Filed under: Babylon 5, Connections, Failure, General Musings, Government, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism, Violence, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Babylon 5, blogging, CWC, health, jim downey, politics, predictions, Science Fiction, Syria, writing, www youtube
As we were on our morning walk, I rolled my right hand over a bit and looked at the blade of it. My wife looked down at it as well.
“How is it doing?”
I flexed the hand back and forth a bit. The pale yellow-green of a late-stage bruise was still very evident.
* * * * * * *
U.S. Warns Syria on Chemical Weapons
WASHINGTON — President Obama warned Syria on Monday not to use chemical weapons against its own people, vowing to hold accountable anyone who did, even as American intelligence officials picked up signs that such arms might be deployed in the fighting there.
The White House said it had an “increased concern” that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was preparing to use such weapons, effectively confirming earlier reports of activity at chemical weapons sites. The administration said it would take action if they were used, suggesting even the possibility of military force.
“Today I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command: The world is watching,” Mr. Obama said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. “The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”
* * * * * * *
From The Long, Twilight Struggle:
Londo Mollari: Refa, any force attempting to invade Narn would be up to its neck in blood–its own!
Lord Refa: We have no intention of invading Narn. Flattening it, yes–but invading it? We will be using mass drivers. By the time we are done their cities will be in ruins, we can move in at our leisure!
Londo Mollari: Mass drivers? They have been outlawed by every civilized planet!
Lord Refa: These are uncivilized times.
Londo Mollari: We have treaties!
Lord Refa: Ink on a page!
* * * * * * *
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an arms control agreement which outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Its full name is the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. The agreement is administered by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is an independent organization based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The main obligation under the convention is the prohibition of use and production of chemical weapons, as well as the destruction of all chemical weapons. The destruction activities are verified by the OPCW. As of January 2013, around 78% of the (declared) stockpile of chemical weapons has thus been destroyed.[5][6] The convention also has provisions for systematic evaluation of chemical and military plants, as well as for investigations of allegations of use and production of chemical weapons based on intelligence of other state parties.
Currently 188 states are party to the CWC, and another two countries (Israel and Myanmar) have signed but not yet ratified the convention.[1]
Syria is one of six UN member states who are not signatories to the Convention.
* * * * * * *
Shortly after the conversation above:
* * * * * * *
Syria crisis: ‘Strong evidence’ of chemical attacks, in Saraqeb
The BBC has been shown evidence which appears to corroborate reports of a chemical attack in the northern Syrian town of Saraqeb last month. Eyewitnesses and victims say that government helicopters dropped at least two devices containing poisonous gas on the town.
The Syrian government says it did not and will not use chemical weapons.
Shortly after midday on 29 April, the town of Saraqeb came under attack from government military positions about five miles (8km) away. A local activist we met filmed as the shells landed.
* * * * * * *
As we were on our morning walk, I rolled my right hand over a bit and looked at the blade of it. My wife looked down at it as well.
“How is it doing?”
I flexed the hand back and forth a bit. The pale yellow-green of a late-stage bruise was still very evident.
“It’s healing. The pain has gone from being that bright, intense flash you get from a broken bone to a dull but substantial ache. That tells me that it’s knitting back together properly. A few more days of not stressing the hand, and it’ll be OK.”
We paused, watched the dog take care of his business. As I reached down with a plastic bag to remove the results from the neighbor’s lawn, I thought about how lucky I was.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, ACLU, Babylon 5, Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Emergency, General Musings, Government, Guns, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Mark Twain, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Terrorism, Violence, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Boston, firearms, guns, jim downey, literature, Mark Twain, Nevil Shute, police, predictions, Roman, Rome, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, terrorism, Tom Wolfe, violence, writing
Any work of literature is, to some extent, part of the society in which it was written, and needs to be understood within that context. Whether you’re talking The Bonfire of the Vanities or On the Beach or Life on the Mississippi or just about any novel you care to name, it is, to some extent, a reflection on the culture surrounding it.
Writers react to the events around them. Even science fiction authors like yours truly. We really can’t avoid it.
I mentioned events in Boston the other day. Just a blog post. But it is some measure of what has gotten my attention. So it would be safe to assume that to some degree it will show up in St. Cybi’s Well. And it will. But perhaps not exactly as you might think.
Almost five years ago I wrote this:
This is nothing more or less than the peace of the gun. This is the abrogation of civil liberties as a solution for incompetent governance. Of course people like it – let things get bad enough that they fear for their lives more than they value their liberties, and you can get people to do almost anything.
Now, I don’t think that what happened in Boston was anything like what led to that blog post about HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. in August of 2008. In that instance, it was chronic problems with crime rather than a couple of domestic terrorists which brought about de facto martial law.
And I think that the police agencies involved in determining who was responsible for the attacks, and then seeking the suspects in a major metropolitan area did a very professional job. Just compare it to another recent dragnet and you’ll see what I mean.
But I keep coming back to that earlier blog post. Why? Because seeing a major city shut down, and then para-military operations going house to house searching for a suspect, gives me pause. I certainly can’t fault the police for taking precautions intended to protect their own lives and the lives of citizens. SWAT equipment and tactics have been shown to be very effective.
Yet …
… I feel somewhat like the owner of a couple of highly trained and massive guard dogs, who has just watched those dogs chase off/control a threat. There’s a satisfaction in watching them do the task so well. But there’s also a nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, things could be bad if they ever decided that they no longer wanted to obey commands.
Nah – no need to worry. That has never happened before.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: 1500, Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kickstarter, Kindle, literature, predictions, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, yesterday’s post was #1,500 here. The last Big Round Number was posted on December 9, 2010. Since I started the blog in January 2007, that means that the pace has actually been fairly stable, in terms of my posting — about 250 a year, more or less.
I never really expected it to last this long. But I’m glad it has. And I’m glad that so many people have shared some or all of the ride with me. Have been witness to my efforts to get Communion of Dreams published conventionally. Have shared my experiences as a care-provider for someone with Alzheimer’s (and the subsequent book). Have supported me when I decided to self-publish CoD. Have helped to spread the word about that novel. Have encouraged me to write the prequel.
Thanks, everyone.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Carl Zimmer, Connections, Faith healing, Health, National Geographic, Predictions, Psychic abilities, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Carl Zimmer, civilization, Communion of Dreams, dental hygiene, diet, Ed Yong, evolution, faith healing, genetics, health, jim downey, National Geographic, predictions, psychic abilities, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I’ve been entirely preoccupied with a big book conservation project which landed in my lap unexpectedly and needed attention right away (and trying to keep work going on St. Cybi’s Well), but a news item I saw the other day has been kicking around in my head. Er, so to speak. It’s the notion that the quality of dental hygiene & health in the modern era is *much* worse than it was before the advent of civilization. Here’s a good passage from one of the better articles which sums this up:
Our mouths are now a gentrified shadow of their former selves. And as Carl Zimmer described earlier this week, ecosystems with an impoverished web of species are more vulnerable to parasites. He was writing about frogs and lakes, but the same is true of bacteria and mouths. The narrow range of microbes in industrialised gobs are more vulnerable to invasions by species that cause disease, cavities, and other dental problems. “As an ecosystem, it has lost resilience,” says Cooper. “It basically became a permanent disease state.”
Of course, current thinking is that this is due to a fairly radical change in diet between the two time periods, with our reliance now on domesticated grain crops.
But I know the real reason:
“He had a nutty theory that early man had been shortlived, but impervious to disease. Something about being able to trace back mutation clues to some proto-genes that suggested a powerful ability to heal.” Jackie frowned.
Yeah, that’s from almost the end of Communion of Dreams. And is a topic we’ll revisit in the prequel.
Hehehehehehehe.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Augmented Reality, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: architecture, art, arts, blogging, Communion of Dreams, construction, D. Westry, feedback, jim downey, literature, painting, predictions, Science Fiction, Scrivener, St. Cybi's Well, video, writing, www youtube
A number of friends and others have asked me how the writing is going on St. Cybi’s Well. It’s a natural question, but it’s a little hard to explain. Here’s the gist of what I have been telling people:
Using the Scrivener software, it really is a different process than what writing Communion of Dreams was like. It’s less linear. But it’s more balanced & comprehensive. Let’s put it this way – I have components now done in all 19 chapters of the book (plus the prelude). Some of it is just landscape descriptions, drawn from my previous travelogues. Some of it is character sketches. Or specific scenes. Or notes about something which needs to happen. It’s different. It feels more productive. But it’s kinda hard to explain.
This morning, after I got up at 3:00 for physiological needs, as I was trying to get back to sleep I was thinking more about this (well, and thinking through some scenes for the book — I do a lot of that in the middle of the night), and I came up with a couple of analogies which may help non-writers understand what the different processes are like.
First is constructing a building. Writing Communion, the metaphor would be that I picked a nice location for my building, leveled the ground, poured a concrete pad of sufficient size, and then started building a brick wall on one corner, working my way around the entire pad brick by brick as I went, making determinations as to locations of doors and windows and whatnot according to a rough plan I had in my head. Once the exterior wall was completed, I put a roof on it, then proceeded to do much the same process inside the building for interior walls and all that, using the mostly set exterior as a hard limit to what could be done internally.
With St. Cybi’s Well, the metaphor would be that I went to an architect/engineer, and did all the design and layout of the building in advance. Before a single footing was dug, or materials ordered, I knew pretty exactly how I wanted the entire thing to look. Then once all that was sorted, the actual construction was done entirely differently. Footings were dug, concrete poured. Then a steel framework was put in place for both the interior and exterior walls, and roof trusses positioned. Once this internal skeleton was finished, then I would start to put up sheathing material for the walls and roof, proceeding to finished surfaces.
See the difference? One feels almost organic, and makes sense to the outside observer from the very start. The other feels a little more arcane or artificial, and it isn’t obvious what the finished product will look like until well into the building process.
OK, let’s try another metaphor: art. Specifically, painting.
Some artists work in a way which seems natural and obvious. They pick a subject, usually do some rough sketches on their canvas to help get all the elements sorted out & proportioned. Then they’ll start to apply pigment according to their particular style or technique. Some of which may be a little hard to understand for a casual observer, but the basic process makes sense — you can see the different aspects emerging organically.
But there are artists who work in a completely different way. They have a concept in their head, and will proceed to do a series of fairly random strokes of paint. Each stroke is crucial, each one in the perfect place, but the end result isn’t clear to the observer until the final moments, when the last few elements are done and suddenly the artist’s vision breaks through. Like this:
Now, don’t try to over-think these analogies, or to take them too literally. They’re just intended to help illuminate some of the differences in process between this current novel, and the last one.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work on my building.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Arthur C. Clarke, Book Conservation, Connections, Feedback, Isaac Asimov, Kindle, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: aesthetics, Amazon, art, Arthur C. Clarke, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, Isaac Asimov, jim downey, Kindle, literature, Moody Blues, music, predictions, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, Stephen King, writing, www youtube
So, a couple of things to share this morning …
One, the decision has been made: we’ll be going with a design for the leather bindings which includes raised cords on the spine. In terms of the response I got from people, it wasn’t even much of a competition — “cords” were the favorite almost 10 to 1.
But that doesn’t mean that the book has to have an old look. Not at all. I’m playing around with some design ideas which will incorporate the cords, but which will feel more modern. Watch for some preliminary posts on that in a couple weeks.
Two, if you are expecting to get a leather-bound copy of Communion of Dreams, but haven’t yet told me of your color preferences, do so soon. Further, if you didn’t get a confirmation response from me acknowledging your choices, then please contact me again. Because I had something of a book conservation emergency drop into my lap 10 days ago, things have been delayed a bit — but I’ll still be ordering leather and starting on those bindings before the end of the month. Please don’t delay.
And three, there’s a new review up on Amazon you might want to check out. Here’s an excerpt:
this book is very well worth your time if you love classic sci-fi. i would say that so far it is a combination of arthur c. clarke, isaac asimov, and a little stephen king. not too shabby for an unknown author. not sure if this is a series, and don’t want to ruin anything for myself by finding spoilers in reading others’ reviews. i’ll finish this book first. that may be soon- already lost most of a night’s sleep reading it. this is an original alternative universe, populated by humans and their robots, being created here; that is why it reminds me of asimov.
As always, I invite you to produce your own review, rate the book or other reviews, or just leave a comment in any reviews which particularly engage you. And you don’t have to do so only on Amazon — if you participate in another venue where such a review or recommendation would be appropriate, the help is always appreciated.
One final note: yup, the writing is proceeding apace. More on that later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, Predictions, Preparedness, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, jim downey, predictions, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
What I’ve been up to:
Maybe it doesn’t look like much. But basically that right there is the framework for St. Cybi’s Well, laid out in graphic form, showing most of the pertinent locations with each tied to notes as well as personal travelogues from my visits. If you care to spend the time looking at the details, you can glean a number of clues about the book.
But it isn’t worth over-thinking. Not for you. For me, over-thinking all of this is absolutely critical. Because it allows me to work out all the details of the book, to layer meaning over reality, to sort logical relationships and spiritual insights.
Yeah, there’s a hell of a lot of work, right there. And now that it is done, the nuts & bolts of the rest of the writing should go much easier.
Jim Downey
