Been a busy few days.
Got through close editing (formatting, typos, similar such) of both Her Final Year and His First Year, all except one chapter which needed more work from my co-author and his wife to tighten up some passage. I’m still waiting to hear back from the ‘beta readers‘ whether there are major problems from their perspective, but I am generally very pleased with the book(s).
Why the (s)? Because we still need to decide whether we will offer an e-book version which has the two together as the only option, or whether we’ll offer the two titles separately with a discount incentive to buy both. Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
Well, was just taking a break from getting some much-needed yardwork done, thought I should post an update. Not much else to tell, though I always seem to find things to post on facebook.
Jim Downey
Got a call Sunday afternoon – old friends K & L with whom we are in sporadic contact were in town, wanted to get together sometime this week, if it was convenient.
In the course of the conversation it came up that they had just realized that L’s mother, who lives alone here, wasn’t just experiencing the normal forgetfulness of advancing years. No, there were clear signs of something else going on: age-related dementia.
Ah.
I discussed it with my wife, Martha. We made arrangements to get together last night. Fortunately, the local Alzheimer’s Association chapter was having a support group meeting for care-providers early evening.
* * * * * * *
Yesterday was . . . difficult. I was distracted by the latest news from Japan. We had some information about a legal tussle we’re involved with which wasn’t very encouraging. I was hurting a bit (residual problems related to the pneumonia which I have been struggling with these last months). Work on editing Her Final Year was slow.
But come the early evening, we got together with our friends. Drove to the Alzheimer’s Association building. My wife and L stayed for the support group meeting. My buddy K and I went out for a beer.
We chatted. He knew that we had taken care of Martha Sr through the arc of Alzheimer’s. He knew that I had been working on a care-giving book. He needed someone to talk with.
* * * * * * *
Later, all of us wound up back here at the house, talking. Martha and I discussed with them where L’s mother was in the progression of the disease (very early), offered advice on the steps they need to take right now, what they should be thinking about further ahead.
K & L are both intelligent, well educated, professional people. They listened to our advice, asked the right kinds of questions, were already thinking through the necessary steps and how to resolve them. We offered suggestions on local resources (part of the reason why we wanted to make sure they got in contact with the local Alzheimer’s Association). We discussed some of the experiences we had, problems encountered, ways we did or did not resolve them.
It was a good conversation. They were both coping, but clearly a bit stunned by the suddenness of everything.
They left, after we made tentative plans to get back together with them tomorrow or Friday, depending on how things go. They’re going to want to have someone to talk with again about this, after they start getting into the nitty-gritty. Even if they don’t realize it yet.
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This morning on our walk, Martha and I discussed last night. She observed that K seemed a little more out of his depth than L was. We chatted about possible reasons for this. Perhaps it was due to her attending the support group. Perhaps it was due to the fact that L had seen her grandmother struck down by Alzheimer’s. Perhaps it was simply due to the fact that typically, more women are used to being in the role of care-provider, and so tend to think in terms related to that.
The comment jelled something in me that I hadn’t quite yet put entirely together: the realization that there is a solid likelihood that if things go well, it may be that the most important thing I can accomplish in this life will be to raise awareness among men that they too should be thinking in these terms. That their parents, their spouses, are just as subject to age-related dementia. That watching for the signs, preparing for the possibility, is something that they should get used to.
I would never have predicted that this would be an important milestone in my life. Perhaps the most important.
Funny how life is, isn’t it?
Jim Downey
The editing continues. I’m making real progress with it, should be done in another week or so. Preliminary feedback from the ‘beta readers’ is positive.
And it couldn’t come too soon:
Almost 15 Million Americans Now Caring for Loved One With Alzheimer’s
TUESDAY, March 15 (HealthDay News) — Nearly 15 million Americans are caring for someone with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, and the number is rising, according to a report released Tuesday.
“People with Alzheimer’s who are otherwise healthy may live as long as 20 or 25 years,” said William H. Thies, chief medical and scientific officer at the Alzheimer’s Association, which is publishing the report in the March issue of its journal, Alzheimer’s & Dementia. “These are individuals who need increasing levels of care over time, and that can be very difficult for families.
About 5.4 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s disease, and their 14.9 million caregivers provided a total of 17 billion hours of unpaid care, valued at more than $200 billion, according to the report, which also highlights the physical and emotional burdens that caregivers face every day.
The full report can be found at the Alzheimer’s Association.
Jim Downey
So, the discussion has been had. Information has been gathered. Tactics and strategies have been considered. Preliminary schedules have been drawn up. Problems anticipated. Pros and cons debated.
We’re going to do it. We’re going to publish Her Final Year ourselves.
Or, more accurately, we’re going to form our own publishing group, and publish it under the auspices of that organization. Fortunately, in this day and age the actual mechanisms for doing so are already in place and do not require massive investment in plant and equipment.
I won’t trouble going into detail. But we hope to have the book ready by this summer. Wish us luck – there’s a lot of work ahead.
A first component of this will be getting some “beta” readers – I need several people who are willing to completely read the manuscript, tell me whether the book “works” for you or not. I am not asking for editing – just general feedback (we can discuss this further). I would need this feedback in the next couple of weeks in order for it to be of use. If you are willing, and agree to not pass any portion of the book on to anyone else, please contact me directly – I will send you a pdf version of the book. And when the final version goes to press, you will be thanked in the acknowledgments and sent your choice of an e-version or hardcopy version of the book.
Exciting, eh? I’ll probably post here about different aspects of the whole process.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Feedback, Hospice, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Writing stuff
I’ve written a lot here over the last few years on the disfunctional nature of the publishing industry today. This blog was ostensibly started to chronicle the process of finding an agent and/or publisher for Communion of Dreams, after all. That was four years, and almost 31,000 downloads of the book, ago. Trapdoor Books is supposed to publish Communion of Dreams sometime soon, though that has been pending (and driving me somewhat nuts) for four months.
Also pending for four months has been a submission of Her Final Year to a publisher. They were supposed to get back to us a month ago, according to what they told us in our initial submission. A number of other publishers and agents we’ve also contacted have not bothered to respond at all.
Now, I’m not ready to give up on Trapdoor – they seem to be honestly working hard to establish themselves in the “geek fiction” world, and whenever everything comes together to get Communion of Dreams actually published, I think it’ll work to my benefit (and theirs).
But my co-author and I are giving very serious consideration to publishing Her Final Year ourselves. And I would appreciate your feedback on whether we should or not. Let me outline what I see as the advantages and disadvantages
First, and foremost, it gets the book out there where it can do some good. This is actually very important to us – there is a great need for more “nuts & bolts” care-giving information regarding Alzheimer’s/Dementia in general, and from a male care-giver’s perspective in particular. So, immediacy.
Next, there’s cost. Particularly if we concentrate on e-book sales (predominately through Amazon), we can likely keep the price down a fair amount over a conventional paper book (though we would likely set it up so that people could get a Print-On-Demand version if they wanted it). This will help get the book to people who need it. We could designate some portion of all sales to go to charities such as the Alzheimer’s association and still get a fair payment akin to conventional book royalties for myself and my co-author. There’s cost.
We would have more direct control over not just the book, but also for an associated website which could function as a support group for care-givers and their families. We’ve intended to do this from the start, but by bypassing a publisher we avoid issues related to control over the site. That’s control.
The disadvantages? A lot more work. We would probably form a small corporation to function as the umbrella under which all of this would be done. That doesn’t bother me, as I know how to do such things from previous experience with the gallery, but it would be more work and some cost. We’d have to do all the promotion ourselves . . . but these days, authors are expected to take a very active role in promotion, anyway. We wouldn’t have the gravitas of an established publisher behind us, and that would mean limitations in getting the book distributed though conventional bookstores. We wouldn’t have the benefit of an in-house editor and design team. Those are the big disadvantages that I see.
So, I’d like your thoughts. Do you think a niche book like this could be done successfully as a self-publishing project? Would you trust it enough to buy a copy, or would you want to see a ‘name’ behind it? What price point for the electronic version would compensate for that? $9.99? $4.99? Would say a pledge to donate $1.00 from every sale to the Alzheimer’s Assn or a Hospice organization make a difference?
Like I said, we’re giving this serious consideration – but it is a big step. Part of my motivation to do this is just based on how long the whole process of getting Communion of Dreams published has taken (and continues to take). Do you think I am letting my frustration over that outweigh more practical considerations?
Let me know, either in comments here, on Facebook, or in a private email.
Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Daily Kos, Politics, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
A long drive is good for thinking, sorting. This past weekend I drove north, to join friends who had decided to start on a new project: experimenting with home distillation.
* * * * * * *
Distillation. I’ve known the theory since at least grade school, and had read up a bit on the applications used in alchemy and then later to produce various alcoholic spirits. It can be very simple or exceedingly elaborate, from a basic alembic to industrial production. Here’s an image of the set up my friends used:
What you see there is an all copper still. On the left is the reaction vessel where all the stuff to be distilled goes. Vapor rises from this as it is heated, passes through the copper tube to the vessel on the right. That’s actually a coil of copper tubing inside a bucket, which you fill with cold water and ice. The light colored globby bits are a simple paste made from rye flour and water and used to seal the joints to minimize leakage. The still is resting on bricks over a woodfire in a friend’s kiln.
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Years back, after I closed the gallery and started caring for Martha Sr at home, I started spending more time participating in political forums. It was an outlet for me as I tried to find some balance in life – a way to keep my mind active and alert, but without the same level of demands as trying to work on conservation projects or creative writing.
As the care-giving became more demanding, I found myself even more involved on one forum in particular – it gave me a kind of community, a form of support. Eventually I began sharing my blogging about being a care provider for someone with Alzheimer’s there, and that led to meeting GreyHawk and eventually to writing Her Final Year.
I spent a lot of time writing for the site – many of the items here tagged “Daily Kos” actually started as things I wrote for that site and then decided to cross post here. It helped me keep my sanity, and gave me a forum for exploring ideas which I knew would get a decent amount of feedback. A writer likes to have readers.
* * * * * * *
They started with two five-liter boxes of wine. The idea is that you have to make a conditioning run to clean off all the copper surfaces. It also gives you a chance to see how the whole thing operates, and to learn from a small batch.
The biggest problem was with controlling the heat on the still. The initial plan had been to use a propane burner, but the one purchased to go with the still was European, and it was discovered that there weren’t the necessary adapters readily available to hook it up to American propane tanks. This was a shame, because it meant that it would be difficult to achieve the correct level of heat over a wood fire in an impromptu oven. But my friends have experience in doing such things, and pretty soon they sorted out the right combination of brick configuration, draw, and amount of firewood to get the necessary control.
The other downside was that the use of the kiln meant we needed to be outside. In January. In Iowa. For hours and hours. The woodfire did give off heat, of course, but it also gave off smoke, so you wanted to keep your distance a bit. And we were working with water and ice, as it was necessary to change the water in the condensation vessel regularly.
* * * * * * *
I mentioned getting back to work on the prequel to Communion of Dreams the other day. There’s still a ton of research I have to do, but in the process of the drive I was able to sort out some basic ideas – to narrow down the essential metaphor of the book, as it were. This establishes a framework for building the rest of the book, gives it form and definition.
* * * * * * *
After the conditioning run, it was time for the first real batch. After dumping out the previous residual mess (which stunk to high heaven) and a quick rinsing, the reaction vessel was filled with about 20 liters of red wine, placed back on the heat. The rest of the still apparatus was put in place, and sealed. Water was added to the condensation vessel.
It takes a while to get that much liquid up to temperature. But after a while you start to hear a low rumble, a sort of gurgling. The first vapors to be condensed are called the “heads” – these are volatiles that you don’t actually want to save, since it contains things like methyl alcohol (“wood alcohol”, the stuff that’ll make you blind). But you can tell that the distillate contains these impurities because of the color and cloudiness. Once the stream starts to run clear, you can save it. This is traditionally called the “hearts” of distillation. Towards the end, you get more bitter flavors and an almost oily taste – these are called the “tails” and once they start to show up you stop that batch. Altogether you get about 10% yield of alcohol – say about two liters.
* * * * * * *
In recent months, I’ve noticed that I’ve put less time into writing items for Daily Kos. Looking at the things which I have cross posted here, I see that increasingly I’ve written them for this site, and then decided to post them over there (only I would know this, it’s almost impossible to tell from reading the pieces).
This is neither good nor bad. I think partly it is a simple matter of my being more busy with my own actual work – getting CoD ready for publication, getting HFY ready for submission. And partly it has been because as I’ve continued the long recovery from being a care provider, I have found myself more outgoing, less reliant on the support that I found in that political forum.
And to a certain extent I think I have become . . . bored. So many of the discussions have become repetitive, almost redundant.
Now I have a new book brewing. Other projects I am considering. It’s time to concentrate interests a bit – to find what is essential.
* * * * * * *
Five batches, all told. Total of about 8 hours from start to finish. Went through about 120 liters of box wine, distilled down to about two gallons of alcohol.
That two gallons was poured into a small barrel, bunged close.
We tested the batches as they poured out of the still, but only in very small amounts – a few drops on a finger. The alcohol bite was there, sharp and raw. But there was also a taste of the grape, some of the flavor of the wine.
Now that product will age in the barrel, becoming mellower, interacting with the charred wood. Because of the relative surface area, a small barrel like that accelerates the aging process by a factor of ten – meaning that in six months it’ll be like the liquor tastes 5 years old. It’ll be interesting to see how it changes.
* * * * * * *
A long drive is good for thinking, sorting. This past weekend I drove north, to join friends who had decided to start on a new project: experimenting with home distillation.
And that gave me a metaphor I had been searching for, in more ways than one.
Jim Downey
(Thanks to Wendy for the image, and to all my friends for welcoming me into their project at a late date.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Babylon 5, Ballistics, Bipolar, Failure, Harry Potter, Hospice, Humor, John Lennon, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society
“Vir, do you believe in fate?”
“Well, actually, I believe there are currents in the universe, eddies and tides that pull us one away or the other. Some we have to fight, and some we have to embrace. Unfortunately, the currents we have to fight look exactly like the currents we have to embrace.”
Recently, I came up with an audacious idea. This is something which happens to me now and again. Most of the time, I chuckle over it, consider the possibilities, then let it slide back into the creative froth. But every now and again I get an idea I take somewhat seriously, and consider practically – not so much on whether I think it will work, but on whether I think I can convince enough other people that it will work.
Through the last couple of decades I’ve done better at this than you might think, batting about .500. Here’s a list of the big ones, along with a synopsis:
- Opening an art gallery. This *almost* worked, but remains my most expensive failure to date. It’s very sobering to lose money that belongs to family and friends who trust your judgment, not to mention all the work of yourself, your partner, spouses and employees.
- Writing a novel, and getting it published. Looks like this one will actually work.
- Paint the Moon. My biggest artistic success to date.
- Glass Canopy. This caught the imagination of a number of people, and generated a lot of discussion locally. Now such structures are used elsewhere for exactly this purpose. A failure, but not a total one.
- Nobel Prize for JK Rowling. A debacle, in that so many people hated the idea. But perhaps I was just premature.
- Ballistics By The Inch. A huge success. This was in no way just my idea, and I only did part of the work, but I think the vision I had for how the project would be received was largely mine.
- Co-authoring a care-giving memoir. Still early in the evaluation period on this, so can’t say whether it is a success or not.
And looking over that list, thinking about it, one of the clear things I see which helps make something a success is the amount of work I (and others) put into it. When presented with a zany idea, most people will be amused, say why they think it is crazy, and then more or less forget about it. But if confronted with the fact of an idea made manifest, a lot of that skepticism disappears (or never occurs to people in the first place.)
This isn’t very profound, of course, and certainly isn’t at all new. But I am still somewhat surprised to see how much it actually operates in the real world. It’s like imagination is so difficult for people that they just can’t get past their initial dismissal. I asked for comments on my latest idea, and so far have only heard from one person, who pointed out potential problems with it (this was actually a very helpful response). I can only guess that most other people consider it too nutty an idea to even bother with – but in my gut I’m pretty certain that if this resource existed it would be hugely popular and widely used.
But who knows? Was the voice a ghost or just hallucination? Do you embrace the current or fight it? Failure is real – both due to risk as well as inaction.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Health, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Yesterday, we had an Open House for our neighborhood.
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It’s a curious thing. The novel has now been available online for four years. You’d think that it would be dropping off a bit in terms of popularity. But using the same criteria I’ve used in the past, total downloads of the book this last year have jumped by almost 50%.
Yeah, it had been very consistent in the first three years, averaging a bit over 6,400 downloads. But for 2010 the total downloads were 9,631. We’re now over 29,000 total copies of the book downloaded altogether.
Huh.
* * * * * * *
I hate “spring cleaning”. It seems like an artifact of a different age, perhaps going back to when coal was used as a fuel source for most homes, and following the winter everything needed to be cleaned thoroughly to get rid of the coal dust.
But I like having a clean home. I’m not a neat freak, but doing an in-depth cleaning always feels good. That’s one of the reasons why I like having an Open House on January 1 – it gives impetus to go through everything you might usually let slide, putting things away or getting rid of them, getting into the nooks and crannies you might otherwise ignore.
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Got a note from WordPress this morning, a summation of the last year’s blogging. Here’s a bit:
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, you wrote 204 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1007 posts. You uploaded 23 pictures, taking up a total of 12mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
Your busiest day of the year was April 18th with 156 views. The most popular post that day was #2, so I’ll try harder.
Curiously, last year the BBTI blog beat this one for total visits for the first time. But then, BBTI itself had a Monster year.
* * * * * * *
Yesterday, we had an Open House for our neighborhood.
It was a relaxed gathering, not as large as some recent years. But quite enjoyable.
After, as I was cleaning up the dishes, I had a chance to think about where I was, what was on the horizon. Little stuff, bills to pay this week, conservation work to be done. But bigger things, too. Communion of Dreams to be published by Trapdoor Press sometime in the next couple of months. Hopefully some progress on finding a publisher for Her Final Year. Getting going on My Father’s Gun.
And I’ve started thinking again about the prequel to Communion of Dreams. What I had written previously needs to be scrapped completely, though the basic idea I had is still there. I’m feeling . . . strong enough . . . to again consider creating a work of fiction.
It’s an interesting place to be. 2010 wasn’t bad, really, though it had some rough patches. But I really feel like I am on the verge of something with 2011. I suppose we’ll see.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Feedback, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Well. Post 999. Who woulda thunk it?
I started this blog one month short of 4 years ago, ostensibly to discuss the process of revising, then submitting for publication Communion of Dreams.
Of course, along the way it became something much more than that. Another book emerged from it. I made a lot of friends. I connected with old friends. I documented the twistings and turnings of my life and fortunes. Stared into my navel far too much. Stared into the bright sun upon occasion. Started a new project, and watched it become insanely popular (though not exactly remunerative.)
I’m still waiting for final confirmation of the publication date and details from the publisher who is interested in CoD – even at this late date in the whole process, things could fall through. But with a little luck, the book will actually be out sometime in the new year, and we’ll see whether the over 29,000 downloads it has had since I first launched this blog translate into actual sales.
Wow – 29,000 downloads. That still amazes me, given that it has all been word of mouth and informal promotion.
So, thanks for the ride, everyone.
Jim Downey
There are over 150 posts here on my blog with the tag “Alzheimer’s.” That’s tens of thousands of words I have written about caring for Martha Sr and related issues. My co-author and I put together tens of thousands more into a book which we’re now trying to get published. And yet this short movie managed to convey what it is like to care for someone with a profound disability (which isn’t Alzheimer’s) and how that has an impact on everyone in the family:
Toby yearns for a life like any other eight-year-old kid. But his mentally disabled father is a constant reminder that life for Toby, will never be normal.
‘Water’ is a film about a young boy’s struggle to accept his fears, his mentally disabled father and his possible future duty.
It is an incredibly touching film, expertly done. Take the fifteen minutes or so and watch it. Though the description given doesn’t say so, I think you will find your life enriched and your day brightened in ways you will find surprising.
Jim Downey
Via MeFi.
Communion Of Dreams 