Stephen King and My Journalistic Future

At a Glance



Who: Alethea Skinner
What: Commenting on Stephen King's book "On Writing"


This week I felt the need to hide a book I was reading--for the first time in my adult life. That was my experience when I took Stephen King with me to the Grandparent's Day celebration at Jefferson Elementary School.

One grandparent and at least one teacher commented about the author, his style of writing and whether or not they would be caught in public with one of his books. Others just looked at me with a quizzical expression.

"I read one of his books; it was awful," a grandma said.

"It's a book on writing I am reading for my class," I hastened to assure her, showing her the title and explaining my position on the language content.

"Oh!" was her only comment, but she eyed me with a raised eyebrow.

How embarrassing!

Well, King seems to have a bad reputation for scaring people and for foul language. Still, there are things I have learned from reading between the words (and omitting a lot of them).

That is what I will share.

Throughout his book, in the midst of all of the stories, King actually provides aspiring great writers with valuable knowledge about the mechanics and subtleties of perfecting the craft.

For instance, he said he believed"large numbers of people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened." While it seems an insignificant tidbit, for someone who is struggling and filled with self-doubt, it is a major encourager.

I believe I have "at least some talent" as a writer and storyteller.

There were times I have wondered about story ideas--where you get them, the source of a writer's inspiration. According to King, story ideas come from various places, rather than an "Idea Dump" or "Story Central." Rather than trying to find story ideas, the key is learning to recognize the ideas when they appear.

I had better do more watching then.

I have actually found King's "-isms" are very helpful. I particularly liked his comments about the basic unit of writing being the paragraph rather than the sentence. He says it is "the place where coherence begins and words stand a chance of becoming more than mere words."

Not only have I found that to be true, I have seen it happen (without comprehending it) in my own writing.

"You must learn to use it well if you are to write well," King says.

In the middle of this book, however, I found what is probably the most important thing I will take into my journalistic future: "good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments" and this: while there are impossibilities when it comes to different levels of writers, it is possible, "with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one."

It is my hope that I am at least a "competent" writer, and that the help gained in my classes and from this book are "timely." I am dedicated and am committed to the hard work portion.

I want to become a good writer.

I also realize, again, that somehow I have to do more reading. I don't even know where to find the time, or what is worth reading! I used to read National Graphic, Times, US News for the flow of the words, the rhythm of it, not just for the news it contained. It was the same with GRIT magazine.

But, you have to read a lot in order to develop your own style. King says you can read "listen" as you drive. Never thought of doing that. Somehow, I imagined that the things I learn about writing would be lost.

I learn a lot from seeing where paragraphs are formed--seeing the mechanics.

Still, the words would be in my brain, and that is part of the process.

Guess I'm going to have to divorce myself from Keith and Chris, and say goodbye to MSNBC. The analogy between my TV watching versus reading and King's son's saxophone practice versus playing for fun was very convincing.

That is how I was about piano as a child; I must do the same with my writing.

I loved his "Ideal Reader." I have one that rides me like a mule but without whom I would never be able to write.

I actually even have a "Tabby" when I need her--my older sister. Oh, she is rough! However, she sees beyond her sister to the writing and does not hesitate to point out the areas that were weak, confusing or whatever. She just isn't close enough to do it often.

So, thank you, Stephen King, for inspiring me to change my bad habits, add to my toolbox and to keep going.

I have miles to go and things to write before I sleep.

Rory White--Photographer, Artist, Social Activist

At a Glance

Who: Rory White--artist, photographer, social activist
What: Creator/director of The Lamp Art Project
When: 1998-2008
Where: Lamp Community, Skid Row
527 S. Crocker St., Los Angeles, Calif.
Contact: Roreewhite@hotmail.com
Websites: www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/34171-rory-white
www.lampartproject.org
Note: All pictures/art used with permission of the artists, Rory White and Magdalena Astrid Dahlen.


As a model for photographers like Lucien Clergue and Ansel Adams in the 1970s, Rory White was considered a "hottie" before "hot" was the word for "good looking."

Born into a Jewish family in Los Angeles, Calif., he spent his early childhood in Germany--just after WWII.

He studied photography in his youth and learned oil painting from his mother, the late Renee White, who had studied with Saul Bernstein and Richard Diebenkern.

While his siblings followed their parents into the psychiatric field as doctors and therapists, he charted a course through the world of painting, writing and photography.

He was on the road to a successful modeling career, a road that would ultimately lead him straight to Skid Row.

As the years sped by, White left the modeling world and lived a quiet, secluded life in the "wilderness" of Big Sur, selling historical paintings to museums and large collectors while perfecting his craft as "an artist (oil painting, etching, relief sculpture, photography), and as a writer (expository, surreal prose, epic blank verse poetry)."

His life was full.

As he was writing "a large autobiographical novel focused on man's inhumanity to man" ("Hacky-Sack Boys, Big Sur and the Sonnets of God"), however, something was happening inside. His views of God, Jesus, religion and the people around him were changing.

In our e-mail interview, White directed me to one of his websites where he shared that by 1987, he was drawn to working among those who were the victims of AIDS--the marginalized and ignored people he felt religious people were turning their backs on.

Those were the people he felt God wanted us to help.

Seven years later he says he felt "called by God to do inner-city work." However, answering that call would mean ending his 15 years of wilderness living.

Without hesitation he answered that call and moved to the inner city of Los Angeles where he found a rent-controlled apartment near the ocean in Santa Monica that was so tiny his bathroom was also his kitchen.

That's when he realized that the funds were coming in and people with aids (PWAs) were getting help, all except those who were homeless. The homeless PWAs were often transgender street prostitutes, commonly African-American or Latino/Latina, and many had mental diagnoses. They were the outcasts of society's outcasts.

And many ended up in Skid Row.

"This brought my awareness to Skid Row, the highest concentration of homeless persons in America," White says.

And he followed them right to their "home" in Skid Row's Lamp Community.

The Lamp Community, founded by Mollie Lowery, was designed to work with people who are challenged with homelessness and mental illness in downtown Los Angeles--to get them into permanent homes first, then begin undertaking the underlying causative factors of homelessness.

His intent was "to focus on the homeless, doing general advocacy work at first--food, care, shelter and medical benefits."

Then, in 1998, Lowery gave him the opportunity to combine his passion for art with his passion for helping the homeless of Skid Row. She gave him a free hand to design, implement and build a project--The Lamp Art Project--and allowed him to run it for 10 years.

He created the Lamp Art Project as "a child and integral part of" the Lamp Community. Its concept is that individuals with these challenges have a level of artistic genius equal to any other segment of the population.

"While it is a high-level fine arts project that accepts artists from 'absolute beginner' to 'highly advanced' levels in experience, all of its member-artists have been challenged with homelessness and mental diagnoses."

The project is important because, "although one can show photographs of meals being offered and shelter provided, it is difficult to show photographs of the internal healing of human self-esteem, the strengthening of mental health, and the self-actualization achieved in this atmosphere."

According to the Art Project website, however," art is the mirror of society. Art provides a visible manifestation of human worth and meaning and healing.

Art is healing in itself.

Creativity is essential, not superfluous, to human life.... Art provides a picture, almost like an X-ray, Cat-Scan, or MRI, of the invisible things of the human soul or psyche."

White hasn't made an unaffected, untouched journey, however. He says the people who have had the most impact on his life are the amazing people he met among the homeless, people rich in who they were as people and Mollie Lowery and those who blossomed as genius artists--among them Darlene Altemeier Dobbs and Magdalena Astrid Dahlen.

I spoke with Dahlen who now lives in Gresham, Ore. Even though her parents encouraged her in her artwork, she says her life was so dysfunctional she could do little more than doodle and play around with a little watercolor.

"Somehow I wound up in LA on Skid Row at Lamp Art," she says, "and that's where I met Rory."

Through art therapy, "he gave me something to do, and people to be with so I could not isolate myself to my room. If you needed help, he would stop and help you right then and there.

And, he would give you his last dime, if you needed it. He is real, not a phony.

He has empathy--whether he is talking to a prostitute or a beggar, he relates as if he were one of them--he has a heart of gold."

And yes, there were some times when working on Skid Row was dangerous.

For half of the 10 years he worked in the Lamp Community he rode the bus, which meant walking to the bus stop even when he worked very late at night. There were a few "close calls," but White says a greater danger is allowing your heart to grow hard to the poor.

He initially avoided that danger by refusing to allow it to settle in his heart. Then, he says he was "so blessed and impressed by the poor, it became easy."

However, he says the dangers from the street people are not as high as some believe. Most residents are totally peaceful. The problem is that the acts of violence are the only ones that make the news.

In 2004 White received the Eli Lilly Welcome Back Award (WBA) for Outstanding Community Service in the Field of Depression and Mental Illness for his work in Skid Row.

In May 2008 he received another Eli Lilly Welcome Back Award (WBA) "Person of the Decade" at the Willard Hotel (adjacent to the White House lawn, along with an accompanying show of his Skid Row photographs. An award for outstanding bravery and achievement in working with persons challenged with depression and other mental illnesses, it was his number one personally satisfying award.

True to his style of giving, he put the money back into the Lamp Community by designating the $10,000 grant that came with the award to and for the film "Ashes and Roses." The film, currently in post production, allowed them to use large amounts of his skid Row still photos in the matrix (and as one of the subjects of) the film.

He also won two Frederick Weisman Awards for the Art Project-an acknowledgment of the high level of art produced by formerly homeless artists.

Additionally, an Annenberg Family grant funded a high- level exhibition of the project's artists, and White's work at the downtown Los Angeles "Pharmaka Gallery."

In 2008, White left his beloved work with the Lamp Community and moved to Washington State to again live in the country and teach at a local university.

His art project continued to flourish under a new, wonderful, coordinator, Hayk Makhmuryan and Darlene Altemeier Dobbs, studio assistant, who began at the art project while living in a homeless shelter.

White says she is a major peer-staff figure at the art project. who has become a great artist. She has accomplished "a major and cohesive body of work, oil paintings portraying downtown Los Angeles and street scenes and the peoples of Skid Row."

For two years his heart longed to continue his work in Skid Row.

So, he moved back a few weeks ago and began working on his own work again while waiting for the opportunity to rejoin the project he created.

The Lamp Art Project website, which he designed and built, has been designated a "Virtual Treasure" by the University of British Colombia's Archival and Library Science's Virtual Museum Project.

The Lamp Art Project website says, "the art project is an extreme epitomization of the amazing genius, often hidden, but herein made visible, of the homeless people of Skid Row, and those now no longer homeless, through the work of Lamp Community. It remains a particularly, and poignantly, critical and visible component of Lamp."

It also remains as a tribute to the boy who chose to walk a different road.

Fighting to be RIGHT!

At a Glance

What:Political Battles
When: This political season
Where: Nationwide
Why: The losing party hates the new leader/the winning party doesn't trust their new leader's ability
Pundits who have weighed in: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin

Every now and then I have the urge to reach through my TV screen, grab the lapels of a speaker, jerk him or her close to my face and hiss, "What is wrong with you?"

After eight years of distress, fearfully enduring the leadership of a man I voted for twice, why on earth would anyone block the agenda of a president who is actually trying to do positive things for this country?

I am so confused, frustrated and just plain angry!

I am amazed at the way people have changed since the election of Barack Obama.

I was watching "Hannity & Colmes" the night of the 2004 Democratic National Convention and heard Sean Hannity gush about how incredible the keynote speech Obama delivered was and how we just needed to get him on "our side."

As a Republican at the time, I heartily agreed!

However, once Obama decided to run for president, Hannity turned. That meant demonizing the opposition at any cost.

I expected that.

I did not expect that people would turn who loved this president when he was a senator and when he appeared as a light on the Democratic horizon. They now act like rabid dogs--in the furious stage.

They nip at his heels at every turn.

As one blogger said on the The Democratic Party website, "President Obama is being treated like an intelligent African American student in a mostly white classroom. Every mistake he makes is a grave one and every achievement he gets is not good enough and (sic) underrecognized."

He has been called "uppity" by people such as Congressman Westmoreland and Rush Limbaugh.
According to the Urban Dictionary, the word "uppity", when applied to people of African descent, means they have forgotten their place and was usually applied to those who dared to look a white person in the eye.

That might explain why the GOP and Tea Party crew use the word "uppity" and treat him like someone who has forgotten his place and just needs to be taught a lesson.

That is one thing that makes me angry.

What makes me angrier is this: The leadership of his own party acts like "He's our boy, so we gotta support him, but frankly, between you and me and the fence post, I ain't quite sure we can trust him to make the right decision on the 'big' stuff." (That's Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the rest of that motley crew.)

In their own way, Biden and Clinton said he couldn't be trusted to make the right decisions during the campaign each time they said he wasn't ready.

Their words became Republican talking points.

It is as though they support him and trust him until he makes decisions with which they are uncomfortable, then they go weak in the knees, back pedal and leave him hanging.

They second-guess him.

That makes me even angrier because what I am left with is this: Obama is not going to get a break from either side of the aisle. Not yet.

He is the man caught in the middle.

He ran for office from the left and came back as close to the middle as he could get in order to work with people who disagreed with him politically. He risked angering his own party members in order to "reach across the aisle" and embrace his enemies.

And for what? To be denigrated by his own?

Too bad he had the audacity to believe that the people who voted for him actually believed in his ability to do the job.

So, in my rage, I scream at the individual I have snatched through my TV screen, whose lapels I clutch and whose face is within inches of mine: "Wake up!"

We are in debt up to our eyeballs, we are still a country at war--sacrificing our kids for a cause "W" believed in--we are losing jobs rapidly and in a huge recession.

Wake up!

As a country divided, we are imploding, being pulled down from within, as the world watches from the outside.

Do you need an example?

In her closing address to the recent Tea Party Convention, Sarah Palin mentioned the hope and change promised by President Obama and asked this question: "How's that hopey/changey thing workin' out for ya?"

For me, there is but one answer to her question.

Things are turning out far better than they would have been had we ended up with you and John McCain and the ideas conveyed by both of you as you rode on his "Straight Talk Express." When I consider the choice between "that hopey/changey thing" and "The Straight Talk Express," I choose hope and change every time.

Thanks for asking.

Justin's Blog

Today I visited Justin's Blog.

I really liked this article.

As a matter of fact, I liked it so much it made me start wondering how students could possibly help each other.

Is it possible that we could donate a book or books to the library that could be checked out overnight or loaned for the term. Those would be books that the book store refused to buy back (a little too "used") or an older version. I've bought expensive textbooks at Goodwill. Some have been an earlier version, but most instructors allowed the use of those books. It was just up to me to compare and copy pages if necessary.

You did a great job of identifying the problem and presenting precise solutions.

It is very informative.

I just like your blog.