#//this really REALLY reminds me of Avner

[yvesdot]

My updates tab has been... well, updated! Check it out; as Camp NaNo has finished (10k over my original goal of 30k!) I am back to things I can talk about publicly; particularly, Forest Castles! Feel free to ask me anything about the project; I am now officially editing it for the foreseeable future!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

I've been doing a lot of growing in my christianity lately, and I have found this blog soooooo helpful, especially as bi christian going to a conservative christian high school. In my school they talk a lot about original sin as a result of The Fall, and that concept seems wrong to me, but I can't really intelligently describe why. Do you have any resources or links that deal with the issue of original sin and could help me understand why some Christians reject the concept?

Hey there!

For anyone reading this who isn’t sure what Original Sin is, it’s the belief held by many Christian traditions that after Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, all humans after them have been corrupted with sin – you might think of it as sinfulness being passed down in our DNA, so that even newborns are tainted by sin.

This concept was first proposed by Saint Augustine, who developed it from Paul’s statement that “Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12). 

I’m with you on pondering whether the traditional concept of original sin is quite right – I still have not discerned for sure what I think on the subject, but I can say that the concept of Original Blessing strikes a much richer chord in my spirit.

“Original blessing reminds us that we are in a relationship with God, and God started it, and God is sticking with it.” The above article is sort of long, so see this post for my favorite quotes from it if you don’t have time for the whole thing. 

I am torn when it comes to this idea of original sin because on the one hand, it is true that all human beings do some or many bad things in their lives – no one but Jesus (and if you believe as I and Catholics do, Mary) has ever lived a sinless life, perfectly in line with God’s will.But on the other hand, do our sins mean we are evil at the core? or are we good at the heart of ourselves, underneath whatever sins we’ve committed (or, says original sin, we are born with)? 

Original sin implies that humans are bad at their core (look up the concept of “total depravity” or “inherent evil”) – but one of God’s first descriptions of human beings was to call us (and all Creation) “very good” (Genesis 1:31). It is as the above article on original blessing says – how can we dare to consider that any human action, such as Adam and Eve eating the fruit, could “undo what God has ordained”? 

Rabbi Avner Zarmi agrees (as Judaism rejects the concept of original sin): “At every stage of the world’s creation, G-d pronounced it tov [good] before proceeding to the next stage. On the creation of mankind, He pronounced it tov me’od (‘very good’), and there is no indication thereafter that He changed his mind.”

Moreover, Genesis does not have any point where it explicitly states that Adam and Eve brought sin into the world with their actions (it does not even say that before “the Fall” they were incapable of sinning, though I do think “then their eyes were opened” in 3:7 can be interpreted as implying that).  

In the end, whether or not original sin is a real thing does not change what God has called us to do: to love God and neighbor, to act with justice and love mercy, to glorify God with our lives. So I think it’s okay to be unsure on the matter – to keep pondering it but not to become too anxious about the answer. We can have faith that whether or not original sin is real, God is with us, God calls us good, God liberates us from sin. 

I also have found for myself that it is better to think of human beings as capable of good, rather than to think of them as inherently evil. When I focus on the former, I am inspired to do good, and I am able to see the good others have done; when I focus on the latter, I tend to become cynical and bitter towards myself and my fellow human beings.

I do believe that all goodness comes from God and so we rely on God for any goodness we can do; but as we are in God’s image, and as God has declared us good, that goodness is inside us, at the heart of us – not evil.

Do other folks have good resources describing original sin, whether they support or reject the concept?  

[yvesdot]

11/11 tag meme.

I answer eleven questions, and then pose eleven of my own for my victims to peruse. Exciting! I’m about to throw out this odd lovers’ book of questions to ask your partner for a ‘good time’, so I’d better put it to good use. Thank you, @planets-and-prose! 

(Projects page might be handy.)

1. Which of your characters remind you most of you?

Eliza (Forest Castles). She’s a self-insert. Most of my characters are partial self-inserts, but with Eliza I decided to let loose my inner “female YA love triangle protagonist” and see what she’d do. People say she’s very crass; that’s how I talk in real life.

2. Which of your characters was hardest to write?

I always sweat a lot over representation, because I want to be sure to get it right. I’m not sure if it’s difficult per se, but I definitely put a lot more thought into writing (for example) Avner’s experiences as a black man who wants to look stereotypically “pretty” and what that means among Western interpretations of beauty than I do (for example) Ahava’s desire as a child to have love. Some things are written more directly off of my own experiences, so I don’t worry as much about ‘getting them right’--I don’t want to inaccurately or hurtfully portray the very real struggles of other people who are already marginalized enough as-is.

3. Show me one of your favorite lines from your writing projects!

I recently segued from a thing about how veins in the hands are part of the nervous system into “...Charlie is a nervous system,” and I thought that was very funny. Of course, my Beta Reader quickly noted that they’re not part of the nervous system (cardiovascular), and the work was 800 words too long for the prompt, so I had to cut the lines.

4. What part of your WIP was most challenging to write?

I’m currently writing my Atlas and Kay (interdimensional wlw romance) project behind the scenes, and I’ll be working on Okay, But This One Has Vampires (vampire mystery dating sim) come NaNo. Both involve very different challenges, but right now I find myself very worried that I’ll either get stuck writing Vampires or won’t be able to write enough of it. My plan if that happens is to just write more Atlas and Kay on the side and tell myself it’s practice for the enemies-to-lovers route.

5. What genres do you like to read? Are they the same ones you like to write?

Almost entirely the same (YA/NA speculative fiction) except for horror. I just can’t seem to write it properly, but I adore reading a good horror piece. Especially when it falls strongly on speculative lines. I also never seem to write children’s books, but I love reading them. I struggle to ‘write down’ to an audience any child can read because 1) it’s not natural to me, and 2) I never read my age, so clearly that doesn’t matter at all. Oh, and 3) I like enemies to lovers too much.

6. Which genre will you never write? Why not?

I was about to say ‘historical fiction’, but that’s present in Atlas and Kay. And it’s not historically accurate and I’m having a devil of a time doing it and the only accurate bits are from 2008, so there you go! I loathe historical fiction; I will never write true (accurate) historical fiction.

7. What’s your ultimate comfort trope/comfort plot/comfort genre?

I just reread a comic three times in one day because it was about a man who’s bullied by his peers for being effeminate and writing science fiction (on his own, he actually writes very steamy science fiction) and falls in love with a crash-landed alien.

I suppose, then, that I should have just said “when someone believes in something so hard that it becomes real,” but anyway read Smut Peddler 2014′s  How You Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm by Jess Fink. 

8. Biggest writing pet peeve?

Writing an entire scene before realizing that it needs to be cut because it doesn’t move the plot along in any way, shape, or form. Really procrastinating handling that dinner scene right now.

9. What’s an element that gets you invested in writing right away?

Flirtatious wlw enemies to lovers. Basically this post by @goose-books. Got to the handcuff bit and I decided I needed to read it immediately. 

10. Describe your perfect writing environment.

Oh, God, do you think I know? I sit myself down at my desk with my chair and its back support and I do nothing at all. If I play music, it’s distracting, but if I sit in silence, that’s distracting, and the noise of the keyboard helps but I have to start typing to hear that. Also, snacks are hard to do while writing quickly, but I want them.

11. What type of non-writing thing (moodboards, character sheets, edits, etc.) do you like to do most?

I have a sketchbook I draw my characters in. 

My questions:

1. What do you write now that you would never have written five years ago?

2. Is there a specific group you don’t think you represent enough or are thinking of representing more in the future? Which?

3. You’ve got a writing research tab open... I know you do. Paste the link here, and tell us what you’re using it for. (If you don’t have one, it’s time to go digging through your browser history...)

4. Have you ever thought “I could do this better” while reading a book... and then done it better? What book, and what did you change?

5. I’m giving you a fantasy $100 book budget. Go buy some books, and link which ones (and why!) below.

6. What project are you working on right now, and which stage? To be honest, I’m asking this one because half the time I can’t tell what specifically my mutuals are focusing on...

7. Congrats! I’m about to give you a writing-based superpower. Boost your writing speed? Obliterate writer’s block? Magic ticket to get all your books turned into films? What would you like from me? (Feel free to make up your own.)

8. Oh my God, you’re getting a graphic novel adaptation. And it’s a dream come true, because your favorite artist is illustrating! Who’s on the job?

9. What household chore do you use to get out of writing? What household chore do you use writing to get out of?

10. Obligatory question from the weird couples’ book: What type of weather do you find most romantic? This is the safest question in the entire book; just trust me.

11. You’ve been fidgeting this whole interview! What with?

And tags:

@atelierwriting @goose-books @pens-swords-stuff @bailey-writes @butchniqabi @dogwrites @aureliobooks @avi-burton-writing @honeywrite @lexaawrites and anyone who’d like to tag (...whoops) along! I’d really love to see these questions answered, so please don’t be shy.