November 2024

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November

November 30 Resource for discovering and pairing fonts, and generally learning about typography, recommended by Nate Kadlac: TypeWolf.

November 29 Repetition in writing is different than redundancy. At least, for my purposes, I consider repetition to be a stylistic choice for a certain effect, and I consider redundancies to be the effect of oversight.

November 28 I don't want to live with the fear of God but, rather, with a reverence for Nature and the attendant humility.

Possibly the best thing I could do as a writer is to become a composite of Emerson's poignancy of thought, John Muir's reverence for Nature, and David Foster Wallace's mastery of language.

Rush and hurry are modern inventions, not any older than the wristwatch. They are fabricated emotions. Urgency is innate, the counterpart emotion to the sensation of hunger. But once the masses become well-fed and hunger turns figurative, we manufacture counterfeit forms of urgency, among them: rush and hurry.

Try to tell me that there is some thing more deeply pleasurable and fulfilling than personal evolution.

November 27 Personal Style Guide: Gender-neutral pronouns

Example from me:

And what a pleasure a book is! An expert, informed by years of study, compiles the most valuable information she knows, or tells the most compelling story he can muster, and renders it in captivating prose that is subject to high editorial standards. On the metrics of value-per-minute or wisdom-per-word, no place on the Internet comes close to most books.

Grammar governs how English words work together. Mechanics describes how English clauses work together. And style is how an individual writer uses those rule sets together.

November 26 I want to earn the freedom to frolic. John Muir, for instance, neglected his relationships so that he could be alone in the woods. I want to honor and cultivate my relationships and let them lead me into the woods.

It's very hard for a book to be a distraction, because it requires your complete focus, unlike other forms of media.

You don't really want your life to be a dramatic story. Sure, you want to have stories to tell, but if your life were a drama, you'd have to suffer The Dark Night of the Soul, and, ideally, you wouldn't. Instead, die little deaths every day.

[[Transformation Without Trauma]]

These are the principles I follow that promote conscious media consumption:

Optimize for quality.
Don't use entertainment as a distraction.
Choose long-form over short-form.
Value local and timeless knowledge over global and timely information.

November 25 All dichotomies are illusory. Every thing in Nature is some harmonious composite of two seemingly incompatible extremes: a duality. In Iceland, The Land of Fire and Ice, this truth is etched into its very geology.

New con unlocked for living near NYC: there are maybe two climbable trees within a half-hour walk from me.

John Muir was a true American monk; he was effectively ascetic, until marriage, and he devoted his life to the wilds of our West.

I needed to know what I would do with my life, and the only certainty I could cling to was that I needed to go to Iceland. I had not much of a reason for it, beyond intuition, but because I was certain, I didn't have to think past it. For a while, I could be free.

I thought I needed to know what I would do with my life. But I learned that everything would work out, as long as I never lost touch with the essence of life. I thought I had lost all my ambition, but in fact, I had just developed an inner ambition, one that requires autonomy, stillness, and connection.

Here's what I needed to do: Do whatever would lead to a life I loved.

What does it mean to be The Arbiter or Truth and Justice? It means no one can tell you what is right, and it means that you know every time you do wrong.

Some of the most comforting moments in my life are when I have felt cosmically small. I think it's comforting because it reminds me that I don't need to accomplish anything. I could just be, until I can no longer.

The best possible outcome requires that you detach from all possible outcomes.

This guy crashes funerals and speaks on behalf of the descaled, either a confession or an accusation or a simple self-eulogy. His name is Bill Edgar. It's admirable. He is admirable. The people who hire him, however, could just do those things while they are alive. It's a little weak and deferential to me. Instead of hiring the guy to tell off some person at your funeral, just create the guest list for your funeral. He also has a book, which shares his nickname namesake: The Coffin Confessor. Oh shit! He has a TedX talk too.

"We all live dying. We just go about our lives, and then we die. So many fewer of us die living. We've got to die living."

From this beach, I stared at the snow-capped peak, as I stepped over a shoot of its many snow-melt streams. I stared at the glacier that had once carved this valley and has since fed the sea. What valleys will I carve? Or is that too grand a feat for a bipedal mammal like me?

What is a book? A legacy.

I don't think Cain killed Abel because he was rejected by God. I think he killed Abel because Cain thought he had to become like Abel in order to receive God's love (which is a delusion).

Nietzsche's three stages of the spirit:

The Deferential Camel is subject to the commands of the Thou Shalt Dragon.
The Contrarian Lion blindly negates the Dragon's commands but ultimately slays it — "thou shalt" no more.
The Playful Baby is immune to all commands and is neither for nor against anything absolutely — subject only to his own will.

A line that made me LOL from S3:E4 of The Bear:

Ebra: "I used to work in hospital. Many people died." [Friend]: "You're a morbid fuck, man."

November 24 I haven't had the Instagram app on my phone since right after they released Reels.

I’m an editor because I want to help writers recognize their inner wisdom and render it in can’t-put-it-down prose.

If you become a better writer, you'll become a better thinker. And you can think your way into a better life.

Is Mars, the planet, dead because it doesn't have life? Or is the planet alive because of its orbit, its rotation, and the ever-changing contours and contents of its surface? We are completely misunderstanding what's at stake with climate change. If we ruin the climate, we will harm the life on Earth, but we will not harm Earth. If we harm Her at all, it will be merely a flesh-wound, one that will heal, whether it takes a thousand or a billion years, whether we are here to witness it or if the healing requires us to become extinct.

Capture attention. Keep attention. Reward attention. That's how you get your reader to read to the end, and it's how you get them to come back for more from you. As a writer, that is your job. That is not the job of an academic, for instance, which is why no one enjoyed reading their papers.

I'm about as Christian as you can get without believing in the Trinity, His resurrection, or Original Sin.

November 23 When I was alone and heard the call of the void, it was a temptress in my ear, a hissing serpent. But when I heard it in the company of new friends on the cliffs or Hornbjarg, there was no temptation, just pure exhalation of the privilege of living.

I walked for two miles barefoot on that black-sand beach, and the glacier was the same size on the horizon; it looked just as large, in my eyes, as it did on that clear day in Reykjavík, when I saw it from across the bay.

November 22 Read E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake."

Emiel and Inge were the center of gravity in the campsite. Everyone in the lounge was sneaking glances at them and trying to figure out something they could say to start a conversation with them. Or, at least that's what I was doing.

Every expression of nature can be reduced to either Yin or Yang, and every object and being in nature can only be described as a combination of Yin and Yang. Volcanic eruptions are yang, but every other part of a volcano is Yin; they literally give birth to new earth. A glacier's face is Yang, how it is rigid and harsh and still, then suddenly cleaves a chunk of ice into the sea, but beneath its surface, a glacier is Yin, the part that flows and churns and thrives under extreme pressure.

November 21 Short story tile or something:

"The Lost and the Found"

Can someone please explain to me the verb uplevel? A few questions:

What's wrong with "level up"?
Why have we all just accepted this as a thing?
Is there a single where I couldn't use improve in place of uplevel?

Also, isn't "level up" analogous to the verb "work out"? You would never say, "I outworked this morning" or "We need to outwork this." So, why are we saying uplevel?!

If there is any threat to democracy, it is vilifying your intellectual opponent. You can't get much more un-American than that. This country was built upon, and our freedom rests upon, peaceful disagreement and civil discourse.

What single person has had the greatest impact on the New York City skyline? It's not an architect. Is it not Benjamin Franklin? Find me a skyscraper whose summit isn't adored with a lightning rod. All the pointy tips on all the buildings of the skyline are due to that great American inventor.

I just discovered this designer Andy Moliski, and I want to be his friend. I found him on the Webby's winners page, and he built this awesome interactive experience to commemorate his hike on the AT called A Trail Tale.

And I wondered in vain, What valleys will I carve?

November 20 v2: The Eight Inflection Points of a Three-Act Narrative

Act I: Into the Dark

Disturbance
Resistance
Acceptance & Departure (Mardi Gras Moment)

Act II: Out of the Dark

Commitment
Ordeal
Respite (or "False Summit")
Do or Die

Act III: Into the Light

Fruition

v1: The Seven Inflection Points of a Three-Act Narrative

Act I:

Disturbance
Acceptance
Departure (Mardi Gras Moment)

Act II

Commitment
Triumph/Tragedy
Do or Die (Halloween Moment)

Act III:

fFruition

Woah! I just learned that one of the three temptations that Jesus faced during his 40 days of fasting (which Catholics celebrate with Lent) was the call of the void:

He was then brought to the top of a building in Jerusalem and told that, if he truly was the Son of God, he should jump from the building and angels would carry him to safety. Jesus once again resisted, knowing not to challenge God. – Source: MercyHome.org

Here is the second temptation, according the Gospel of Matthew -– Matthew 4:5–7:

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

[Solitude & Company]

In a story, the Mardi Gras Moment is the event that causes the character to accept the adventure, and it foreshadows the ordeal to come.

(Or, maybe it's more like the event of departure from the normal world. It's Luke leaving Tatooine. It's not when he leaves home with Obi Wan for Mos Eisley.)

Imagine this moment happening on March 3, if your story were mapped onto a calendar year (at the 17% mark).

A listicle is like an interstate highway. It's easy to get where you're going, but there's no adventure along the way. Real writers write winding mountain roads or hiking trails. They require effort, but the vista is always better from the summit than from the roadside rest-stop.

Acceptance isn’t giving up; it’s the necessary first step to start moving forward. Acceptance means receiving reality as it is now. It does not mean giving up your agency over the future.

November 19 No porn. Why? So that I don't dissociate from my cock and so that I don't distance myself from women.

I only ever drink water and caffeine-free tea, and the occasional glass of milk with pancakes or cookies. I don't think I've ever had a single sip of Coke or Pepsi, because I've always been naturally repulsed by them. I would drink Sprite or Fanta as a kid, because I could justify those as sparkly, fruity waters. But whenever I was offered a Coke, it would hit my ears as, "Would you like to ingest this bubbly, brown liquid? What's it made of? Besides sugar, I'm not really sure." I never once had an urge to say "yes." And now, I'm trying to reverse-engineer that same sort of innate, insurmountable, unwaivering disgust I have for drinks in cans and manufacture it as a deterrent against brain-eating media, delivered daily to my eye- and ear-holes via algorithmic feeds.

The shopkeeper shouldn't make the restaurant's menu and decide what their patrons put in their bodies, just as FANG shouldn't decide what you consume with my mind.

The two-party system is libertarian. Why? Because if we're always split 50/50 on every issue, and if every presidential term flips party, then nothing gets done. Government gets smaller (besides the balance sheet), meaning that who the president is has less of an impact on individual lives.

Anti-natalism is a form of natural selection.

In this old video from a short-haired David Kadavy, he gives a list of all the font sizes you should ever use, according to a 3:4 ratio:

Jesus Christ was born uncircumcised, and then man cut off part of God's cock on the eighth day of his life. Why do we think we know better than Him and/or Mother Nature? If we are truly imago dei, then why mess with the package we were delivered?

Everyone confuses the verbs hone and home. You home in on something, to locate it. You hone something to improve it. Home like a missile, hone like a knife.

November 18 A dream is l much more like doing a homework assignment than it is like listening to a lecture or sermon.

Doesn't "My body, my choice" also apply to the decision of whether to let semen enter your vagina while you're fertile? Can we please talk about that too? Sure, some old men in power are telling you that you can't get an abortion. But where are the men telling you that you have to get pregnant?

[['Casual Sex' Is an Oxymoron]]

You know why competition is a masculine thing? Because there's no way to compete with the feminine. Mother Nature remains undefeated.

November 17 Random memory: In 2nd grade, I lost the Spelling Bee (runner-up) to Kate W. on the word "Constitution" (or maybe "Declaration"). I messed it up in front of our whole class, and then I had to listen as Kate spelled it correctly, without hesitation. She was the smartest girl in our grade and, according to me, the prettiest. I had recently and very ungraciously expressed my love to her (a different story), which wasn't reciprocated. She was my second love, and that was the first time I'd been friend-zoned. That ordeal happened in the summer before 2nd grade, and this Spelling Bee was evidence that I was not worthy of Kate W.. (The epilogue: I became worthy by high school, and she asked me to homecoming, even though I went to a different school, and a couple years later, before college, we even went on dates and hooked up.)

November 15 We fear the monsters in our closets but not the monsters in our pockets.

Wow, UsefulBooks has an awesome site and what seems like a really useful beta reading product. I may need to read Rob Fitzpatrick's book (which has a heck of a subtitle): Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction.

Monkey see, monkey do — yeah, sure. But what does monkey do when he see himself?

No one can deliver you from here, from anywhere. You must deliver yourself to wherever you hope to go.

November 13 Is diversity inherently good, without exception? Now, that's an interesting question and one we're tending to overlook.

In Singapore, they have racial quotas within neighborhoods so that each race is represented equally, within some district. But that means that only a subset of the homes for sale are available to you and your race. Is diversity still good when it compromises freedom?

There is a vast disparity in the quality of education within American public schools. That's diversity. But diversity in quality and infrastructure is not ideal. We don't want more diversity in education state to state, county to country; we want every student to receive a high-quality education. So, is it only demographic diversity that is inherently good?

Then why not invite people who identify as felons into your neighborhood, so that they're equally represented?

In my book coaching practice, I should help my clients separate the writing process from the editing process. If you don't have a full manuscript, what you need is coaching and encouragement to help you finish it. Once you have a full manuscript, what you need is in-depth feedback and editing to make it better.

I know this from my own experience. I am at the start of a book project, and I don't plan on sharing the draft with anyone until it's done — for this same reason: I must forestall the sculpting process until I have quarried a sufficient volume of marble.

The more editing passes I do on a draft or on a manuscript, the more dull my edge as an editor becomes, for I have no hope but to adopt some of the author's blind spots, which prevents me from seeing the work as an objective reader.

A clenched fist is the obvious form of grasping but one less obvious is a flared-open hand, where the fingertips stretch back behind the knuckles. That posture is still a form of grasping, called repulsion or aversion. You're grasping way from something rather than toward it. The only hand that ceases to grasp is one with the posture of pure relaxation. Without any effort toward or away, a hand is only able to hold whatever for the moment is resting in its palm.

[[Always Be Holding]]

Everything is an opportunity to practice. Noticing your shoe is untied is an opportunity to stretch your hamstring.

My satisfaction must not depend on your transformation; my transformation must not contend with your dissatisfaction.

I want to achieve DFW's mastery of English without getting an MFA and without killing myself.

For sex to be spiritual, it must not only be respectful and emotional and loving but, for each person, also ecstatic and orgasmic.

Oh. my. God. ...Oh my God! Oh my... God? Oh! Me: God.

My goal as an editor is for the writer to never be discouraged yet only satisfied upon publication.

November 12 A curious case study for the subtle difference in meaning for a single possessive vs. one plural:

"Read one of your peer's essays." vs. "Read one of your peers' essays."

The first means that you're choosing from multiple essays written by your one peer. The second means that you're choosing one essay from among a group of essays, each written by a different one of your peers. And in this particular case, the latter meaning is the one intended.

I confessed that being in the arms of a woman feels like laying in the lap of God.

November 11 If you wear a hammer or a knife or a tape measure on your hip, it doesn't poke and prod at you asking to be used. It is an object built for an explicit purpose: a tool. And it is the choice of the autonomous human when and whether to use it. But our devices are different. Your phone buzzes and beeps in your pocket, demanding your attention, training you to feed it and need it. The human-machine is less autonomous, more dependent on technology, and that's exactly the way the creators of our devices want you to be.

My phone should only be able to touch me like clothing does, to rest next to my body, to be an accessible tool, used for explicit purposes (in this case, purposes is plural; a device is a multi-tool). But it should not be able to poke and nudge and prod at me.

November 10 "OpenAI" is an oxymoron. What could possibly be more opaque, mysterious, inaccessible, more closed than a name-less, face-less, body-less, soul-less "intelligence" that lives in a black-box?

Literary fiction is just fantasy set in reality. All fiction is fantasy.

The most important work I have to do each day is to tend to my mind and body.

November 9 The ideal: Treat yourself and others well without fail, and live a life so fulfilling that at the moment of death you do not long for more.

"This is your captain speaking" is such an effective rhetorical tool. It immediately establishes credibility and makes you want to listen.

You don’t want your reader to struggle to understand your meaning. The only struggle they should have is grappling with your ideas, the intellectually challenging content of your writing.

Progress ought not be measured by technological advancement but by human flourishing. We'd be much further down the road of real progress if all of our brightest minds spent their time working on what they love and value unconditionally, rather than spending their time making money and incremental progress on some technological problem with no real utility (other than convenience) in its solution.

A rule shouldn’t be followed just because it’s a rule. Only follow a rule if it serves your purposes, and break rules at will for certain effects. I’m only advocating for knowing the rules, not for following them indiscriminately.

(This is true for English composition and in all other parts of life.)

My Circle post in "All Things Writing" calling for nerdy questions on English grammar, mechanics, and usage, "Nerd Out with the Editor in Chief":

In Write of Passage, we don’t cover some of the fine (and often tricky) nuances of English: questions of grammar, mechanics, and usage. We don’t cover these because they are ultimately small EQ dials on the DJ deck of craft, and of course because these often boring topics clash with the rip-roaring energy we want to have in Live Sessions. But if you ask me, you cannot master the craft of writing without mastering the English language — including all its quirks and tiny dials.

I love answering nerdy questions on English, so here’s a place for you to ask any that you have (inspired by ’s question about “ ; “ vs. “ — “ and ’s reply). Questions like:

What use is a semicolon?
When do you use “e.g.” vs. “i.e.”?
Do you put a space before or after an ellipsis?
What is an independent clause vs. a dependent clause?
Is the idiom “can’t see the forest through the trees” or “… for the trees”?
How do you know when to hyphenate a compound adjective, like “finger-lickin’ good”?
What’s the difference between a superlative and hyperbole?
What is a comma splice, and why is it no bueno?

If you want to make an editor’s day, drop a nerdy question.

Against Punctuation as Pacing

If you ask most writers, I think they’d say that punctuation is just about pacing. But I that say punctuation about creating a clear information hierarchy. Your main goal as a writer is to communicate meaning, and punctuation helps you do that by visually separating clauses and by indicating whether those clauses are dependent on or independent from one another.

November 8 An editor is someone you pay to read your book so that more people will pay to read your book.

My First Rap Ever? Inspired by Eminem's latest album (Cup de Grâs) and this line from my rant about phone usage and eye contact, called "Negative Sixty!": "It's the same shameful gaze-angle that men assume during masturbation." Without further ado, here's my best effort at channeling Slim Shady:

Negative sixty... It's the same shameful gaze-angle That men assume when they watch their balls dangle As they try t' wrangle a short snake Up against a porcelain tank. Not cotton But he got on a wife-beater too. Yeah, you bet he do. 'Cuz Betty ain't true.' N' every time he hit 'uh She gets a little bit sick-uh Goes 'n' sits it on an ice sick-uh-le That's just a little bit bigg-uh And thick-uh than little Dick's prick. And Richard's stuck at home doin' his same old shtick Scrollin' Twitt-uh 'n' yankin' his dick. (Dick's yankin' his little prick!) Slouches and scrolls but never Tweets, though He shoots blanks, like ropes of sourdough Since Betty cut his tubes 'n' wrapped his nuts in a noose. Dick, ya can't get a new fa-mi-ly by spittin' no-pulp juice!

November 7 My response in the Write of Passage Circle group "All Things Writing" about when to use a semicolon vs. an em dash:

What a joy! I’ll try to keep this brief and make it not boring. It’s not about formal vs. conversational but about information hierarchy within a sentence.The semicolon joins two complete thoughts that are closely related; both are held as equally important. But an em dash appends — or sets apart — information that is supplemental to the main clause.If you want to indicate a close relationship between two independent thoughts, use a semicolon. If you want to add “color commentary” that is not necessary (supplementary to the main thought), set that apart with an em dash or two.Last note: The dash (-) and the en dash (–) are different than the em dash, which is the longest of the three (—). In this case, you’re asking about em dashes. So, make sure not to use a dash in its place.

Notes from Charlotte Grysolle's Distribution-Palooza Session: "Unbundling"

Experiment to find what works for you –- with your schedule, your energy, your interests, and the skills you want to develop.
Expect to have no growth, which means find something that you would get value from and have motivation to do even if you got no opportunities or returns on it.
Try other forms of media, not just writing: audio, video, live streams.
Start with long-form. That's where all your good thinking happens, and it should always be the priority. Then, unbundle each essay into many smaller posts, over a long time horizon.
You never know who's reading your work, so don't obsess over engagement metrics. Someone might see your post and not like it but then email you inquiring about your coaching offer.

Some ideas for my distribution:

Focus on Substack, and within Substack, experiment with different media.
Pull out highlights from my essays and my logs.
Maybe create a new tag in Drafts to create a queue of Substack notes to post -– maybe post. That way, I don't have to stop what I'm doing to copy, paste, edit, and share a log. I can just have a queue and block out time each day, or whenever, where I slowly archive the inbox of post-able thoughts.
Record voiceovers for more of my posts. If not for all of them, at least for the short ones.
Message people individually the links to my essay, with a message about why they might enjoy it.

A tricky case for comprise vs. compose: "What parts compose the ecosystem?" or "Of what parts is the ecosystem comprised?" Not "What parts comprise the ecosystem?" or "Of which parts is the ecosystem composed?"

Compose means "to make up" something, and comprise means "to be made up of" something. But it gets tricky when you are talking about the parts composing the whole. The whole is comprised of the parts, and the parts compose the whole.

Takeaways from Tim Denning's Distribution Palooza Session: How to Write Clickable Titles

It's not a title. It's a headline, and a headline is a sales pitch for the time and attention of your reader. With the few words in the headline, you must convince them that your writing will be worth their time.

Use literal, simple, plain English in your headlines. Minimize the cognitive load -- because, remember, you're competing within a feed or an inbox. No one has time to decode a metaphor. Don't get fancy. And if you are going to coin a phrase or use some figurative comparison, make sure it's completely clear with minimal effort and without any context.
Don't shy away from long headlines.
If you're writing a series or a part 2 of a former essay, don't put that in the headline or the hook. Don't make your reader feel like they're a fish out of water. Even if the essay stands on its own, they'll feel lost, and (implicitly), you're asking for more of their attention.
Write your headline first, whenever possible, and keep it at the top of your doc, so that you make sure to deliver on the promise you're making.
Use numbers, celebrities, or anything specific really. Those words carry implicit credibility and intrigue. (It's no wonder
Important general point: Save your creativity and the cognitive load of your writing for the body. Don't get precious with your headings. Get people in the door. The heading is copywriting. The body is real writing. You can be a writer before you're a salesman, but to your readers, you must be a salesman before you are a writer.
Prospective readers will only click if (1) you promise something they're interested in receiving and (2) they believe you can and will deliver on that promise. (To be honest, I've even clicked on an outrageous headline even if I was convinced they wouldn't deliver. The lesson: Err on the side of boldness, but of course without ever being dishonest.

Action Steps:

Write 10 headlines per day
Templatize 10 of other people's headlines per day
Templatize your own best headlines

November 6 The Write of Passage writing process: (The six-sentence culmination of my work as Curriculum Director)

Start by talking.
Frame your topic in a fresh & novel way.
Make it POP: personal, observational, playful.
Find and focus on your Shiny Dime.
Reduce your essay to its essence.
Polish, publish, & promote it.

Discover ideas through conversation.
Choose a fresh & novel frame for your topic.
Take a shot at making it POP.
Find and focus on your Shiny Dime.
Distill your essay to its essence.
Polish, publish, and promote your work.

A little lyrical word association, starting with "ocean":

Ocean, tall tales, whales, feet, stink, hats, cats, bats, rats, fats, gnats, fly, die, rise, against the man, within the woman, forever going underneath, the beat, a treat, Halloween, my death, unreal, unrealized, God, Jesus, crucifixion, definition, dictionary, Bryan Garner, umbrella, Rihanna, Barbados.

Democracy is under threat. We just had a free and fair election. Next, there will be a peaceful transfer of power. We’re practically a totalitarian state! Hide in your homes. Don’t have babies. Decry patriotism and pride. Or, enjoy your time on this earth and be grateful for being born in the USA.

Neither candidate on the 2024 Presidential ticket is worthy of the office, because they're both dishonest. Trump is hyperbolic, and Harris is hypocritical. Neither characteristic befits our highest office.

November 5 The hardest part of the writing process for me is finishing the first draft. So, I get discouraged when I feel like I have to rewrite the draft from scratch. Without rewriting, though, you face the risk of over editing and losing the spirit.

So, to avoid rewriting and preserve the spirit of what I write, I instead transcribe. I don't do this all the time, but I want to start doing it more often. I will write the first draft on my typewriter, which is a tool that helps me finish a messy first draft. And then I will transcribe the typewritten draft on my computer, which has the effect of rewriting without the feeling of restarting from scratch. As I transcribe, I'll cut and rearrange and do a second take on whole paragraphs, but because I am working from a finished draft, it feels more like revising than rewriting, and that's something I'm much more inclined to do.

Do you have an acquiescing spirit or one agentic?

How could Adam and Eve have known not to disobey God without the knowledge of good and evil? Animals are incapable of moral disobedience, so Adam and Eve would have been too. There was some latent, unconscious power of will within Eve that led her to eat the fruit. But until eating it, she was not aware of it being morally good or evil to do so. Eve's disobedience was a proto-human act of moral autonomy.

I read The Fall as a man-made myth describing how we are and how we are meant to be. It describes how we are perfectly but errs in describing how we ought to be. How we are is how are meant to be. At least, that's what I want the thesis of my creation myth to be.

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