Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to a “Peek Into My Week”! Here’s a look at some of my latest news: April 17, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week.
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
Let’s take a look at the current status quo on various ongoing issues affecting my writing or publishing:
- Writing: For the past seven years I’ve been crafting a story arc set within the Quantum Series that takes the quirky characters and residents of the planet Deanna through their darkest, most uncertain times yet. With the first two books in that story arc already available (books 5 and 6), and the third (7) only just completed and awaiting publication – and the last two are still in the works, I thought I would give you a little more detail about the story being told across these five extraordinary books: Read last week’s article, “The Quantum Series: Coming Soon!“.
During the past week, I forged ahead with books 8 and 9 which continue the present story arc. Book 8, “Xanadu” and “The Last Hurrah” (book 9) are coming along nicely, with increases in their wordcount daily – and yes, I’m enjoying it! You can keep track of daily wordcount increases by following me on Facebook. Last week, I finished the draft-edit of “Underground Movement“, book 7 in Quantum, with a wordcount of 60,740 words. For the past seven years, I’ve been crafting this current story arc set within the Quantum Series that takes the quirky characters and residents of the planet Deanna through their darkest, most uncertain times yet! The completion of book 7 is a milestone for me, and yes, I’m really excited about it!Meanwhile here are the new covers for the three new books, coming soon!
- Articles: This past week I wrote: “A Little More About The Coming New Titles In The Quantum Series“.
- What Readers Say: I’m not sure, I know I can’t please everybody – so drop me a line and let me know how I’m doing? Meanwhile, you can read my reviews and fan mail here.
Other Stuff:
Here’s a few of the other things that happened this past week:
It’s All Gone Tits-up Part 2
I have just spent an entire day (Wednesday, for which I’ve had to put in leave at work) sitting and standing in queues at THREE of your branches (the ones that are still open and do vehicle transactions) around Port Elizabeth trying to get a duplicate vehicle registration paper I applied for in FEBRUARY.
The first was the MAIN PE Branch, where the MVL system has been offline for days and they only assist SASSA, where I had to argue with an uppity floor manager about why I was even there – to fetch my “file” so I could take it to another branch to print my duplicate. That only took an hour and two visits.
The second was Summerstrand, which one of the branches I was referred to and they didn’t know why I was sent there and tried to send me back to Main branch – and then told me my application was expired because it was older than a month and I’d have to start over again, get another affidavit etc. and stand in more queues because apparently the PO is fucking useless. That only took an hour and a half, including the hour I had to wait for them to open because they don’t have a generator for loadshedding.
The third branch I waited three hours in the queue at was Linton Grange, and had to bite the head off a guy trying to push into the queue ahead of me – only to find, once I reached the counter, that their printer had run out of toner and their answer to everything is “oh, just come back tomorrow”! Meaning another wasted day and another day of leave wasted (Like hell I will). And then it was 2PM and wouldn’t you know it, loadshedding struck again – and whoops, no generator.
And then there was too much rush-hour and loadshedding traffic to bother with another PO branch in what remained of the afternoon. You have ZERO customer care ethics. NONE. You have ZERO consideration for the people who HAVE TO make use of your pathetic services and your staff are apathetic and unhelpful, and often downright rude.
You might as well close your doors
#SAPostOffice – no wonder you’re in liquidation – you’re completely fucking useless.
The Issue I Have With Atheism
The single issue I have with atheism is that some atheists are so dead set against religion that this bias also prejudices them against those atheists who understand and have witnessed non-religious forms of supernatural manifestation such as ghosts and poltergeists for example – to the point where they even ignore and deny evidence gathered and presented using scientific methods which contradicts their views.
Science itself does not present a reality entirely free of the supernatural. There is an element of resistance through social peer pressure to not accept evidence in spite of it being clear and phenomenon-based. Science is not as impartial as it is made out to be. It cannot handle that which it – or its canon – does not, or does not want to, understand.
While there is no scientific or recorded evidence to support the theory that “God” or any god exists (the foundation of atheism), there are mountains of recorded evidence – unaltered and unmodified – to support belief in the supernatural. The use of magic and ritual as a manifestation of the will, ghostly and poltergeist manifestations.
To deny sound evidence and what it suggests is illogical, and to persist in doing so while rejecting such evidence is unrealistic. To do so because of an intense hatred of all things spiritual is prejudice – and like all prejudices, it is founded on cognitive dissonance, a reliance on confirmation bias, incomplete information, and, to a degree, a lack of personal experience.
Atheism in its most fundamental context is a lack of belief in or worship of “God” or deities, or non-participation in religion, period. It doesn’t in essence imply a complete lack of understanding of the supernatural.
Yet it seems to me that in some cases today, in memes peddled on social media by faceless entities claiming to represent atheism, belief in real – even recorded, repeatable personal experiences and similar phenomena – are brushed aside and relegated to the same bin as religion.
To compensate for this prejudice among atheists, spiritual people who hold no religious faith at all, nor belief in any deities, have had to create/adopt a new label or group, that of “non-theistic” this or that.
Perhaps the distinction ought to really be spiritual versus non-spiritual, or even unmaterialistic versus materialistic.
That’s all for this week!
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached 10 reviews on any platform, let alone 50! I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!
I wish you all a pleasant week until next time!
Thanks a lot for all your friendship and support, I hope you know it is all deeply appreciated. Keep reading!
Cheers!
All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2023.