Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, movies | Tags: art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Highlander, jim downey, video, Wikipedia
Man, that is so weird.
I just spent a chunk of time reviewing a bunch of short video clips we’ve been making over the last couple of months, in preparation for putting together some promotional videos for a series of bookbinding & conservation workshops I’m going to offer.
Intentionally, all the clips are close-ups of my hands doing different conservation techniques on actual projects. They’re not intended to be instructional, just illustrative of the things I will be teaching.
But it was so very weird to see my hands working like that, and from a different, disembodied perspective. Always, when I am doing conservation work, I am not at all focused on what my hands look like — I’m entirely focused on doing the specific task correctly.
And … well, this is going to sound a little self-promoting, and I apologize for that … it was just cool to see how magical the work is. My hands are moving with certainty and deliberation, the kind of self-confidence which comes from decades of experience. And the repairs just … happen. Right there before your eyes. It’s just plain cool. I never see things from that perspective.
Once I have the ability to transfer the video from the camera to the computer, I’ll put up a full clip for people to see. But I just wanted to share the odd experience while it was fresh.
Jim Downey
*With apologies to Mr. MacLeod.
Filed under: Art, Harry Potter, Humor, Writing stuff | Tags: art, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, Harry Potter, Her Final Year, humor, jim downey, This I Believe, Wikipedia, writing
I went to check something for the “This I Believe” people, and found that they’re considering dropping me from the Chocolate Frogs card. The horror!
Or perhaps I just won’t be allowed in the Headless Hunt anymore …
Ah well. Fame is fleeting. Such is life.
Oh, I recorded the essay this morning. It seemed to go well. I’ll post a link when it is ready.
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: 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
Filed under: Ad Astra, Amazon, Ansari X Prize, Apollo program, Art, Astronomy, Brave New World, Comics, Connections, Faith healing, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Humor, ISS, Kindle, Man Conquers Space, Marketing, movies, NASA, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Survival, tech, Travel, Violence, Wales | Tags: Amazon, Annie Wilcox, art, Atlas Obscura, blogging, Brian Merchant, Charles Fishman, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, humor, jim downey, JPL, Kindle, literature, Medium, Motherboard, movies, NASA, Patrick Modiano, Pentre Ifan, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, Susan M. Toy, technology, The Atlantic, The Independent, Tomas Jivanda, travel, Wales, Waylon Strickland, writing, xkcd
A mix of little things, playing catch-up for the last couple of weeks …
Why catch-up? Well, this might explain why I took a break for a while there.
And we’re off …
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First thing, thanks to all who downloaded Communion of Dreams over the weekend, or helped to spread the word about it. There were a total of 693 downloads worldwide — and that includes various European portals, as well as Canada, India, and Japan! Pretty cool.
For those who have gotten the book, once you have a chance to read it please take a few moments to review it on Amazon or elsewhere – it really does help, and as I am finishing up writing St Cybi’s Well the feedback is most welcome.
* * *
A long, but quite good, read about the value of the ISS: 5,200 Days in Space
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And a fun bit of perspective from xkcd about getting there:
* * *
Some great images from one of the sites I’ve mentioned here before: Pentre Ifan
Petre Ifan is a haunting burial stack that stands in a verdant Welsh field as one of the most complete and dramatic stone dolmens still found anywhere on the planet.
* * *
Wow.
Go see the full size image and explanation of the science. Worth it.
* * *
An excellent read by an old and dear friend: There’s an App for That: Cancer in the Modern Age
* * *
And another excellent read, all in all. But this paragraph is so painfully true:
“Writing is a strange and solitary activity. There are dispiriting times when you start working on the first few pages of a novel. Every day, you have the feeling you are on the wrong track. This creates a strong urge to go back and follow a different path. It is important not to give in to this urge, but to keep going. It is a little like driving a car at night, in winter, on ice, with zero visibility. You have no choice, you cannot go into reverse, you must keep going forward while telling yourself that all will be well when the road becomes more stable and the fog lifts.”
* * *
Any others to add? The 10 Sci-Fi Films That Defined 2014
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Of course, reading is always better for you: Brain function ‘boosted for days after reading a novel’
See? I’m actually making you SMARTER! Keep that in mind when you write a review, will ya?
* * *
And that’s enough for now. I need to get back to my “strange and solitary activity”.
Jim Downey
