Eden's Womb - Notes and Background

William Blake's 'The Temptation and Fall of Eve', 1808.  What you're looking at is the moment that God made the universe relevant by surrendering his/her omnipotence and granting mankind free will.  The serpent, in the mythopoeia underlying 'Eden's Womb,' is the StrongMother Naja who begat and embodies the universe.  Naja created everything we experience, including God, and came to the Garden of Eden to give mankind the power of self-awareness and therefore spirit-awareness. 

The story behind the book - a collection of posts from this blog:

1.  ON THE HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE BOOK
From conception of the plot to finished product.

1.1 How it all began - 1966
1.2 Influences from 45 years ago.
1.3 The formative years - late 1960's
1.4 Evolution of the plot - introduction of a climate apocalypse, early 1970's
1.5 The long slog to a completed manuscript, milestones 1968 to 2013
1.6 Literary recognition - why 'Eden's Womb' is not sitting in a drawer unfinished.

2.  THE UNDERLYING WORLD VIEW - philosophy and theology of 'Eden's Womb'

2.1 Theology of Paradox - the only possible 'First Cause'
2.2 Morality in an Indifferent Universe - the embedded code
2.3 The Universe as 'God's Body'
2.4 The Spirituality of 'Eden's Womb' - why the Universe has a God
2.5 The Paradox of Free Will - more on the spirituality woven into the world of 'Eden's Womb'

3. THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY - the social perspective underlying 'Eden's Womb'

3.1 Humanity's peak of "civilization" was in the 1960's - we're now on a long, slow decline
3.2 Perspectives on "intelligent life" - We are alone in the universe because we are a failed evolutionary experiment--the recipe for the apocalypse that shaped the world of 'Eden's Womb'
3.3 More on the Fermi Paradox (why we find ourselves apparently alone in the universe), what it says about the future of humanity, and how that informs the plot of 'Eden's Womb'

4. NOTES ON THE WRITING PROCESS

4.1 Mythopoeia - myth building--an important element of world building for a Fantasy novel
4.2 The 'Tight-Rhymed Fourteener Couplet' - a poetic form used for the epigraphs of every chapter of 'Eden's Womb'
4.3 More about 'Tight-Rhymed Fourteeners' - because I'm a poet at heart
4.4 Personal notes on becoming a (successful) writer  It started early in elementary school.
4.5 Five essential elements of a good novel plot (and of an interesting character's story-arc)
4.6 Personal thoughts on how to get your work published
4.7 Thoughts on the rapidly changing book publishing industry and how to navigate it