Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, promotion, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving, writing
As those close to me know, I’m not really “into” holidays the way many people are. Oh, I’m happy to have an excuse to eat and drink more, to visit with family & friends, to relax a bit more than usual. And I can appreciate the rituals which surround the holidays, and how those rituals can give some definition and context for things. Marking birthday milestones. Taking time to remember loved ones and Veterans. Observing the change of seasons and acknowledging the passing of years. Giving thanks.
Those forms are important. I understand why holidays exist even unto this modern age, when everything seems to exist in a constant froth of work, commerce, and entertainment.
But it is easy — far too easy — to come to think of those holidays as things in themselves, rather than reminders. The meanings of the rituals are lost, and only the rituals themselves become important.
And there, I just did the same thing. I just fell into the ritual of bemoaning how holidays have lost their meaning.
*sigh*
What I want to say is this: thank you. Thank you for being family, thank you for being a friend, thank you for just reading my stuff. I try to remember to be appreciative for all this, and for so much more, to make that appreciation more of an attitude than a holiday.
Jim Downey
And a different kind of reminder: both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are available for free download today and tomorrow. Please help yourself and spread the word.
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Constitution, Feedback, Humor, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Amazon, blogging, Christians, Communion of Dreams, Constitution, direct publishing, Edenists, feedback, free, highlights, humor, jim downey, Kindle, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving
I was scheduling a “free Kindle copy” promotion of Communion of Dreams a while ago, and as part of that I was poking around a little deeper into the Amazon ratings/rankings/comments. Something they evidently added a while back that I hadn’t noticed is that people can “highlight” passages in the Kindle edition, and share that info with other readers.
Anyway, about a year ago someone highlighted a passage (in italics below) and added a comment which I find rather amusing, and I thought I’d share it:
JohnB: I resent the author’s allusion to Christians in this negative light. More unConstitutional bashing.
Take your worst nightmare right-wing Christian fundies,
Really makes me wonder if he continued to read the book at all past that point.
You can find all the highlights here. Oh, and the Kindle edition will be available for free this Thursday and Friday.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Amazon, art, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, leather, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction
You have until midnight tonight to get your entry in for a free copy of a full leather binding of Communion of Dreams. If you haven’t posted a link with your review on Amazon in this blog post, then you are NOT entered into the drawing. And we’ll also be drawing for the last of the “nearly perfect” cloth copies. Full details in that blog post.
And my judge for this drawing has posted some information about how and when she will handle the particulars: Planning ahead [echo]
Good luck everyone!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Apollo program, Astronomy, BoingBoing, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Mars, movies, NASA, Paleo-Future, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Travel, Wales | Tags: Amazon, Apollo, ars technica, blogging, BoingBoing, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, Mars, movies, NASA, politics, predictions, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, technology, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, travel, Venus
Imagine three astronauts, 125 million miles from the Earth, talking to Mission Control with a four-minute time lag. They have seen nothing out their windows but stars in the blackness of space for the last 150 days. With a carefully timed burn, they slow into orbit around Venus, and as they loop around the planet, they get their first look at its thick cloud layer just 7,000 miles below.
It might sound like the plot of a science fiction movie, but in the late 1960s, NASA investigated missions that would send humans to Venus and Mars using Apollo-era technology. These missions would fly in the 1970s and 1980s to capitalize on what many expected would be a surge of interest in manned spaceflight after the Apollo lunar landings. They would be daring missions, but they would also be feasible with what was on hand.
Somewhat surprisingly, I don’t remember this at all. Though of course these were just “proof of concept” studies which were put together for NASA. Still, they were fairly well thought-out, as the article on ars technica demonstrates. As is often the case, technological limitations are less of an absolute factor in accomplishing something than economic/political limitations are. To borrow from a favorite old movie: “You wouldn’t believe what we did. It’s possible. It’s just hard work.”
What isn’t hard work? Getting entered into the drawing for a leather-bound copy of Communion of Dreams. Full details here. Yesterday’s Kindle promotion pushed us over 500 copies of the electronic version given away this month, and that puts the total number of copies out there somewhere in the neighborhood of 26,000. There are already 65 reviews posted to Amazon. Yet so far only 9 people have entered the drawing. You have until midnight this coming Saturday.
Jim Downey
Via BoingBoing.
Filed under: Amazon, Astronomy, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Marketing, movies, NASA, NPR, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Survival | Tags: Amazon, appendectomy, appendicitis, blogging, bookbinding, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, David Casarett, direct publishing, emergency, feedback, free, health, hospice, jim downey, Kindle, leather, literature, movies, NPR, Philip James Bailey, predictions, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, travel, video, Voyager
This morning, NPR repeated the story of Voyager 1 having apparently left the solar system.
I wonder why?
* * *
Philip James Bailey, Festus:
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life’s but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.
* * *
We went shopping yesterday.
Big deal, right? Actually, it kinda was. It was the first time my wife had been in good enough shape to do so since her emergency appendectomy. Things are slowly returning to whatever passes for normal.
* * *
Dr. David Casarett is the director of hospice care at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He works with families as they try to navigate end-of-life decisions.
At least once a week, Casarett says, one of his patients expresses a desire to end his or her own life. “It’s a reminder to me that I have to stop whatever I was doing … and sit back down to try to find out what is motivating that request,” he says. “Is it really a carefully thought out desire to die, or is it, as it is unfortunately many times, a cry for help?”
It’s a good story.
* * *
Tomorrow’s the last day this month to get the free Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams. And this week is the last one to get entered into the drawing for a hand-bound leather copy of the special edition. Remember, you have to have posted a review on Amazon of the book, and then post a comment with a link to that review in this blog entry. There are currently 65 reviews on Amazon, but only 8 entrants for the drawing — don’t delay, as the end will come sooner than you expect.
As it usually does, for good or ill.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Feedback, Health, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, health, jim downey, Kindle, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, technology, writing
Some follow-ups to yesterday’s post.
* * *
My wife’s surgeon ordered another CAT scan and assessment, so this morning at entirely too early a time we got up and got her over to the hospital. Once all was said and done, the indications are good and it looks like the oral antibiotics she is taking are finally cleaning up the remaining infection in her abdomen. With a little luck, from here on out she just needs the usual post-surgery recuperation and she’ll be fine.
One curious thing I noted, though. When referring to this latest and the previous CAT scans she’s had done, everyone kept calling them “films”. The nurse in the radiology clinic did it. The radiologist performing the procedure did it. The nurse in the recovery area (where we had to wait following the latest scan, to see whether the surgeon wanted to do another invasive procedure) did it. And then the surgeon did it, specifically saying “I reviewed the films of this latest and the previous CAT scans with Dr. Radiologist, and …”
Which is odd, because I don’t think there’s ever been a practical CAT scan system which uses actual film. Certainly, none of the modern systems use any kind of film — they’re all digital systems and record data on a variety of different digital media.
Yet everyone referred to the results as “films.” I’m not sure whether this was because of their age (all were about my age, +/- a decade), or ours (thinking that middle-aged patients would still think of the technology in those terms).
Strange.
* * *
Speaking of reviewing, yesterday’s post also seems to have elicited three new reviews of Communion of Dreams on Amazon. Each is short, but together they would be a bit much for this blog post. So I’ll just note the links, and encourage you to check out what they have to say.
Remember, you have until Midnight (OK, 11:59:59) CDT on August 31 to get your entry in. Full information in this blog post.
Thanks, everyone — for your reviews, your interest in the novel, and most of all for your kind thoughts/prayers/good vibrations for my wife through her recent illness.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Babylon 5, Book Conservation, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Health, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Kindle, Marketing, NASA, NPR, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, appendicitis, art, Babylon5, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, G'Kar, health, heliosphere, J. Michael Straczynski, jim downey, JMS, Kindle, leather, NASA, NPR, predictions, promotion, revelations, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, Voyager, writing, Z'ha'dum
“All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation.”
-G’Kar, Z’ha’dum
Sometimes you don’t recognize when things change — the moments of transition — except in hindsight. That could be because the change is incremental enough that you don’t notice it for a while, or it might be that you’re so completely involved in the moment that the realization of what just happened doesn’t sink in immediately.
* * *
This morning there was a news item on NPR which caught my attention: that perhaps the Voyager 1 spacecraft has already left our solar system.
Scientists have known for a while that it was approaching the limits of the heliosphere. The expectation was that there would be a fairly clear change in orientation of the magnetic field when the craft crossed the boundary of the Sun’s influence into true interstellar space. But perhaps that boundary was less defined than we thought. From the story:
How did we miss that? As it turns out, it wasn’t entirely our fault. Researchers thought the solar system was surrounded by a clearly marked magnetic field bubble.
“There’s one at the Earth, there’s one at Jupiter, Saturn, many planets have them. And so just by analogy we were expecting there to be something like that for the solar system,” Swisdak says.
Scientists were waiting for Voyager to cross over the magnetic edge of our solar system and into the magnetic field of interstellar space. But in in the September issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, Swisdak and his colleagues say the magnetic fields may blend together. And so in July 2012, when Voyager crossed from the solar system into deep space, “Voyager just kept cruising along,” Swisdak says. All they saw was a change in the field’s direction.
* * *
Last Thursday my wife had a follow-up with her surgeon to see how she was doing in recovering from her emergency appendectomy. She had been released from the hospital the previous Saturday, but there was some concern over the risk of secondary infection within her abdomen.
Well, without getting too much into the details, tests indicated that she might be developing exactly that sort of infection. The surgeon ordered a procedure called a needle aspiration and scheduled it for the following day.
We dutifully reported to the hospital for the procedure. It didn’t go smoothly, and the upshot was that it didn’t help her condition at all. A couple hours later we left the hospital, and she’s been mostly resting since. We’re now waiting to hear from the surgeon about what happens next. And what it means.
* * *
Some six years ago I wrote what could be considered a companion piece to this blog post. In it I quoted a friend, talking about Communion of Dreams:
“Yeah, but it’s like the way that the people involved in your book – the characters – are all struggling to understand this new thing, this new artifact, this unexpected visitor. And I like the way that they don’t just figure it out instantly – the way each one of them tries to fit it into their own expectations about the world, and what it means. They struggle with it, they have to keep learning and investigating and working at it, before they finally come to an understanding.” He looked at me as we got back in the car. “Transitions.”
* * *
Where Communion of Dreams was largely about transitions, in many ways St. Cybi’s Well is about revelations. How we experience them. How we understand them. How we do or don’t recognize them when they happen.
The Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams is free today. And you have less than two weeks to enter into the drawing for a hand-bound, full-leather copy of the book. So far only two people have entered. Don’t miss the moment.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Amazon, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, leather, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction
Curious what that phrase actually means? Here ya go.
Which is exactly how and why the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams is free today.
Not that that should matter to you. What should matter to you is just that you can get it for free. And read it. And write a review. And then post a link here to be entered into a drawing for a hand-bound, full leather limited edition copy of the physical book. Because while a free e-book is nice, just think how great it would be to have your own leather-bound copy. Mmmm … leather.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Health, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: Amazon, art, blood, blood magic, Blood Tea and Red String, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, economics, feedback, free, health, humor, jim downey, Kindle, movies, printing, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, writing
While on my morning walk, I was enjoying the beautiful day, the glint of sun on the dewdrops, the company of my dog.
And thinking about blood.
Specifically, about the old notion of a “contract signed in blood.”
Well, what if you had a culture which took books so seriously, that they were always made using blood as the ink?
Just off the top of my head, I could come up with all kinds of justifications for how such a culture might arise, from fantasy (‘blood magic’) to Science Fiction (books could always be traced back to their source through the DNA in the blood) to the plain creepy (“we do honor to our ancestors/enemies/icons by using their blood to write history”).
Yeah, it’s a little scary how my brain works sometimes.
* * *
And after I come up with something like that, usually within just a few seconds, my mind races off to consider what the practical ramifications would be to such a thing.
Economically, there’s some fun stuff you could do with it. Books could be purchased with the buyer’s own blood: “Price – just 750ml – get yours today!” Which also implies blood as the basic economic unit, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the case.
Mechanically, blood itself wouldn’t be a great printing ink without some other elements. So you could have the whole printing revolution based not on the development of a printing press, but on the discovery of how to make blood suitable for mass printing.
As a book conservator, dealing with books printed in blood would present some additional challenges. Depending on what else was added to it to make it suitable for printing could make it damage the paper it was printed on (this is actually a big problem with some printing inks used in history). And if I needed to do restoration work, would I need to find blood of the same type, in order to match the original ink?
* * *
Usually about this point in such speculation, I start to wonder just what in the hell got me thinking about these things in the first place. What was my subconscious chewing on?
I could perhaps tie it to the odd little movie we watched last night.
Or that my wife had a close call last week. There wasn’t a lot of blood per se, but the symbolism is kinda hard to ignore.
Both good candidates. Both likely elements.
But in the end I decided that it was just that I’ve been thinking a lot about writing. About printing. About bookbinding.
All those things are measures of my life. In some very real sense, they *are* small, tangible pieces of my life.
Not unlike blood, I suppose.
The Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams will be free all day tomorrow. And remember, if you would like a chance to win a full-leather, hand-bound copy of the special edition, you need to write a review on Amazon and post a link in the original blog entry about the drawing. That’s a $250 – $350 value.
Even more, it’s part of my life.
Maybe it will be a part of yours.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Emergency, Feedback, Government, Health, John Lennon, Kindle, Marketing, Music, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Amazon, appendicitis, art, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, Constitution, direct publishing, Edward Snowden, free, government, health, intracostal, jim downey, John Lennon, Kindle, music, NSA, predictions, privacy, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, statins, writing
Last week my wife was at a professional convention. She got home late Friday night, understandably tired. She was dragging a bit Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon said that her joints were aching and she felt a bit feverish. We figured that she had likely picked up a virus at the convention, since that’s not uncommon.
Sunday she wasn’t feeling any better, and had lost her appetite with a bit of a stomach ache. Mild headache. She elected to just try and sleep it off, taking OTC analgesics.
But come Monday morning …
* * * * * * *
Two weeks ago I had my annual physical. Routine stuff for the most part. My doc and I discussed some alternative pain-management strategies (I have chronic pain from a torn intracostal muscle – basically, it feels like I have a broken rib all the time. On good days it feels like a broken rib about four weeks into the healing process – mostly just a dull ache – and on bad days it feels like I just broke it, with intense and sharp pain). I have prescription meds for the pain, but even though they’re fairly mild as such things go, they dull my mind enough that I can’t really write very well when taking them.
But we also discussed dealing with another issue, for which I needed to start taking something else. A statin for cholesterol management. Which was fine by me, since diet only goes so far. I started taking the meds last week, and experienced the sort of side effect which is annoying but not really hateful as my body adjusted. Not wanting to get too graphic, let’s just say that I made sure to stay near a bathroom for a few days.
Anyway, I lost most of last week in terms of work, both in the bindery and on the novel. Neither one is easy to do when you have to keep running off to the bathroom at frequent intervals.
* * * * * * * *
Which really wasn’t too much of a problem, as far as it concerned writing St. Cybi’s Well, since for the last few weeks I’ve been somewhat … discombobulated … by recent news reports. Specifically, by the revelations of governmental spying, and the scope of the programs involved in it, all precipitated by the leaks from Edward Snowden.
Anyone who has read my blog for a while knows that these topics are ones I have discussed at some length in the past, well before the latest news. Just check the “Constitution“, “Government” or “Privacy” categories or related tags, and you’ll see what I mean.
And the things I have had to say in the past reflect a lot of what informs the background of St. Cybi’s Well. I don’t want to give too much away, but a lot of the book is concerned with what happens when a government uses tools intended to protect its citizens to instead control them. And working off of what was already in the public domain about the different security programs, I made a lot of projections about where such things could lead.
Then came the Snowden revelations and subsequent discussion. As it turned out, I was very accurate in my understanding of the spying technology and how it could be used. Almost too much so.
See, there’s a problem with that: when writing about an ‘alternate time line’, you have to strike a balance between this reality and the fictional one. And, well, some of my fictional spying programs are now shown to be just a little too close to real. So now I have to back up a bit and tweak a number of different elements in the book to get back to the correct (for me) balance. It’s not a huge problem, but one which has had me dancing/juggling a bit.
Not unlike my body trying to find a new equilibrium with the meds.
* * * * * * *
But come this past weekend, things had settled down, at least as far as my body was concerned. So I was able to get back to thinking about the hand-binding of Communion of Dreams, and the promotional stuff related to that. So I went ahead and scheduled some ‘free’ Kindle days, and wrote the blog post announcing that I would also be giving away a leather-bound copy of the book, and outlining how people could enter for a drawing for said book.
My intent was to do a follow-up blog post on Monday, reminding people about that, and the fact that the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams would be free all day. That was the plan, anyway.
* * * * * * *
But come Monday morning, well, things didn’t go as planned. Not by a long shot.
My wife wasn’t feeling any better. And she was poking around online, seeing if she could find out anything which would help. I popped into the bedroom to check on her, and the conversation went something like this:
“Hmm, it says here that appendicitis sometimes starts with pain high in the stomach.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. I thought the classic was when you got a sharp pain in the lower right quadrant.”
“Yeah, it seems like it can start high, then shift down.”
“Huh.”
“You know, the pain I had in my stomach has shifted down …”
“We’re going to the E.R.”
And we did. Pronto. And I am very glad that we live about a mile from an excellent hospital. Again, I’ll spare you all the details, but let’s just say that my wife had surgery that afternoon, and they’re still pushing intravenous antibiotics into her. She’ll be fine, thanks to modern medicine. But it was a close call.
Yeah, so much for plans.
Anyway, about 120 people downloaded Communion of Dreams on Monday. It’ll be available for free next Monday, and the two Mondays after that. The deadline for writing a review and getting your entry in is the end of August. Remember, you have to post a link in the initial blog entry about the contest.
And some advice: don’t plan on doing it later. Take care of it now. You never know what might come up.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 