Atheism, Anti-theism & On Restricting the Intellect

I realise that this is quite an out of topic post but I just felt like writing a bit about atheism anyway, because I believe that this is a very important subject indeed.  I do to some extent consider myself an atheist, that is I take the position that I am rejecting theism (religion), or put simply, that I do not (supposedly) believe in the existence of deities (i.e. gods or God).  But why is this? Well, for me it’s a matter of intellect. Religion is based on ‘non-questioning and absolute truths,’ “truths” that cannot be disputed in any way and are there simply to be believed because ‘someone’ (i.e. the particular religion’s ‘establishment’ or authority) say you should. This can also be referred to as the process of non-thinking commonly spoken of as ‘faith’ (Dawkins). To bring up an all too clichéd metaphor, this faith creates a certain box, a framework that the religious person is keeping themselves inside of—i.e. they become close-minded, narrow-minded, due to a self-constructed restriction in their thought process, which is also amplified by the religious authority and the individual’s own sense of faithfulness.

This is naturally a very dangerous thing because it limits the intellect and it limits the person as such; it limits the vast possibilities of human thought. However, the idea of thinking “outside the box” may not always be valid but it always needs to be taken into consideration for any sort of argument or statement that allures towards (pretends to be) a definite ‘truth’. By this conclusion, that religious faith actually limits the intellect of people, religion is a terrible thing for it also, by extension, slows down development and ‘evolution’ (in terms of the sociological and cultural). Therefore, I am rather anti-theist than merely atheist because I believe that religion is truly harmful, and not only in the way which I have already explained but also other things directly related or derived from religion e.g. terrorism, war and misinformation; the latter particularly applicable to the indoctrination of children in religious faith—resulting in skewed viewpoints and often obscure ideas of science, history and the universe—could also be referred to as un-objectivity or a learned subconscious rejection of objectivity, or anti-objectivity.

Extremely Short Fiction: Dribble, Drabble and Droubble

Flash fiction, sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, prosetry and short short story, whatever you wish to call it, it is all about extreme brevity and the idea, I assume, is to try to tell a somewhat complete story, a good story (naturally) in as few words as possible. In this way it is similar to poetry in that the writer, supposedly, puts extra careful thought into every word written since with such few words, each word becomes even more important, which is similar again to the idea that, ‘poetry is the art of saying as much as possible in as few words as possible’ (which I really don’t know who said or where it is from; curiously enough when I googled the phrase it can’t be found…perhaps I said it? Well, I don’t know).

Anyway, as such this mode of writing can perhaps best be employed by writers as a sort of exercise rather than anything else, but of course, there are those who use it more extensively.

There is one form in particular which appears to be rather popular within this mode which is called ‘drabble’. A drabble is a work of fiction where the word count is exactly 100. The purpose is briefness, conciseness and to test the writer’s ability to convey interesting and meaningful ideas in an very restricted space (wiki 1, 2) The ‘official’ rules of drabble reads,

‘One hundred words’ must be EXACTLY one hundred words: not a syllable more, not a letter less.
In addition, up to fifteen words (title, sub-titles and the like) are allowed.
Hyphenated-words-are-argued-about (The Drabble Project).

However, there are also two variations to this, the ‘dribble’ which adheres to the same rules apart from that the word count is instead exactly 50, and then the ‘droubble’ which is 200 words.

Here follows some of my stories.

Dribble: 50 words

(1) ‘Rescue’

Rain; I saw her. Cottony mishaps swaying, fading to grey. Around a corner, through damp grass; dancing trees and whistling breeze. In a glowing window, she is surrounded by candles, so I cross the yard. A backdoor, rock and broken lock. Silently I untie the ropes, “quick, before he returns.”

How to become a Successful Writer for Books and Films

I attended a seminar presented by Michael Domeyko Rowland* this Sunday at the Sheraton Hotel in Perth. The seminar was adequately entitled ‘How to become a successful writer for books and films’, and the content was exactly that; ideas for how to become a successful writer, a rather obvious observation indeed. Nonetheless, I will try to summarise the more essential things this Mr. Rowland was saying, which a lot of it was naturally quite simple things, common sense if you will, however some of the ideas might be more useful than others.

Successful writing, according to Rowland, is a straightforward process. This is how he starts off, he says basically that writing is very, very easy and simple and that anyone can do it, which naturally makes me question myself, what am I doing even bothering about this if anyone can do the same? Well, it’s not that simple and no not anyone can write creatively, but sure the principles are there, the ‘elements’ are the same and certainly most people probably have the capacity, however not quite the ablity or rather application to write. A very general opening statement I suppose which perhaps was not to apply to everyone but only a credible majority; you would not, for instance, walk up to Virginia Woolf (if she had been alive today) pointed at her writings and told her that “well, anyone can do that….”

He summarised the essentials for what a story is, the basic structure and then went quite quickly into the main three types of stories that there are:

1. The Children’s Story–This is the main category under which most popular fiction focus on and certainly the film industry. Your target audience is the ideal fourteen-year-old boy/girl for the reason that the average intelligence, and therefore ability to understand/comprehend, of people in general is equal to a fourteen-year-old kid, simply put, for a majority of people to understand what you are writing you should imagine the ideal reader as a person who is within that category i.e. within the easily accessible, and most frequent audience. The Children’s Story includes most popular stories e.g. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, anything by Stephen King, anything that can be traced back to the bacic structure of the Heroic Myth in which generally the ‘ordinary everyday person’ becomes ‘transformed’ into the hero and resets the disruption caused by some sort of anomality or dark force. This is the easiest and simplest story-telling structure and an almost guarantee success if done correctly. The classic ‘Hero story’ or ‘Cowboys versus Indians’-principle can be used over and over again and people tend not to ever get tired of it. [Establish hero-Object of desire-Obstacles (Antagonist)-Resolution]

Reading and Analysing Poetry

This text consist by no means an exhaustive list of considerations, but it could work as a good starting point in trying to read poetry more effectively.

Firstly, it should be said that poetry is in many ways no different than other forms of communication. There is a speaker—i.e. the narrator—who is attempting to put across something to an audience. However, in poetry, the very act of communication has been altered from regular colloquial speech into a consciously stylised work of art, which often subtly conveys thoughts, emotions, and implications that are not explicitly present in the poem. By its hinting, suggesting, and implying, a poem entices you—as a sensitive, astute reader—to engage the poem, questioning its meaning, form, style, and effects.

What follows is a list of questions for the reader to ask him/herself when reading the chosen poem; clearly, however, every question will not be applicable to every poem. Moreover, many questions will have to be revisited multiple times as your analysis of the poem proceeds, an interpretative phenomenon which is called the “Hermeneutic circle.”

ONE: Content

Does the poem have a title? Keep in mind that modern editors have invented the titles of most classical texts. Consider why the editor may have appended this title but do not let it colour your own interpretation of them poem.

What are the theme(s) of the poem? To some extent your understanding of the theme of a poem will develop as your analysis proceeds.

• Is the theme directly or indirectly stated?
• If there are multiple themes; does the poem shift from one theme to another or are the themes interwoven?
  

Common Fiction Plot Lines

I found two lists of common fiction plot lines on a site called Strange Horizons*, these lists, which certainly can be very useful for anyone writing fiction of any kind refers however mainly to the implied genres which Strange Horizons aim at, their main input and output which are within the scope of so called ’sci-fi’, but I doubt that that really have to apply at all, it’s actually not necessary, just something to be kept in mind perhaps.

The list contains plot lines of stories that the people at SH have seen much too often, and they are careful to point out that whatever is listed does not necessarily imply a bad story but simply a commonly written story which would suggest that if you are writing a story that corresponds a bit too closely to one of the points on the list then perhaps try to reconsider or make something new about it, put in a twist or just whatever you can think of not to make it ‘just another [insert random dot point from SH's list] stories’

These are the first five dots points, the full updated list can be read here: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

1. Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says “I want to be at point B.” Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.)
   

Blogging on Creative Writing & Literature

What is this then? Well, this is my new blog on which I intend to write about, mainly, creative writing in all possible forms, which could be fiction, non-fiction, poetry or otherwise i.e. any writing that goes beyond the bounds of normal professional, academic or journalistic writing, and also literature, meaning literary works, theory, critique and so on. However, the subjects are not exclusive, I will most certainly include other texts such as academic writing or essays, and various guides. Basically, anything relating to creative writing and literature in any remote way may be included.

Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.
- Don DeLillo

The main purpose of this blog is to promote the topics covered, to improve my own creative writing, to give ideas and improve others’ creative writing and, on a more basic level, for me to have something to do while I’m not studying.

There are already numerous blogs on these subjects from which you can learn a lot, so to simply put more of the same stuff out there is not my intention, this is more of a personal blog, containing personal opinions on things and my perspective on whatever I write about. It is also an easy space/opportunity for shameless self-publishing and promotion.