On Writing -4-

Tonight I began draft 2 of manuscript 2 and have worked to plug the first chapter (of ten) into the computer, beginning the long process of slogging and writing tune-ups.

But I did so while watching the 1930 version of "All Quiet on the Western Front"--one of the best war books of all time, and one of my personal favorites novels I've read. The movie is as remarkable as the book. If you haven't read it, do so; if you won't read it, watch the movie. It's pushing 83 years, but that movie has lost very little over that time.

Books, movies, stories, songs--so many of them produce wonderful and withstanding lines and lyrics. Some are as simple as Molly Weasley yelling at Bellatrix Black during the final showdown; others are famous passages, sometimes a page long.

Still others are in another realm unto themselves. They transcend emotion, they elaborate on meaning. They have a way of hovering in their air, their words as evocative as the themes and messages they convey.

And "all quiet on the western front" is one of them.

We all only strive to ever even approach a phrase like that.