:: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 ::
The next Billy Graham may be a robot. An interesting Christianity Today report about the possibility of using instant messaging (IM) bots for Internet evangelism. Both my e-vangelism site and my eMinistry book are mentioned. Unfortunately, I responded too late to an e-mail request for an interview. That'll teach me to be slack in checking my e-mail.
:: Andrew 05:16 + ::
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Jesus-Elvis comparisons -- link via the Daily Vexation.
The American 100 -- a list of the most influential "Americans" (that is, USA Americans), courtesy of Mark Byron, with assistance from Eileen. It's an interesting list. It's tough to come up with a definitive list of 100 most influential people of any nation, or any era. Even to come up with a list for the 20th century would be a challenge. I applaud Mark for the effort, even if I disagree with some of his choices.
Speaking of rejection slips...and messy desks As I point out in the entry below, rejection slips inspired me to write poetry. Another writer, Mitch Wagner, recently mentioned discovering "A 1999 rejection slip for a humorous contemporary fantasy story" on his desk. At last, someone whose desk disorganization is worse than mine.
The stripper mom is not in the news right now, but people keep searching for her and end up here. Which is cool by me but has to be a bit of a letdown for those looking for Christina Silvas nude.
Live from the World Summit: dailysummit.net, updated from the summit in South Africa.
:: Andrew 08:07 + ::
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:: Monday, August 26, 2002 ::
Thoughts on writing. Jordon Cooper recently posted this great quote about writing from Alan Creech's favorite monk, Thomas Merton. The quote pertains to why we write, and for whom we write. Do we write merely to please others, or to please God? That quote got me thinking about a little bit of doggerel I wrote back in the day when I thought I might one day write something of significance in the literary realm -- ergo, the Great American Novel. I was submitting short stories to literary mags left and right, and amassing a hefty pile of rejection letters. So in a funk of despair over my plight, I penned this.
PUBLISH OR PERISH
(A PRAYER)
If I should die before I publish,
I pray the Lord to take my rubbish,
and raise those dull words from the dead,
that I may be posthumously read.
I pray the Lord will let some lover
of my true genius soon discover
the stacks of pads on which I've scribbled
those words these editors think are drivel
and hie thee up to Farrar, Strouse
or Little, Brown or Random House,
and hurl these words over the transom
to inspired editors, who'll ransom
every penny they can hook
to see my words become a book.
They'll sit in awe of every phrase,
and make sense of my verbose maze.
They'll see beyond my lack of plot,
and marvel at my characters' lot.
They'll look beyond the faults to see
true genius: creativity.
May my words go forth throughout the land,
and bring my widow hundreds grand.
May I whose stories were oft rejected
then be acclaimed and well respected.
And may the editors who spurned my toil
fall in a vat of boiling oil.
Or may they weep and gnash their teeth
when they find what they thought beneath
publication in their petty reviews
are now the stuff of talk-show news.
May the literati, too, cut gashes
on their arms, don sackcloth and ashes,
and repent of how I've suffered plight,
and mourn the loss of such a light.
But if while alive I can complete my mission,
Lord, let me write like Fitzgerald and get rich like Grisham.
:: Andrew 07:34 + ::
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First day of classes and I am unprepared. I'm teaching a three-hour course, "Writing and Research," this semester for our English department. This is the second time in as many years that I've taught the course, but this year I'm taking a different approach. The course will actually be more of a journalism course, emphasizing news and feature writing, than a pure "research" writing course. It'll be an interesting experiment. At any rate, I need to prep for the first class, so I won't be blogging much today.
For those of you interested in how things turned out with my PR work regarding The Princeton Review's rankings of our university, the result is here. Another PR disaster averted. I must be livin' right.
:: Andrew 08:38 + ::
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Simon Dawes, 
