Spam in our message boards at Quartz Hill School of Theology, part two.

Today I found more posting for junk on two of our message boards. It is normally an easy matter to remove offensive posts--our message board software has a simple way of doing it. But today, as I've found on occasion, one of the postings had not only appeared as a message on the board, but it was invisible to the message board's software's message removal tool; and of course, even going in there and physically removing the particular post (posts appear as separate html files) did not make it disappear from the top page. I had to go in and restore the index file from a backup in order to finally make all traces of it vanish. I really dislike these clueless spammers.

Well, now the Space Shuttle won't be launched until sometime next week, at the earliest, according to CNN:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The first space shuttle launch since the 2003 Columbia disaster will not take place until late next week at the earliest, NASA spokesman Mike Rein said Friday.

NASA previously had said the shuttle Discovery could lift off as soon as Sunday, although it was unlikely.

The launch originally was scheduled for Wednesday, but it was scrubbed 2 1/2 hours before liftoff because of a faulty fuel sensor.

The space agency has until July 31 to attempt a launch or must wait until September.

"We are still looking at launching during this window," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said.

Beutel said the delay will allow NASA "more time to work on our troubleshooting plan."

If one considers the difficulty of discovering the cause of an electrical problem in one's car, one can only imagine how hard this seemingly minor issue is likely to be.

CNN reports:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The first space shuttle launch since the Columbia disaster could come as early as Sunday but probably will be delayed until later next week, NASA announced Thursday.

Launching Sunday would involve a "really optimistic good luck scenario," said Wayne Hale, deputy shuttle program manager. He said it is more likely that there are several days of troubleshooting ahead.

So it'll be awhile yet before the Shuttle flies again.

The new pope apparently dislikes the Harry Potter books. At least being Catholic, rather than Moslem, he won't be issuing a Fatwa and calling on people to slay the infidel, unlike what happened when another British author ran afoul of some religious authorities.

Unfortunately, pronouncements of the pope, at least if issued ex cathedra, are binding on Catholics. Not that most Catholics would pay attention, any more than they pay attention to their church's teachings on birth control. But they are being inconsistent Catholics when they behave this way, since the pope and church's pronouncements are right up there as the equal of the Bible according to my understanding of Catholic theology.

The nice thing about being a Baptist, and part of the Protestant franchize that said something about sola scriptura, is that although Baptist "leaders" are no less likely to issue stupid statements and warnings (the one against Disney comes to mind as a relatively recent example of goofiness) at least ignoring them is actually consistent with good Baptist tradition which states that no one can tell you what to believe.

Personally I love the Harry Potter novels and intend to get the next one as soon as it's out on Saturday.

Spam is an annoying thing. So are junk faxes. I get a bunch of both; in fact, even with my spam filter, I get about 50 (the filter takes out about 300, so it does help) every day. But what really has me riled is the message board that we've called the Aeropagas, on our website for Quartz Hill school of Theology.

Every day, I have to delete sometimes dozens of postings for viagra, pyramid schemes and even pornography. Hardly seems likely someone visiting a message board devoted to Missions or Christology would be interested in such things, but who knows? To me it seems a waste of the spammers time and effort and very ineffective marketing. I suspect these postings are machine generated and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it but delete the offensive posts. A couple of times it got so infested that a couple of the subtopics just crashed entirely and I had to restore them from backups. Ugh. Those responsible deserve a place in Dante's Inferno together with the spammers and those responsible for junk faxes. Whoever developed the packaging for DVDs, requiring removal of bunches of plastic wrap and tape should probably be interred there as well, but that's another topic...

Due to a faulty sensor in the external fuel tank, the Space Shuttle launch has been postponed until Saturday at the earliest, and probably until Monday (July 18).

I'm very interested in space and space related things, so the coming launch of the space shuttle, scheduled for 12:50:53 PM Pacific Time has me quite excited. After two and a half years, it's good to see them going back again. Of course, the space shuttle system is soon to be retired, apparently: by 2010 if all goes according to plan. It will then be replaced by a new system, the CEV and related launchers. A good overview of the plan can be found here.

Of course, NASA isn't alone anymore in flying into space; several commercial ventures are planning to get into the sub-orbital game, and ultimately orbital flights. I was pleased, last summer, to get to volunteer with the X-Prize Foundation for the launches of SpaceShip One. I was in media relations, meaning I got to tell reporters where to go. That was certainly fun.

Sites that I like to check regularly to see what's going on are:

Space.com
NasaWatch
SpaceDaily
Sky and Telescope

But of course on Wednesday, I intend to be glued to the TV, assuming the flight takes off as planned.

Christopher Hitchens, writing in the Daily Mirror on July 8 expresses the obvious, that nevertheless many seem to willfully, and puzzlingly, overlook:

We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.

FOR a few moments yesterday, Londoners received a taste of what life is like for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose Muslim faith does not protect them from slaughter at the hands of those who think they are not Muslim enough, or are the wrong Muslim.

It is a big mistake to believe this is an assault on "our" values or "our" way of life. It is, rather, an assault on all civilisation.

See here for the entire article, at least for now.

One of the interesting things that puzzles me sometimes is how people go about reading the Bible. In Douglas Adams’ humorous novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, scientists build the computer Deep Thought and ask it “the great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” After contemplating for seven and a half million years, the computer responds, “I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.” After the scientists insist the computer say it anyway, it tells them that the answer is forty-two. Then it adds—since they aren’t happy with the answer—“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” Most people are asking questions about the Bible that God was not trying to answer; then they wonder why they are disatisfied, or worse.

People ask science questions and history questions and insist that it be "historical accurate" or that there be "verifiable" information in it. And I think that misses the point of the Bible. Paul, in discussing the OT, pointed out that the things in it were there for our benefit, our edification; not to prove to unbelievers that the Bible is "accurate" whatever the heck that might mean. He also referred to the things in the OT as a "shadow."

When Jesus tells people that they should be willing to cut off body parts in their efforts to avoid sin, we rightly understand him to be making use of hyperbole, a literary technique. Only the psychotic would imagine he was speaking "literally." And then when he in the very next breath talks about "eternal fire" of Hell, we want to assume that's "literal?" Frankly, I suspect not. I'd opt for hyperbole there, too.


I really think most people, when they read the Bible, have taken leave of everything they know about reading. Why do we insist on "literalism" and "historical reality" for everything in the text? Why is it so hard to accept the possibility that, for instance, the book of Job is simply a drama, you know, like something written by Shakespear, designed to teach us something? I mean, really. Does anyone seriously think that the various characters in that book ACTUALLY spoke in poetry, and that the text is intended to be understood as a transcript? A deposition? Is there any part of the Bible that is to be understood that way? Really?

I think a lot of people are like the scientists facing Deep Thought. They have no idea what the question really is.

It is very early in the morning and I am having trouble sleeping. It is appropriate, I suppose, that I've been at work preparing Edward Young's 18th century poetic meditations on suffering for republication. The poem begins thus:

Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

From short (as usual) and disturb’d repose,
I wake: how happy they, who wake no more!
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave.
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams
Tumultuous; where my wreck’d desponding thought,
From wave to wave of fancied misery,
At random drove, her helm of reason lost.
Though now restored, ‘tis only change of pain:
(A bitter change!) severer for severe:
The day too short for my distress; and night,
Even in the zenith of her dark domain,
Is sunshine to the colour of my fate.

A sad day, the events of Thursday, reminding us that we live in a time of war. Perhaps that contributes to the difficulty in sleeping. And yet, God remains faithful, and he loves us, no matter how it might look at any given moment.

Been busy the last month. We decided to start a publishing company, Quartz Hill Publishing House, and so I've been busy with that. The first project we published was Jim West's book, Biblical Studies. He's our adjunct professor of Bible at Quartz Hill School of Theology and does a lot of our web content.

We're going to be publishing another book of his next year, on theology, and Rob McCreary has a historical novel for us, Flight of the Caroline.

Besides that, we're going to be bringing back into print works in the public domain that have disappeared and are not available. Our first offering will be a book of poetry by Edward Young, called The Complaint: Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality. It was originally published in multiple volumes between 1742 and 1748. It's popularity rivaled Milton's Paradise Lost and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but for the last hundred years it has been mostly out of print. I found a copy from 1845 and am busily transcribing it for a nice new paperback edition. The poem is in blank verse, divided into nine "nights" and runs about 10,000 lines. It contributed a few phrases to the English language, such as "time flies."

Speaking of which, I must as well.

I believe firmly in the idea of separation of church and state. The news stories about a certain Baptist church in North Carolina kicking out members who refused to support President Bush is appalling. I'm a Republican and a Baptist, and I can't condemn this idiot pastor in North Carolina enough. Here's an excerpt from the story as reported on CNN:

WAYNESVILLE, North Carolina (AP) -- A pastor who led a charge to kick out nine church members who refused to support President Bush was the talk of the town Saturday in this mountain hamlet, with ousted congregants considering hiring a lawyer.

Pastor Chan Chandler greeted people at the door of tiny East Waynesville Baptist Church on Saturday evening as the church choir practiced and even welcomed them to attend services Sunday morning -- if there's room inside. But he was not prepared to talk about his mixing of religion and politics.

"On the advice of counsel, I've been advised not to have any comment at this time," Chandler told The Associated Press. "We will have a statement later."

Members of the congregation said Chandler told them during last year's presidential campaign that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry needed to leave the church.

I must say this serves as an excellent reminder about the importance of separation of church and state. Roger Williams, the Baptist pastor and founder of Rhode Island, commented that church and state should be separated, because the state will tend to corrupt the church. Thomas Jefferson argued that the church and state should be separated because the church will tend to corrupt the state. Both of them were absolutely correct.

And look at the further problems this moron of a pastor has created: he's got a lawyer, the members who have been expelled have a lawyer. Obviously neither side takes seriously what Paul said in 1 Corinthians about believers taking one another to court. Of course, I would like to comfort myself by thinking that none of these people are actually believers, but I know better.

Ah well. Good thing that we're saved by grace.

In this era of the "politically correct" we discover the forces of censorship have simply reframed their approach. But censorship is never the right way to go, no matter how noble the cause, no matter how right the reasons. We should not be in the business of forbidding certain topics, certain words, certain ideas. Those who think censorship is useful and use words like "tolerance," and other fine phrases as they constrain freedom of expression and refuse to tolerate what they find offensive, are actually guilty of oppression. We must instead permit everything to be voiced, no matter how distasteful, no matter how offensive, no matter how degratding.

What needs to happen instead of forbidding, is refutation.

I am optimistic in regards to the truth, and believe that if the truth is not lazy or arrogant, condescending or sloppy, that it will inevitably win over error. Consider: is it necessary to forbid research and discussion of the ptolemaic view of the universe? Do we need to silence those who believe the world is flat? Are practioners of frenology robbing people blind?

Wrong ideas, wrong words, wrong thinking is best argued against, rather than muzzled. Gagging and binding stupid folk just isn't the best way to solve the problem of error or stupidity. Persecution and censorship are usually, if not always, counterproductive. If you want people to look at something, just put a sign in front of it that says "don't look here."

It is the lazy way out to simply scream, "you can't be allowed to say that," and then start hurling bricks. So let's not be lazy and let's believe that the truth really can set people free.

I continue to read through Today's New International Version (TNIV) and continue to find that I like it. I have a hard time understanding the intense, emotional hatred some have toward this translation. Quite frankly, in looking at a few of the anti-TNIV websites, they often remind me of the KJV Only crackpots I've occasionally had the unfortunate experience of running up against. Most, if not all that I have seen so far, have limited knowledge or understanding of how to translate, translation theory, or anymore than a rudimentary understanding of Greek and Hebrew. The rest simply have an approach to translation that I don't agree with, as well as some different theological and philosophical presuppositions. As far as I can see thus far, the opposition seems to boil down to one thing generally, and that is the thought that the Bible really is mostly only for men, and women must be kept in their place. Oh well. I can't disagree any more strongly with them, then. Perhaps, given what those who oppose the TNIV argue, I guess I must actually be a liberal.

The Southern Baptist Convention at a recent convention, apparently issued a statement denouncing the TNIV. Oh well. I'm a Southern Baptist and often disagree with what the convention says. And what the convention says really doesn't matter, after all, since it is not binding, given the nature of being a Baptist. I thought the convention's call awhile back to boycott Disney was goofy, too, and I made a point after that to visit Disneyland often and bought quite a few Disney DVDs.

Personally, I think it is pretty clear that biblically both men and women can have teaching and leadership roles and that outside of the obvious biological differences, men and women can equally aspire to any role and activity, and both are equally created in the image of God. If that makes me a liberal, so be it.

According to a report on MSNBC some scientists may have managed to create a mini big-bang with the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Science fiction authors have speculated about such things and about creating "pocket" universes. I can't say that I'm surprised. After all, the Bible tells us that humanity has been created in the image of God and God himself commented that "nothing they imagine to do will be impossible for them." We were made to be like God and seem to be living up to our potential, at least in some ways.

When I was at the SBL meeting in Austin Texas back in November, I had talked to someone at the Zondervan booth and they had given me information on their new translation of the Bible, the TNIV (Today’s New International Version), which is a revision of the NIV. They gave me a book about it and told me they would send me a copy of the Bible when it was available.

Of course, they didn’t do this out of the kindness of their heart, but rather as part of their marketing strategy, since I’m a “person of influence” at least in some small sense, since I'm a professor.

Well, the promised book arrived in the mail yesterday. It is a thinline European leather burgundy and brown copy of the thing, which retails for 30 bucks; it is a very nice copy, with the nice leather smell, fitting comfortably in the hand and much fancier than the paperback I had expected.

Anyhow, I have been reading through bits of it off and on today and I must say I really like it; they’ve fixed several of the problems that I had seen in the NIV. For instance, the passages in Ezekiel that had obscured the explicitly sexual nature of some of his prophesies have been unobscured and made explicit (as, for instance, Ezekiel 16:25). A badly rendered part of Proverbs 30 (30:1) now makes some sense. In Psalm 23 it no longer says “valley of the shadow of death” but instead, the more accurate “darkest valley.” On top of all that, the translation is also in keeping with modern sensibilities when both genders are being addressed. It makes clear that it really is both genders, rather than saying "brothers" or "men" when both were really in view. In most cases I believe the alterations have improved the accuracy of the translation, for instance in Genesis 1 where instead of saying that God created Man in His image, it now says he created “human beings” in the image of God, which I think helps make more obvious what is pretty clear in Hebrew, that it is humanity as a whole that is the image of God, not an individual, any more than the "body of Christ" or "bride of Christ" can be localized in a single person. So far, I think the TNIV is a much improved translation.

Been awhile since I posted. I had two weeks of jury duty and then found myself overwhelmed with projects around my home, such as cleaning out five years worth of junk from my garage. The jury duty I liked. Here's a copy of the collumn I wrote for the newspaper, Ridge Rider News, that I write for each week:

Just before Christmas two red and white envelopes arrived in the mail. One was addressed to my wife, one was addressed to me. Many people dread getting the summons in the mail announcing that they are required to report for jury duty. Many become quite creative in figuring out ways to avoid doing their duty. I’m not certain I understand the reluctance to serve. My wife has wanted to serve on a jury for most of her life and had never gotten a summons before. She was overjoyed. I’d served on only one jury so far and was equally pleased by the opportunity.

Jury duty is actually a wonderful privilege. Given the history of the world, with tyrants dispensing sentence at their whim, sometimes for no better reason than that the poor defendant brought them bad news, we should be more grateful for the privilege and more in awe at such a system of justice.

Our jury service was scheduled for February and although we had to work a bit at finding child care, we were not going to be deterred.

So, bright and early one Monday morning we made our way to the local court house, passed through the metal detectors, and sat down in the jury assembly room. There was coffee there, so I was mostly content. After watching a short video giving an overview of jury service, one of the judges came and welcomed us and thanked us for actually showing up.

About an hour after we arrived, we went up to separate courtrooms where we sat through the jury selection process. I was among the first eighteen called forward out of a group of forty-five. My wife had a similar experience in her courtroom.
After being told what the trial would be about, we were given lists of questions to answer out loud. One by one, we were questioned by the judge and attorneys, to find out if we had any biases or issues that would make it hard for us to be objective.
In the end, both my wife and I were selected. My wife served as an alternate in a drug-related case that ended in a mistrial. An alternate is sort of like a spare tire or the runner up in the Miss America pageant. If one of the jurists was at some point unable to continue, my wife would have been called on to take that person’s place.

I served as jury foreman on a child molestation case. We found the defendant guilty about a half hour after we went into deliberations. It wasn’t very hard to make the decision, given that we had both DNA evidence from the aborted fetus and the defendant’s own confession in a forty minute video where he went into excruciating detail about what he’d done to his girlfriend’s twelve year old sister.

Despite the very unpleasant nature of the case, the process of serving on the jury was anything but. In the United States, not only do we get to vote for people to represent us in the legislative, executive and judicial duties of running our government, thanks to the nature of the judicial process, we also get to participate directly. As the judge told us, he was the judge of the law and would instruct us on that, but we were the judges of the facts. Without the twelve of us on the jury, there simply could be no trial. It was entirely up to us whether justice would be served.

The jury was made up of a cross section of the public. We had aerospace workers, school teachers, retired people, housewives, mechanics and a body shop owner. Ages ranged from twenty-three to seventy-three. Half were male, half were female. Two were Asian, two were African-American and the rest white. One was a naturalized American citizen.

While I was attending college in the seventies, this Cambodian man was suffering persecution and imprisonment from the Khmer Rouge. We were about the same age, but our life experiences could not have been much more different. And I couldn’t help but think what a wonder he must have found the whole process of serving on a jury. In his youth he suffered in a country where people were locked away without trial, without recourse, and without hope. Two million of his countrymen were executed without trail. He was a man who had suffered powerless and without justice at the hands of communists, who now found himself empowered with the duty and privilege of determining justice.

Sometimes in our day to day life, watching the news on TV, we may wonder if civil rights and justice have made any progress in this country. Sometimes we might wonder if there’s anything we can do to help make things better or if it’s just all out of our control and beyond hope. But get outside, go into the world, sit on a jury, watch the proceedings in a court, watch the care that is taken to ensure that both sides are heard, that rights are protected, and you’ll be encouraged.

The evidence against the defendant in the case I served on was overwhelming. There was no doubt as to his guilt. And yet, at every step, this defendant’s rights were protected, he was treated respectfully, and all involved went out of their way to ensure that the proper care was taken.

At the very beginning of the case, we were reminded that in our system of jurisprudence, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty. If, following the opening arguments of defense and prosecution counsel, we had been asked to render a verdict, there would have been only one we could give: not guilty. In the United States, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof is entirely on the shoulders of the prosecution. The defense is not required to say a word. And until the prosecution gives evidence, innocence is assumed. Accusations and well-crafted opening statements are not evidence. They mean nothing in terms of demonstrating guilt. Innocence remains unbowed until the facts show otherwise. As a people, we have decided that we would rather have guilty people go free than have one innocent man be punished. We stack the deck on the side of innocence. I think that’s a good thing.

Both attorneys were young women; the defense attorney was white, the prosecuting attorney was African American. The bailiff was a woman. In my wife’s court, the judge was a woman. If you ever wonder whether opportunities have improved for women and minorities, simply consider all of that. It was good to see the diversity, the ease with which people of a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicities came together in that courtroom to help justice prevail.

The next time you get a jury summons, don’t toss it away, and don’t try to avoid your civic responsibility. You wouldn’t try to get out of your right to vote, so why would you want to get out of your right to take part in executing justice?

When I was a young professor, freshly minted, I was talking to one of my colleagues at lunch. He had been both my professor and my advisor back during my undergraduate days. I was explaining to him about an article I had recently written and submitted to one of the premier journals in my particular field of study. He listened to me for awhile, then shook his head and told me that I had wasted my time. “There’s no sense submitting to that journal. You’re an unknown and unless you happen to know someone there, there’s no way that you’ll ever get published by them.”

Rather discouraged, I slinked back to my office anticipating what I knew would be the inevitable form rejection letter from that journal. “Of course he was right,” I told myself. “He knows these things; he’s been doing this for years. Who do I think I am?”

About two days later I received a letter from the editor of the journal. It wasn’t a rejection letter. Instead, he expressed his joy and excitement over my article and not only was it published, he moved some other articles back in the schedule so that my article could come out sooner than it otherwise would have. The article turned out to be of some significance within a narrow subspecialization of study, earning me both recognition and multiple footnotes to my article in heavy academic tomes. Some years later, it led to my nomination, and subsequent induction, into Who’s Who in America.

When I write a book, I have a very close friend who will read them for me, offering criticism and suggestions and giving me ideas. She offers me valuable and positive criticism. We all need people in our lives who can let us know when we’ve made a mistake, when we could do something better than we have, who will suggest needed change.

But then there are the other sorts of critics. Critics like my colleague. People who will explain to you in great detail why your dream is impossible and why it is a waste of everyone’s time. Doubtless we have seen such critics at work in our lives and the lives of those around us. They are the perpetual wet blankets who always discern why a given idea or course of action isn’t possible. The teacher or parent who tells a child that he will never amount to anything. The classmates who laughed when you told them you wanted to be a doctor.

These are not useful critics. These are the nay-sayers who destroy rather than create, who tear down rather than build. We need to remember that history is littered with the debris of people who said it can’t be done.

They don’t build statues for such people. No monuments are ever erected to the people who explained why it couldn’t be done. No memorials are dedicated to those who explained that the way was too hard, so why try. No days are set aside for those who pontificated on why we need to be reasonable and keep our goals limited to what we know we can do, which is precious little. We do not celebrate those who just said no. Such people lead quiet lives, they often are well respected in their day and most people listen to them.

But it is those who decided to attempt the impossible, who built the tall buildings, who crossed the seas, who righted long-standing wrongs, who acted for freedom, who went to the moon that will be remembered long after the critics are gone. It is to such people, those who don’t say no, for whom shrines are erected and history sings praise.

So don’t give up and don’t listen to those who will tell you that you should. They might be right, of course, but what are the odds? The pessimists who proclaim endless doom never seem to quite get it right. The track record of the optimists seems much better. So just say no to the naysayers. They’ve always been on the wrong side of history. Stand with those who shoot for the stars. Sooner or later they reach them.

One of the less pleasant aspects of writing is getting rejected by a publisher. It is unavoidable, however, and one must develop a certain thickness of skin if one desires to ever be published. If one can't stand the thought of rejection, he or she would be better off taking up a career elsewhere, or else keeping everything one writes in a shoebox somewhere and never showing it to anyone.

The reality is, that not everyone is going to like what one writes. There are marketing considerations. Perhaps the editor liked what you wrote, but the marketing people can't see how the company could ever make money with it. Or perhaps they just chose to publish a book on a similar theme. Any number of issues can keep good work from getting published, or letting bad work get loose.

More than 40,000 books are published in the US every year. I'd certainly like the chance to see my books wind up in the discount bin, too. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I just collect rejections. I intend a small bonfire once I get a contract with someone...

Someone, whose name I can't remember just now, once wrote about being a writer. He--or she--said that one needs to be prepared to discard the first million words that one writes. Why? Because the first million words will be crap.

I began going through some boxes of papers this week from when I was in junior high and high school. I even found some things from when I was in gradeschool, like a comic strip that I had done in fourth grade.

I wrote my first novel when I was a junior in high school and by the time I had graduated I had written a total of three novels and two plays. When I graduated from college, four years later, I had written an additional nine novels. All of those things are in the box.

In addition to the novels, there are dozens and dozens of short stories and some poetry. None of these materials have ever seen the light of day and none are likely to, either. To paraphrase Paul, I consider them all refuse. Certainly there is more than a million words there (given that the average length of those novels was about 150,000 words). So, I guess have paid the entrance fee required of aspiring writers, and then some. I can hope, therefore, that most of my words since then have perhaps not been so bad.