December 02, 2007
Full Plate
It's all downhill until Christmas now . . . and that means acceleration. With my application to Baylor (for next fall) submitted, it's time to get some other things out of the way. Right now, foremost in my mind is the South Central Conference on Christianity and Literature. It's being held at LeTourneau, February 21-23 (a week after I present my Longview Race Riot paper at the East Texas Historical meeting in Tyler). I've been aware of the conference for the better part of a year, but it was an awfully long way away and I pushed it out of my head entirely when we moved to Waco.
Well, when I visited the Baylor campus two weeks ago, I saw a poster announcing it, and I immediately felt that I should present there (if at all possible). Of course, the deadline for proposals is December 8th, and I still don't know what to present on, so there's that . . . but I want to make this happen. At the moment I'm pursuing a few trains of thought regarding either a discussion of the symbolism in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood or the relationship between O'Connor's writing and two recent films starring Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and No Country for Old Men). I'm not sure how welcome the latter topic would be, but I'm mulling it over nonetheless.
In addition to that, I'm hard at work on a Hitchcock-related project for Moviegoings that'll involve a book-length amount of writing. I've acquired a large number of resources for this project and dumped a lot of time and energy into it already, so I'm feeling some pressure to get something substantial on paper . . . plus I'm really into the idea. I'd also like to continue my King Arthur film project. I got Camelot in from Netflix last week, but the disc was cracked, so I'll probably end up putting that off until after Christmas.
Sure, I know it's personal stuff and technically less important than conference papers and the like, but it's a big deal to me that I continue to develop this sort of thing. Oh, and I've renewed my efforts to get Moviegoings into the Faith and Film Critics Circle, so that's all part of it too. I'm very excited to join their ongoing efforts, and if it works out that'll push me to redouble my efforts on that blog in terms of quality and quantity.
All of these writing projects (where my real passion lies) are in addition to just general life stuff . . . keeping the house clean, helping Rachel with stuff, paying the bills, and all the other stuff that has to be kept track of. That and now getting ready for Christmas . . . I've never had to be in charge of preparing a house to be left alone for 2 weeks. Gotta find something to do with the cats and get the mail and newspaper stopped for the interim, etc. I should find a job, too, but chances for that are slim until after the holidays, what with going to California and all. It's gonna be a roller-coaster.
I know there's more I'm not thinking to mention, but that'll do to fill my mind for now. All that little stuff aside, though, seriously, I need to write, write quickly, and write well in the days ahead. Focus, Wheeler. Focus.
Posted by Jared at December 2, 2007 10:52 PM | TrackBack