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Mailvox: writing advice

AD has a few questions about the business:

I am a fan of your writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and own three of your books. I have thought about writing both fiction and non-fiction on topics that I think have not been written on or I am just ignorant of such books existing, and I want to write these books. I still think that my writing skills have a long ways to go before I can turn out a book that I would feel happy about (and just to clarify, I am not looking to earn a living via writing, there are just some books I must write). Let me just list my brief questions in a list:

1. Are sample chapters worth sending to publishers?

2. What are some pitfalls people should avoid (both non-fiction and fiction)?

3. If you could mention one or two resources that will help someone write either non-fiction or fiction work, what would the resource(s) be?

4. What do you think of self-publishing or using a publisher for your work?

5. If one uses a publisher, how would one make the book available for free or a very low price?

6. What have you found to be the best three ways to advertise your book?

First, I’m pleased to see that AD has the common sense to pursue writing as a past time and isn’t thinking that it’s a practical way to make a living these days. In answer to his questions:

1. Yes. The usual submission consists of three sample chapters. Even if you send a complete manuscript, there is almost no chance anyone is going to read the whole thing anyhow. Nor is it necessary. When I was doing the slush pile reading for a SF/F publisher six or seven years ago, I usually had a sound basis for rejecting a submission within the first three pages. Those who can’t write, quite clearly can’t write. And most people can’t write.

2. The biggest pitfall I’ve had to deal with is the feeling that one’s work has to be tremendously brilliant or original in order to be good or successful. No one actually gives a damn about such things except other writers and the writer himself. The Tolkiens and Ecos are the rare exceptions. I agonized over attempting to fit the story of Summa Elvetica to the philosophical structure, couldn’t manage to do it, and was subsequently bemused to find that absolutely no one noticed, much less cared, about what was arguably the most structurally original fantasy novel in years… and the only reviewer who even commented on the philosophical argument actually mistook it for a real one from Thomas Aquinas. The main focus should simply be on writing a good story with interesting characters, everything else is window dressing.

3. Obtain a book or two that is directly relevant to your general subject and will give your book solid depth of detail. TIA would have been much less effective without An Encyclopedia of Wars. In the novel I’m currently writing, I’m making heavy use of various letters and speeches by Cicero and other Romans.

4. Electronic self-publishing is now without question the way to go. In fact, I’d originally intended to self-publish Arts of Dark and Light, and it was only because I was contractually obligated to offer it to Marcher Lord due to its connection to Summa Elvetica that I ended up, to my surprise, publishing it through them.

5. Negotiate it in the contract. That’s why my ebooks are much less expensive than most. I made it clear to all three of my publishers that I wanted the price to be 1.99 and not the full price or 9.99 that most publishers at the time were charging. When the EW ebooks are released, hopefully next month, they’ll most likely be priced at 1.99 as well.

6. I am not the correct person to answer this question, as I think I have done a very poor job of advertising them. Pretty much all I do is write a reasonably popular blog and showcase a cover or two on the sidebar. Judging by the results, this isn’t ineffective, but also is not the best way to go about advertising one’s books.

Bringing back Wicker Man

The return to paganism in increasingly post-Christian Britain is being embraced by the state:

Paganism has been included in an official school religious education syllabus for the first time. Cornwall Council has told its schools that pagan beliefs, which include witchcraft, druidism and the worship of ancient gods such as Thor, should be taught alongside Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The requirements are spelled out in an agreed syllabus drawn up by Cornwall’s RE advisory group. It says that from the age of five, children should begin learning about standing stones, such as Stonehenge. At the age of 11, pupils can begin exploring ‘modern paganism and its importance for many in Cornwall’.

Atheist secularists must be so pleased. The consequence of their two-century campaign against Christian civilization increasingly looks to be a choice between Islam and half-naked, blue-bottomed savagery. Since the core concept of progress was intrinsically a Christian one based on the idea that a rational Creator’s Natural Law could be better understood through reason and observation, it should be no surprise that the abandonment of Christianity has not led to secular progress, but rather pagan regress.

Britain is already seeing the occasional human sacrifice committed by its imported savages. But unless the religious trend is reversed by Christian revival, the next century will see the native savages reviving their murderous old customs as well. Justice will be well served if they begin with the secular scientists.

Conclusion: go long on woad.

The exits close

A lot of people failed to understand the point of my controversial column “Against a Fence”, having been distracted by the deportation discussion. Even fewer understood my reasoning behind it; many critics found it hard to wrap their minds around an anti-immigration, anti-border wall perspective. But it has always been a tautological truth that a wall designed to keep people out is just as useful for keeping people in. The proposed law to strip passports in order to better hold Americans hostage to the IRS would appear to be an indication that the time in which one easily leave the United States is rapidly coming to an end.

The Republican House of Representatives may soon follow the Democratic Senate and give the IRS the power to confiscate your passport on mere suspicion of owing taxes. There’s no place like home, comrade.

‘America, Love It Or Leave It” might be an obsolete slogan if the “bipartisan transportation bill” that just passed the Senate is approved by the House and becomes law. Contained within the suspiciously titled “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” or “MAP 21,” is a provision that gives the Internal Revenue Service the power to keep U.S. citizens from leaving the country if it finds that they owe $50,000 or more in unpaid taxes — no court ruling necessary.

It is hard to imagine any law more reminiscent of the Soviet Union that America toppled, or its Eastern Bloc slave satellites.

In a free and well-governed society, exile is a punishment. In an unfree and misgoverned one, exile is impermissible. There is no stronger indication that America is no longer free than the fact that its leadership is seriously contemplating the idea of attempting to imprison its citizens within its borders.

And of course, one tends to doubt that Warren Buffett will lose his passport despite Berkshire Hathaway owing massive back taxes, or that any of the 98,000 federal employees who owe a combined $1 billion in back taxes will be deprived of their ability to travel outside the country. And while the writer is correct to say that “if House Republicans pass this assault on our Constitution, their credibility will be in tatters”, this presumes that the House Republicans still possess any credibility after permitting the continued growth of big government by raising the debt ceiling last year.

For all that the Congressional actions are egregiously unconstitutional and directly opposed to the foundational principles of America, one shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. This behavior is completely typical of financially desperate states that can no longer afford the costs of empire. The collapse of the Soviet Union was only the most recent example; there are many to be found throughout history. “Valentinian III, who remarked in 444 AD that new taxes on landowners and merchants would be catastrophic, still imposed an additional 4% sales tax… and further decreed that all transactions be conducted in the presence of a tax collector.” But however harsh the crackdown, however totalitarian the government, strict tax enforcement never works because its objectives are inevitably based upon a static revenue model that fails to account for Man’s unwillingness to work and to obey the law when the state claims an excessive share on the fruits of his labor.

Enjoy the decline… preferably from a distance.

Christianity is more scientific than New Atheism

And it’s not hard to conclusively prove it. Shadow to Light shines a big spotlight on the intrinsic absurdity of the New Atheist attacks on religion in general and Francis Collins in particular:

Coyne has accused Collins of being an “embarrassment to the NIH, to scientists, and, indeed, to all rational people” and an “advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs.” Myers calls him a “creationist dupe arguing against scientific theories” and “an amiable lightweight” who doesn’t know how to think like a scientist.

You would think that when these three biologists dish out their smug vitriol, it would come from a foundation of having generated more scientific knowledge than the religious guy. But alas, such is not the case.

Recall that Collins has published 384 scientific papers from 1971 to 2007. I’m sure he has published since 2007, as that is where the CV on the web ends. In fact, by searching through PubMed, a database that contains millions of scientific articles, it looks like he has published 483 papers. But we’ll stick with 384 since there could be other “Collins FS” authors out there mixed in with the PubMed search results.

Again using PubMed, I was able to determine that Jerry Coyne has published a very respectable 88 papers from 1971 to 2011. For Myers, I found only ten papers from 1984-1999. For Harris, I did not bother with PubMed. I used his own site where he promotes himself and his publications.

He has published two papers since 2009.

In other words, it’s obviously not Christianity that hinders science. Collins has not only produced considerably more science than his critics, he has published more than twice as many papers as Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, and Sam Harris combined. He has published infinitely more scientific papers than the late Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michael Shermer, all of whom have nevertheless made similarly false claims about the incompatibility of Christianity and science.

As is so often the case, the atheist argument is based entirely on incorrect logic and not on the empirical evidence that they claim – also falsely – to value so highly.

Mailvox: considering self-correction

Azimus is interested in the possibility that science is not, in fact, self-correcting.

Experimental replication, in the very rare instances it is actually performed and is successful, is nothing more than auditing. There is no substantial difference between one scientist re-running another scientist’s experiment and one accountant re-calculating another accountant’s books. In other words, science isn’t self-correcting in any meaningful sense even in its ideal form.”

Interesting thought. Tilting a little in the direction of a “let’s have a definition war” argument, but an interesting thought. By that yardstick would you call the market, or engineering self-correcting?

Very well, we can certainly do this the methodical way. Rather than risk a definition war, I will first ask Azimus for his definition of “self-correcting” before I answer his question about the market or engineering being self-correcting. I’m not avoiding his question, it’s only that as I’ve pointed out before, depending upon how one defines “self-correcting”, science is either NOT self-correcting or else it is TRIVIALLY self-correcting in the same manner that practically every human activity is.

To which Azimus responded:

As I read your post, it struck me that the definition of “self” is scaleable. In your accountant example, accountant #1 may not be self correcting, but if accountant #2 audits #1 as part of a departmental auditing system, the accounting department is “self correcting.” In the same way an engineering firm has a green-horn doing most of the design work, which is then reviewed by a 5yr+ experienced PE who examines the work and makes corrections. The greenhorn is not self correcting, but scaling the word “self” to be the engineering firm, would the firm not be “self correcting”?

A marksman firing at a target makes allowances for distance, elevation distances, windspeed, etc. His first shot misses. He interprets the fall of the round and hypothesizes the wind was stronger than he allowed for and he adjusts accordingly in the second shot hitting the target. Is this self correcting?

Since there is no argument on the word “correctiong”, The battle line seems to be drawn along the word “self”. I see it as scaleable and will define the term thus:

Self correcting: an entity is self correcting if it contains a mechanism by which error is identifed and eliminated.

Very good. So, Azimus has chosen the option by which we must ultimately conclude that science is TRIVIALLY self-correcting. He is correct, and in his examples given, the auditing department, the engineering firm, and the marksman would all be considered self-correcting.

But from both his definition and his examples follow three obvious questions. They are:

1. What is the entity of science?
2. If there is no successful replication of a scientific experiment, and therefore no self-correction, is the experiment still science?
3. Since scientific reliability and authority claim is based on its self-correcting mechanism, how is science any more reliable than any other entity that possesses its own mechanism for self-correction?

I’m sure we shall all await his answers to those three questions with interest. In the meantime, I owe him a direct answer to his previous question: yes, the market and the engineering discipline are both self-correcting by his definition provided. The market self-corrects incorrect corporate valuations. Engineering self-corrects technologies that do not work and structures that do not stand.

That touching faith in science

I thought it was interesting to see that one of Wängsty’s commenters, Cornucopia, still erroneously clings to a blind faith in the “self-correcting” nature of science:

In the operational sense, does it really matter whether science is intrinsically or extrinsically self-correcting? The study you alluded to previously was done by confirming the results of scientists by scientific means. It’s not as if somebody sat down with a Ouija board and confirmed or refuted scientific findings or had them fed to them by revelation. If you happen to be basing your claim that science is not intrinsically self-correcting on something as superficial as who happens to be funding the effort to confirm it, I think you’ll just engaged in a cheap slander against the process of science.

He missed the point. Science isn’t self-correcting by any sense that doesn’t apply equally well to any number of other non-scientific fields. Peer review is nothing more than editing. Experimental replication, in the very rare instances it is actually performed and is successful, is nothing more than auditing. There is no substantial difference between one scientist re-running another scientist’s experiment and one accountant re-calculating another accountant’s books. In other words, science isn’t self-correcting in any meaningful sense even in its ideal form.

And, of course, as was demonstrated in the paper I cited, most “science” is not performed according to the ideal form, and even when it is, it often turns out to be unreliable. Even the best, “gold standard” science has been reported to be 89 percent unreliable, as a matter of fact. It must also be pointed out that if scientific error is identified by non-scientists who aren’t engaged in science, then the correction cannot be considered extrinsic self-correction because it is not self-correcting in any sense.

One might as reasonably claim that crime is self-correcting because the police sometimes arrest criminals.

And while I find it strange to have to point this out, my argument about the unreliability of science is absolutely not based upon an appeal to a genetic fallacy of who happens to be funding the science, although it is worth noting that the intrinsic unreliability of modern science does create the opportunity for a significant amount of undetected corruption.

A brilliant solution

Former FDIC head Sheila Bair fixes the economy:

Under my plan, each American household could borrow $10 million from the Fed at zero interest. The more conservative among us can take that money and buy 10-year Treasury bonds. At the current 2 percent annual interest rate, we can pocket a nice $200,000 a year to live on. The more adventuresome can buy 10-year Greek debt at 21 percent, for an annual income of $2.1 million. Or if Greece is a little too risky for you, go with Portugal, at about 12 percent, or $1.2 million dollars a year. (No sense in getting greedy.)

Think of what we can do with all that money. We can pay off our underwater mortgages and replenish our retirement accounts without spending one day schlepping into the office. With a few quick keystrokes, we’ll be golden for the next 10 years…. And while that deal blew bigger holes in the deficit, my proposal won’t cost taxpayers anything because the Fed is just going to print the money. All we need is about $1,200 trillion, or $10 million for 120 million households. We will all cross our hearts and promise to pay the money back in full after 10 years so the Fed won’t lose any dough.

One rather gets the idea that Sheila has a certain lack of confidence in Ben Shalom’s ability to successfully extricate the U.S. economy from the 30-year debt bubble the Fed created. The frightening thing is that her Swiftian solution differs only in its degree from the strategy that Bernanke is actually utilizing. Bernanke is trying to continuously inflate just enough to prevent massive default and deflation, but this is akin to bailing water rather than fixing the big hole in the bottom of the boat… and without any land in sight.

Still smarting

Wängsty’s posterior is apparently still stinging from the spanking I gave him more than eight months ago:

The fact is, someone has to call these people out, same with Vox, challenge them. As powerful as moral indignation is, it has a short shelf life, if you doggedly engage, engage, engage… People need to be ‘radical’ about reason and moderation…

To which I responded: Come now, Wängsty, you did nothing of the sort. After admitting you couldn’t make heads or tails of a fairly simple analogy and whining about my “refusal” to answer rhetorical questions that I directly addressed, you ran away rather than even attempt to defend your own perspective. I answered your questions, but I don’t recall you ever getting around to answering mine. I’ve been challenged by Keynesians, atheists, biologists, feminists, Calvinists, and Trinitarians and engaged in substantive debates with all of them. You’re a talented writer, to be sure, but as a thinker and an intellectual disputant, you’re not even a contestant at this point.

If you want to debate anything from the aesthetics of fantasy fiction to your philosophic uncertainty principle, I’m always game. But your philosophic posturing is seriously weak dishwater; there is no intrinsic virtue in uncertainty.

In case one has forgotten, here is a link to my last post concerning The Prince of Wängst. The idea that he still thinks I am given to moral outrage simply underlines how stubbornly clueless he remains.