Virtuous Reality

I'm finishing up a book by Jon Katz entitled Virtuous Reality (How America surrendered discussion of moral values to opportunists, nitwits, and blockheads like William Bennett) on how Mediaphobes are decrying our popular culture at every moment in order to protect middle-class children who neither want or need such protection, rather than taking steps to protect the children who very much need such protection. A good example: yelling about the violence in movies and TV rather than doing anything to keep guns out of the hands of children. Not, of course, that anyone ("Phone call for Mr. Dole") has taken such a hypocritical stand.

The book is meant as a subjective polemic against the media onslaught we're faced with ("The heavens are falling! The heavens are falling!") that we're faced with daily. He makes no bones about how the Web is a wonderful means for instantaneous, empowered communication for the Great Unwashed outside the Beltway, and that's what's scaring the movers and shakers to death.

He has concrete suggestions for how the Old Media can learn to coexist with the New Media rather than trying to stamp it out: play to your strengths of being able to analyze, comment, and investigate the news, rather than just give us a play-by-play (even CNN is slower than the Web now when it comes to breaking news).

Rating: good.

I wrote another 10 pages today. I hit the "midpoint" almost exactly on page 50, which actually has me a bit worried. What if I don't even 100 pages of stuff? Is that common for a first draft, where you're just trying to hack out scenes, to get them out so you can see what you've got? I mean, if I end up with 85 or 90 pages total -- which is okay for a comedy but really not enough for a drama, like mine -- does that mean I don't have a cinematic story? Or that I have to pad?

Yes, even while being productive I can worry about my productivity quotient.