Yesterday I was catching up on a back issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.  A short story called “Signs of Life” by Carter Scholz contained a paragraph that struck a chord with me:

“DNA copies itself imperfectly, or evolution would be nil, humanity unborn.  Life is errors in transmission, successful mistakes, hopeful monsters, offered weak and squalling to the wild world’s lottery.”

It appealed to me for two reasons: (1) I’m a biologist, and (2) the writing group I belong to is call Hopefull Monsters.  Like all interesting writing, this paragraph has multiple layers of meaning for me.  Obviously its about DNA, evolution, and life.  Yet for me,  it’s also about each of the writers in my group as we struggle to find our way in the publishing industry, and it’s also about our stories, which we craft lovingly from pieces of ourselves before throwing them to the publishing wolves to see if they survive or come slinking back with tail between legs. 

So thank you, Mr. Scholz.  I like it.