Orthodox Satire

Sunday night. Well, it's 7:21 p.m., which is late afternoon in August, but it's November, post-Daylight Savings Time, and night.

I entered a writing contest for which the grand prize is a T-shirt, which shows how much I like the publication -- a Church satire site called The Onion Dome. The webmeistro, Alex Riggle, has written funny stuff about the Orthodox Church for several years now. He captures the news, skewers the factions, punctures the puffery and nails the quirks and pretensions of a great cast of characters.

For a while, I've thought, "I wish I could do that." And now maybe I will. Whether I win or even make finalist in the contest, I'm going to do more of that stuff. It's too fun not to, and the process of looking at what's funny about something as serious as our co-religionists is too healthy to give it up now that I've started.

So maybe some of my pieces will show up on The Oniondome, or maybe they'll show up here.

In the meantime, I've continued to slog away on my novel. And a slog it's turning out to be. Maybe the slog is essential to the process, though it feels as though it's a sign that the process isn't working at all.