Searching For Atticus...

Who inspires me to write?

The most influential man in my life - as a writer and as a person - is not a real person at all, but a literary character named Atticus Finch.  Ironically, Atticus came into my life the same summer my real father left it; the summer I was 12-years-old.
               I remember that summer well; it was the season that followed the spring that my dog got hit by a car.  Rascal lived, minus her lower-left hindquarter, and her resilience taught me that it was true what people say: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  She learned how to run like the wind on only three legs when it came time to chase after me on my bike, as well as how to play the part of the brave invalid when in view of neighbors with dog treats.  The world may have shattered a bone or two in her body, but it did not break her spirit.  I wish I could say I had the same emotional fortitude as my dog did that summer, but that would almost be a lie – almost; because at some point that summer I became acquainted with Atticus Finch.  Who knew that a summer reading assignment would come to have such an influence on my life?

The school bell rang shortly after we had received our reading assignments, dismissing us to an awaiting ice cream truck and a world of summer freedoms; our summer homework assignments already forgotten, if just for the moment – our parents would see to it that we promptly remembered them.  Although our choices for entertainment were endless; our reading selections were not.  Accustomed to the usual Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume stories of our childhood past, we were a bit frightened by what the seventh grade had in store for us, as our assigned options appeared to reflect the démonté of our childhood.  I can still recall my friend Rachel repetitively droning on about how she planned to read To Kill a Mockingbird because she had heard it was a really good book.  She could not tell me anything about the story and I, who was making my way through the anthologies of Stephen King and J.R.R. Tolkien, thought the title To Kill a Mockingbird sounded far too much like the children’s poem “Who Killed Cock Robin?” I bought the book anyway because compared to my other choices – The Grapes of Wrath, The Old Man and the Sea and Animal Farm – it seemed to be the least offensive to my pre-teen sensibilities.  I considered myself to be far too mature to read about talking animals!  Once in hand I promptly decided that To Kill a Mockingbird was not worth my time.  This opinion was based on the book’s plain, un-illustrated, mustard-yellow cover.  Yes, bibliophile that I was (and still am), I judged a book by its cover. 

My copy of To Kill a Mockingbird – now creased and careworn – sat on my bedroom desk until the start of August which was when I realized that, like it or not, my mother was not going to allow me to buy the Cliff’s Notes version of it; the local librarian looked positively apoplectic when I had asked if she had a copy of the shelves.  Already miserable because my father had decided to take Paul Simon’s advice and “slip out the back, Jack” I figured my summer could get no worse.  I opened to the first page and read these words: “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

“My brother Jem,” I thought.  “Isn’t Jem a girl’s name?” At the time Jem and the Holograms was Hasbro’s answer to Mattel’s Barbie.  I read a little further and discovered that the character of Scout was a girl and grew curious as to how people down South lived.  Being a native New Englander, I had only heard stories of the Deep South; none of them all that kind to Confederates.  As I got deeper and deeper into the tome that was my summer reading assignment, something inside me stirred.  My child-like sense of justice – of right and wrong being either/or but never both – flared inside of me.  Why did these people want to hurt Atticus?  What was wrong with them?  They were supposed to be his friends!  Why were they siding against Tom Robinson, an innocent man “whose only true sin was pity for white woman”? 

By the time I reached the end of the book I was so disgusted with Maycomb County that the enormity of what “Boo” Radley had done completely escaped me – which is why I read To Kill a Mockingbird again the very next summer; and the summer after that; and the summer after that; and every summer to this day.  It was on or around my twelfth reading of the book that I caught on to the fact that Jem did not kill Bob Ewell.  I cannot understand why I did not catch on sooner.  Perhaps it was my outrage at the sense of injustice I felt; perhaps it was my anger over being told (by native Alabamans) that not much has changed in Alabama since the Civil War, and that Harper Lee’s story could be as true today as it was when she wrote it.  I think the real reason it took so long for me to process the truth about who killed Bob Ewell was that Atticus could not process it.  Over the years, I had learned to look at Atticus as the father-figure I needed in my life.  To me, Atticus was a God among men; His only weakness his blind love for his children.  He was a man who believed in his children; a man who raised them to become the pillars of justice he sought for the future of humankind.  To a child who had been abandoned by her father, Atticus made a fine surrogate; a living example of all that was good in a world full of ugliness. 

I have spent the better part of my life searching for Atticus, inside and outside of myself.  I have never giving in to the pessimistic view that such a person can only exist in fiction; that the real world would have jaded him by now, worn his ideals down to a stub of their original grace or corrupted him in one of the many political trade-offs that occur in order to make the business of politics run, and keep the politics of business in check.  I know he is out there, though, for I have caught glimpses of him.  It is these glimpses that keep my hopes alive.  I know that Atticus lives; he lives in the hearts and the minds of all who seek to emulate him.
               It was the summer of my seventeenth reading of To Kill a Mockingbird that a young boy I watched over picked up a copy of it for himself.  He was eleven years old, a year younger than I was when I first felt the magic of Harper Lee’s masterpiece, and like me he was too young to process all of the goings-on in the world that Atticus, Jem, and Scout inhabited.  Small for his age, he curled in my lap and cried at the injustice of Tom Robinson’s conviction and death; at the blatant prejudice that engulfed the human psyche.  As he dried his tears, he looked up at me with watery eyes and said, “When I grow up I want to be just like Atticus!”  Holding back tears of pride, I kissed his forehead; rocked him gently; and told him I could think of no nobler calling. 

KJM

07.09.12

The Downside of Writing

Writing a daily column can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. Don't get me wrong - I love it, and would love for Ask Tazi! to go places financially, as well as socially (which is it currently doing) but sometimes I feel like I am not doing enough to promote it; and sometimes I feel like I am doing too much to promote it.

I love writing. Ever since I was a child, I have loved the creativity of it. I started reading Ann Landers when I was seven years old and read it every day until her final column. I owned the book she wrote until it got destroyed by water damage, and it was always a dream of mine to be an advice columnist myself - thus the purpose of continuing with Ask Tazi! The letters I get are real, but I sometimes wonder if I am choosing the right ones - those that an audience would find most interesting or most helpful or just most entertaining. I try to find a balance between offering serious help for widespread problems and letters that entertain others, in spite of the fact that they do reflect someone else's real-life issue - real enough that they felt the need to write to an advice columnist about it.

Having a degree in Communications helps me a lot in this career project (which is what it has become). I am able to read between the lines and tell if information is missing, or if someone is twisting the story. I can tell if a man is writing the letter pretending to be his wife or vice-versa (almost 80% of my letters are from women) and I can tell if a letter is real or fake. My degree specializations were Interpersonal Communications and Mass Communications, so I am happy to be using both to do something I love, but I still feel...afraid that it will all just end before I am ready to see it stop.

Ask Tazi! has its slow days. For some reason, traffic drags on Tuesdays. I have tried to increase it by printing what I think are the most interesting letters, but all that has done is result in less readership for some of my best topics. I have added a blog review feature, "Tazi Recommends..." for Sundays that seems to be going over well. I do not know if it attracting extra attention to the blogs reviewed, but it has certainly helped my numbers. And yet...

I know online pay-per-click advertising is a complete rip-off, but I do it anyway in the hope of getting something back for my efforts, in a financial sense. Thus the publication of Tails From Ask Tazi: Past Missives of Great Import (Vol. 1). I suppose I just lack patience...and that is the downside of writing. It is the downside of life, really: things move not at your pace, but the pace of the world around you. I'm just going to have to accept that fact...or spend my life aggravated.

Almost Famous

Ask Tazi! looked like it was going to go viral for a little while...but today the numbers are way down as the column that sent it skyrocketing fades with the passing of current events into political history. Interest in the Cranston Prayer Banner scandal in starting to wan, and the shot heard 'round the world is starting to lose its boom. The links remain on news-sources like WPRO-AM and FM, but page hits are again down.

On the same day as "Tazi" responded to a letter about the prayer banner decision, his column was picked up as a featured story in an international food and beverage organization's newsletter, adding to the international attention his column was receiving. I had to add a BabelFish Translator to the page, so everyone could read the column with ease. I have definitely attracted new readers - which is great, considering the book release of Ask Tazi! occurred yesterday - but I still feel a bit of a let-down. I knew the day would be coming, and it came much later than I expected; but it still leaves me feeling kinda blue...like my 15 minutes of fame ended five minutes too early.

On Plagiarism and Other Ills

Twice this week I have come across blogged articles that were blatantly plagiarized from known sources, yet no credit was given. These blogs were copied and pasted word-for-word - complete with accompanying pictures - yet the re-posters failed to acknowledge the fact that the work was not theirs. What is truly sickening is that one of these bloggers is a grad student, who should know better! At the end of the original blog she "apologizes" for not crediting the original author (who she could no longer find) but declares that she posted it in fun. Oh, well that makes it all better, doesn't it?

Plagiarism is one of the great ills of writing in an electronic environment. Because it is so easy for someone to "share" your work without properly crediting it, writers - and aspiring writers - often have their work stolen by those who mean no harm...and by some who maybe do mean to claim another's work as their own. The fact that Blogger offers copyright protection is of some help, but you still have to find the people who are stealing your work - something that is difficult enough when dealing with the printed page; nigh on impossible when publishing online.

I title this blog "...and Other Ills", but really it is just one other thing. The other day, I was watching an old episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, in which Frank decides he wants to be a writer after the Reader's Digest publishes one of his jokes. Suddenly, Frank feels he knows all there is about writing and goes wild sharing his prose with all he forces to listen. At his father's request - and out of pity - Raymond drops one of his father's "columns" in his Editor's inbox. The Editor calls the work "amateurish". Frank decides that the Editor does not know anything about writing, and proceeds to continue writing.

While watching the story-line unfold, I could see where it was going and could not help but compare it to real life. I have often complained about how, thanks to blogging, anyone with a keyboard can think themselves a writer (as opposed to one who writes). I know people who have never taken a Writing or Communications course beyond the General Education requirements of their college or university, yet they believe themselves capable of writing the Great American Novel. The truly sad thing is that although their ideas may be worthwhile, they refuse to take constructive criticism; seeing it as an insult instead of an assist. Furthermore, they will not allow anyone to suggest their precious prose be edited for wordiness. Oh no…every word out of their mouths is a sacred pearl of wisdom to be treasured! How dare someone try to toss these pearls before swine!

I have seen blogs go viral on the basis of one really good article; an article that is well-written, relevant, funny, and something to which the masses can relate. I am truly happy for writers who experience such unexpected success; but my happiness is tempered by the knowledge that pride often comes before the fall. I have seen the swelled heads that prevail after such viral success. Like a writer whose first novel becomes a New York Times Bestseller, they develop a large following very quickly; people clamor for more and the writer feels flattered to produce. However, often times what they produce is....amateurish. The lack of processing and editing is evident; as is the fact that the writer rushed to churn out something to please their legion of fans. As the quality drops, so does the fan base and the opportunity to grow at a slower pace shrivels. I call it the Hootie and the Blowfish syndrome.

For anyone who remembers the late-1990's, Hootie and the Blowfish rocked the scene with Hold My Hand - a bouncy tune that was easy to dance to and fun to sing. This song rocketed the band to stardom, and their CD sales were through the roof. Their follow-up CD, Fairweather Johnson, tanked due to a bad choice of opening release (Old Man and Me) and the band disappeared from the charts, reappearing briefly with I Go Blind (another pop-rock tune) before vanishing for good. The lead singer, Darrius Rucker (aka "Hootie"), is now a Country and Western singer. Whatever happened to The Blowfish is anybody's guess...

When I started writing Ask Tazi! I never expected to gain a following, let alone the continued interest people have shown; an interest that grows by the week. As I have said before, it was simply a class assignment to be launched and then dismantled over the course of a few weeks. I am pleased that it is doing so well, and hope that in time it will become a national phenomenon. I would love for it to go viral...but first, I would love for it to be picked up for syndication - just so I can stay one step ahead of the copycats who would steal my concept of an advice giving cat.