Writer's Block

Why hey, you didn't think I would let an entire month slip by without a single good ol' fashioned Writer's Block, did you? Sure those little preambles have gotten rid of the need for a Writer's Block every 3 Chapters, but they haven't rendered them completely useless! So until a better avenue comes along, we travel down once more that well-trodden path...
You might've noticed that I've updated - what, five posts? - in the past two weeks ( including a reCAPPENING), which rings as pretty slow by my usual standards. Yeah, you know the words before I even type them out...it's the final stretch of my schooling career and I better not get an A for Blogging Studies. Of course, VBS did eat up some of time as well but God has been so gracious to me (by cancelling that Penang trip, among others) that it was worth every bit the effort.
Now that reminds me why I came up with this Writer's Block in the first place. Last night I managed to finish in one sitting Godless, a book I waited for six months for the paperback version. It's a story book (I prefer that over "fiction"), in case you're wondering, written by Pete Hautman, and a darn fine read too. 32 bucks, Kinokuniya - need I say more? Oh yeah, the ISBN number's 0689862784, in case that comes in handy.
It's about this regular disoriented teenager Jason Bock who creates his own "customised religion" after tiring of the Catholic faith his dad has been forcing down his throat all the years. Using the logic that water is the provider of all life, he convinces his friends to worship the town water tower, or the Ten-Legged God as they call it. However, things spiral out of control when his disciples start getting even more obsessed with the hokey religion than him, culminating in a dangerous midnight mass on top of the tower where things go horribly wrong. Like it or not, Jason has to control the religion he invented before its power grows out of control.
Sounds interesting? You bet it did to me too, when I first read the review in Sunday Star months back! It raises in the most innocuous of ways age old questions of faith, religion, and whether God is unchanging or a matter of personal perception. In fact, midway through the book right after Jason has just assembled his Church of The Ten-Legged One, this killer excerpt cuts deep into rationality:


"So, you ask, how can Jason Bock be serious about a religion that worships a false god?
Are you kidding?
You ever watch a football game and get totally into it? Why? It's not a real battle. It's just a game somebody made up. So how can you take it seriously? Or, you ever see a movie that made your heart about jump out of your chest? Or one that made you cry? Why? It wasn't real. You ever look at a photo of food that made your mouth water? Why? You can't eat the picture.
Ah, you say, but the food that the picture shows is real. Is it really? Maybe that tasty-looking apple is made of wax. Maybe that loaf of bread is plastic. Maybe the football game is fixed. Maybe the movie is nothing but computer-generated pixels. So it's not as if the picture shows you reality. What you see is somebody's idea of reality.
Same thing with water towers and God. I don't have to be a believer to be serious about my religion."

Heheh...this one's a thinker, no? Ultimately though, I guess Jason's logic is flawed mostly due to his religious role models who tell him all the time what God is supposed to be like, but never allows his own experiences to shape his faith. Now I'm not saying that young people should never be told what to do by their elders, but there's a reason why God didn't just send His legions of angels to earth and scare everyone into believing in Him.
All in all, easily one of the books I'll cherish most, given too the fact that I had to look hard for it! Though the ending fell a little short, as is the case with most stories that draw you in from the start with an incredible premise, it's still the first book in a long, long while attention-span-deficit me finished in one sitting. And that's a good thing.
Omigosh...did I just do a book review? Puh-leez! Are not the best tales in the land to be found right here under my nose? Continue to expect the slow trickle of updates till my term ends in a week's time, but I'll say for now that I'm very, very satisfied with how "The New Girl" is turning out. Not a hint of dragginess yet, and plenty of intruiging stuff going on. It's a throwback to the sweet days of "Blogspot", just with the added touch of CHARACTERISATION~! Look, I'm spelling it with an "s" instead of a "z"! I don't think that's ever been done before. :p
Till the next posting, then!