This post is part of the new Friday series: Behind The Scenes of the story Notes from An Alien.
If you want to avoid having “spoilers” intrude on your enjoyment of the book, just grab a free copy and read it before you dive deeply into this series of posts—the book is short… and, deep… {this post has no real spoilers…}
Today I’m going to begin to fulfill the wishes of Jane Watson, the first to request particular Behind The Scenes coverage.
Do feel free to share your desires, in the Comments, for “…glimpses into the depths of the book—character disclosures, about people already in the novel and those yet to be mentioned—revelations of events that happened in the Worlds of Angi but weren’t rendered in the published edition…”
In the Comments to a previous post in this series, Jane said: “…I would be happy to know some of the philosophy and ideas that fuelled the writing of the novel….And I’d like to know something about the novel’s symbols. Tell me more about plasma…”
Without giving you my whole personal history—all of which somehow feeds into why I wrote the book—I’ll at least mention how my early 60s were the “worst” time of my life…
I faced severe depression based on a decades-long series of remarkably bad decisions.
I also lived through the treatment for Hepatitis C (a deadly virus that attacks the liver).
This necessary regimen was an invasion of drugs, 11 months long, that I can best characterize as “sledgehammer medicine”…
To my delight, I had a remarkable spiritual renewal during the horrible physical experience.
In fact, the whole cycle of despair, threat of death, and dreadful-treatment-inducing-renewed-confidence-and-hope can be seen as a rehearsal for the plotting of Notes from An Alien.
All my life I’ve felt the constraining force of “culture”—the mostly materialistic culture that has our world in its grip.
Since my mid-40s I’d been following a particular spiritual Path—struggling on that Path since I’d certainly bought into a number of the premises of our materialistic culture.
We rarely know the massively detrimental effect of false premises until we receive a major life-test and find them severely deficient…
So, I’d gone through a major transformation—creativity intact………
When I firmly had the Theme of Notes from An Alien in mind and heart, I knew the story would begin with a war between two Worlds—one completely Corporate, one completely Religious.
A Corporate World because, no matter how beneficial the working-concept of this business model, too many of our World’s corporations have left human virtue behind and focused solely on their bottom-lines.
In the story, the people of the Corporate World, Anga, are born Employees of the Corporation. They all have implants in their brains—endocrine implants that wreak havoc with their motivations…
They also have Simulated Recreation—personal virtual worlds used to calm and propagandize…
A Religious World because, no matter how beneficial the work of religious people, most of the World’s religions have become far too dogmatic—even grossly materialized—straying far from the love and harmony promulgated by the religions’ Founders.
The Religious World, Anla, shows a dominant Faith that celebrates “submission to God”—plus rendering thanks for social advances—by tying people to stakes and draining their blood, which is imbibed by feverish followers…
When we scan our life on Earth, we see the most egregious actions arising from Corporations and followers of Religions.
Both these sources of social influence have sorely tried me in my life—both had to be portrayed in the book.
So, Corporatism and Religiosity became potent Symbols in the story.
Plasma became a Symbol—some say a Character—because of my many years of study of the new paradigm in science—Plasma Cosmology.
Plasma is a state of matter, like solids, liquids, and gases, but it fills about 99% of the Universe—it shapes galaxies, stars, and planets—it forms electromagnetic pathways between Worlds—it exists in our bodies…
For me, Plasma became a Symbol of the Connectivity that exists between all individuals—the unification that makes us One People…
I’m working on a post that will delve more deeply into how I use Plasma in the story.
I’ve begun to answer Jane’s requests—I’ll come back to these themes again…
If I’ve been unclear, make me clarify with further questions; and, if there are other aspects of the book you’d like more information about, let me know in the Comments…
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Read more Behind the Scenes posts…
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Writers do all kinds of research; especially, for their characters, plot, theme, and setting.
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Notes from An Alien 