lack of update

I've written 20,000 words in the last three days.

None of them for this blog.

Post-bookage

I seem to have this moment after completing a manuscript (first draft) where I just kind of don't know what to do with myself. I know that I have work to do still (editing, revision, etc) but I just keep opening the file and staring at it thinking I should be working on a new chapter or something.

It takes me a minute for things to sink in, and then my first impulse is to start writing a new book. Jump into the next project. Because I know after having JUST completed the draft, I can't go back and reread it immediately. I need to give it some time to settle and breathe and put some space between it and me.

Right now I'm still in that "I'm not sure what to do with myself" moment. Which is why I'm writing a blog post. Just because I feel like I need to write SOMETHING.

busy busy

This last week was crazy, between family and friends visiting.
It was also wonderful.

But I have not had time to read the news and post. Hopefully this week will be a little bit more relaxed, but I have two chapters left in my book that I need to finish before I pull my hair out. Two chapters away from a completed book (my third this year--technically fourth, actually) is just... it's just a tease, you know? So that's my first priority. Once I get that finished...

...I will probably start another. Because apparently I can't stop. But I should also have a bit more time.

And time means posting.
Hang in there with me.

Evolution created God?

Hold the Phone my friends, and read this: The Structure of Scientific Evolutions.

This editorial/article/discussion/piece discusses two darwinist explanations of God and religion. Basically they both come down to "People created religion" it's just the question of how it happened which is argued, and whether God was involved or a byproduct. I'm not sure I agree entirely with either camp, or any of this, but it definitely makes me think about it, which I always love. And now I'm about to get a little bit geeky, because I'm going to go back to the Thor comic book and do a little cross quotation. (Hey, where else do you get science and comic book mythology and religion in the same place? You have to at least admit it's novel.)

When they relauched the Thor title, this was the premise for Thor's return from the grave:
"It is not for the gods to decide whether or not Man exists--It is for Man to decide whether or not the gods exist."

And when I read it, it blew my mind wide open. Because I'm kind of a geek, and because there is too much truth in that statement for it to be ignored.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a good catholic girl. I was raised with a tradition of faith, and I adhere to it, for the most part. But I was never bound by it, either. Let's just say I like to ask the hard questions, and I'd never make it as a nun or anything, but I think God and I get along just fine.

Now, let me throw a quote at you from this article, and you tell me how disturbingly parallel it is:

"God may or may not have shaped biological and cultural evolution (just by establishing an initial algorithm), but these processes have definitely shaped Him. The evolution of the human brain led to religion, and our ideas about God have subsequently changed in concert with cultural progress. On the whole, despite history's ups and downs, God has become more peaceful, more beneficent, and more compatible with a scientific understanding of the world."

And one more, because I know you're digesting this and aren't actually going to go read the article since we're all too busy to click links and open new windows--this is from the other scientist, criticizing the first quotation, based on the fact that religion served a moral and social purpose of banding people together and introducing a "hostility" toward those not sharing those beliefs:

"So in very early human societies, groups with strong religious behavior would have prevailed over less cohesive adversaries. We are descended from the religious groups, the argument goes, and that is why everyone harbors a religious instinct."

I dunno, guys. This sounds like the age old question we all hate because it's so cliche but impossible to answer.

So, you tell me, which came first-- the Chicken or the Egg? and while we're at it, is J. Michael Straczynski right, too? Is it our purpose to decide that the gods exist, and not the other way around?

Missing the Obvious?

I feel like this article is not giving me the answer to a crucial question-- well, okay, a couple crucial questions. I feel like this article on the Indian village with an incredible number of twins, this research, is missing something big:

If they're a small and isolated village-- why can't it just be genetics?
Simple, right? A couple of twins moved in, or were born. Then they had twin children. maybe two sets. then those twin children had twin children, and so on down the line, until a majority of the village is carrying the genes that make twins more likely, and the place is overflowing with them. Why does it have to be something external, like the water? Why can't it just be the fact that perhaps there's enough isolation, and lack of mobility of the people within the village, that the twins stay there and have their own families instead of moving out into the world and throwing their twin genes away to far flung villages elsewhere?

Has anyone checked this out, before they started talking about something being in the water? The article doesn't say, but the fact that it's totally not addressed at all confuses me. You'd think it would be the first thing addressed and the first thing discarded. How many of these twins born every year are born to parents who themselves were twins, or had twin siblings, or twin grandparents?

It might be worth exploring.

not quite writer's block

There are some miserable days when I sit down to write and it just feels like pulling teeth. Each word is an effort. Each sentence has to be dragged and forced, kicking and screaming, out of my brain. On days like this, I'm happy if I can get 1000 words out, even if they all get deleted tomorrow. But then I usually find that tomorrow, what I managed to put out wasn't totally disastrous and can be salvaged. It's just that it's so frustrating during TODAY.