We're Back!

It's been a long and crazy hiatus which involved:

* moving from Fredericksburg, VA, to Minot, ND
* putting the kids into Catholic school (the older ones) and the base school (the younger ones)
* marketing Infinite Space, Infinite God (now in print and available at Amazon and elsewhere: www.isigsf.com)
* Getting the contracts for three more books (Infinite Space, Infinite God II--guidelines in this issue!--Leaps of Faith: An Anthology of Christian SF coming in the summer from The Writers' Café Press; and Magic, Mensa and Mayhem, the first DragonEye PI novel, coming 2009 from Swimming Kangaroo)
* organizing a conference (The Catholic Writers Conference Online will be May 2-9)
* organizeing the move of the Catholic Writers' Guild from Yahoo to forums (ever herd cats?)
* re-vamping my website (www.fabianspace.com, with many thanks to Ann Lewis)
* oh, yeah, and writing--DragonEye, PI, stories; Catholic SF and a series pitch for the Rescue Sisters, intrepid nuns who serve the asteroid belt miners by providing space search and rescue.

But it's a new year with new goals and one is to make sure this newsletter gets out. Joyce Anthony talks about what it means to be a spiritual writer. This quarter concludes Katherine Hyde's essay on Eastern Orthodoxy.  (You can catch the other portions on the back issues at www.fabianspace.com.) Plus, we venture into fictional religions with my writing tips.

I'm changing the format some. Instead of listing all the markets and other news, I've put those on my website, www.fabianspace.com, so you can access them any time. I've also built up my For Writers section of my site. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see or contribute.

I'm looking for submissions for this newsletter!  If you would like to share your writing tips, experiences, or tell us about your faith, please contact me. I want to hear from you.

Guest Columnist

What it Means to be a Spiritual Writer

By Joyce Anthony

Before we can discuss spirituality in our writing, we need to define the word spiritual. Webster's Dictionary of 1913 states that the word spiritual comes from the Latin word spiritualis, meaning breathing, wind. It defines spiritual as “of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit."

In more recent times, spiritual has been defined as “having to do with deep feelings and beliefs, including a person’s sense of peace, purpose, connection to others, and beliefs about the meaning of life.”

Both of these definitions describe the path a writer takes when writing what they most enjoy. Every word we write reflects our inner sense of what is right and wrong. It shows how we think of the world around us and the people that inhabit that world. It is rare to find a writer whose main characters to not hold values and beliefs similar to his or her own. Minor characters differ spiritually, but look at your main characters, examine what they believe at the very basic level—do you see your own beliefs?

What we write also affects the spirit of those who read our words. It doesn’t matter whether someone likes or dislikes what we have written; if we have written well, it will in some way, touch that person, awakening emotions deep inside that help them decide what that piece means to them and their lives.

If you are writing what you are passionate about, you are writing spiritually. Your soul, or spirit, that which is in essence your very life’s breath, is reflected in your words. It is this writing that is your best, for it is your truest self. Look at what you write carefully. Does it reflect your true self? Are you following the path your spirit has laid before you? Is your passion coming through?

Ask yourself: Do my words flow freely? Would I be upset if someone were to mistake my main character’s beliefs as my own? Do I feel I have given all in my writing? Does my writing create some strong emotion—regardless of what one? If you can answer yes to these questions, you are a spiritual writer—regardless of what genre you write.

Writing Tips

Making Up a Religion? Don't Forget These!

By Karina L. Fabian

(From the Faith in Fiction Workshop by Maya Bohnhoff and Colleen Drippe)

One of the fun things in writing fantasy and science fiction is you get to make up so much stuff! However, if you want to really draw your reader into your world, you need more than cool details. You have to have a consistent, internally believable framework on which to hang those details. This applies both to the religion of your world as much as the physics. Maya, Colleen and I have a workshop we give on developing your world's own religion. Here's my snippet from "The Common Tenets of All Religions."

God: There’s no religion without a Higher Power (or powers, as the case may be.) Who or what are they outside of your people’s beliefs? (For convenience, I’ll refer to God as “He.” Of course, your world may consider God a she, it or something beyond gender.)

Believers: Religion must have followers. Who are they? What makes some of them more faithful than others? How do they experience their faith? Is your religion reserved for a certain section of the population? Is there a hierarchy of believers?

Relationship with God: What kind of God do these people believe in? How do they imagine Him, speak with Him, and believe He thinks about them (Loving? Wrathful? Jealous?) What does He want from them? Is He personal, like in Christian religion, or some kind of encompassing force, like the Jedi religion?

Method of communicating with God: Can they talk to God? Do they pray? Does He answer? If so, how? Does God grant graces or have special Sacraments?

Method of worship: Is there organized group worship? If so, what are the rituals and requirements? Is it necessary?

Rules of living: What does God require of these people? What sacrifices does He ask? What rules of interacting with other sentients (or non-sentients) has he laid down? What commandments, laws, exhortations are there? What happens to those who do not live up to standards (heaven, hell, purgatory, mortal reward or punishment, etc.) How does their religion deal with enemies—or aliens?

Spreading faith: Do they evangelize? Is faith instinctive or do they learn it? How do they grow spiritually? Are there rituals for spiritual growth?

Philosophy: How does their religion answer “Why?” Why is the sky blue? Why can I think and feel? Why do good or bad things happen? Why are we the way we are?

Record: How are the tenets of religion passed down? Is there a written (or equivalent) Word of God? Is it literal, allegorical, historical? What are the stories of their faith?

Roles: Are there prophets? Priests? Teachers? Saints? Angels? Demons?

Spirituality: How is it experienced? Expressed?

Symbology: What symbols does your religion have and what do they mean? A real-world example: if a red candle is lit in the sacristy (by the altar) of a Catholic church, it means Christ is physically present via the Consecrated Host. Symbols can be drawings or objects, gestures or words, clothing or constructs—but they all have (or had) meaning.

Religion Research

"Baptism Makes You Greek" and Other Misconceptions about the Orthodox Christian Faith

By Katherine Hyde

Editor's note: This issue, we cover facts 9-12.

If you’ve seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, maybe all you know about the Orthodox Church is the scene where Ian gets baptized in a kiddie pool under a huge chandelier and comes out saying, “Now I’m Greek.”

On the other hand, if you’ve read The Brothers Karamazov, you may have some inkling of the spiritual depth and richness of this ancient faith once embraced by half the Christian world.

Which is the true picture? Unfortunately, both. For a lot of historical reasons too complex to go into here, many Orthodox Christians in America seem a little confused as to where their ethnicity leaves off and their religion begins. But the truth of the matter is that the so-called Eastern Orthodox Church is not exclusively “Eastern,” or indeed exclusive at all. It is a church for all Christians, as Western converts are discovering every day.

Let’s get down to some Useful Facts for Writers.

(9) Orthodox worship follows a complex, multifaceted calendar of feasts and fasts. Foremost among these is Pascha (Easter), which is often celebrated on a different day than in the West because it must always come after the Jewish Passover. Feasts are either “fixed” on a calendar date, or “movable” in connection with the date of Pascha in a given year. The major fixed feasts are Nativity (Christmas) and Theophany (Epiphany), which celebrates Christ’s baptism. Nativity, Pascha, and two other feasts are preceded by periods of fasting. The period before Pascha is known as Great Lent.

Some Orthodox churches determine all liturgical dates according to the Julian, or “old,” calendar, which lags behind the Gregorian calendar in common use by 13 days. Thus, for these churches, Nativity falls on January 7. Pascha and other movable feasts remain the same for all Orthodox, as they are not linked to calendar dates but to astronomical events.

(10) The Orthodox Church is the most conservative of all Christian churches in that its doctrine has not changed or been added to in all its nearly 2000 years of existence. The doctrine was defined—not invented—by the Ecumenical Councils of the first millennium and guides the Church to this day. Orthodoxy does not ordain women, does not condone abortion or immorality, and does not change its doctrine to suit the times, although it does adapt itself to each culture in terms of practice (such as language or musical and artistic styles).

(11) The Orthodox Church sees salvation as a process, beginning with baptism and continuing until death, in which the believer cooperates with God’s grace, demonstrating his faith through his works. No one is saved in isolation. Community is crucial. The community of believers is both local and universal, and extends to those who have finished the race—the saints. They are a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on and adding their prayers to ours before God.

(12) The Orthodox Church embraces suffering and voluntary asceticism as an aid to our salvation. This is not morbid masochism, but an acknowledgment that our fallen physical nature needs to be disciplined and brought into subjection to the spirit. The body is not despised, for Orthodoxy is thoroughly incarnational—all of material creation has been redeemed through Christ. Body and spirit work in synergy to bring us to salvation. For this reason, Orthodox worship is a feast for the senses and requires physical participation.

These twelve points barely hit the highlights of the multifaceted jewel that is the Orthodox Faith. If you plan to incorporate Orthodox characters or settings in your writing, you’ll need to do some deeper research—and by all means, visit an Orthodox church in your area. More perhaps than any other Christian church, Orthodoxy expresses itself in worship, and there is no substitute for direct experience.

The following books and websites may prove helpful:

* The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way by Timothy (Bishop Kallistos) Ware—Excellent introductory works on the history and spirituality of the Orthodox Church, widely available

* http://www.oca.org; http://www.goarch.org; http://www.antiochian.org: Official sites of the three largest Orthodox jurisdictions in America, with articles on the faith, full liturgical calendar information, and parish listings

www.slocc.com: Parish website with articles on the faith

www.monasteryofstjohn.org: Monastery website with articles on the faith and on monasticism

www.eighthdaybooks.com: Online bookstore with excellent selection of Orthodox materials