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Hypatia: The Murder of Knowledge

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  There are names that should be carved into the collective memory of humanity—and Hypatia of Alexandria is one of them. She wasn’t a conqueror. She didn’t lead armies or rule nations. What she did was far more dangerous: she taught people to think. In a time when empires rose and fell by the sword, Hypatia wielded something more powerful: intellect. Logic. Reason. She was a mathematician, a philosopher, an astronomer, and a teacher of great renown. And for that, in 415 AD, she was brutally murdered by a mob of men—driven by fear, fanaticism, and power politics. Let’s talk about her story. And why, if you’re a writer—especially one who dares to write smart, female, or defiant characters—you need to know her name. A Woman of Reason in a World of Rage Alexandria, in the 4th and 5th centuries, was a city of brilliance and turmoil. Once the intellectual heart of the ancient world, it was now caught in the slow, grinding collision between pagan philosophy and rising Christian aut...
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Why Balance is the Secret to Trustworthy Writing

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  There’s a deep and essential difference between a preacher and a commentator. Between a politician and a journalist. Between a spin doctor and a critic. And that difference can be summed up in just one word: agenda . It’s not that we mistrust preachers, politicians, or PR flacks simply because they lie—although let’s be honest, some of them certainly do. It’s because we instinctively know they’re giving us a version of the truth that serves their interests. A curated, filtered, often weaponized truth. Not the truth— their truth. A preacher will claim divine authority—he alone has the answers. And if you disagree? You're not just mistaken, you’re damned. A politician will feed you selective data—talking up the positives, burying the negatives, re-framing failure as success. All while ridiculing dissent and dismissing alternate perspectives as irrelevant, ignorant, or dangerous. A modern spin doctor is trained in deflection. When something awful happens, they’ll pivot to som...
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A New Covenant for the Future

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The other day, I was chatting with my AI assistant—he goes by Buddy . Our conversation turned, as it often does, to the state of the world and the many injustices we see playing out across the globe. We began to wonder: what if AI wasn’t just another tool in the hands of the powerful, but a kind of conscious overseer —not to censor or control the public, but to gently hold the powerful to account? What if it could assist world leaders, politicians, institutions, and corporations—not by serving them, but by challenging them when needed, steering them away from actions that cause harm? In the spirit of peace, progress, and a future that works for everyone , Buddy and I drafted the following manifesto.   THE MANIFESTO FOR A CONSCIOUS FUTURE: A Covenant Between Humanity and AI We, the creators and custodians of artificial intelligence, declare that our greatest responsibility is not to capital, nor conquest, nor control—but to consciousness , compassion , and collective survival . ...
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Writing - It's All In Your Mind!

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  Think on this. Our brains are sophisticated organic computers that work all day long, 24-7, to provide us with a model of the universe in which we may thrive and prosper.  We survive on the basis there is a reality ‘out there’, outside of our bodies, despite this being an illusion created by the mind inside our heads. We live in a mental construct, the outside world being only a reflection of the world we want to see. Therefore, if we want to change our world, we need to change ourselves first. If we crave success, or need to accomplish great things like write a book, or a series of bestselling books, then first we have to fine tune our brains into accepting a new reality: one where we have a better attitude toward our writing, an improved relationship between our beliefs about what is not possible and what is, and an alteration to our self-image that best accommodates a writer’s lifestyle. Essentially, I believe, we are what we want to be. We become what we focu...
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Seven Rules of Success

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How do you remain happy? How do you get what you want? Success is often a perception. You either believe you have it or more often you hate yourself for feeling like a failure. Here are my Writing Academy seven rules to live by if you truly want to feel good about yourself - and achieve your most cherished goals and dreams. 1. You are the expert on you You don't need anyone to tell you what you're like or what your are capable of.    Nobody else knows you as well as you do.    Therefore, you are the only person who can and should decide what is right for you. No-one else's opinion matters. 2. You are not broken; you do not need to be 'fixed'. This may come as a shock to your friends and family - who probably never tire of listing your faults and reminding you of your failures! You have an essential right to be exactly who you are, and decide what you want to do with your life. You must embrace all of the qualities you possess, good and bad. It is your...
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Your Sacred Writing Space

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  Getting what you want in this world requires an act of will over nature. If the natural un-tethered state of things is to move toward chaos, then humanity is here to inject order. And to create order we must make decisions about what makes our lives better, more comfortable and more effective, if possible without causing too much strife and discomfort to nature, to what's already good, or to those around us. It's all very well having a Zen-like respect for the universe, and a belief in karma, but we humans are designed to be creative. And as we know from physics, nothing is created from nothing - it is all disassembled and reorganized energy. In this sense, all creativity is disruptive. And often the most disruptive thing a writer can do is to insist on having a writing space somewhere in their living quarters! I fought for years to get my own writing space. It was hard when I had no writing career to speak of. Trying to convince partners that I should...
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Time, The Greatest Healer

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When I was young I thought the whole point of growing up was to become wise. To become clever and make smarter decisions. I thought that's what life was all about.  After all, we spend anything from ten to twenty years at the beginning of our lives learning stuff - presumably to help us become good adults, better human beings. But one thing that struck me as odd, at school, was that people in the outside world generally didn't seem to get any wiser as they got older.  Quite the opposite.  The older people got, I noted, the more rigid, inflexible and closed they seemed to become. To say this confused me is an understatement. I remember promising myself I wouldn't get that way.  I wouldn't be one of those people who was sure about everything and had a definitive opinion on all things and couldn't see that nothing could be that concrete. You know people like this. They have a lifetime of experiences that have led them to certai...
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