Location: Arthur, IL

As much as anyone, I am appalled and heartbroken at the tragedy which has occured on the Gulf Coast.  At the same time, the residents of the region were ordered to evacuate the area, with as much as two days notice.  Many people chose to ignore the very grave, advance warnings which preceeded Katrina's landfall.  It's estimated that over 1 million people did evacuate.  Yes it's bad, but this could be a helluva lot worse.  Some people will call me on the issue of those who couldn't evacuate.  There will always be poor people and this will always been an issue in catastrophes, whether it's here or in a southeast Asian tsunami.  Be thankful for what you have, give your loved ones a hug, and do what you can to help those unfortunate enough to have been caught in it.  This, too, shall pass and life goes on.

Some people are using this as a platform to point out racial inequity.  You're right, but it was there prior to Katrina and will be afterward.  Sudden indignation at a time like this isn't helpful.  Do your part every day under less extreme circumstances.  I will also counter that you have to take into consideration where this occured.  A great deal of the deep south has a "minority majority".  The 2000 census reports that nearly 72% of New Orleans is non-white.  Of course, you're going to see a disproportionate number of "minority" survivors on your TV screens, 7 out of 10 should be.  Had this occured in Fargo, the survivor demographic would be entirely different.

As for the kooks who always crawl out of the woodwork at times like these and suggest that The End is Near or this is some sort of Divine Retribution, I won't even dignify that with a response.

I think what is meant by the old writer's addage "write what you know" is not so much that you have to have had a multitude of life experiences, but that you don't try and tell the stories of people you have no possibility of understanding. If I wrote about a New York City dweller or a South American caballero I would be exposed as a fraud very quickly. While my life-experiences may have been limited as a young writer, I could take what experiences I did have and formulate characters out of them. I was familiar with a variety of characters from which to draw in my every day life: blue-collar workers, teachers, potheads, preps, farmers, middle-class suburbans. I simply modeled characters on people I knew. There's always a story be told.

I'm sure everyone has their own approach to the creation of characters. I always chose to create a character "sketch"; a psychological profile of sorts. What made them tick? What were their beliefs, their motivations, their fears? What were their weaknesses and strengths? How did they speak? What was their choice of fashion? I wrote small backstories for each character so that -I- knew them. 

Assuming you will ever come to some Buddha-knowledge about the inner-machinations of the human condition by virtue of life-experience will probably leave you ultimately feeling like a failure. Many people with similar backgrounds and underlying issues achieve very different outcomes due to circumstances, random events, environment, sheer will and pure luck. As a writer, you have the opportunity to CREATE the motivation (cause) and DICTATE the action (effect) at whatever levels of complexity you choose with your prose. As long as you're honest about the characters you choose to conjure, in situations you are qualified to create, then you'll be just fine.

Finally, I think writing is like a snapshot. It captures not only whatever the writer is trying to present, but it is also a snapshot of the author and their view of things at that particular moment in life. If an author chose to write the same story over and over, at five year intervals, it would likely always be different; not just in words on a page but in the general tone and viewpoint. None of them would be wrong, just different because of the time-in-life it was written. Artists reflect life and the angle at which the mirror is held varies as the author grows, but the reflection is always a valid one.

I find it inconceivable and illogical to not believe in the concept of a creator.  Deists can split hairs over the nature of god and his identity all they want, but when I see the complexity of nature and all its wonder, I'm hard pressed to believe it is some sort of random fluke.  This is not to say I'm some bible-thumper or that I believe even a fraction of the things purported and touted by orthodox religions.  I consider myself a semi-agnostic Christian.  I believe in a creator but I've yet to be convinced that there is one correct way and likely never will.  I also doubt the creator takes any active-hand in the realm of his creation, if he's even paying attention or alive.  I've always thought it was quite a terrible leap of faith to presume our creator immortal.  I'm not even convinced of an after-life, but I'm kind-of hoping. 

I think what does it for me most is human consciousness.  Some people call it the spirit.  George Lucas called it "The Force" ;-). 

Whatever you call it, it seems to transcend the basic reality of the physical world.  Some people have already claimed to have done so.  Science has yet to explain it, much less duplicate it, but that's not to say they won't.  The way I see it, science is nothing more than a belief system, which requires its own leaps of faith and its own denominations which adhere to their doctrines just as tightly and fervently in the face of contradicting information as a religious zealot, to the point that it can take generations for new beliefs to take-hold, only to be changed again by future generations.  One era's scientific fact is a future era's apology to textbook and encyclopedia writers.

Atheists balk at this concept usually, the idea of science as a belief system because of the scientific method.  Yet so much of science operates on theory and principle that it ceases to be concrete and deluding yourself that it is, isn't much worse than the creationist who insists the world was made in 6 days because a couple of ancient books say-so. 

I think the important thing to remember is that science and religion attempt to explain two very different things and don't necessarily need to be at odds with each other.  On the one hand, science makes an attempt to explain how things work.  Religion, on the other hand, makes an attempt to explain the "Big Why": why are we here and for what purpose?. 

Some people of science have little use for the notion of why and for what purpose and choose to discard the notions entirely.  Since it cannot be explained by science it must not exist. 

Some people of religion have little use for the notion of how things work and similarily discard the notion entirely.  Since it cannot be divined from the texts of yore, it must be the work of God with which man would be wise not to tinker. 

I find either view a little limiting.