The Rough Draft

History is important to me. I actually believe that those who do not study its lessons are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I believe that if the current American President had truly served his country in harm’s way that perhaps he would not have been so quick to engage in the quagmire that Iraq has become.

It takes decades and sometimes even centuries for the full scope of a historical incident to be fully understood or at least thought to be understood. I believe we are still feeling the effects of the expansion of Rome, to this day, at least in Europe.

As a writer, it amazes me that more of us don’t sit down with people who have seen the elephant, who were participants in history itself, who can bring to bear, their worm’s eye view of the action or event they were involved in.

I’m very impressed by a current blog run at Slate.com right now. They have a whole section dedicated to letters written by men, women and their spouses of individuals serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and on the home front right now. This is immediate history, and should be embraced. The full effects of these actions will not be known for many years to come but right now, you can get a tatse of what it is for these individuals to serve.

It doesn’t matter if you are for or against the current war on terror. It matters that you understand the impact such action has on a human level. We will always fight each other on points of doctrine, over land or imaginary boundaries based on culture and race. It’s ingrained into us at the genetic level but if we fight the baser urges (and by this I mean at a political level not a single person one) maybe we can get along and make a better planet for all of us.

Because right now, nobody is winning anything on either side.

It’s a funny thing about life in general where you go through long periods of nothing going on followed by sections where the work comes at you out of the woodwork, thick and fast. Which is where I find myself right now.

That’s a good thing. Two for hire projects lined up and getting ready to execute, a spec almost finished and ready to go out for the first group of reading and now I’m also doing the dialogue section for a graphic novel with a possible (probable) film tie in down the road.

So that’s the good spin… The bad spin is the for hire projects will most likely never see the light of day and the notes on the spec might come back that it’s complete shit. That’s the industry we work in. I’ll keep my expectations firmly in the middle of the two camps.

As far as the for hire projects go… Well I’m hired to give them a specific tone and feel. If they never get off the ground, it won’t be because of the quality of the script. The Spec is project that I’ve been working on and off at for the last three years. It might be crap but I’ve put a lot of effort into the script and didn’t feel like I’d, “Cracked it,” until just last week. So I’m pretty sure it’s not too bad. A little bit of development and I’m sure we can do something with it.

It’s a long road but in the end, the journey is worth it.