Back of the Envelope

I've decided that I'm going to be trying to put the January Month in Review Post up on time for a change. For that to happen, I need to get the December Month in Review out of the way first. Now, I'm writing this at the end of January, but I'll be moving it back to January 1st in the archive shortly. Nevertheless, here is December's Month in Review:

Storyblogging Carnivals (takes you to the category page) — There were two carnivals in December, one hosted by Tales by Sheya, and the other hosted by Dodgeblogium.

American victim culture and Muslims — When does American victim culture become a menace to society? When it gets in the way of fighting the war on terrorism.

Life imitates webcomic — Webcomics are weird--there's no denying that. But nothing's so absurd that real life can't go just as far. Trying to appease your enemies my dropping lovenotes on them is one such example.

Can't write. Must...reach...in...spiration — I complain about the lack of inspiration, and find it again here.

Kyoto is dead — Why didn't anyone tell me earlier?

Experts and Journalists — One of my pet peeves are when people, especially "experts," state opinion as fact. The fact is, it's a complicated world, most data is open to multiple interpretations, and we really ought to acknowledge that and be careful to separate the data from the analysis.

That's it? Well, I spent a lot of December travelling and moving, so there weren't really that many important posts. Still, I did some photoblogging, and posted some fiction, and had a bunch of linking posts, so why don't you go through the archives (weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).

You may be wondering why, if there's so much wireless in Boston, I haven't been blogging more. Well, one of the reasons is that despite the numerous hotspots in Boston, I haven't been just sitting still for my stay here. I've been mostly running around. The downtime I have has mostly been at my hotel, which doesn't have free wireless--although it does offer some very expensive wireless. Right now I'm on the MIT campus, which does have free wireless. I'll be heading back to my hotel soon, though.

I'm in the Boston Area, looking at apartments. One of the fun things about Boston is you can find wireless just about anywhere. I'm currently in a sub shop getting lunch. I'm looking forward to being back here.

I'm heading to Boston today to look at apartments. I expect my internet access to be light, so don't expect much in the way of blogging.

I've now moved the Month in Review posts to their proper places in the archives. October is here and November is here.

Doc Rampage has avoided writing a review of Eyes in the Shadow, since it's not yet finished, but he does have a few words of praise for my use of an introspective hero. I think introspective is the wrong word here, and Doc explains what he means in more depth later:

But I did want to remark on this section, where one of the heroes is coming to grips with the existence of magic. He takes a very clinical approach to analyzing his experiences. I've always wished authors would do this more because it seems more realistic to me. Sure, there may be moments of wonder or horror at the first experiences of magic, but when it's over and you have time to think about it, wouldn't you try to analyze what had happened? Wouldn't you wonder what sort of laws govern this new phenomenon? Wouldn't you think about experiments you could do to understand it better?

Well I would. Or at least I think I would. Maybe this is just because I'm at the extreme range of introspective personalities, but shouldn't introspective types have adventures too? That seems to be what is going on in Donald's story.

I do think that it's true that you don't see a lot of analytical protagonists, which Ryan most definitely is to a fault. Most main characters are either the adventurous, impulsive types, or the creative (rather than analytical), introspective type--in other words either the archetypal adventurer, or an avatar for the writer himself.

In some sense, Ryan is my avatar in this story, as he's probably the one character most closely based on me that I've created. He's not identical--in fact, he's different from me in the most fundamental aspect of my life. I am a Christian; he is not. He is, in many ways, what I think I would be if I were not a believer. And this is why he takes such an analytical and skeptical approach to his situation. I am an engineer who has a background in scientific research, and I approach just about every problem in a logical, analytical, and skeptical fashion. It's what I'm trained to do, but more than that, it has always come naturally to me. Now I'm not claiming it works well for every situation, but I find that I usually get satisfactory results.

So would I do what Ryan is doing? Probably. The difference is that I do believe in demons and the supernatural, so I wouldn't be trying quite so hard to rule it out, but on the other hand, I wouldn't be quick to believe it either. I apply my skepticism to my faith as well... that may require a bit of clarification. I believe that Christianity is a very skeptical religion. Believers are told time and time again to beware false prophets, test the spirits, believe only what is true. So while I believe in miracles in the abstract, any particular story of the miraculous I approach with skepticism. And while I believe in demons, I'm reluctant to trust any account of their activity. C.S. Lewis had the right idea--consider demons in the same way that you consider spies in war time. You know they're there, but you don't believe half the stories you hear about them. That's the kind of logic I would be applying in Ryan's position. Assuming, of course, that I could show anything like Ryan's wherewithal. While I'd like to believe I would, I might very well be curled up on the floor whimpering. After all, I do believe in demons.

I hope you enjoyed Webcomic Thursday. Tune in tomorrow for Fiction Friday.