with her husband Don, supports Afghan students here in the U.S., and has spearheaded the building of a girls’ school in Afghanistan.

When Words Fail—Try One of These!

Every year the Washington Post publishes its Mensa Invitational Winners. They ask readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this years winners:



1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidental ly walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets in your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj.. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n.. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

So, when that right word just escapes you... who needs Roget when you have Mesna?

Whither SAG? It's Not Looking Good

Labor unions in the United States have a rich and weird history. All the unions have their colorful characters, triumphant moments, and skeletons in the closet (or at the bottom of the East River). But can any combination of AFL-CIO weirdness, over the years, in the auto, steel, or other trade unions even begin to approximate the bad soap opera that has turned into the union formally known as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG)? I will not bore you with the litany of pettiness and vitriol that is substituting for internal dialogue in the union, suffice to say it is hard to distinguish SAG these days from a seventh-grade playground fight between the cool kids and the uncool kids.

In a union where blogs, press releases, open letters to editors, and viral videos tout various union faction positions on the current AMPTP negotiations, an innocent bystander would be hard pressed to understand why something as private as a labor negotiation would be handled as publicly as a DVD launch or major movie premiere. Can you imagine the Teamsters taking out full-page ads in the transportation industry’s version of the "trades" (Variety, Hollywood Reporter, etc.) slamming the other side in some negotiation in a manipulative attempt to win points? They might beat each other up and smash the means of production, during tough negotiations, but at least they have the good taste to keep union business internal and private. Just ask Jimmy Hoffa.

But, when it comes to the Hollywood guilds (WGA, SAG, AFTRA, DGA, IATSE, etc.), I suppose they take Louis B. Meyer’s quote to heart that, “Everybody is in the movie business,” therefore everyone has some right to know the sorry state of things within them. I actually do care what happens to this noble union, as I write and produce (or try to anyway) and have a keen interest and affection for the acting profession. I can’t do a lick of it myself, but I’m in awe of actors and what they do. That their union is in free fall and imploding on pure ego-driven petulance is a situation too sad for words and too pathetic to be honored with more than a waggling “shame on you” index finger.

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY! I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of the contract negotiations that have gone belly-up with the AMPTP, or get caught up in who is right or wrong. First of all, it’s not my place, and second of all, it’s not my place. I’m only concerned in this post with the incredible lack of EQ (emotional intelligence) being exhibited by all sides. Emotional intelligence, for those who do not know, is regarded more highly than IQ (intelligence quotient) in predicting an individual’s success in work, and in life. The central qualities any EQ savvy person (or organization) should have are:

• Self-awareness — the ability to read one's emotions and recognize their impact while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
• Self-management — involves controlling one's emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
• Social awareness — the ability to sense, understand, and react to others' emotions while comprehending social networks.
• Relationship management — the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict.

These qualities are not airy-fairy, touchy-feely, new age hokum. These are actually demonstrable and empirically proven human qualities ALL human beings possess that are ESSENTIAL for surviving in a social environment (uh—like a labor union). The higher your EQ, the more successful you will be. EQ determines up to 80% of your success factors in working and living life; IQ is only 20%.

So, do you think the four qualities listed above might be lacking in the folks charged with the futures of 120,000+ SAG members? Do you think they might just get out of their own little heads long enough to get some serious help and hire someone to come in and guide them through the interpersonal morass they are lost within? I heard a crisis management consultant had been hired, but the result was disastrous. Okay, try a new one! Call me (I’m serious), I know somebody! SAG needs help and I’m not talking about a new negotiator! SAG needs to get its EQ house in order and start telling itself the truth: until egos can be taken out of the equation and all the poison-personality crap taken off the boardroom table SAG is headed for the trade union equivalent of—well, oblivion.

Show Don't Tell: The Conundrum

How many times have you heard wise drama sages and story gurus proclaim, “Show don’t tell!” There are many transgressions one may commit as a screenwriter, but none will bring down the hammer of criticism as hard and fast as telling and not showing. So, don’t do that, we are told. This is bad writing, and who wants to be a bad writer? BAAAAAAAD WRITER!

On the surface this sounds like excellent advice. In a medium that is visual (I contend all writing is visual) it makes good sense to show as much as you can. Good sense, like “eat your peas,” or “after eating your peas, wait a half an hour before going into the water.” And, everyone understands what showing vs. telling means, right? It means character through action; your plot is what your characters do, not what they think inside their heads. You “see” the story unfold directly in real time, story time; not hear about it second hand or have it handed to you through some literary/cinematic device. You, as the audience, experience the story through your perceptions directly, as the characters do the “showing” through their actions, thus demonstrating actively what they are about.

Simple. Basic. Everybody knows this. End of the discussion. Well no, not exactly. Here’s the problem with “show don’t tell”: it’s not either-or; it’s both. In film or TV (in books too) it is not about avoiding telling, it’s about knowing when to do one vs. the other. There are times when it is correct to tell and times it is incorrect. What do I mean?

Consider the story of the lowly kung fu student who is taken under the wing of the crusty, yet compassionate priest for training. He comes to the master a young boy and leaves a teenage killing machine. His transformation from child to killer takes years. If you showed this in a literal way your script would take you fifteen years to write. You can’t show this, you have to tell it. The main tool used in film for telling is the montage. In half a page you can tell what happens to this kid, through exclusion, and then pick the story up when he’s at the right age. The fact is, screenwriters tell all the time by making story choices to edit out, or not, specific scene material. Whenever you as a writer edit down a scene, exclude exposition, or expand a scene with exposition you are telling your story. Anything that breaks the dramatic time line of the story immediately shifts the mode of storytelling (and writing) from the dramatic to the narrative.

What is the difference between dramatic vs. narrative storytelling? Narrative storytelling has a narrator; someone telling or describing to the audience what is/has/or will be happening. Certainly, the most blatant form of narrative storytelling in film is the literal narrator. Beyond the montage, a more subtle form of this can be found in scene transitions: cut to, dissolve, smash cut, etc. These are all forms of narration. When a scene transitions from one location to another in a non-linear way, some anonymous narrator is choosing for the audience where they leave the story and where they will reenter. This edit suddenly leaves things open to the imagination (what happened during that dissolve?) and while the viewer is not seeing anything dramatic unfold, they are, nonetheless, fully engaged in the telling of the story. Essentially, film editing is narration.

In contrast, dramatic storytelling is scene level action that happens in real-time, while an audience watches. The audience sees events directly unfold with no breaks in space or time. In addition, these events are filtered by the audience through their perceptions, not through those of a narrator. Using our teenage killer example, each scene where the audience watches him breaking boards, fighting opponents, etc. are all real-time events observable and interpretable by the viewers themselves.

Appreciating the distinctions between these two modes of storytelling, perhaps you can see how declaring “show don’t tell” has little or no value. As a writer you could not effectively narrate the kung fu story without dramatically showing action, anymore than you could only show action without narrating some information to the audience. The story needs both these methods to properly tell the story. Knowing how much of one vs. how little of another to use is the craft and art of screenwriting.

My personal feeling is all of the above applies to novel writing and narrative nonfiction as well. You have more leeway and fewer constraints in these forms, because screenwriting is inherently claustrophobic and burdened with limits (page length, screenplay language, IQ of the producers, etc.), but the same principles should apply. Good commercial pop-fiction like Caroline Leavitt, Steven King, Orson Scott Card, J.D. Robb, and others all show and tell their work and it comes off visually for the reader. They write very cinematically, and literately as well, because they “get” that it isn’t about following some stupid rule or mantra dictated to them by the writing gurus, they write visually because they understand the issue is about balance and they walk the tightrope of showing and telling like a flying Wallenda (famous high wire circus family—look them up!).

So, I’m telling you, the next time somebody lectures you to “show don’t tell,” show them to the door and tell them to get lost.

TMZ Really Stands for The Moronic Zone! (Warning: Rant Alert)

I watched TMZ the other night. I had never seen it, except when passing quickly changing channels. For some strange reason I stopped and watched. And I was mesmerized; the way people slow down on highways to gawk at accidents or gather on street corners to watch jumpers off high-rises. Here’s what I saw:

• A war room.
• A big-board with lots of writing, not unlike an ER whiteboard that tracks critical-care patients.
• A gaggle of twenty-something “reporters” reporting to their boss (Harvey Levin, who I actually like) the fruits of their labors.
• Harvey Levin: wet-marker in on hand, double-gulp soda in the other, looking pained like he hadn’t slept in days and hunched over like his lumbar back was out of joint.

Then it hit me. This passes for news. This is the new “news.” This is what trickles down (or up) to the AP, Reuters, major newspapers, Knight Ridder, evening news broadcasts, etc. Celebritycult crap, and I was watching it: unable to click out, unable to blink, unable to control my own nervous system to command my thumb to push a little button on the remote. For a moment I was lost to the world of thinking beings. I was truly lost in The Moronic Zone.

Okay, this little dramatic diddy is as fluffy as the content on TMZ. But, the point is, the power of this new platform is awe-inspiring. TMZ came out of nowhere a few years ago as a collaboration between AOL and Telepictures Productions. This big corporate sponsorship sets it apart from other gossip shows, putting TMZ in a whole other category of—whatever the hell it’s called. For me, this TMZ-thing is now the archetype for celebrity cultism. And it is slowly displacing real news and contributing to the demise of the thinking press.

Oh—but surely you exaggerate! No, sorry. I don’t. Consider this wonderful blog from one of my heroes, Roger Ebert. He wrote this in his “Roger Ebert’s Journal” column on the Chicago Sun Times site, November 26, 2008. I quote:

“The crowning blow came this week when the once-magisterial Associated Press imposed a 500-word limit on all of its entertainment writers. The 500-word limit applies to reviews, interviews, news stories, trend pieces and ‘thinkers.’”
Chicago Sun Times, "Roger Ebert's Journal"
By Roger Ebert on November 26, 2008 9:20 AM

And, as newspapers dumb-down news to cater to the public’s need to be TMZ’d, Ebert recounts some recent casualties of thinking-entertainment-journalists who have been canned to make space for vapidity:

“Earlier this year the Voice fired Dennis Lim and Nathan Lee, and recently fired all the local movie critics in its national chain, to be replaced, Variety's Anne Thompson reported, by syndicating their critics on the two coasts, the Voice's J. Hoberman and the L.A. Weekly's Scott Foundas. Serious writers, yes, but ... Meanwhile, the Detroit Free-Press has decided it needs no film critic at all. Michael Wilmington is gone from the Chicago Tribune, Jack Mathews and Jami Bernard from the New York Daily News, Kevin Thomas from the Los Angeles Times--and the internationally-respected film critic of the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum, has retired, accepted a buy-out, will write for his blog, or something. I still see him at all the screenings. My shining hero remains Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic, as incisive and penetrating as ever at 92. I don't give him points for his age, which anyone can attain simply by living long enough, but for his criticism. Study any review and try to find a wrong or unnecessary word. There is your man for an intelligent 500-word review.”
Chicago Sun Times, "Roger Ebert's Journal"
By Roger Ebert on November 26, 2008 9:20 AM


News has always had its fluff component. But when critics and intelligent commentators are cut loose to make room for tabloid titillation, then something, somewhere is very broken. And that something is US. If we didn't watch it, view it, consume it--IT would not be there. As Ebert points out, the critics are the canaries in the coal mine. When they start dropping, we all need to start running for open air. When a thinking-press starts getting cutback and essentially emasculated so the media owners can pander to popular tastes, then the falling canaries can not be far behind. But, shouldn't the print media reflect the tastes and trends of its readers? That's not pandering, that's just good business. Yes, but there should also be a pandering free zone--and those are the film, theater, and other social critics who's job it is to challenge us to think by taking us places we don't want to go. Criticism involves thoughtful inquiry, evaluation, and the art of valuing judgment (vs. being judgmental). When we lose those who thoughtfully inquire and artfully evaluate in our interests, then we are left with the likes of TMZ and cannibalistic paparazzi. There is no art there; only blunt force trauma, opportunism, and the frenzy of pack animals stripping some poor celebrity carcass bare.

May God, Allah, The Goddess, The Great Pumpkin, Whoever Is In Charge bless Roger Ebert. He may no longer be able to speak, but his voice is clearer than ever.

Recently one media source stated they would be covering the First Family as if they were a Hollywood family. Why this distinction? Being the leader of the “free world” isn’t high profile enough? The point really is: who cares where his kids are going to school? Who cares what his wife is wearing. Do we really have to see all the pictures of the President-Elect's fashion sense from fifth-grade through high school graduation (currently on Huffington Post's Entertainment page)? The answer is no, if you got stumped on that one. And do we really need to see Barack's punim in every open piece of white space in every newspaper or web page? I for one know what the man looks like. So, save the white space and let him do his job saving the world from itself.

While we’re at it, here are some other things we really don't have a need to know:

• Whether Maddona and A-Rod had Thanksgiving together.
• Whether Brittany Spears is feeling old.
• What happened to Karolina’s belly button.
• The battle of the “sexiest men alive” over who should or shouldn’t be such.
• Whether Heidi and Spencer eloped to Mexico

By the way, these were all prominent "stories" on the Huffington Post Entertainment webpage recently (which I read regularly because I love HuffPo, even though it panders to this celebrity crap like every other "newspaper"). Any stories about the impending actor's strike? No. Any entertainment new analysis on the impact of the economic meltdown on the movie industry and television. No. But, Madonna and A-Rod got primo page placement. Need I say more. Thank the Diety--no.

There is a place for fluff and there is a place for celebrity. But it has morphed into something dangerous and deadly. Only we can stop this madness and it starts with our dollars and our consuming habits. Don’t feed this monster with your hard-earned cash.

That’s my advice for you. As for me—I need a shower.