Natural philosophy
I missed a whole week, and have little excuse, except for maybe that last Monday came around and things were solid, stable. Then, I lost hold of time like someone had played a prank on me, and the concept as a whole became greased and slippery. And then suddenly, like the joke had ended, it was Monday again. Questions about the nature of reality occurred to me, and only partly because time and space recently played havoc on my mind.
A sci-fi show I'm an on-again off-again fan of impressed me the other night, and then the day following I had cause to hang out with a scientist friend of mine. I asked him about what science was to him, and what he thought about when he saw the mad doctor cutting up patients with finely explained reasoning or not. "Whenever I see morally reprehensible stuff like that," he said, "it offends me as a scientist." He went on the explain that the whole point of science, to him, was to do the impossible. If a doctor felt he had to test humans and excused that by saying he had tried all other avenues, it meant he was a failure, my friend said. And he was emphatic about that. I was impressed again. Of course, unless human lives are at stake to a certain degree, there would be less drama, and so less point, but still.
The conversation occurred to me when I was trying to puzzle out how to write a scene and was fumbling. Halfway through I thought to myself "It just can't be done. There would be no way to present a point of view without a point, only the view," and my friend's voice came back to me, edited so it was appropriately chiding: the point of writing is to imagine the impossible. The thought got me back to outlining; I haven't come up with a solution yet, or even a way to properly describe what it is I'm trying to do (as you can tell), but at least I'm still trying. The writing that I am tinkering out currently is going well, however. I had front loaded so much potential through the second half of last week that when Sunday came around I did all three chapters in one sitting. Well, I drafted them. Following the morning, my brain was akin to tasteless gruel, or perhaps old salsa.
This week I am set to finish all the promotional documents I obligated myself to complete, along with the review of the novel I finally got into.Along with the starting of the other novel I promised a friend I would read, and hopefully work will not be so unkind that actually attempting these many and varied tasks won't cause things to tail spin not unlike the Twilight Zone transitioning graphic.To this day I'm still trying to figure out how I work so little yet have such brief time to accomplish any of my plans. I seem to even be losing time at points.
In any event, the release I've been trying to ignore so the impatience doesn't overwhelm me seems to be a go. I got an email from the marketing director, ensuring that my address and others of the March release authors are the preferred/correct ones. I was slightly worried, given that the last thing I received was sending off the errata. As those interviews and posts are published, I will be updating my website and this blog. The links will rain down, but unlike other authors, hopefully I will not receive accusatory emails labeling me a spammer. It seems a lot like if enough people yell it, then it becomes true enough for history: monster, scientist, hack. But is true enough true?
A sci-fi show I'm an on-again off-again fan of impressed me the other night, and then the day following I had cause to hang out with a scientist friend of mine. I asked him about what science was to him, and what he thought about when he saw the mad doctor cutting up patients with finely explained reasoning or not. "Whenever I see morally reprehensible stuff like that," he said, "it offends me as a scientist." He went on the explain that the whole point of science, to him, was to do the impossible. If a doctor felt he had to test humans and excused that by saying he had tried all other avenues, it meant he was a failure, my friend said. And he was emphatic about that. I was impressed again. Of course, unless human lives are at stake to a certain degree, there would be less drama, and so less point, but still.
The conversation occurred to me when I was trying to puzzle out how to write a scene and was fumbling. Halfway through I thought to myself "It just can't be done. There would be no way to present a point of view without a point, only the view," and my friend's voice came back to me, edited so it was appropriately chiding: the point of writing is to imagine the impossible. The thought got me back to outlining; I haven't come up with a solution yet, or even a way to properly describe what it is I'm trying to do (as you can tell), but at least I'm still trying. The writing that I am tinkering out currently is going well, however. I had front loaded so much potential through the second half of last week that when Sunday came around I did all three chapters in one sitting. Well, I drafted them. Following the morning, my brain was akin to tasteless gruel, or perhaps old salsa.
This week I am set to finish all the promotional documents I obligated myself to complete, along with the review of the novel I finally got into.Along with the starting of the other novel I promised a friend I would read, and hopefully work will not be so unkind that actually attempting these many and varied tasks won't cause things to tail spin not unlike the Twilight Zone transitioning graphic.To this day I'm still trying to figure out how I work so little yet have such brief time to accomplish any of my plans. I seem to even be losing time at points.
In any event, the release I've been trying to ignore so the impatience doesn't overwhelm me seems to be a go. I got an email from the marketing director, ensuring that my address and others of the March release authors are the preferred/correct ones. I was slightly worried, given that the last thing I received was sending off the errata. As those interviews and posts are published, I will be updating my website and this blog. The links will rain down, but unlike other authors, hopefully I will not receive accusatory emails labeling me a spammer. It seems a lot like if enough people yell it, then it becomes true enough for history: monster, scientist, hack. But is true enough true?
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