by Melinda Snodgrass | Aug 5, 2014 | General
As I’ve watched the world in general and the Middle East in particular go up in flames I’ve found myself thinking about the power of social media, and the weakness of the theory that democracy can be sprayed onto a culture and a people. Or in the case of the Iraq war — delivered by the barrel of gun. First social media. Once upon a time the world was big. How people lived in countries on the far side of the Earth wasn’t readily available. In the States every family had that...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 28, 2014 | About Writing
I’m having one of those days where I am questioning everything about this current novel. I finished a book that is just one action event after another, and my book has none of that because it’s set in the first year at a military academy, and it’s establishing all the relationships and the world and setting up all these hooks that will pay off later. The violence will take place on the sports field, and in a duel, and training exercises gone wrong, but the big kabooms...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jul 3, 2014 | About Writing
I had an interesting experience on Tuesday. I went to work in the morning, and started rereading the scene I had written the day before. The scene had been fighting me, and I couldn’t figure out why. As I reread I suddenly realized that this particular professor wasn’t giving a standard lecture. He was reacting to a profound change that had occurred at this military academy, and that this was off the cuff. I went back and just subtly changed the emphasis and the focus. Most...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 13, 2014 | TV & Movies
I never thought I would write these words, but the Toby McGuire Spiderman 3 was a better movie than the current incarnation playing in the theaters now. Not to say Spiderman 3 wasn’t an impressive shit sandwich, but The Amazing Spiderman with Andrew Garfield is so much worse and so horrible on so many levels. Why did I see it? I was taking a young relative who has crush on Andrew Garfield, and who am I to cast stones with my mad crush on Tom Hiddelston? There is also the fact that for me...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 11, 2014 | General
So good ole’ Louie Gohmert, Congressman from Texas took it upon himself to school pastor Barry Lynn who is the executive head of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. At one point in the exchange Gohmert said the following: “Do you believe in sharing the good news that will keep people from going to Hell, consistent with Christian beliefs?” When Lynn demurred that policy forcing beliefs on others was perhaps not wise Gohmert went on to add — “So, you do not...
