I admit I was neglecting this blog for weeks, mainly because I wasn't sure what the point was to keeping it up. Most people I know follow me on Facebook and get a fairly decent picture of my life there. But I suppose the blog is more than just the minutiae of every day life, isn't it? So I will attempt to get back to what I started with this format - analysis, rants, musings, and updates on my writing.
The 1999 novel is rolling along into revisions with my editor, so that's very exciting. Debut will be at the con this fall here in L.A. I also have to work on publicity and other such perfunctory duties.
Into revisions for "Eden" my latest screenplay - that's going much more smoothly once I hammered out the first act re-write. I prayed for the Muse to help me with this first act re-write, because I felt like I was staring into the gaping maw of "I don't know what the fuck to do with this." Literally 30 minutes later, in the shower, it was like someone opened the top of my head a la Monty Python and poured the first act into my brain. Bless the Muse!
I've got an outline for the Mary Magdalene story, and I'm continuing to do research. I've discovered an entire world of alternate-history/mythology/biblical research out there in the Internets. It's really amazing how many versions of Jesus and early Christianity there are. Orthodox Roman Catholic, Gnostic, Protestant, etc. Everyone has a corner on "The Truth" it would seem. As I've been reading and pondering all this material, I have to keep centering on my own personal experience of God, so my intellectual capacity doesn't become bound up and paralyzed with "Oh shit, I don't know what to believe!" I'm going for the experiential route on this one.
Getting back to Mary Magdalene, what is very clear is that she's been maligned and turned into a repentant whore - which she never was, nor was there every any evidence in any of the Gospels - Canonical or otherwise - that she was. Pope Gregory the Great in 591 decided he'd make things simpler for the average Christian (who didn't read, and who would have had no access to a Bible other than what their priests would read to them): Mary of Bethany, the woman sinner (who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees and other hard-hearted on-lookers), and Mary Magdalene were all actually one and the same person -- therefore Mary M. became a sinner, hereby designated a prostitute. Centuries later, even though the Vatican declared in 1969 this in fact was flawed and that she was NOT a whore, Christians and non-Christians alike assume her to be a penitent sinner. Way to squash Christ's main female disciple, Church Fathers!
And this doesn't even include how Dan Brown further maligned her place in Christ's discipleship with the whole "Jesus & Mary had a little baby, that made three in their family" Bloodline theory:
My story of Mary Magdalene will necessarily have to involve some creative license - we know little to nothing about her - but for sure it will set aside these two main lies that have taken root in the imaginations of men, religious and secular: Mary as whore-turned-saint and Mary as sexual fantasy.
