Filed under: Amazon, Art, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, Humor, Isaac Asimov, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, art, blogging, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, humor, Isaac Asimov, jim downey, Kickstarter, Kindle, literature, promotion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
A couple weeks ago, when I was setting up the price change and promotional stuff for the one-year anniversary of Communion of Dreams, I was again confronted with something I had pondered and then ignored previously: was this book part of a “series”?
See, when you’re going through the interface to publish a book with Amazon, that’s one of the questions you need to answer. The helpful little dialog box explains the idea this way:
A series is a connected set of books. If this book is part of a series, identify where the book exists in the sequence with a volume number. We only accept volume numbers in numerical format (“1”, “2”, or “3”). Magazines and journals are also often grouped as a series. Identifying the series helps customers find other books in the series.
It makes me jealous.
Well, OK, it doesn’t really. But it does make me wonder. What would I call the series for the slightly-altered-universe in which Communion of Dreams exists?
When I first published Communion of Dreams, I thought that I would eventually like to write several other related books, but I didn’t know for sure whether I would ever get around to doing so. I mean, we make plans, and have hopes & dreams and all that, but it seemed both a little presumptuous as well as potentially risky (in the “tempting fate” sort of way) to claim that I was going to write a series of books before seeing what the response to the first one was.
And then there’s the complicating fact that at least for the time being I consider Communion of Dreams to be the end of any such series. St. Cybi’s Well is a prequel — the start of the so-called series, in fact. And I have some rough ideas for other books which would be related to the overall story arc, about one per decade of the time between now and the setting of Communion (2052). But those are just approximations. How can I number the books in the series when I have little confidence in how many there will be? And wouldn’t it be confusing to number the books in the order they are written, since they jump around in chronological sequence?
Anyway, this is all by way of saying that I could use some help and suggestions with this. If you’ve read Communion of Dreams, you have some sense of the overall arc of the series, at least as the history is outlined in that book. And I’ve chatted a fair amount about St. Cybi’s Well. Knowing those things, what do *you* think would be a good ‘series name’ for these books?
I’m serious — I’d like suggestions. Post it here in a comment, drop me an email, say something over on the FB page. If I use your suggestion, I’ll credit you with it and send you a hand-bound copy of either Communion of Dreams or St. Cybi’s Well depending on your preference (and if you’ve already got those coming as part of the Kickstarter rewards or something, we’ll work out an equitable substitute).
Thanks!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Art, Blade Runner, Connections, Depression, Failure, Flu, General Musings, Health, Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Science, Science Fiction, Scientific American, Society, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Alzheimer's, art, bipolar, Blade Runner, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, health, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kickstarter, memoir, memory, New York Review of Books, Oliver Sacks, parainfluenza, Philip K. Dick, reality, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, video, writing, www youtube
Of late, as I have been slowly getting over the rather nasty bout of parainfluenza I mentioned previously, shedding the more annoying and disgusting symptoms, I’ve also come to realize that just now I am pulling out of the depressive trough of one of my long-term bipolar cycles. It wasn’t a particularly bad trough, and was somewhat mitigated by the success of the Kickstarter back in the fall. Nonetheless, it was there, as I can see in hindsight.
I am frequently struck just how much of our life doesn’t make sense until seen from a distance. Just recently I was surprised at the revelation of *why* the failure of Her Final Year to be more successful bothered me as much as it did: it was because I had seen the book as being a way to create something positive (for the world) out of the experience of being a long-term care provider. To have the book only reach a limited audience was, in my mind, saying that our roles as care-givers didn’t matter.
Which isn’t true, of course, but that was the emotional reality which I had been dealing with. The “narrative truth”, if you will. A term I borrow from a very interesting meditation by Oliver Sacks at the New York Review of Books website titled Speak, Memory. From the article:
There is, it seems, no mechanism in the mind or the brain for ensuring the truth, or at least the veridical character, of our recollections. We have no direct access to historical truth, and what we feel or assert to be true (as Helen Keller was in a very good position to note) depends as much on our imagination as our senses. There is no way by which the events of the world can be directly transmitted or recorded in our brains; they are experienced and constructed in a highly subjective way, which is different in every individual to begin with, and differently reinterpreted or reexperienced whenever they are recollected. (The neuroscientist Gerald M. Edelman often speaks of perceiving as “creating,” and remembering as “recreating” or “recategorizing.”) Frequently, our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other, and ourselves—the stories we continually recategorize and refine. Such subjectivity is built into the very nature of memory, and follows from its basis and mechanisms in the human brain. The wonder is that aberrations of a gross sort are relatively rare, and that, for the most part, our memories are relatively solid and reliable.
Let me repeat one bit of that: “Frequently, our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other, and ourselves.”
I think this is at the very heart of why fiction has such power, and appeal. I also think that it explains the well-documented phenomenon of people believing things which are clearly and demonstratively false, if their facts come from a trusted source.
Little surprise that writers of fiction are aware of this very human trait, and have explored it in all manner of ways. I have a note here on my desk, a scrawl written on a scrap of paper some months ago as I was thinking through character motivations in St. Cybi’s Well, which says simply: “We take our truths from the people we trust.”
And here’s another example, from one of my favorite movies, exploring a favorite theme of Philip K. Dick’s:
That theme? The nature of reality. And this is how the Sacks essay closes:
Indifference to source allows us to assimilate what we read, what we are told, what others say and think and write and paint, as intensely and richly as if they were primary experiences. It allows us to see and hear with other eyes and ears, to enter into other minds, to assimilate the art and science and religion of the whole culture, to enter into and contribute to the common mind, the general commonwealth of knowledge. This sort of sharing and participation, this communion, would not be possible if all our knowledge, our memories, were tagged and identified, seen as private, exclusively ours. Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds.
In other words, that reality is a shared construct. A Communion of Dreams, if you will.
Time for me to get back to work.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski, JMS, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Babylon 5, Babylon5, blogging, dreams, J. Michael Straczynski, jim downey, lucid dreaming, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Technomage, writing
Almost everyone who has seriously studied a foreign language has experienced this: that at some point when you have gained sufficient fluency, you’ll find yourself actually dreaming in the new language. Particularly if you are somewhat of a lucid dreamer, or just remember your dreams, this can come as a very pleasant surprise, and serves as a real mile-marker in your progress with the language.
Well, last night for the first time I found myself “dreaming” scenes and character discussions from St Cybi’s Well.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Arthur C. Clarke, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, Arthur C. Clarke, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, Facebook, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, writing
Hey, another one-star review is up over at Amazon! That makes two in a row! Here’s an excerpt:
If you read this review, please know that I stopped reading after a chapter or so.
Why? Well, it’s hard to not see the similarities to Arthur C. Clarke, even if the story eventually takes a different turn. But that would have been OK if the writing had been better. Instead the author really whips through the logistics of assembling a team and arranging transportation to investigate the phenomenon. There’s no depth, little thought and weak writing.
But other than that, he thought my post-apocalyptic world was “somewhat interesting.” That was good to hear. 😉
I noted that this review was up last night over on the Facebook page, and a couple of people pointed out the simple truth that no matter what there are always going to be some people who just don’t like some things. That is something I have said many times myself, going all the way back to the very early days of this blog.
So why mention it? Well, I’m just trying to be honest. With myself, and with you. I like to tout the good things which have happened, the positive reviews and other forms of feedback. So I figure I should also be forthright about the more critical things people say. But I haven’t lost sight of the fact that positive reviews outnumber negative ones by more than 10 – 1.
Anyway, so there’s that. Remember, there’s still a promotion going on, and we haven’t improved much on yesterday’s numbers. Maybe it’s a bit silly, but it’d be fun to break 25,000 copies in the first year — and we still have about 1,400 to go to do that.
Cheers!
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Flu, General Musings, Government, Guns, Iraq, NPR, Pandemic, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, RKBA, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Violence, Writing stuff | Tags: 2nd Amendment, Afghanistan, blogging, Communion of Dreams, fire-flu, firearms, flu, gun control, guns, influenza, Iraq, jim downey, NPR, politics, predictions, RKBA, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, Syria, writing
From a news story this morning:
A rebel fighter stationed here says the two sides are so close they talk to each other at night, yelling across the front line. They even know each other’s names, he says.
Right now this cold front line is lot like the fight for Syria: Both sides think they can win, but neither side is winning, so neither side is going to back down.
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From Chapter 4 of Communion of Dreams:
“Thanks, but I checked your file. You saw fighting during the Restoration. You can figure this stuff out.”
“Yeah, but those are old instincts. And what I learned was mostly just practical survival.”
“Worth its weight in gold.”
Jon smiled. “See you in the morning.”
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Politically, I don’t fit into any neat little boxes. I tend to describe myself as “left-libertarian”, which is to say that I am generally left-of-center on a lot of social issues, but I also tend to think that the lives of people should be largely be their own to determine with minimal government or corporate intrusion. Both government and business can be very great sources of good, but they can also both be great threats to the individual if unchecked, particularly if their power and interests are aligned.
What this means for me practically is that I tend to be in the center of the political spectrum, keeping a wary eye on everything. And since I like to stay informed, I tend to read more political blather than is probably good for my blood pressure. Combine that with my interests in firearms, and, well, let’s just say that I have seen an awful lot of extreme rhetoric on both sides of the current debate about gun control.
* * * * * * *
One of the interesting things about working on St. Cybi’s Well is that I have to keep in mind details of the larger story. Partly this means making sure the story of the current book meshes with the story of Communion of Dreams. But it also goes beyond that. It also means making sure that I set the stage for other books I might write someday.
One of those would be set during the “Restoration” — that period of time when a fractured, post-pandemic America is being again forged into a United States. As it says on the first page of Communion of Dreams:
The Commons had been borne of the fire-flu, with so few people left out in the great northern plains after it was finally all over that it was a relatively simple matter to just turn things back over to nature. Effectively, that happened a few short years after the flu swept around the globe. According to law, it was codified almost a decade later in the late Twenties, after the Restoration was complete and the country was once again whole — expanded, actually, to include what had been Canada, minus independent Quebec.
As part of this whole process, then, I’ve been thinking about what would lead to a splitting-up of the US. I’m not going to give anything away, but suffice it to say that the fire-flu is only part of the explanation.
* * * * * * *
When people argue about gun control, one of the things you can bet on is that at some point a variation on the following will happen: First, one side will say that the intent of the 2nd Amendment is to allow for citizens to resist governmental tyranny. Then the other side will laugh and point out that Joe Gun Nut isn’t going to resist tanks and jets with his AR15. In response, the pro-RKBA side will likely point out that in both Iraq and Afghanistan local fighters managed to do a pretty good job in resisting the might of US & Allied forces for years. Then the argument will dissolve into disagreements over logistics, not knowing the local culture, corrupt indigenous military units, et cetera. Laced through all of that will be those who hope just such a thing would come to pass, to finally resolve the issue and ‘show the other side’.
In these arguments, however, I think everyone is using the wrong examples. What would happen here isn’t what’s happened in Iraq or Afghanistan, with a cohesive military facing insurgents. It’d be like what’s happened in Syria: civil insurrection growing into civil war, with defections and confusion on all sides. From a news story this morning:
A rebel fighter stationed here says the two sides are so close they talk to each other at night, yelling across the front line. They even know each other’s names, he says.
Right now this cold front line is lot like the fight for Syria: Both sides think they can win, but neither side is winning, so neither side is going to back down.
Is Syria still too strange a place, too foreign, for you to map comparisons? Well, then how about Europe, just 20 years ago?
Careful what you wish for.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Connections, Feedback, Health, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: art, Australia, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, health, jim downey, Karst, literature, Missouri, Nullarbor Plain, reviews, science, Science Fiction, writing
Sorry I haven’t posted much — been down with the nasty respiratory virus which is going around, and which has aggravated my torn intercostal muscle. So I’ve been devoting most of my energy to other things, like not hacking up a lung.
Anyway, thought I’d share a new review:
Oh dear; a shocker. Not only did this diatribe descend into fantasy rubbish, but the characters were as flat as the nullabor plain. The whole thing had about as much narrative flair as a year 8 kids English assignment
Ouch. Unsurprisingly, he gave it only 1 star. Though he did say that he wished he could give it zero stars.
Bad reviews are part & parcel of being a writer or artist or just about any other kind of public person. No biggie — Communion of Dreams isn’t to everyone’s tastes, and that’s OK. I do wonder a bit whether this review was intended for another book. Evidently a couple of other people wonder the same, given the comments.
Anyway, at least I learned something from the review: the Nullarbor Plain (which I think the author meant to say) is a geographic region of Australia. And it shares something in common with our property here in central Missouri: it’s a karst formation. So that’s kinda interesting.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go not hack up a lung.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Brave New World, Carl Zimmer, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Flu, General Musings, Health, Kindle, Marketing, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, The Loom, Umberto Eco, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, antibiotics, blogging, Carl Zimmer, Communion of Dreams, Darnell Sidwell, direct publishing, fire-flu, flu, influenza, jim downey, Kickstarter, Kindle, literature, norovirus, pandemic, predictions, promotion, science, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, Umberto Eco, virus, Wordpress, writing
So, the WordPress Machine informs me that I’ve had a fairly busy year blogging here.
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As I mentioned a while ago, earlier this month I had fallen prey to the nasty bit of cold virus going around. Turned out that the damn thing was even more stubborn for my wife, who is still struggling with a hacking cough and various other annoying symptoms. We’ve been keeping a close eye on it, watching for signs of secondary pneumonia, which would call for antibiotic intervention, but I think she’ll get past this on her own.
Which is good, because there really isn’t much we can do to fight a virus. In this sense, medical science is at about the same place in viral treatments as we were in dealing with bacterial infection 70 years ago:
In 1941, a rose killed a policeman.
Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old policeman in Oxford, England, was pruning his roses one fall day when a thorn scratched him at the corner of his mouth. The slight crevice it opened allowed harmless skin bacteria to slip into his body. At first, the scratch grew pink and tender. Over the course of several weeks, it slowly swelled. The bacteria turned from harmless to vicious, proliferating through his flesh. Alexander eventually had to be admitted to Radcliffe Hospital, the bacteria spreading across his face and into his lungs.
Alexander’s doctors tried treating him with sulfa drugs, the only treatment available at the time. The medicine failed, and as the infection worsened, they had to cut out one of his eyes. The bacteria started to infiltrate his bones. Death seemed inevitable.
* * * * * * *
You may not have heard much about it here, but the norovirus is causing all kinds of grief in the UK. Cases are up 83% over last year, and are estimated to have hit over a million people already. In the UK the norovirus is commonly called the “winter vomiting bug” whereas here we tend to call it “stomach flu”. As miserable as it makes people feel, it’s usually not a life-threatening disease for otherwise healthy people, and the best thing to do is just ride it out.
Of course, public health authorities have taken steps to try and limit the spread of the disease into populations where the virus could be life-threatening, and a lot of hospitals have curtailed or eliminated visiting hours. Furthermore, appeals have been made to the public to not to go see their doctors or go to emergency rooms for routine cases of the norovirus, since there is little that can be done to treat the virus and this just contributes to the spread of the disease.
Still, people get scared when they get sick, even when they know that it is a fairly common bug that’s going around — and one that most people have had before and gotten over just fine. So they tend to swamp available medical services, overwhelming the health care system.
Just think about what would happen if it was a disease which wasn’t known. And one which was killing people so quickly that they’d drop over in the street on the way home from work.
* * * * * * *
I’ve been thinking about that a lot, since it is an integral plot point to St. Cybi’s Well. This isn’t a spoiler, since the advent of the fire-flu is part of the ‘history’ of Communion of Dreams.
But it is something which has had me in a bit of a quandary this fall, as I’ve been working on writing St. Cybi’s Well.
Howso? Well, because I kept going back and forth on making one final decision: where to end the book.
See, I know how the *story* plays out — I’ve had that all sorted since I first worked up the background for Communion of Dreams. But in going to write St. Cybi’s Well, I needed to decide exactly where in the story that book would end. Which is to say, I needed to decide how much, if any, of the onset of the fire-flu would be included. Because I could set everything up and have the book actually finish at the onset of the fire-flu — after all, the reader would know what was about to happen. Why drag the reader through that horror?
* * * * * * *
A week or so ago I made my decision, and I’ve been chewing it over since then as I’ve been busy with other things, making sure that I was comfortable with what I have decided, and why. I’m not going to give you the details, but you can safely assume from what I’ve said in this post that at least some of the pandemic will be portrayed.
I decided this not because I have a desire to write about the horror (in spite of what I may have said previously) but rather because it is critical for character development of the main character.
Poor Darnell.
* * * * * * *
So, the WordPress Machine informs me that I’ve had a fairly busy year blogging here. 293 posts (this makes 294), which is a faster pace than in some years. Of course, I’ve had a lot of promotional stuff do to with the launch of Communion of Dreams last January and everything to support that through the year, not to mention the Kickstarter for St. Cybi’s Well.
And while I’ve cautioned that I won’t be writing quite as much here on the blog as I’m working on St. Cybi’s Well, well, it does make for a nice change of pace.
So thanks for being along for the ride this year. Together we can see how things go in 2013.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 