Books are the best of things, well used.

"As a writer, your only duty is to be original, to inspire, to put something new on paper. Don’t be reasonable – your job is to to fire up people’s imaginations, to give them permission to dream, and to lift their heads up to the incredible sight of the stars. They may forget what you wrote about – but they won’t forget how you made them feel.

It’s your turn now. Dream, be unreasonable."

-Ben von Burg

Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself.

However, I'm a bit underwhelmed at the moment, having read the following statistics yesterday (via Trapdoor Books blog):

1. Generally, 80% of US households did not buy or read a book last year
2. 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the past 5 years
3. 42% of college graduates never read another book after college
4. 1/3 of high school graduates never read a book for the rest of their lives
5. 57% of new books are not read to completion

Even taking into account that 79% of all statistics are made up on the spot, these are staggering numbers. It's no wonder Borders is closing for good. Emerson may have been right for his time when he said the title of this post, but we're in the 21st century now.

Why do you want to write books?


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Writing, just in code

You've probably noticed some interesting changes to the blog in the past few weeks (otherwise, I told you to notice them via Twitter). Technically I've been writing, just in code. Unless you have worked a lot with HTML, you probably can't imagine how annoying it was to get that sidebar to do what it's doing with the buttons next to the book cover.

That's not to say I'm [more] special, but I have been putting in quite a few hours to make this blog presentable rather than just useful. Some of you might recall the old black-and-white template I used to use. Go figure that my readership practically doubled when I started using real colors, ones that were easier on the eyes than high-contrast (even though it's better on my color-blindness). Thing is, designing in color is a lot harder for me.

Even so, my work is still far from done. I want to have more than just a blog with links to everywhere else on it. Honestly, I have been using the Internet for about 17 years now and have never owned my own domain name. Despite building an entire site in Flash that sat on my own hard drive, and countless HTML pages on free sites like Angelfire, Tripod, and Freewebs, I just never took the big step forward. Even now, I have a Blogger and a Wordpress site, both free, only one of which I maintain. Kind of unbelievable.

Then again, if I'd registered it six or more years ago, I doubt I'd have had the wherewithal to keep it registered, much less build the site itself. Not that I've ever been afraid of HTML (or of CSS), but website design and implementation can be incredibly tedious. It's even more so when you have no actual content to display (which I didn't). Time passed and I never really saw the point in getting my own domain.

Nowadays, it's a hell of a lot easier to live on the WWW than it used to be. With places like Myspace and Facebook, the hard part is done for you. With Flickr, Blogger, etc., you can have almost everything a real web designer has but without learning all those pesky tags and codes. Ten years ago, WYSIWYG functionality was, well, nightmarish. Now it's been upgraded to only semi-frustrating.

So, there might be a website in my near future. Rest assured I'll announce it in every available channel, and this blog will stay where it is. It just might change colors... again.


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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

I don't consider myself a very quotable person, and I rarely quote others. I do, however, tear out my hair whenever I see someone whose only goal on Twitter or Facebook is to post quotes.

I'm sorry but, if you have nothing original to say, what reason is there for me to listen?

Sure, I've posted quotes before, even on this blog. Their relevance should be apparent, however I prefer to also post my reaction to them. Without an expression to go along with the quote, you've turned from a human being into a parrot.

I want to know what you think, not what you feel is important that someone else said a hundred years ago. Frankly, I can't disagree with a long-dead poet or author. They're far beyond caring, and their opinion is already set in stone. Yours is what I find interesting, actionable, and useful.

As far as what's yearning inside me, well, I pour all of that into my novels and my not-always-quotable blog posts here on Initial Draft. When I have something to say, I say it. I don't find someone else who said it better to say it for me.

That's just passing the buck.


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Building the legacy you want.

Since all these trust30 prompts revolve around the same theme, that of self-reliance, I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot when responding to them. Here we go again with the concept of legacy.

I agree with Emerson (and Sinatra) that being yourself in a world designed to force you to be otherwise, force you to be like others, is a great accomplishment. As far as legacy is concerned, I think my goal would be to have others say I taught them to do this. Whether it be my children, my friends, or people who read my books, all I truly care about leaving behind is the indomitable spirit of confidence and standing up for yourself that I see lacking in many people (particularly writers) I know.

Ultimately, I've come to realize that a great many things we obsess about have no real bearing. It's how we react to them that makes the real difference. I suppose, in that direction, my legacy would be to clarify the age-old truth that perception creates reality.

Not only is this an incredibly difficult thing to explain, it's also not the way the world wants you to think. Advertising creates reality, if you're an avid television-watcher. How else do you think so much Pepsi and Coke get sold? Your soda selection, or lack thereof, has no real bearing on your lifestyle. No one thinks you're "cooler" for choosing Pepsi over Coke, but the advertisers sure want you to believe it. Beer commercials are even worse at this, even though nearly everyone I know who enjoys beer avoid the Big Three (Bud/Coors/Miller) unless there's no other choice or they have a very good reason.

For those who can't see through label-based demand, paying a higher price for the same quality simply because of brand awareness, I think it's difficult to stand on their own. They're defined by other things, other people, and can't imagine what they would be like without those.

If I had one wish for my legacy, it would be to break this cycle of dependency. Like Emerson himself, I would want, posthumously or otherwise, to encourage self-reliance. Not to have people look toward me for inspiration and strength, but to search inside themselves--and find it just the same.

What am I doing to make that a reality? Well, they say the first step is admission.


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Finish each day and be done with it.

Despite how much I berate myself for being a lazy, complacent procrastinator, I have no trouble falling asleep when my day is done. Most days, anyway, and even in those cases it's usually because I had caffeine, rather than the nagging of things unfinished.

I've already talked about goals and how ambiguous those are, so how I feel about making my days worthwhile probably won't come as a shock to you. There's no conscious effort required to squeeze enjoyment and accomplishment out of your everyday actions; it's merely a matter of sticking to what you enjoy.

I savor my coffee nearly every day, whether it's in the comfort of my home out of my orange Starbucks mug that Micah bought me (because I love orange) or out of my large Dazbog mug-with-saucer (when I'm feeling extra fancy or just plain Russian), or whether it's at work out of the expensive grind-and-brew machine I have access to. I savor my breakfast, whether it's as easy as an instant oatmeal or as awesome as my egg, ham & cheese breakfast sandwich.

Most often by 6am I have accomplished at least two things that were not only necessary but also enjoyable. Would it be nice to also have run four miles or have written a thousand words on my manuscript? Sure, and sometimes I do those, too, but I'm not going to torture myself for watching the news instead. If I opt to sit outside on my patio watching the sun's first rays over Arvada, drinking my coffee as it steams up the still-cool morning, how could I possibly do anything but enjoy the moment?

The point is, you don't have to go out of your way to make your days worthwhile. Nothing is stopping you from enjoying your waking hours, but that doesn't mean every second of it needs to be "fun." You don't have to keep a running tally of your accomplishments and make sure you check at least one off every day, and you don't have to play games. You don't have to do anything.

Take what you choose to do, do it well, and enjoy it. Then, whether its as menial and common as making breakfast or as complicated as writing a tense scene, you will have accomplished something you wanted to do. At the end of the day, you've truly done what you could, and you did it your way (like Frank Sinatra).

Be content with that, and let the rest wait until tomorrow.



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Faith No More

Faith is difficult to even think about, much less talk about, but it seems that no matter what I do I can't get it off my mind. Every direction I turn, I'm reminded of it (which is not such a great thing, lately). So, rather than a #trust30 prompt today, I'm going to talk about one of the most baffling and controversial topics in existence, and why I'm thoroughly sick of it.

I'm well aware that this is a long damn post. If you stick it out till the end, I appreciate it. On the other hand, if you're afraid the subject matter will bore or offend you, you're probably right. To be honest, faith isn't all that exciting or comforting to me either.

The history of my faith is a long and twisty one, and I'd be a complete idiot if I thought my struggles unique. I grew up in the LDS religion (Latter-Day Saints, aka Mormons) and where the message of exclusivity is and always has been loud and clear: people who aren't devoutly LDS don't go to heaven. I'm far too removed from it to really tell you what my understanding was, but I have troubling memories of "bearing my testimony" using the words I know this church is true on a very regular basis. I also have memories of not paying my tithing (the 10% of my gross income, which was about 50 cents at the time as I had a pretty meager "allowance"), and not wanting to go on a mission, ever.

The truth is, at the point where you turn 12 or 13 (I don't remember which, and it's not a relevant detail), all LDS boys are asked a very specific question. A very private, personal question that, I believed, to be nobody else's business. Unfortunately, this question is asked in a private meeting with the Bishop, who you're supposed to respect and revere, inside the Church that you attend.

I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, even in retrospect, and the question's subject isn't exactly something one would discuss anyway, so I'll avoid specifying it openly. Ask me sometime, if you want to know.

All the same, that's when I began to disagree with church doctrine and philosophy. I bucked church attendance, as I already didn't want to continue to be in an uncomfortable situation of the only boy in a Sunday School class. I didn't have any friends at church. The only way I could find to occupy my time was to make little origami frogs out of the weekly programs (which my hands still remember how to fold quite well). When church is 3 hours long, boredom is par for the course.

So, long story short, church was never a place I wanted to go.

At sixteen, I even began to imagine an "unwelcome" feeling every time I entered one of the church buildings, as if God didn't want me there. At that time I still believed in God, sort of. I didn't know what I believed about God. Faith is not an easy thing to part with, even for a teenager.

I believed in God the way that I believed Japan was a real place -- at the time I obviously hadn't been there and didn't know anyone who had, but I took it on faith that this strange realm of raw fish and violent cartoons did exist.

Bad comparison, I know, but there's not an easy way to say I was lukewarm on the whole God concept, and don't even get me started about how little I understood Jesus. As a rule, it's best to never try to reconcile the Bible/New Testament/Christian Jesus with the Book of Mormon Jesus; you'll tear your hair out long before you reach any actual conclusions (yet, somehow, the religion persists). However, I'm not here to bash the LDS church.

Fast-forward about ten years or so, which has me moving to Colorado and becoming involved with a Covenant church through my then-girlfriend and new acquaintances. This was new, different, and exciting for me. On its face, Evangelical Christianity is a lot more "welcoming" than the Mormon church (and by that I mean it's "easier" to grasp and not feel like you're lost in the dogma), especially for people like me who seem totally confused and lost on the whole God thing.

I participated in a "small group" where things began to get complicated. I wanted to understand this whole Christianity thing. I wanted to really grasp God, Jesus, and feel like I was immersing myself in something I could agree with and explain -- even if I didn't plan to evangelize it (something I am not, and will never be, good at or generally willing to do). I had great friends who were just as serious and even more experienced in this arena. I had pastors and M-Div folks I could speak to and try to find some answers. However, the harder I tried to make sense of it all, the less it actually made sense.

I don't know how other people accept things on faith that they don't even comprehend, but my mind began to resist this with everything it had.

There were many questions that had no answers at all but, by exploring them, even more questions were revealed. At first, I thought this was a good thing. The whole "eternal font" aspect was enticing because there was always more to learn [read: speculate] about God and Jesus and salvation and heaven and whatnot. There are no real answers when it comes to faith, though; you truly do have to feel your way through it. I tapped resources where I could, but soon I found the arguments against certain things making far more sense to me. Feeling right, as it were.

Keep in mind that during this time in my life, things were good. I had no current personal crises; I was dating a wonderful girl, and, for the first time in my life, the number of friends I had that I saw on a regular basis numbered in the double-digits. I had firm employment, loved the place I lived, and looked toward the future in positive light (things were touch-and-go for quite a few years). I'd started writing novels, expressing myself and, not surprisingly, inserting a lot of my questions and concerns about faith into my text.

Then I wrote a "religious satire" novel where I essentially made fun of the system of common assumptions that make up modern Christianity. But, rather than having "a bone to pick," my characters didn't rant or bemoan their circumstances or shake the fist-of-rage at God as a proxy for me doing so. My goal wasn't to criticize; I wasn't looking to provide questions or answers. I just wanted to romp through common mythology and twist things enough to make it humorous, and I think I did that.

Back on the Fantasy novels side, though, I was inventing religious concepts out of thin air. Some of them were based on familiar, earthly concepts, while others were fully falsified. I think somewhere around that time, I became aware of just how easy it was to create a religion. It's essentially a plausible falsehood that gives the people of your world hope while, at the same time, demanding complete and utter submission to its rules (regardless of how strange or questionable they might be). In a Fantasy novel, where most settings are similar to our Middle Ages, it's easy to imagine that people could have believed any hare-brained story if it would give them a leg-up on everyone else. Life was hard.

All the while I became more and more jaded with the lack of anything solid in my own pursuit of faith. It just didn't make any sense to me. If doubt and faith can be measured opposites, I had them both in equal supply. I can't possibly express the amount of guilt that can come from doubting God, though I'm certain almost everyone has done so at one point in their life. I looked at this as a serious problem, and began to troubleshoot accordingly.

I tried attending multiple churches, to see whether it was the message. I found that even the Unitarians have no idea how things really work. I read books like Blue Like Jazz, The Case for Faith, and The Case for Christ, which gave me a lot to think about but not any answers. If it were just a question of convincing myself that, "Believing is 'better' than not believing," then doubts wouldn't even come into play. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. My opinion is that you cannot profess to believe in God and not have that belief permeate throughout your entire life. For good or ill, it's in for a penny in for a pound. Or out, as the case may be.

I started a blog where I explored my confusion. It wasn't very popular, but that's not why I did it. I had to share what I felt, and after a time it turned out I wasn't feeling a whole lot other than doubt. Who wants to write about doubt? Or read about it? Kind of interesting to visit, these days, because you can see my progression from total immersion in my faith to taking increasingly large steps back (even while no one really noticed).

I watched documentaries like Jesus Camp and Hell House, which frightened me. How could people who live in the same country as I did, experienced the same culture as I did, react so differently? How could they endorse behavior from children and teenagers that belongs in a horror film simply by waving it off as "God told them to"?

I saw the God Hates Fags fanatics. Imagining that those people actually exist, and that they profess to believe in the same God I did, was worse than frightening. It was mortifying, like when a USAmerican goes abroad and makes a complete ass of themselves to give all the rest of us a bad name. And yet, those people do exist. Some of them are people I attend church with. Not the same people, perhaps, but the same beliefs via the same, oft-quoted book.

To this day, I question the sanity of radical Christians and wonder why others do not. I question the sanity of everyone who believes in The Rapture, and that it will come this year, especially considering the fact that they've already been wrong once and rescheduled.

With all this in mind, I began to really see how wide the gulf is between how Christians see themselves and how the rest of the world sees them. So wide that some take to calling themselves "Christ-followers" because "Christian" is so mired in negativity. I start to understand how Christians feel about those who are not "saved," and about how little they care about those who "already are." I also see the complete polar opposite (as it is in the LDS faith).

I began to see Christianity-at-large disagreeing with me not only about how the world actually works, but about how the world should be. Worse than that, I realized that Christianity has always disagreed with how I think the world should be.

At first it was just that I'd always disagreed with religious conversion, proselytizing, and paying tithing as a form of receiving favor. None of these were practical, but they were all dogmatic. Now, though, as an adult I faced much larger issues like abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, and moral justification for political positions. Eventually I came to realize that my issues with modern Christianity were rooted in the ignorance, intolerance, and lack of continuity exhibited by its well-meaning followers.

I shudder to think that a place can be called a school, and that a man or woman can be called a teacher, where evolution will not be taught in a science class. I cringe every time someone "defends" marriage from everyone who is not heterosexual and monogamous, even though neither a wedding nor a marriage requires God's awareness, intervention, or authorization. I grind my teeth when our Congress prays before every session, when the words "under God" are spoken in the Pledge of Allegiance, and every time I hear God Bless America (the actual song, or as the parting words of a politician) because it's typical United States supremacy bullshit.

God's on our money, despite the love of money being the root of all evil according to God. Entire television networks and radio stations are devoted to God. Being a good Christian is what's expected of us because if you're not (either by word or by deed), you're considered dishonest, untrustworthy, and probably a terrorist. It is a commonly-held belief that Christianity, as its viewed in USAmerica, is the source of all morality and moral authority. Religious organizations are exempt from paying taxes, and even seek exemption from following the law of the land.

And yet, it survives to another generation. Churches fight for the allegiance of children long before they can make an educated decision about whether belief in God is right for them. Kids pledge themselves to Jesus based on colorful animal stories (where details of the near-complete wiping out of humanity are conveniently kept out) and the image of a friendly, bearded father figure who will always love them. As a tiny Christian, not much is expected of them except to say the right words (which they're all too eager to do for your approval).

The thing is, when I see this, it reminds me so much of my own childhood that it's been difficult to stay silent. It goes against everything I stand for to goad my children into faith without making sure they have the capacity to understand what they're agreeing to. We don't let children do "adult" things like drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drive cars, or vote, but we're more than willing to place their eternal future in their hands, secure in our own faith that it's the right thing to do. As an example for our children, they have no choice but to want to be like us.

Faith is not an easy thing to part with. I've seen porn stars wearing crosses on film, despite the staunch stance that the church takes against pornography. I've seen people pray for incredibly trivial things like their sports team to win the Superbowl, insulting the God concept with their frivolity. I've seen films like The God Who Wasn't There, and feel like it raises some interesting questions that no one will take seriously enough to answer. I've seen lines drawn in strange places, like when it comes to words, and I've come to realize I just can't stand the inconsistency of it all.

Currently, my measurable faith is probably the lowest it has ever been, as well as the lowest it could possibly be. I have no desire to attend church, pursue a "personal relationship" with whomever, or become "saved," "born again," or "forgiven." I don't believe a loving God would send anyone to Hell. I don't believe the Bible has any practical value, unless you're a History, Anthropology, or Mythology major. I don't believe in virgin births, transmutation, resurrection, things being three individual parts and one whole at the same time, literal interpretation, the Rapture, the efficacy of prayer, or that teaching our children these things is integral or even proper.

Unfortunately, Christmas comes once a year, and I'm reminded just how tied modern day life is with Christianity. The fat guy in the red suit and the bunny with the colored eggs make certain that even kids who've never heard of Jesus know that those are special times of the year. And let's not forget the commercialism aspect; retailers salivate before Black Friday (the date when a large portion of shoppers buy their Christmas gifts despite effort, debt, or possible violence).

Most of my friends are Christian, and certain that it is right for them. My wife thoroughly enjoys church. I feel like I have to hide my doubts from these people, as if in shame, because they wouldn't understand. They would, however, be concerned. I fear an intervention even from posting this blog entry. I fear a lot of misunderstanding. But, honestly, I should not have to hide what I believe or don't believe from the people I love. I should be able to speak openly to them about it, without consequence.

Most of all, I just feel like I can't sit on this and stay silent any longer. It's unfair to me, and it's misleading to others, and that's neither the kind of world I want to live in nor the kind of person I want to be. If you begin to worry at this point, don't; I've been this way for a lot longer than it took me to write this post. Years longer.

So, here's my current statement of faith: I don't care. I'm not ambivalent, and I'm not simply apathetic. I don't "think I should believe but just don't care." I am fully disinterested in all things faith. I have better things to worry about, more immediate problems that need addressing, and do not place any priority on which cosmic bucket I'll end up in at the end of this life. In fact, the list of things I don't have faith in is far longer than the list of things I do. If I never had to talk about this topic again, for as long as I live, I'd be okay with that.

At the same time, I'm aware that professing this does not change the world. Christmas is still coming, and I will have to endure its sickeningly cheerful music probably every year until I do die. I have no doubts that I'll be dragged to church more than once in the near future, despite my rabid objections and clearly and repeatedly expressed aversion. The important thing is that my heart isn't in it, and won't be, and I'm okay with my heart not being in it. I don't need it. I am fine without it.

Should you find my lack of faith disturbing, feel free to comment.

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