Filed under: Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Constitution, Government, movies, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: blogging, Enlightenment, jim downey, literature, MIB, politics, predictions, science, Science Fiction, Surowiecki, Tommy Lee Jones, video, writing, www youtube
This is the third and final part of a series. The first installment can be found here, the second here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last Sunday, I used a quote from Kay:
“Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”
I did so to make a point. But it was a little unfair of me to do so, because I cut out the first part of his whole statement:
Catch that? Here’s the first part of his reply: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
I laughed heartily when I first heard that. I still get a good chuckle when I re-watch it. It’s a good bit of writing, delivered perfectly by Tommy Lee Jones.
But I no longer think that it’s right.
No, I’m not talking about “The Wisdom of Crowds.” Not exactly, anyway. Surowiecki makes a good case for his notion that truth (or more accurately, optimization) can be an emergent quality of a large enough group of people. After all, this is the basis for democracy. But this can still lead to gross errors of judgment, in particular mass hysteria of one form or another.
Rather, what I’m talking about is that a *system* of knowledge is critical to avoiding the trap of thinking that you know more than you actually do. This can mean using the ‘wisdom of crowds’ intelligently, ranging from just making sure that you have a large enough group, which has good information on the topic, and that the wisdom is presented in a useable way — think modern polling, with good statistical models and rigorous attention to the elimination of bias.
Another application is brilliantly set forth in the Constitution of the United States, where the competing checks & balances between interest groups and governmental entities helps mitigate the worst aspects of human nature.
And more generally, the development of the scientific method as a tool to understand knowledge – as well as ignorance – has been a great boon for us. Through it we have been able to accomplish much, and to begin to avoid the dangers inherent in thinking that we know more than we actually do.
The elimination of bias, the development of the scientific method, the application of something like logic to philosophy — these are all very characteristic of the Enlightenment, and in as far as we deviate from these things, we slip back into the darkness a little.
Perhaps this will ring a bell:
“That which emerges from darkness gives definition to the light.”
* * * * * * *
I’ve said many times that Communion of Dreams was intended to ‘work’ on multiple levels. At the risk of sounding too much like a graduate writing instructor, or perhaps simply coming across that I think I’m smart, this is one good example of that: the whole book can be understood as an extended metaphor on the subject of a system of knowledge, of progress.
Human knowledge, that is.
[Mild spoiler alert.]
From the very end of Communion of Dreams, this exchange between the main protagonist and his daughter sums it up:
“What did you learn from seeing it?”
Her brow furrowed a moment. “You mean from just looking at the [Rosetta] stone? Nothing.”
“Then why is it important?”
“Because it gave us a clue to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
“Right. But that clue was only worthwhile to people who knew what the other languages said, right?”
She gave him a bit of a dirty look. “You didn’t know anything about the artifact, or healing, or any of those things before you touched it.”
“True,” he agreed. “But think how much more people will be able to understand, be able to do, when they have learned those things.”
“Oh.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Charlie Stross, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, New Horizons, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, Singularity, Society, Steampunk, Survival, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Charlie Stross, jim downey, literature, predictions, reviews, Science Fiction, space, technology, writing
I’ve mentioned Charlie Stross several times here. As I’ve said previously: smart guy, good writer. I disagree with his belief in mundane science fiction, because I think that it is too limited in imagination. Which leads almost inevitably to this formulation on his blog today (and yes, you should go read the whole thing):
We people of the SF-reading ghetto have stumbled blinking into the future, and our dirty little secret is that we don’t much like it. And so we retreat into the comfort zones of brass goggles and zeppelins (hey, weren’t airships big in the 1910s-1930s? Why, then, are they such a powerful signifier for Victorian-era alternate fictions?), of sexy vampire-run nightclubs and starship-riding knights-errant. Opening the pages of a modern near-future SF novel now invites a neck-chillingly cold draft of wind from the world we’re trying to escape, rather than a warm narcotic vision of a better place and time.
And so I conclude: we will not inspire anyone with grand visions of a viable future through the medium of escapism. If we want to write inspirational literature with grand visions we need to dive into to the literary mainstream (which is finally rediscovering fabulism) and, adding a light admixture of Enlightenment ideology along the way, start writing the equivalent of those earnest and plausible hyper-realistic tales of Progress through cotton-planting on the shores of the Aral sea.
But do you really want us to do that? I don’t think so. In fact, the traditional response of traditional-minded SF readers to the rigorous exercise of extrapolative vision tends to be denial, disorientation, and distaste. So let me pose for you a different question, which has been exercising me for some time: If SF’s core message (to the extent that it ever had one) is obsolete, what do we do next?
Well, I dunno about Charlie, but I plan on writing a couple of prequels to Communion of Dreams, which I understand have touched something of a nerve in people precisely *because* it is hopeful in the face of a harsh reality.
Jim Downey
(PS: sometime today we should break through the level of 500 total sales/loans of CoD so far this month. Which is almost twice the previous month’s tally. Thanks for affirming my vision, folks!)
Filed under: General Musings, Mark Twain, movies, Science Fiction, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, jim downey, literature, Mark Twain, MIB, Science Fiction, Will Rogers, writing, Zen
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain.
* * * * * * *
I have a secret I’d like to share. It’s something that almost everyone thinks they know. But it is something which we all think doesn’t apply to us.
The secret? Just nine words: You’re not as smart as you think you are.
* * * * * * *
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you; it’s what you think you know that ain’t so.” -Will Rogers
* * * * * * *
I don’t care who you are. We’re all prone to making this mistake. To ignoring this thing we know – which has been common wisdom for millenia, and across almost all human cultures as far as I can tell.
Why do we do this?
* * * * * * *
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” *
* * * * * * *
I think that we do it because we have to. Trusting our knowledge, our experience, is the only thing that allows us to make sense of the world.
It starts with the most basic things. Breath. Life. Light.
Then it grows upon those, builds with knowledge accumulated and shared.
* * * * * * *
“Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” Kay
* * * * * * *
“That which emerges from darkness gives definition to the light.”
It’s the central mystery at the heart of Communion of Dreams.
What does it mean?
* * * * * * *
From Communion of Dreams, Chapter 16:
Jon shook his head. “I still don’t see where it really makes that much difference to us.”
“Perhaps not to us. We’re inside the bubble. But to the crew of the Hawking, it made a very big difference. They got on the other side of the bubble.”
There was a moment, a heartbeat, as the implications of this sank in. And then the universe changed. “Sweet Jesus . . . ”
* * * * * * *
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain.
Actually, it’s just attributed to Twain, thanks to a Reader’s Digest entry from 1939. It sounds like the sort of thing he would have said, but Twain scholars haven’t been able to document it as actually having been his.
Nine words: You’re not as smart as you think you are.
Neither am I. None of us are.
More later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Kindle, Marketing, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, direct publishing, game theory, jim downey, Kindle, literature, reviews, Science Fiction, writing
Dear Agent-person,
Earlier this year I self-published a book. Said book sold about 100 copies in the first month. About 200 copies the second month. 300 copies last month. It broke that number in the first two weeks of this month. And the rate of increase is still growing. And that’s just with my feeble efforts to promote the book.
People love the thing. The reviews are excellent. Don’t take my word for it – see for yourself.
I’d love to get this book in the hands of a large publisher. With even a half-way decent promotional campaign this book could be a mega-seller. And I’m not talking within the confines of genre-fiction. Please note in those reviews that a number of people have said that they don’t usually read Science Fiction. This has mass-market appeal. This could easily be turned into a blockbuster movie.
There’s nothing that needs to be done to the book – it is finished, popular, and ready to be handed over to a large publisher. If they move fast, they can have the damned thing in stores before the holiday season.
Further, I have at least two more books in this series I want to write, and that people want to read. I can have the first manuscript done in 18 months, perhaps sooner. If I have a decent advance to live on so I can concentrate on writing it.
I’ve thought about doing a Kickstarter to accomplish that. And there’s a chance that sales will just continue to grow on their own accord. But I’d rather not have to mess with all of this, and concentrate on my writing.
Do you see where I’m going with this? I need an agent. Not just any agent. One with the right connections. One who can cut through the crap and land a package deal to turn this book, and then the others in the series, into best-sellers. So I’m contacting you. You’re not the only one I’m contacting. The first one who gets back to me and shows me what they can do for me gets to take their cut of the proceeds.
Don’t delay.
Jim Downey
* * * * * * * *
I must admit, that I’m seriously tempted to send that kind of a query letter out. No, it is not at all my personality to say or do such a thing, but I sold artwork long enough to know that sometimes, it’s all about attitude. Having the hutzpah, the brashness, to claim success long before the race starts.
And what the hell, it’s not like my previous efforts to get the attention of a decent agent were any more successful.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, Feedback, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, blogging, jim downey, Kindle, literature, reviews, Science Fiction, Thomas Evans, writing
So, for some time now I’ve been following Thomas Evans’ The Archaeologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. He offers very intelligent, insightful, and sometimes biting reviews of a lot of books – but it was his writing about Science Fiction which caught my eye and got me reading him regularly. I haven’t mentioned it here, for one very simple reason: I wanted him to read, and hopefully review, Communion of Dreams. And I didn’t want there to be any doubt about whether or not my comments biased him.
Well, now that concern is moot. Because he just posted a full, formal review of Communion.
Now, the usual thing would be for me to excerpt some of the things he says about my book, and tout it all over the place. Like the title of this post. Yeah, he basically says that one aspect of my novel is better than one aspect of 2001: A Space Odyssey. And I could justifiably paraphrase him to claim that this was the summation of his review. Well, were I a press agent for a big publishing house, I could. Or would, rather, regardless of whether it was actually justified or not.
The actual passage from his review says this:
The topic of possible ancient alien contact is brilliantly handled and to my mind, makes perfect sense (within the context of the book that is). Indeed, it has quite the opposite effect that most such stories have on me, and is one of only two such conclusions that I actually liked. The other was Arthur C. Clark’s 2001, so that is very august company to keep, and to be honest, I thought the way that Downey handled it in this book was superior. I won’t go into any further details, for the question of whether or not there even was contact is one of the most interesting and intentionally downplayed elements of this book. Suffice it to say that the way this book addresses the whole concept of the ‘object’ is well worth the read.
See? There’s more nuance there than just a pull-quote.
Just as there is in the entire review. Which is why I like this fellow’s reviews. He’s a SF writer himself, and thoroughly understands the genre. He knows its ins and outs, understands the strengths and weaknesses of a given author or story line, identifies the tropes and traditions. He doesn’t pull punches, has his own quirks and preferences. Above all, he has intelligent reasons for the things he says about books, and explains those reasons.
So I was flattered that he would take the time to read Communion, let alone write such a complete review of the book.
And it is an excellent review. No, not in the sense that he thinks the book is excellent. In the sense that he clearly says what he likes and dislikes about the book, and offers his opinion on to whom it might appeal. Yes, there are a lot of positive things he says about CoD, and that gives me a nice ego-boost. And I don’t agree with some of his criticisms of the book. But those criticisms are honest and fair – he makes a strong case for why he says what he says, and on that basis I have no complaint with his conclusions.
See for yourself. Go read the review. Leave a comment about what you think of it there on his site. Or not. But do yourself a favor and add him to your regular reading list. I have.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Ballistics, Guns, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, ballistics, BBTI, blogging, direct publishing, firearms, free, guns, jim downey, Kindle, literature, Science Fiction, writing
There’s a reason I’m self-employed.
It’s because while I can work fine with others, by and large I prefer to do things my own way, on my own schedule. This comes with trade-offs, of course, and it doesn’t mean that I can completely eliminate the need to conform to societal or even corporate rules. But I can minimize that crap and get on with my life.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed doing for the last year or so has been writing for Guns.com. For the most part I’ve just picked a topic, ran the idea past my editors, and then produced a piece of writing within the appropriate word-count range. Usually the changes they made to my writing were minimal, and everyone was happy. It didn’t generate a lot of money (free-lance writing in this day and age doesn’t), but during some of the lean times it was money which came in very handy.
Well, Guns.com has seen a remarkable growth in the time I’ve been writing for them (I got started with them very early on), and they’re now one of the biggest firearms-related sites out there. They’ve been very aggressive in gathering together a lot of talented people, and seeing that they have kept their content fresh & interesting. It’s been a lot of fun for me to be a part of that. It’s also taught me a lot (doing the necessary research to write a review or article is always a good education), and it has allowed me to keep my writing skills sharp.
Well, the other day I mentioned that I was making some changes in my usual routine, because of limitations of time and energy. And I’m giving serious consideration to making another such change – curtailing or even stopping altogether how much writing I do for Guns.com.
Now, partly this is just due to the natural pacing of things. I had set out to do reviews of most of the firearms we’ve tested for BBTI, and I have now submitted reviews for all those which Guns.com had not previously covered – there still some 30 or 40 such reviews pending publication (they like to spread them out). I also did a bunch of other reviews of guns which I had a chance to try recently which are a little more unusual than what most people ever try, and that was fun.
But there’s another factor here. With the substantial growth of the site, as well as the expansion of the number of contributing writers, Guns.com had to come up with some formal style guides for people to use. This is a common thing for any large site, and it is a mark of their professionalism that they put together a very good style manual more than 30 pages in length, complete with links of a lot of example articles. I was flattered to see that quite a few of those articles were ones I had written.
I find, however, that it presents a certain quandary for me: having to write to certain style rules.
That’s not my writing . . . style. I like to play around. Innovate. Feel my way through an idea, a topic, a story. If you’ve read my novel, or even this blog, you’ll have a pretty good sense of what I mean. While I am perfectly capable of writing within conventional rules, I’m much more interested in playing with the expectations of the reader a bit, challenging them by subverting those rules now and then.
In short, I don’t want the rules to apply to me.
In other words, I’m a prima donna.
But maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens. I like the guys at Guns.com, and I respect what they have accomplished. But I’m not interested in doing cookie-cutter writing – leastwise, not as a regular course of affairs. And besides, if I take the hour or two I spend on each article/review I write for them, and put it towards another novel, well I think that might be a better use of my time & energy. Particularly so, given the response so far to Communion of Dreams.
Speaking of which, remember that the Kindle edition is free today!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Science Fiction, Synesthesia, Writing stuff | Tags: creative process, intuition, jim downey, literature, Science Fiction, Tetris, writing
If you’ve never attempted to write a long (as in book-length) work of fiction, it might be difficult to understand what the process is like. Worse, it seems like every writer out there has their own entirely different experience of the process. Or more than one experience of the process, to be more accurate. Lord knows I seem to go through many different stages.
Which is why it is hard to find any instruction manual about writing long fiction that is worth a damn.
But I thought I would share this insight from my current stage of working things out for writing the prequel to Communion of Dreams: it’s like playing 3-D Tetris.
Seriously, that’s what it feels like. Like each of the different components of the plot & characters is an oddly-shaped piece rolling around in my head, turning this way and that, looking to fall into the correct position relative to all the other pieces. And as I juggle each different piece I make small changes, looking to find the best way that each one fits together into a comprehensive whole.
And when a piece lands into place, if there isn’t a little ‘jolt’ of excitement, then I know that there’s something wrong, and that the piece really doesn’t belong there, no matter how well it seems to fit at the time. Obviously, at this stage everything is very intuitive – the more analytic and logical work will come later in the actual writing. But first, I have to build this internal sculpture, find the overall shape of the thing. Only once that is done can I really make much headway in trying to describe the form (to extend the metaphor a bit too far).
What’s good is that as I have been spending more and more time & energy mulling over these different components, these different pieces, I’ve been getting more and more of these little jolts of excitement.
It’s a very good feeling.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Feedback, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, Publishing, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, art, direct publishing, feedback, jim downey, Kindle, literature, reviews, Science Fiction, writing
I must admit that after my initial confusion, I found this rather humorous:
Reincarnation and Karma – An interesting framework for writing short stories with a common theme. Engaging, but a little repetitive at the same time. The medieval plague years were brought to life in one story, and I found that story the most engaging.
Sounds interesting enough, right? So why was I amused?
Because it was supposedly a review* of Communion of Dreams.
I mentioned it to my Facebook friends, who also seem to have mostly found it amusing, based on the comments and reaction to the review.
It also points up one of the problems with Amazon’s reviews, or any review, for that matter: pretty much, anyone can say whatever they want, and it just goes into the general pool of info out there. Permanently. For the most part I have had *very* positive reviews and reaction to Communion of Dreams, but there will always be some folks who don’t like any piece of writing or work of art. You’ve just gotta accept that, just as you can’t let praise be a distraction. In both cases you just have to take the feedback for what it’s worth, then get back to the work at hand.
Speaking of which . . .
Jim Downey
*Edited a couple hours later to add: Well, the review is now gone, so I deleted the hot link. I suppose the author logged into his account and figured it out. Or perhaps with it getting so many downvotes it was automatically eliminated. Still, it was pretty amusing.
Filed under: Flu, NYT, Predictions, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: bison, buffalo, flu, jim downey, literature, New York Times, News, Science Fiction, writing
Got a note from a friend, with a link to an article. The note said “Yet another shade of Communion of Dreams.” Here’s the start of the article:
As Bison Return to Prairie, Some Rejoice, Others Worry
WOLF POINT, Mont. — Sioux and Assiniboine tribe members wailed a welcome song last month as around 60 bison from Yellowstone National Park stormed onto a prairie pasture that had not felt a bison’s hoof for almost 140 years.
That historic homecoming came just 11 days after 71 pureblood bison, descended from one of Montana’s last wild herds, were released nearby onto untilled grassland owned by a charity with a vision of building a haven for prairie wildlife. Some hunters and conservationists are now calling for bison to be reintroduced to a million-acre wildlife refuge spanning this remote region.
This is from the first page of Communion of Dreams:
He could see four or five thousand buffalo, one of the small herds. They stretched out in a long line below him, wide enough to fill the shallow valley along this side of the river, coming partway up the sides of the hill, not fifty meters from where he stood. The sky was its perpetual blue-grey, as clear as it ever got at this latitude, though the sun was almost bright. Late winter snow, churned into a dull brown mass by the buffalo where they trekked along the valley floor, nonetheless glinted along the tops of the hills. Weather forecasts said more snow was coming. It was Friday, April 12.
He leaned on the railing, looking down, the windows of the research station behind him. He liked the solitude of the open sky of the National Buffalo Commons. Though he had many painful memories associated with these plains, they could fill the void inside him in a way that no place else could. He had grown up not too far away, back when people used to live out here. Now there were only the stations – small shelters where scientists could study the herds as they migrated, or where people with enough connections could escape for a few days.
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.
Every writing instructor or book out there will tell you that the opening sentences/paragraphs of a novel has a huge job: to establish the set and setting, introduce tone, and intrigue the reader enough that they want to keep reading. I think the opening page of Communion does that.
And so does the release of two small herds of bison.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Babylon 5, Connections, Gardening, Kindle, Music, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Synesthesia, Writing stuff | Tags: Alan Parsons Project, Amazon, augmented reality, Babylon5, Crusade, direct publishing, gardening, Habaneros, jim downey, Kindle, literature, music, Peter Woodward, Science Fiction, Twitter, writing
Ah, Spring.
Got my pepper plants last night, unboxed them and set them out in the sun this morning. Six each of Bhut Jolokia, Red Savina, and Naga Morich.
Yesterday was good in another way: had some 50 downloads of Communion of Dreams. That’s about 4x what daily sales of the novel have been this week. No idea why. I can’t find anything which would explain it – if you know, please clue me in. Today things seem to still be running a little ahead of what passes for normal, but not as busy as yesterday.
And lastly, someone “followed” me on Twitter. OK, that isn’t too weird – while I don’t do a lot with Twitter, it is a promotional platform I use and part of that is following people and being followed in return. But this came out of the blue, before I had followed this person or had any contact with them. Who was it? Alan Parsons.
Actually, further digging indicated that it was the account for the Alan Parsons Project. I’m not sure who administers the account. It might be Mr. Parson, or it might just be some flunky.
Now, I have referenced music from the Alan Parsons Project here a couple of times. I’ve always had a lot of respect for their stuff, as well as Parson’s work as a sound engineer in his own right. But what I haven’t mentioned previously is that instrumental tracks from the Alan Parsons Project pretty much were the ‘soundtrack’ behind writing Communion of Dreams. As in, almost without exception, that is the music I put on when I was writing. It was energizing without being distracting, and helped me get into the proper mental zone to work on the book – a kind of induced syneshtesia.
So it was more than a little weird to have APP follow me on Twitter, regardless of who handles the site. No idea why.
Which leaves me with a lot of more-or-less happy confusion, and hope for the future.
Jim Downey
*Galen, of course. Whom I have mentioned previously.
Communion Of Dreams 