I have to say it: Holy Shit

Ahem. Remember when we used to say "a billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking REAL money"? Flock that. The new cool word starts with a T.

Check out this rather informative Flash animation at the Guardian UK. Dog love him, Obama's $800-some-odd-billion incentive/relief/bailout package won't even cover one day's interest on the real debt.

We're flocked, folks. Buy a big gun, and don't let anyone in your door waving "official" papers. "Possession is nine-tenths" will be the new watch word. Of course, when they shut off the gas and power you'll have to start chopping up the furniture (or the neighbors, or something).

Irony: When your credit card company calls and asks if their interest rate is "competitive enough." Funny, but zero is competitive enough for the moment. (I got one of those temporary introductory rate deals.) Yeah, for the moment. I'll let you know.

Really excellent posts on science and religion

Read the Coyne article in the New Republic. Then read PZ Myers' commentary on Coyne.

As scientists we have to think about the incompatibility between religious belief and the reason of science. For me, the money quote comes from Richard Feynman:

"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

One comment I've heard about atheists is that they just won't shut up. That they're just too pushy, loud, disrespectful, and obnoxious. They are vocal, certainly, but their weapons are "only" words that espouse ideas. Surely one's faith isn't shaken by ideas, is it? Or is it? Mine was.

Self inspection is hard, and I'm no exception. But it's clear, the scales eventually have to fall from our eyes, or we fall short of being true scientists. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

This is all just food for thought in a hungry world. Enjoy.

Fascinating article on religion and the human brain

I found this article on SuicideGirls.com, a place most would probably not associate with such scholarly things. The article discusses the connection religion has to our more primitive "primal" brains. HOWEVER, before you all go off on me for "being unfair to religion," please go read the article.

I saw the idea of fictive kin being quite apropos to my story. My native people have the notion of having "brothers" and "sisters" who are not blood kin to them. It's their way of establishing extended trust relationships with others--specifically those who are not their true brothers and sisters. I have looked at it from the "since I call you brother you know I would trust you with my life; you can trust me with yours." Explicitly. I may be naive, but it seemed important for them to establish these kinds of strong bonds with others as a means of enhancing everyone's own chances for survival. From the Evolution of Religion article, this idea is borne out in the role that religion (or more accurately, religious organizations) play in our lives, and more to the point: in our psyches.

I'm not commenting on whether religion is valuable or appropriate. Clearly, since so many people believe it to be important, it must provide some kind of benefit. The authors seem to imply that over time we may "grow out of" this attraction to religion, but until our "smart brains" totally win out over our "primal brains" this cannot happen. I'm guessing it will not happen. My only wish is that the message of many religions will be changed to one more rationally based. I suspect my wish is in vain.

Back to the philosophies of my fictional native people: they don't have a "religion," as such. They have an amorphous "mother earth spirit"--essentially a pagan belief in the natural world. Their god (if you could call their earth spirit a god) confers judgment on all creatures, and this belief proscribe them from deciding the fate of anyone. If you murder someone, they would not murder you. To do so would be to judge, and judging is only allowed by their earth spirit. They would exile you from their midst--cut you from the herd, as it were--but only their earth spirit can decide whether you live or die. Or how.

I will have to think about the role religion plays in the forming of fictive kin--communities of support acting like tribes/extended families. Clearly, having more ritualized religious practices for my natives feels better than not having them, but is it really true they would have come to the conclusion that sacrifices are necessary to appease their god? (You might ask how I came to this conclusion, seeing as how it seems unrelated to religious rituals, in general. Keep reading.)

I believe religions are all about control. The rituals of belief only exist to homogenize the adherents. In other words: monkey see; monkey do. In crowds, we feel much better when we're doing what everyone else is doing, regardless of whether we know it's right, or not. I know this reaction to be true. So, this means religious ritual is necessary to make everyone feel better about who they are and where they are. The clergy, therefore, has a very important and exalted position. They get to interpret the gods for the masses, and establish (and lead) the various rituals in supplication to the gods. Our primitive brains know that in order to coerce the gods to act on our behalf, we either need to 1) do something they like, or 2) show how much we are willing to give up for them. Either way, we're extending them a lot of power, and power is cool. We're only doing what we would want our worshipers to do for us. Like I said: power is cool.

All this alludes to the uniquely human ability to "see" the purposes and motivations of others. It's what causes us to assign anthropomorphic qualities to the natural world. Hurricanes probably do not have purpose; by extension, neither does the universe. IMHO, anyway. It's because we assume nature has a reason that we're mystified when we can't fathom it. This hole in our understanding has historically been so huge as to fit the proverbial truck. A gap that large is just begging to be filled, and we do: with religion.

For my natives, the clan leaders would probably seek to tie into the religion, and therefore the second most powerful person in the clan would be the high priest. That I haven't invented the role of high priest seems to be an oversight. I don't want it there. I have the role of "philosopher-historian" which is a surrogate for the priest, but frankly I just didn't want religion to be an important part of the world of my natives. If you have to give them a religion, they would be Taoists. Simplicity. Flow. Patience. I really gave them a rather evolved perspective, but I reasoned it to stem from their long-time relationship to the technological "pale-skins." The native people don't believe the world has a purpose--it just is. They don't have science (and they don't want it), but they know science exists and that it explains many things. It's just that it explains the things they don't care about--that don't matter to them. Whether that's right or wrong, ultimately ... well, that's what the story is about (at least partly).

I'm back from vacation and the world didn't end

Not that the one has anything to do with the other.

I've learned that Florida in the winter is as about as unpredictable as winter in Ohio, except it's about 50 degrees warmer. Or so. Once again we had "cold" weather (in the 50's during the day) but didn't let that stop us.

I've been trying to figure out why I've been "stuck" at the scene in my story where my heroes go before the "Council of Librarians." This is an important point, because it's where I intend to show how misguided (and quite possibly insane) these people are/have become. It should take about two (maybe three) chapters to write out, and should set the stage for the exciting events to come. The climax, of course. Fun stuff, but I've been hung up on how to start and what to say.

On the subject of how to start and what to say, take a listen to this week's episode of the Writing Excuses podcast. It's all about this subject. They also talk about two nominal types of writers: Outliners and "discovery" writers. Outliners figure everything out beforehand; discovery writers start writing and figure out what's going to happen as they go along (more or less). Of course, all writers need to know where they're going ... er, somewhat.

I am a discovery writer. Of that I'm quite sure, but I have come to realize that I need to know where I want to go/need to go. In my current story I definitely know where it's going and what's going to happen. I'm really pumped, too; I just need to get there. I'm also not worried about making it perfect on the first try. I know how important it is just to Get It Down, because it can be fixed, later. It will be fixed, without a doubt. I've rewritten quite a few scenes, already, where I didn't think the originals worked very well. Some writers say don't edit until you're done, but my method of "making notes about what has to change" is to actually make changes. I feel better about doing it, and it means I can easily go back and reread if I've forgotten. Both of which I do.

In retrospect, I was in a good spot back in October with the escalating action I was writing at the time. I felt anxiety about it, though, because my heroes were still basically in the dark and they needed to be in a more proactive position. It is act three, after all; they're supposed to be on the offensive. So, I stopped moving the story forward so I could go back, retool, and have my protagonists learn a few more things before the danger really amped up. I could have just decided there were a couple chapters where they did all this learning about the Library, and written those chapters later. Oh, well. Lesson learned.

Since I'm now sitting at the door to my Really Big Reveal (the Council meeting), it's now time to figure out what's really going on. I guess, since I haven't started writing this scene, it means I haven't quite figured it out, yet. It's that pesky inevitable plot twist. Maybe I should just start writing and discover the plot twist as I go, as I almost always do. Then, even if I don't like everything it should still be good enough to keep moving. I'm about 20-30K words from the end, maybe less. I'm so close, I can taste it.

The first 40 chapters are up to second draft strength. In the second 40 chapters I have 12 chapters yet to write. At about 2.5K words per chapter ... that's about 30K words. I'll let you know how it goes.

Unsurprising, but still disappointing

Congratulations President Obama. I voted for you, so I'm glad you're finally in office. Yes, of course I want you to succeed--I want America to succeed--especially since I'm handcuffed to the American Dream. If the economy collapses, I lose my job, can't pay the bills, get thrown out on the street, can't buy gasoline, can't buy food, and have to resort to less polite means to survive (and probably get toasted in the process) ... I will be quite unhappy about the whole thing.

But I came across this statement from Rush Limbaugh. He must be smoking something powerful, because he's completely lost touch with reality. "Liberalism," as he puts it, is no more to blame for our present situation than is "conservatism." The former Republican administration was less conservative than even the most liberal Democratic administration we've ever had. That is, if you count Federal spending. No so-called "liberal" government could get away with spending half a trillion dollars on social programs (particularly money we don't have). Social programs simply can't inspire the kind of fear that motivated and enabled the government to lose its head. Trust me. Limbaugh would lose his lunch if Obama were to ask for $100B in new dollars for education--not that Obama could get that past Congress without a fight. But Limbaugh would be OK with spending the same money to lay Afghanistan to waste. If he's the measure, "conservatism" is simply bat-shit craziness. I'm pretty sure it's not, so therefore he's just bat-shit crazy.

Many of us have had to shut up and put up over the problems of the Bush administration. Perhaps Limbaugh should do the same. But then, he's still entitled to his opinion. And we all know what opinions are ...

"Origin" Virgin blogging his reading of Darwin

This is interesting. An evolutionary biologist is reading Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and blogging about it as he reads. The contents of the book are in the public domain and you may find them online, here. Since I am a skeptic and continually thirst for more knowledge, I will do my utmost to read along with Dr. John Whitfield, to see, so to speak, what all the furor is about. And to gain knowledge, too.

So come along if you're interested. No matter what your beliefs, this should be fascinating.

Post-holiday update

No one reads this, but readership isn't the reason I write this blog. (What is the reason, you ask? The one I always give is: Because I can.)

Over the holiday break I worked on my story. I didn't made the progress I wanted, but I did make really good progress. I have the first 36 chapters in second-draft readiness. I know I'm not done with the story, but because I've been so freaking busy at work since ... some time ago, I sorta got out of the habit of writing daily. I know I could still do it, but I am so tired by the time I sit down, all I want to do is listen to music and play Spider Solitaire.

So, I went back to page 1 and started reading it. Again. Carefully. Very carefully. I cut much more than I added, especially trimming excessive adjectives (a bad habit of mine, but somewhat useful) and descriptions of Things That Aren't Important. I cloned a copy and converted it to single-spaced text, and then printed out something like 400 pages. Single-spaced, dual-sided to save paper.

Rereading also helps me when I get discouraged, because I get to read stuff I'd forgotten, and once again come around to realizing that I can write. And I'm getting better all the time.

In rereading, I began rethinking some things, and decided to change the order in which I had intended some events to occur. This means inserting a crucial section of exposition (enlightenment for the heroes, who are mightily confused about what's going on), thus raising the intensity level even more. Once my lead characters understand what's really happening, they will absolutely feel the pressure. Even more than they do, now. I just need to work out the details so it all makes sense.

Speaking of making sense: I discussed some of my plot points with my story critics (my spouse and stepdaughter) who seemed to find a lack of logic in them. When I explained that the person who's doing these bad things is insane, and getting insaner as he goes along, they seemed to accept the illogic more willingly. Insanity and mental illness doesn't have to be logical or make sense. There may be many reasons why other, basically rational people will go along with the insanity. Chief among these reasons is fear. Other reasons are ambition and greed. Complacency and apathy are others. I'm probably going to need all of these before I'm done.

My stepdaughter suggested I need a name for my invented language (the language of the native sun-skins in my story). I will work on this, but I'm still not sure I need a name other than "sun-skin language." I'm up to something like 500 root words, which equate to about 1,500 words, more or less. I have settled the grammar fairly well, and have a bunch of verb cases/conjugations. I'm still undecided how I should present the language in the book other than to show «I will follow you» cool double brackets around spoken words. In many places I have mixed English-sun-skin speech, but so far I have avoided long passages of sun-skin speech in sun-skin. No one can read it but me, so it seems excessive. Just know it's there, in case I ever want to make a movie of this. (Note the "elf" language in the beginning of Hellboy II.)

After Thursday I'm off to Florida for a week. Last year I used the poor weather as an excuse to write about 100 pages (the first 100 pages, more or less), but this year we have family going with us, so I doubt I will be able to bury myself in my laptop. I will just take my notebook and make notes as the mood strikes me.

I'm overdue finishing this story. I really want to get it done so I can move on to the next project. I have several ideas floating in the back of my mind; each one deserves my full attention. One of them is bound to be good enough to publish. So, until next time ...

Not news: We're gonna need a bigger basket

With apologies to this movie. That is all.