Filed under: Brave New World, Failure, Humor, Science Fiction, tech, Wales | Tags: blogging, humor, jim downey, Lwb, Science Fiction, short story, SXSW, technology, Wales
“We’re here at the 2023 SXSW tech gala, where tonight’s featured speaker and guest of honor is Ieuan Wyn Morgan, the famous Welsh technology innovator who turned a failing personal products company into one of the industrial wonders of the modern era in just two years.” The stylishly scruffy stringer glanced back over his shoulder to the main stage, where an empty podium stood towering over the sea of black-tie diners. “Our followers will know the story of Morgan, who first developed his nano-lubricant for use with adult toys and prophylactics. But the product proved to be just too good; it didn’t allow for sufficient friction for personal pleasure.”
The man looked back to the camera. “Dejected, with his patents aging and sales flagging, Morgan was sitting at home drinking, trying to watch a movie and forget his troubles as his son kept riding around and around the couch on his little retro tricycle, one of the wheels squeaking. The grating sound was just about to cause him to explode with rage when inspiration hit. He quickly ran to his bedroom, retrieved a bottle of Lwb, and then applied a couple of drops to the wheel in question.”
“The rest is history. Lwb proved to be the perfect industrial lubricant, an essentially frictionless, non-petroleum product. It is estimated that in the first year alone, Lwb reduced worldwide energy consumption by 3.7% …”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Communion of Dreams, failure, jim downey, literature, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, The Guardian, Tim Lott, writing
Gods, this is so painfully, penetratingly accurate: You think writing’s a dream job? It’s more like a horror film.
Just one excerpt:
However, as I emphasise to the fledgling writers who come and attend my Guardian Masterclass courses, writing novels for a living is hard – unimaginably hard, for those who have not tried it. I cannot imagine that it is less complex than brain surgery, or, indeed, the proverbial rocket science. To master dialogue, description, subtext, plot, structure, character, time, point of view, beginnings, endings, theme and much besides is a Herculean labour, not made more appealing by the fact that you always – always – fail.
And as I noted the other day, the knowledge that you are failing never leaves you, and it is only then that self-confidence can get you though. Maybe.
But Chapter 12 has been finished and put to bed. Now working on revisions for the rest of the story arc before getting into the next chapter.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Google, Science Fiction, Travel, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, excerpt, feedback, Google Streetview, jim downey, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Stonehenge, travel, writing
At Stonehenge:
As he crossed the earthen ditch which surrounded the stones some 20 meters out, following the usual paved walking path, he noticed that the shaping of the sound somehow changed. Perhaps it was the mass of bodies crowding in around the stones. But it seemed less to be coming from one particular place, and more like it was just coming up from the ground all around him. Then he stepped off the path, and onto the grass, and he could feel the sound more than hear it. It strummed through his heels, up his legs, vibrations caressing his entire body. It was the springiness, the resonance, which he had felt at St David’s, but infinitely stronger.
Stronger, and shared. Shared, he knew, by every person who walked this ground. By every person who had ever walked this ground. It was as though the earth itself were a drum, and this the taut, shimmering skin which they skittered across.
Slowly he made his way into the circle, almost in a daze. Others moved past and around him, making contact, sharing a smile, a laugh, tears. He had never before been this close to the stones, had never come on those rare occasions when the site was open this way. They seemed impossibly tall, impossibly old. He stepped past the first great upright before him, then paused, and gingerly reached out to touch it. Cold stone, rough weathered, aged lichens. A woman standing next to him had her eyes closed, the palms of her hands also on the stone, and for a moment he felt her mind there, the contact of lovers sharing a glimpse of the eternal. It caught his breath, he stepped back, turned in slight embarrassment and stepped further into the circle. Further into the crowd.
Now the press of people was greater. There were people everywhere, holding hands, praying, chanting, caressing. They were on the fallen stones, pressed up against the standing sarsens, moving. He felt himself drawn further in, pulled in by the sound vibrations filling the space, which became deeper and stronger with every step. He passed the inner sarsen, stood there in the inner circle, the sanctum sanctorum, the Garbha griha, the sacred center of everything.
I’m at that point in the novel where I have lost track of how it is going. Whether any of this is any good. Whether it will just confuse and disappoint my readers. Whether it is worth continuing.
This happens. I know it. I have been in this place before. And when self-confidence fails, only my self-discipline gets me past the lurking paralysis. Chapter 12 is almost finished. Momentum continues.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Brave New World, DARPA, Science, Science Fiction, tech, YouTube | Tags: blogging, Boston Dynamics, DARPA, jim downey, robotics, science, Science Fiction, technology, www youtube
… courtesy of Boston Dynamics:
Don’t get me wrong — that’s extremely cool technology. And I can think of all kinds of incredible applications even just as it is, let alone what it promises for the future.
But it also gives me the heebie-jeebies watching it move.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, movies, Privacy, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Violence, Writing stuff | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, Her Final Year, humor, introvert, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, literature, Monty Python, movies, privacy, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, This I Believe, violence, writing
Today’s the official Third Anniversary for the publication of Communion of Dreams, and in celebration, you can download the Kindle edition today for free! Who doesn’t like free? I mean, yeah, sure, if someone walks up to you and offers you a free punch in the nose, you might not like it, but other than that …
Sorry I haven’t posted much lately. I was honestly surprised when I looked and saw that the last blog entry was ten days ago. I haven’t been ill, or traveling, or anything. But after I recorded the essay for “This I Believe” I was feeling very … quiet. As I explained to a friend:
It may be hard to understand, and I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but it (recording the essay) was actually a very hard thing for me to do. It wasn’t just any essay or promotional piece I’d written, not like doing interviews or anything. The essay was powerful because of the emotions behind it — I’m certain that’s why it has resonated for people. But that same source of power cuts very deep for me. Particularly after the stuff last month, it took a hell of a lot for me to come to terms with it all again, and to do so in such a public fashion.
You probably wouldn’t think so from reading this blog (or the book which came out of it), but I am actually a very private and introverted person by nature. My writing has always been a way for me to push myself out of my comfort zone, to force myself to be somewhat more public, more sharing. And it’s worked. Mostly. But there are still times when I just need to withdraw, to recover my energy and self-confidence. This last week+ has been one of those times.
Thanks for understanding. Now, go download that book if you haven’t already.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, art, blogging, direct publishing, feedback, jim downey, Maureen Kincaid-Speller, nerds of a feather, reviews, Science Fiction, writing
Interesting discussion about how the online culture has changed the nature of reviews, and what that means for both authors and fans: BLOGTABLE: The Positive Value of Negative Reviews Here’s a good passage about the topic:
I think a lot of fan coteries miss the fact, as they rally round their authors and go after the so-called bullies, that we all exercise critical judgements every day. Something as mundane as ‘I prefer apples to oranges’ is a critical judgement, but I’ve never noticed orange-lovers hounding apple-lovers because of it. There is a clear understanding that a preference for one fruit is not a judgement about the people who prefer another kind of fruit. And yet, these days even a slightly less than totally stellar review can have people behaving very oddly, trying to suppress reviews or silence an errant reviewer.
As I noted in one of my earliest blog posts here:
It’s OK if you don’t like my novel. No, seriously, if it doesn’t do anything for you, that’s fine. It could be that you don’t care for Science Fiction. Or maybe you just don’t like my writing. Sure, I want people to like it (or at least respect it for being well-done), but I long ago learned that tastes differ widely – what I like in art or literature may be completely at odds with what you like. And that’s OK. To argue otherwise is to basically come down to saying “you can’t like blue. Red is the superior color.”
In the eight years (!) since, of course, I’ve published two books, written a couple hundred freelance articles and reviews, and churned out something in excess of a couple thousand blog posts for here and elsewhere. And trust me, *none* of those were universally liked, and even the ones which were generally well received also garnered critical responses, sometimes very nasty responses. It happens. You’re never, ever, going to make everyone happy. Worrying about it will drive you nuts, and stop you from writing anything more.
You can’t let that happen. You just have to decide whether or not you think the critical comments and reviews are valid, and what you can learn from it if it is. Yeah, sure, sometimes a “slightly less than totally stellar review” smarts, no matter how thick a skin you develop. But that is part of the process of creating any art, of choosing to take the risky path of putting your work before the public.
It’s also part of being human, of taking the risky path of living in the world. Embrace it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Science, Science Fiction, tech, YouTube | Tags: blogging, jim downey, KWMU, Lihong Wang, photography, science, Science Fiction, St. Louis Public Radio, technology, Véronique LaCapra, video, Washington University, www youtube
Watch a laser beam bounce:
From the YouTube description:
A video captured by Washington University’s Lihong Wang’s new imaging system, known as “compressed ultrafast photography,” shows a laser pulse propagating in air and being reflected from a mirror. The movie is slowed down 10 billion times to make it visible to the human eye. (Video courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis)
A good article explaining this new technology is here:
New Ultrafast Camera Invented At Washington University Could Help Turn Science Fiction Into Reality
Very cool. Take-away quote:
Wang’s new technology improves on previous ultrafast cameras in two important ways.
Up until now, streak cameras could only take a one-dimensional snapshot ― think of it like trying to take a picture of something flying by really fast behind a vertical slit.
And the fastest cameras had to have an external light source to work.
Wang’s technique doesn’t need special lighting, and it produces two-dimensional images ― more like a regular photograph ― but at a rate of one every 10 trillionths of a second.
Damn, that’s FAST.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ad Astra, Art, Astronomy, Babylon 5, Bad Astronomy, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, NASA, Science, Science Fiction, Slate, Space, tech | Tags: Andromeda, art, astronomy, Babylon 5, Babylon5, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Hubble, J. Michael Straczynski, jim downey, JMS, NASA, Phil Plait, photography, science, Science Fiction, Slate, space
I should have some interesting news to share in a couple of days. But for now, I thought I would share this amazing post from Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy:
Yesterday, I posted an amazing Hubble Space Telescope picture. I don’t think it’s too soon to post another shot from Hubble… and I think you’ll agree when you see it, especially after you get an understanding of what you’re seeing.
And as Plait notes, that’s the low-resolution image.
Go enjoy the article, and marvel at the images he has/links to. Seriously — it is worth your while, if you’re any kind of a space-geek at all.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Brave New World, Connections, Discover, Feedback, General Musings, Kindle, MetaFilter, New Horizons, Publishing, Science Fiction, Travel, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Amazon, André Aciman, art, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, Her Final Year, jim downey, Kindle, literature, memoir, MetaFilter, reviews, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, video, writing, www youtube
Got a couple of new reviews of Communion of Dreams over the weekend. Both are short enough to just post the whole thing. Here’s the first:
Hard to believe this is a first novel…, January 3, 2015
By Paula JeanWell plotted with disparate characterizations. Avoids science fiction cliches by and large. An interesting yarn with lots of good new ideas, thought provoking, and moves right along. Makes you want more. Bravo, Mr. Downey.
If you look through many of the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere, this is a fairly common comment: people are surprised that this is my first novel. I suppose that makes sense, since that information is right there on the ‘About the author’ section on Amazon and at the end of the book.
But the thing is, I’m not at all new to writing. And I’m not a young man. I’m 56, and have been writing fairly steadily since at least middle school. Essays. Short stories. Criticism. Advertising copy. Opinion pieces. Reviews. Memoir. Travelogues. Meditations. Instruction. Easily more than a million words — hell, I’ve written almost that many for this blog alone. So, probably a couple million words. As André Aciman says in this video (about the 2:00 mark):
I’ve written in all kinds of genres. And I’d like to think that most everything I do is governed by one idea, which is that you are after something that is quite difficult to articulate. And so most of the writing process is sort of prowling around this center, that you don’t see, but that the writing process will unveil and unearth for you.
It’s a way of discovering things. About the world. About people. About yourself.
And nowhere is this more obvious than in longform fiction. Communion helped me uncover a lot. St Cybi’s Well is helping me discover a lot more. I think that is why both books have taken such a long time to write, to work through. That process of unveiling (which is a major metaphor throughout Communion) is difficult, demanding, and never entirely done. You keep digging, keep whittling away, looking for a glimpse of the truth.
Speaking of whittling away, here’s the second review from this weekend:
By Amazon CustomerExcellent story. Well written, well-plotted. The dialogue and scene-setting is sparse, almost minimal, but that allows one to appreciate the plot that much more.
Happy New Year. Time for me to get back to work digging, digging, digging this Well.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 