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McCain Alienates Astronomers with Adler Planetarium Gaffe

"The science community is notoriously tight-knit, especially when rallying to a cause, and boy are they are rallying to this one."

read more | digg story

Writing the Beginning of the Book is a Mammoth Task!

I really underestimated the importance of perfecting the opening chapters in my first novel. It took almost seventy pages for me to realize the foundation of the book was just too rickety for me to continue. And now, months later, I've spent more time tinkering and tautening the first fifteen pages of Wayland Priory than I spent writing the first seventy pages! Do I feel like this is too long or that its time wasted? No. I don't think so because I don't care if the book takes fifty years to write – I can't force myself to write something I'm not happy with!

The opening pages of a book are like the lenses on microscopes: one little scratch or imperfection can ruin the vision. The later chapters don't need nearly so much tinkering, IMO, so I believe that I'm going to be on a role for awhile now that I feel that my beginning is elegant enough.

Wayland Priory (Episode 2)

Chapter 1 (Continued)

Ten leagues downrange in the place called Wayland Priory, a middle aged man called Prior stood atop a 400-foot high tower. He scanned the horizon like a hawk. At the base of his tower there was a stable luminous plane of energy being patrolled by slaves who carried massive lightning rods. They looked like an ancient army of hoplites with the long, unwieldy things.

Static electricity brewing about Wayland suddenly raised the hair from the slaves’ scalps. They awkward sight was soon joined by the sound of violent, tumbling thunder in the distance. Wayland’s stormy curtain was up-in-arms.

Prior said, “Be ready, faithful!” and the slaves frantically spaced themselves in loose staggered lines. One slave was struck by a stray bolt from the distant storm. He lay burnt on the ground screaming for several minutes, causing some of the others to buckle at the knees.

Prior said, “If you die, you will die for the Way!” over the growing booms of thunder.

The slaves stood fast.

The storm overtook Wayland.

Dibble was about to retire to his shelter when he noticed a lone, animated shadow in bright sky. It surfed the edge of the thunderous waves artfully. Dibble smiled and said, “It is Ecah.”

#

Ecah approached the city, but the storm raged viciously, and it lifted him into the dark sky.

“1 more league or dead in the black...” he whispered to himself.

That's a saying Waylanders used. It meant, Do it or die to them.

Ecah’s board sliced a sparking path up ascending bridges of lightning. The electricity melted the board into a blur of white, orange, red, and yellow. He tipped back and allowed the storm to launch him.

From Wayland he looked like a climbing meteor. He breached the tropopause (the breathable atmosphere’s ceiling). The temperature dropped precipitously, and his board cooled to deep black, and it smoked and smoldered. His melting rubber armor stopped making him sweat; it brought him precious warmth instead.

Ecah decelerated instantly as the energy that had propelled him sputtered and failed. He looked down through the eye of the receding storm, and saw home. There, Wayland’s tower sat atop a semi-solid translucent surface. He allowed himself to fall towards it as he ran out of electric road.

Wayland held its breath as its favorite son fell from heaven. The burnt and scattered slaves who fought the storm wafted like buoys on the electric surface. All the souls in Wayland covered their ears to the sonic boom that accompanied Ecah’s fall, and they awed at the sight of the Aztec plume of color bursting from his shilloette. The static energy resonating from him bent light, mixed colors, and glowed and shined supernaturally.

The reentry was perilous, but it was triumphant.

When Ecah slammed into the Priory grounds, the explosive force rippled away from the point of impact and kneaded the electric plane. The shockwave wobbled the buildings, and it threw the people around like toys.
Ecah listed motionlessly with the bodies of slaves on Wayland’s grounds. Waylanders looked at one another in mass-apathy. No one wanted to check if he was alive. No one wanted to be the one to find out if he were dead.

Writing Contests

I've started becoming more aware of the great opportunity that exists out there in writing contests for aspiring writers. I'm definitely going to start entering some more! Check out this blog entry here on the subject:

Writing contests can be a good way to get published and have your name as a writer more recognized. Winning a contest will take some time and practice. Use your imagination and let your creativity shine through. [...]

Where to Find Writing Contests Online:

http://www.writersdigest.com/competitions -Writer's Digests sponsors several competitions annually. Including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, self-published, and more!

http://www.freelancewriting.com/writing-contests.php - List of current writing contests in a variety of writing styles and genres.

http://www.writerswrite.com/classads/writingcontests/ - Writer's Write Writing contests.

http://www.writersweekly.com - Good Resource Writing Web Site

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/contests.html - Warnings on fake writing contents

People Underestimate the Resilience of World Religions

I was reading an article on the telegraph today (you can read it here: link) that speculated that Christianity may "die out" in England fairly soon. Some of the reader comments on the page really got me thinking though about how people are kind of overlooking the fact that major world religions never truly die.

Greek polytheism, for example, is not dead, it still survives in neo-pagan circles where the ancient mysteries are practiced by ethnic Greeks. Today is the June solstice, and some of these pagans are celebrating it right as I type this!

Not sure about the Romans, but I do know for a fact that great cultural and religious scholars like Joseph Campbell have written that the Roman Catholic Church IS a Roman church. That is to say, if a Roman in 200 AD walked into a Catholic Church, he would be in an environment that he would immediately identify as a Roman temple (just with gothic architecture instead of Greco). Roman religion certainly survives in interesting ways in our society, though. Western courthouses and government facilities ARE Roman temples. The statue up high on the Chicago Board of Trade building in the loop is Ceres, the Goddess of fertility. Justice and Minerva are on every flag and seal for the state of NY. Renaissance nobles would put portraits of Venus, cupid, etc. on their bedroom walls as a charm to improve their fertility (they would offset this blasphemy with massive donations to the church).

I can even think of surviving elements of the Egyptian church in our society... A lot of people probably already know this, but Christmas was also the birthday celebration of the Goddess Isis who had a strong cult following in Rome before Christianity came into play (her temples are in Pompeii), obelisks like the Washington Monument are symbols in the Egyptian mythos, the obelisk in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican was actually FROM ancient Egypt (it was stolen by the Romans and placed in the Circus Maximus, the Vatican then claimed it as the Vatican is built on the Vatican Hill which is where the Circus was...)

So I guess my point is: don't put too much money on "the death of Christianity" just yet...

Tips for Writing Faster -- Crucial Advice here!

I found this really helpful resource here, where Ali describes some tips for writing faster. For someone like me who has the problem of taking forever to write something, I think the advice of getting the first draft DONE is very important, indeed.

I'll keep scanning this blog for more good advice in the future -- you should all keep an eye out too!