Filed under: Amazon, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Google, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Travel, Wales | Tags: 1991, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, electronics, feedback, free, Google Earth, humor, Jamie Norris, jim downey, Kindle, predictions, promotion, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Steve Cichon, technology, travel, Typhoon, video, Wales
It’s a view of Wales most of us will never see.
This video was filmed from the cockpit of a Typhoon fighter jet which flies over North Wales before heading to the Lake District.
The man behind the controls is Flight Lieutenant Jamie Norris, the RAF’s Typhoon display pilot and a member of RAF Coningsby, based in Lincolnshire, who calmly talks viewers through his manoeuvres at altitudes of between 250ft and 40,000ft.
There’s an embedded video which is a real delight, too, for anyone who isn’t afraid of heights/motion.
I haven’t flown at low altitude over Wales, so I can’t really speak as to how this compares to the slower velocity of a small plane or helicopter. However, I was struck by just how similar the video is to viewing the same terrain via Google Earth, which I have done a *lot* of in the last couple of months as I write St. Cybi’s Well. The ability to zoom in, rotate orientation, and even change the angle to the horizon allows you very much get the sense of flying through the landscape — it’s a very cool technology.
And speaking of very cool technology, just thought I’d share this little item, which gives a nice bit of perspective: Everything from 1991 Radio Shack ad I now do with my phone. It’s a pretty impressive list, and shows how a whole pile of electronics valued at about $5,000 in today’s money has been replaced by a smartphone that fits in your pocket and costs about $500.
And speaking of 500 … that’s about the total number of world-wide downloads of Communion of Dreams so far in the current promotion. Which in itself is a pretty cool bit of technology. If you haven’t yet gotten your copy of the Kindle edition of the book (which you can read on, yes, smartphones as well as any number of other devices), pop over and get it today!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Book Conservation, Connections, General Musings, Government, Science Fiction, The Prisoner, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: book conservation, craftsmanship, jim downey, Open Culture, Patrick McGoohan, Portmeirion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, The Prisoner, The Village, video, Wales, writing
A small excerpt from the current chapter I’m writing:
“Explain,” said Darnell.
“Simple: however hostile you are to the government, you still love your country and don’t want to see it harmed,” said Smith.
“We’re not asking you to do anything in support of the government,” added Jones. “However, if you hear of something which might be a threat to the people of America, please let us know.”
Darnell sipped his wine, looked out over the estuary below the terrace. The image of Patrick McGoohan racing across the sand flats, trying to get away, came to him. He looked up. “Hear something? Why should I hear something?”
Why yes, that scene is set in Portmeirion. 🙂
The writing continues to go well, though I occasionally have small crises of confidence, panic attacks over the thought that I have anything to say. Ah, well, it’s part of the process, and you just have to set those fears aside and get on with the story as best you can. I think that this is where my training and work as a book conservator comes in handy — I understand tackling jobs which at first seem to be too much, to be beyond my skill level. Because when you break them down into small steps, they’re manageable. I don’t have to write the whole novel; I just have to write the next scene.
Jim Downey
PS: Completely unrelated, but do yourself a favor — go read this, and watch the embedded video. Trust me.
Filed under: Faith healing, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: excerpt, Holywell, jim downey, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, St. Winefride's Well, Wales, Well Hopper, writing
The writing continues to go well. Thought I’d share this bit from today:
She looked around the edge of the table, to where his shoulder bag sat on the floor. “Got your hand-held in there?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Get it out, search St. Winefride’s plus 1917.”
Darnell picked up his bag, opened the pocket where his hand-held was, took it out. He turned it on, and while it booted up looked at Megan, who was calmly finishing her dinner, watching him. He tapped an icon on the phone.
“Hi, I’m Andi, your assistant application. How can I help you?”
“Andi, find me information on St. Winefride’s Well in Holywell which is either tagged 1917 or has that date in the entry.”
“Very good. The search results are displayed on your screen. Would you like me to read relevant passages?”
“No, thanks. That will be all.”
“Very good.”
Darnell looked at Megan. “The assistant isn’t very good at finding context in articles, usually just reads the sentence with the specific information requested. Is there a specific reference you had in mind?”
“Yeah. Is there a link to a blog called ‘Well Hopper’ there?”
“Yup.”
“Try that one. Should be towards the end.”
Darnell went to the blog post, scanned down through the entry. “Yeah, here it is: All early descriptions and illustrations of the well indicate that the volume of water flowing from the well was much greater than that seen today, the spring forming a small river that ran from the well. Disaster struck the well at 8am on 5th january 1917 when nearby mining works struck and diverted the underground stream that fed the well causing the well to run dry. Eventually another source was found to feed the well; however the force of this is much less and the well now forms a modest bathing area outside the shrine rather than the rapid stream that used to flow from the building in earlier days.”
He looked up at her. “Huh. So, it’s not really the same well?”
“Does the source of the water matter more than where it emerges?” She sipped her wine, considered, then continued. “You went there, expecting one thing because of your previous experience at the place.”
“Yeah, but I did what you told me, and tried to see the place as the believers see it.”
“But Dar,” she said, “you didn’t try to believe. You just tried to see their perspective. There’s a difference.”
“Now, wait a minute …”
“Don’t get upset. I didn’t figure that this would be something you could do on your first try. You’d been there before, and were necessarily going to have some understandable barriers in place.” She smiled. “It was a good start. Leave it at that, and move on.”
Jim Downey
And yes, that is a real blog post. Remember, St. Cybi’s Well is set in 2012, in a timeline very close to our own. There will be a lot of material in the book drawn straight from our reality.
Filed under: Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Conwy, excerpt, Great Orme, jim downey, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Wales, writing
As he came into the open from the narrow spiraling stairs, he saw a man standing on the upper viewing platform, calmly looking out over the city as he leaned on the ramparts. He was tall, even though he had a slight stoop which Darnell sensed came from extreme age. And while he wore a large, wide-brimmed hat, it was clear that he still had a full head of hair, mostly of the sort of silver color which suggested it had once been deep black. His full yet neat beard was completely white. He wore no glasses, and noticed as Darnell emerged from the darkness of the tower.
Darnell nodded to the man. “Hello.”
“Good afternoon,” said the man in reply. His voice was rich, still solid. There was a touch of an accent that seemed familiar to Darnell, though it was neither American nor Welsh. He turned his attention back to the city below them, but spoke again. “You’ve come a long way.”
And with those words, Darnell was better able to define the accent. Mediterranean. Possibly Greek. “So have you.”
“True enough.” He looked at Darnell, smiled just a bit. His eyes were dark, a little sad. He glanced east to the castle proper, then north, where the mass of the Great Orme disappeared in low-hanging clouds. Then back at Darnell, seeming to size him up. “I suspect that both of us have a ways yet to go.”
“If we’re lucky.”
“Perhaps.” He stepped past Darnell, and disappeared down the stairs without another word.
The writing is going well. Things are coming together nicely.
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: Augmented Reality, Connections, Faith healing, Religion, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: faith, faith healing, jim downey, Pennant Melangell, religion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, St. Melangell, Wales, writing
This is from the working draft of Chapter One: Pennant Melangell
“C’mon in,” she said, unlocking the door and stepping inside. They passed through the porch, into the church itself. Just inside she stopped, turned on the lights. With a sweep of her arm, she gestured across the interior of the space. “Now, where do you go?”
Darnell furrowed his brow, scanned the interior. “What do you mean?”
“You want to be healed. Where do you go?”
“Well,” he hesitated. “Well, to the Shrine?”
“You know the legend of St. Melangell. What if you didn’t?”
He looked around. “The frieze?”
She nodded. “All these places tell a story. Sometimes it is just in the layout of the building or what is left of it. Sometimes it is represented in paintings, friezes, or stained glass. You have to understand the story of the place before you can hope to use it.”
“An instruction manual.”
“Of a sort. Some of it will be intuitive – these are built spaces, created by other humans. And so in some sense just part of your heritage. But some of it will be based on symbolism which is drawn from a different culture than what we’re used to now. It may take a little while before your brain adjusts, and sees the proper cues.”
“Learn the language.”
“Close. More like learning the patterns. The rituals.”
“I’m not looking to get religion, sis.”
She considered him. “I know. Think of religion to be just one interpretation of the text. First you need to learn to read. Interpretation can come later, when you’re more fluent.”
Back to work.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Publishing, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, free, India, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, literature, memoir, promotion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Wales, writing
Thanks to everyone for helping make the promotion a success — I think we got an excellent response for a book which has been available for some 18 months, with 1,366 total downloads of Communion of Dreams! That breaks down as 1,193 in the U.S. market, 66 in the U.K., 102 in Germany, two in India, and 3 in Canada. It may be silly, but I think that it’s a real hoot that there are people in India who have downloaded my book.
And it wasn’t just Communion of Dreams — Her Final Year also was downloaded by someone in India with this week’s promotion. And altogether there were 272 total downloads of that memoir.
There is also a new review of Communion of Dreams up on Amazon. Here’s a bit of it:
I’ve been reading science fiction for over 40 years, and it’s my favorite subject, but I’ll be very honest and say that even after reading this entire book, I could not understand what the artifact actually was. I also did not understand what the burl was, nor what the gel was. I think this story could have been a lot more exciting if it was trimmed down by 50%. I applaud the author’s first efforts at writing, but I think he should try again.
Well, gee, I suppose that’s meant to be encouraging, and the reviewer does end with:
“Practice makes perfect — best of luck with your next book!”
So maybe they’ll like St. Cybi’s Well if I don’t spend too much time with characters, setting, or have too many difficult concepts in it. And I probably shouldn’t have it set in Wales, since that’s not science-fictiony enough. I’ll have to keep that in mind.
*Sigh*
If you have some thoughts on the book to share, I’m always happy to have the additional reviews.
Well, maybe make that I’m usually happy to have the additional reviews.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Babylon 5, Connections, Music, Predictions, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Babylon 5, blogging, jim downey, literature, predictions, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
Thought I’d share something I hinted at last week, and which explains a bit why my posting to the blog has dropped off so much in recent weeks: I’ve shifted over from primarily working on the structure and individual scenes of St. Cybi’s Well to writing the bulk of the text. To use an analogy, I’ve got the skeleton done and am now putting flesh on the bones.
So while I only have about 23,000 words in the manuscript so far, and very little of that is what most people would recognize as parts of a novel, it’s actually probably a significant fraction (perhaps one-third? half?) of the overall amount of work which will go into the book. That’s because I know not only the overall plot and major characters of the book, I also know the pacing, the locations, and how all the major elements will work together throughout. In fact, you could grab a map of Wales and then find each of the locations tied to the individual chapters to get a sense of how the whole thing will progress. Here’s the working list of chapters:
- Prelude: Cardiff
- Chapter One: Pennant Melangell
- Chapter Two: Holywell/Conwy Castle
- Chapter Three: Portmeirion/Caernarfon
- Chapter Four: Snowdon
- Chapter Five: Ffynnon Gybi/Criccieth
- Chapter Six: Pistyll Rhaedr
- Chapter Seven: Pentre Ifan
- Chapter Eight: St. Non’s/St. David’s
- Chapter Nine: St. Govan’s Chapel/Gumfreston Church
- Chapter Ten: Deheubarth
- Chapter Eleven: St. Cenydd’s Well
- Chapter Twelve: Brecon Beacons
- Chapter Thirteen: Maen-du Well/Ffynnon Gynydd
- Chapter Fourteen: Tintern Abbey/Stonehenge
- Chapter Fifteen: Ynys Môn
- Chapter Sixteen: Ffynnon Gelynin
- Chapter Seventeen: Ffynnon Sarah
- Chapter Eighteen: St. Cybi’s Well
- Chapter Nineteen: Castell y Bere
If you care to dig around my various travelogues, you can actually find descriptive passages about each of these places. Those passages will be used as part of constructing verisimilitude through the novel.
And yes, “Prelude” rather than “Prologue.” Partly it ties in with this. Partly … well, you’ll see.
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
Filed under: Connections, Faith healing, Predictions, Religion, Science Fiction, Travel, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Celtic, faith, jim downey, Pennant Melangell, predictions, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Tanat, travel, Wales, writing, Yew
No, not from St. Cybi’s Well. Not exactly, anyway. Rather, from a travelogue I wrote following my 2006 trip to Wales. This is how I describe the small chapel of Pennant Melangell, which is the site where a lot of the book will be based:
The shrine is to St. Melangell, supposedly one of the earliest such shrines in northern Europe. It’s been nicely restored, using new local materials to recreate missing pieces, but in such a fashion as to be clear what is old and what is new. Yeah, that’s the professional book conservator talking there – I appreciate good craftsmanship when I see it. Evidently the shrine had been pitched (literally) into a local ditch during the Reformation, but was (much) later recovered, then even later properly restored.
The rest of the chapel is stunning, though in an honest and simple way. It has seen multiple alterations and revisions in the last 800 years (big surprise), but still maintains a sense of what it is all about. And what it is all about is grace. No, not in the strictly Christian sense of the term, but in something older, something deeper . . . dare I say in the sense the early Christians wanted to appropriate?
Here we get into what I was talking about when I said that this trip was partly a spiritual quest. The Celts had notions of holiness tied up with location, of ‘thin’ places where the boundaries between this reality and the other side came together. You’ll frequently find a river, stream, or spring at such a location. The whole valley of the Tanat has that feeling to it, but it seems to be particularly strong here, where the young river wraps itself around the church grounds. The rough circle of the churchyard is bounded by a coarse wall, more like an earthwork than anything. More importantly, while the wall is higher than either the interior or the exterior ground, the interior is on a slight rise, a slight dome with the chapel at the apex. It’s almost like it is a lens of earth, focusing spiritual energy. And that Big Damned Yew tree? It isn’t the only one. There are several others of almost the same age at other points on the wall, the anchors of the lens, both to the earth and to the sky.
So, go. If you make it to Wales, and have an afternoon or a morning to spare, go. In the coming travelogues I will have other places you might want to visit, each one special in its own way. But go to Pennant Melangell. Make a donation of a few pounds if you can spare ’em. Avowed atheist that I am, I now carry a wallet with a religious inscription that I got at Pennant Melangell, from the self-service/honor system selection of items in the office. And yes, I even paid for it.
Just thought I would share that passage. Trust me, you’ll see a lot more about this place over the coming year.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 