Filed under: Art, Connections, General Musings, Wales | Tags: Archaeology, art, blogging, book art, bookbinding, Glowforge, Helen Geake, Ireland, Jeremy England, jim downey, laser, Patreon, Phil Harding, Scotland, St. Cybi's Well, Tim Taylor, Time Team, Wales
My wife and I have been big fans of the UK TV show “Time Team” for a long time, and a couple of years ago when producer Tim Taylor decided to try and revive the series using a Patreon model, we were happy to sign on and tell a number of our friends about it. Unsurprisingly, we discovered that the series was also popular in our friends group, especially those who share our interest in English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish history.
Well, about a year ago, one of our friends entered a competition hosted by Time Team about the series, and, well, I’ll let her tell the rest:
Maybe you remember back in October, Time Team asked people to tell them “What are you most excited about Time Team returning, and why?” Like many people I fangirled a bit to show my appreciation, then forgot about it.
So I was very surprised when Time Team contacted me around Thanksgiving to tell me they liked my comment so much they are sending a gift. I asked if they would send it to the friends who had introduced me to Time Team, and given Customs and all they thought it would be less confusing if it came to me.
And she sent it to us: Custom Time Team Trowel #400.
Well, we were thrilled. It’s really cool to hold that thing in your hand, feel a connection to the show we loved.
But we decided that after we’d kept it for a time, that it would be best to share it. To pass it on to someone else who shared our love for the show. For it to become a ‘traveling trophy’.
I spent some time thinking about it over this past busy (and eventful) year, and finally decided to make a simple journal for recipients of the “Traveling Trowel” to record some thoughts and dreams inspired by the show. And of course, there needed to be a box to hold the trowel and journal. I wanted everything to feel informal, yet professional. Sorta like Time Team.
This was the result:
In order to set the stage for the journal, I asked my wife to write the following introduction:
This trowel is magical.
Take it in your hand. Feel the weight of it. The balance. How it fits into your palm. How your thumb and fingers curl around it.
Then close your eyes. Let your mind roam. To somewhere you love, even if you’ve never been there in person. Picture the place. Then channel your inner Phil Harding. Or Helen Geake. Or whichever member of the Time Team, past or present, comes to mind. See yourself exploring the past of the site you’ve chosen, trowel in hand.
Then, if you’re willing, share here where you’ve been. Where the Traveling Trowel has taken you.
And, as a record documenting the history of the Trowel, I mounted my friend’s letter next, followed by my own entry. For that entry I naturally pictured St Cybi’s Well …
Ffynnon Gybi
There, in the valley below the hamlet of Llangybi on the Llŷn Peninsula, the old stone structures beckon. But behind them, the Holy Well itself springs forth.
It is here that the trowel leads me. Without disturbing the ground, I can visualize scraping away the upper layers of dirt. Removing the modern soil. Down past the traces of the 18th and 19th century structures that now dominate the site. Deeper, to the remaining imprint of the medieval surface where pilgrims knelt beside the water, seeking healing for body and soul.
Then deeper still, seeking the foundations of myth of the man who would become Saint Cybi. Perhaps his simple hovel where he meditated, seeking a connection with his God. Perhaps some small artifact which has survived the centuries, uncovered, pristine in my mind’s eye, a holy relic …
The Traveling Trowel will move on. I hope that each recipient will add their own bit to the lore of it. But I also hope that each recipient will give the next person some small memento related to their time with it. Here’s what I made for my friend, us, and the person that I have passed it on to:
Thanks for visiting. And if you haven’t yet, check out the Time Team Patreon page.
Jim Downey
Just a note: none of this is for sale. And yes, I took some minor liberties with the official Time Team design to better fit my personal aesthetic and the capabilities of my laser. No criticism of the original design is intended.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, BBC, care-giving, caregiving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, Her Final Year, Kickstarter, mathematics, More or Less, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, statistics, writing
This past weekend a broadcast of the BBC show/podcast “More or Less” caught my ear, as it was discussing the economics of conventional trade publishing. I would encourage listening to the entire thing (about 9 minutes), but the basics are:
- Of about 50,000 new titles published in a year, just 0.4% will sell more than 100,000 copies
- To ‘break even’, a title needs to sell about 5,000 copies
- Some 86% of all titles sell fewer than 5,000 copies
- Something like 15% sell fewer than a dozen copies
Whoa.
I knew the numbers weren’t good, and that I had been relatively successful with self-publishing my own books (after years of trying to land a conventional publishing deal), but I had no idea that they were that dismal.
For perspective, all three of my books broke that 5,000 threshold the first year that they were available. And two went on to break it again the second year. Total downloads (ballpark numbers) for each of my books so far:
- Communion of Dreams: in excess of 50,000 downloads from Amazon, with another ~25,000 downloads of the prior pdf before that
- Her Final Year: in excess of 11,000 downloads from Amazon
- St Cybi’s Well: in excess of 9,000 downloads from Amazon
I’ve been mildly disappointed in the performance of St Cybi’s Well, but that is largely in comparison to Communion of Dreams, which was published a decade earlier (and which has continued to see strong sales/downloads each year). This kind of puts that into perspective.
One thing I want to mention: free downloads. Yeah, that skews the numbers a bit, but not as much as you might think for the two novels. For those, free downloads account for about 15% of SCW and about 20% of CoD totals. HFY saw a much larger percentage of free downloads, but that was because we saw the book more as a public service to other care-givers than a moneypot.
Oh, and “best seller”? Other info I’ve seen indicates that about 50,000 copies is typically considered a best seller in the trade publication industry. Now, that’s for one-year sales, not cumulative sales over a decade. But still, it makes me feel pretty good about how CoD has done.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Brave New World, Connections, General Musings, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, historic building, history, jim downey, painting, perspective, St. Cybi's Well, writer's block, writing
Last fall, I embarked on a long-term project: doing exterior repairs and repainting our 140 year old Victorian Italianate home. As I’ve mentioned previously, this place has been in my wife’s family since the early 50s, and in all that time has basically been white with some color trim work. We’ve decided to change that, and here’s a little before & after from last fall to show you the difference:
I started back on this section of the house for two reasons: 1) it was fairly simple in terms of ‘gingergbread’, so it would give me a chance to work out the color scheme and get used to painting, and 2) the small, almost square window there in the corner actually needed a fair amount of carpentry work, to repair a stubborn leak that had caused some structural damage. I wanted to get that done before the damage got worse.
Anyway, I worked on it for a couple months last fall, until Winter settled in. And I got back to it in May, once the long and strange Spring turned reliably nice enough. I’m now finishing up work on the next major section, and as I’m inclined to do I’ve been posting progress pics on Facebook. And I’ve noticed a curious thing.
My friends have been posting encouraging comments as I go, which I expected (and hey, a little encouragement helps). But occasionally someone will post a comment to the effect that with all that I’ve accomplished, I must be getting close to being finished.
Say what?
Now, partly this is just due to the difficulty in getting a handle on just how big this place is. I mean, it’s no mansion, but it is a big ol’ 19th century farmhouse. It’s big enough that I can’t honestly take a decent pic to give a sense of the size. But take a look at the pics above. Note how there’s basically three different walls there. Got that? Yeah. Now, in total, this place has 20+ such walls (including the ones on the second story that are discrete from the ground floor walls. I also need to completely redo the 10′ wide front steps and railings, as well as the little side porch floor and railings. And about a third of the house has more gingerbread detailing that will take extra time.
Let’s put it this way: I’ll be very lucky if I can get it all done this year. Hell, I expect that it’ll take the better part of next year’s good weather to get it done.
And this seems to come as a surprise to many people.
But that’s not the curious thing.
To me, the curious thing is that a lot of people seem to think that working on something of this scale would be daunting. Intimidating. Scary. Whereas for me, it’s the most natural thing in the world, and not daunting or intimidating in the slightest.
Partly, I think that is just the perspective that comes with getting to my age (mid 60s): you tend to see larger arcs to life.
But it’s also because I’m a novelist. St Cybi’s Well took me the better part of a decade to write. Even discounting the long periods when I was just thinking through the novel, or was otherwise preoccupied, I still spent several years actually writing and rewriting it. I’m used to thinking in terms of taking the long view. Of working a little on a project when I can, slowly making progress, page by page, wall by wall. Here’s where I am currently:
I should get the repairs and priming done tomorrow, and the rest of the window frame painted on Monday. The storm window itself needs some repairs, then painting. Then there’s an identical one just out of the frame of the picture above.
One step at a time.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Connections, Failure, General Musings, Health, Machado-Joseph | Tags: art, arthritis, ataxia, blogging, book art, book conservation, bookbinding, bookbinding techniques, fasciculation, health, Japanese, jim downey, leather, Legacy Bookbindery, Machado-Joseph Disease, MJD, neurology, neuromuscular disease, pain, peripheral neuropathy, SCA3, spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, St. Cybi's Well, wabi-sabi, Wikipedia, Zen
“Jim Downey was a noted book artist, conservator, and author who, at the height of his skills, was betrayed by his body with the onset of Machado-Joseph Disease in his early 60s …”
That could be the opening line of my obituary some (hopefully many!) years hence. Or perhaps a change to my Wikipedia entry.
But the thing is, I don’t feel betrayed by my body. Not in the least.
Yes, I likely have MJD. And yes, it has started to cause me physical difficulties in accomplishing things, as well as additional pain, as I have been outlining here on the blog.
But we all live with limitations. Of strength. Of endurance. Of skill. Of intellect.
I can’t fly like a bird. Should I say that I am therefore ‘betrayed’ by my body? Of course not.
I can’t think as rapidly or as clearly as I could when I was, say, 40. Again, that’s not a betrayal. That’s just change that comes with being a normal human. Of living a normal life.
There’s a Japanese concept of wabi-sabi that informs a traditional aesthetic common in the culture. It has roots in Zen Buddhism, which I studied and tried to embrace as a young man. It can be a difficult concept to explain, but concerns an appreciation for that which is imperfect and/or impermanent in nature and beauty, as all life is imperfect and impermanent. A classic example of wabi-sabi is an elegant teacup which has a flaw (perhaps broken accidentally), but made more beautiful by the application of a gold filling to repair the cup and make it functional again. It is an understanding that all things can only be fully appreciated by respecting their limitations, and that experiencing the thing in the moment, as it is, with all the flaws it has.
As I noted a couple of months ago, I’ve been working to finish the leather-bound edition of St Cybi’s Well. Though this has been complicated by the onset of MJD, I’m almost finished with the edition of 14 books. As I was working to “turn in” (the process of folding the leather around the edges of the bookboard for the cover) the covering leather on one of the first of these books, I made a mistake. My hand slipped. And the tool I was using, my favorite thin bone folder, marred the cover.
Dammit.
I took a deep breath, finished what I was doing, and set the cover aside to think about it later. When these things happen, the >worst< thing you can do is panic and over-react. A lot of times if you just leave it be and revisit it later, you can usually mitigate the damage with a little careful pressure, or extra moisture, or one of several other techniques.
I turned my attention to the next cover.
And as I was finishing that one, almost the exact same thing happened. Not in the same place, but a similar, though worse, tool mark. Like this:
Gawddammit.
We all make mistakes. “It’s inherent in hand process”, as is commonly said by artisans. But making two very similar such errors?
That was likely thanks to MJD symptoms. Which I had been working through.
I quit for the day.
And as I thought about what it meant, I had to consider how I thought about myself, and my art. I am now an artist/artisan who has this additional limitation, this new part of who and what I am. Allowing that to be reflected in my art — indeed, embracing it — was the only honest thing I could do.
It was time for a little wabi-sabi.
So I did this:
A little gold leaf, to embrace the imperfection.
In fact, I added a wabi-sabi element to each of the 14 books. Because I made more mistakes as I finished the edition. Not all of them had tool marring, but many did (and, curiously, all along the top edge of the covers). I decided that for the edition to be complete, for it to reflect this particular moment in time, each needed to have a similar flaw/enhancement, though each one is unique.
Here they all are:
As a conservator, I can’t afford to celebrate my mistakes. There will of necessity come a time when I need to stop doing conservation work, out of respect for the items entrusted to my care. That time is rapidly approaching; indeed, it may already be here. I’ll know more after my neurological assessment tomorrow.
As an artist, I’d be a fool deny my mistakes. Because denying them would be to deny myself, and what has brought me to this point in time. This particular, wonderful, moment.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Book Conservation, Failure, General Musings, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Amazon, book art, book conservation, book design, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, Kickstarter, Legacy Bookbindery, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
Last week I went through the mechanics of turning words into books. Today I’d like to talk a little bit about the economics of that, as well as being an author.
When I set up the Kickstarter for St Cybi’s Well lo these many years ago, a lot of my estimates in deciding on what goals to shoot for were based on … blind faith, to be perfectly honest.
I’d published Communion of Dreams, and had some sense of the possible income that could generate, as well as the amount of work that went into writing/editing/formatting it. But I really had no idea what the costs would be for printing and hand-binding copies of that book or the yet unwritten St Cybi’s Well. I had a pretty good handle on how much time it would take me to do the hand binding, based on my book conservation work. And likewise, what the cost of materials would be, other than the printing. Now that I’ve gone through all of that with both books, I have a much better idea of how costs break down, so I thought I would share all of that.
Based on 55 copies (edition of 53, plus two author/artist proof copies), the actual out-of-pocket expense runs about $50 per copy for the two different books. That covers the cost of the oversize archival paper (so the grain/drape of the pages is correct for hand binding), the printing, and going to collect the printed pages. It also covers the cost of archival bookboard and cover cloth. (The leather copies are two or three times as much, depending on the actual leather used.) Were I to bind a single copy, it would take me about 2 hours of labor. If I bind multiple copies at a time, that drops to about 1.5 hours of labor. (Leather is about 2x the labor.)
My Kickstarter goal was $17,000. Which succeeded. After deducting the fees paid to Kickstarter, and the costs of the different “rewards/premiums” for the backers, I wound up with about $12,000. Which, truthfully, isn’t a bad advance for a relatively unknown author.
It took me seven years of writing work to finish St Cybi’s Well, rather than the one or two years I originally expected. That was both embarrassing and stressful, since I made promises to people I didn’t fulfill. But it’s over, and everyone seems happy with the end product, so let’s just talk about the amount of labor that went into it. I’d conservatively guesstimate that I have something on the order of 2,000 hours of labor in writing, rewriting, editing, and then composing (the last is mostly thanks to my Good Lady Wife) the book. That *might* be as much as twice as long as it took me to do the same with Communion of Dreams, though spread out over a longer period of time. So, do the math, and I earned about $6 per hour.
That’s just the Kickstarter, of course. Now that the book is done, I’ll continue to earn money on purchases of the downloads, printed paperbacks, and special order hand-bound copies. How much is hard to say. I have had about 40,000 downloads of Communion of Dreams, though a big chunk of those are free downloads. Still, with Amazon’s system, 2/3 of every sale goes to the author (as opposed to like 5-7% for conventional royalties with a publisher), and that adds up. To date, I’ve only had about a thousand downloads of St Cybi’s Well, and most of those have been free downloads. Which has been a little disappointing, but we’ll see how things go over time.
As for the printed paperback copies, there I earn a bit more from Amazon than I would for the downloads, but not a lot. And they don’t amount to very many sales. The signed copies I sell directly do a little better still, but again, that’s just a handful of books per year.
As for the hand–bound books, there I do make a lot more, about $150 per copy. But my conservation labor is billed at $200 per hour, so at 1.5 hours of labor, I’m making half of what I would professionally. The return on the leather bound copies is even worse.
So, why do it? Why even offer those books on the websites?
Because I enjoy it. I enjoy knowing that the books that I create will be enjoyed, perhaps cherished. Read, and passed down to children and grandchildren. Like most artists, I’m willing to trade some financial reward for that satisfaction, and I can afford to do so. Maybe it shouldn’t be the case, and it wouldn’t be the case ideally, but we do what we can under the circumstances.
Anyway, my books will be available for free download tomorrow (the First of the month, as always). Give ’em a try. If you like ’em, you’re always welcome to either purchase a download or one of the physical copies later, if you can afford to do so. But don’t feel guilty if you can’t; as noted I can afford to give them away, and take joy in knowing people read them.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Emergency, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Plague, Preparedness, Society, Survival, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: bipolar, book conservation, bookbinding, Covid 19, Covid-19, health, Legacy Bookbindery, life, mental health, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, about a year ago I made a fairly big change in my life, and posted the following to my professional website:
September 1, 2019 – Please note: due to increasing difficulties with arthritis in my hands, I am curtailing how much conservation work I am doing. Henceforth I am prioritizing established clients and works of notable historic value.
Yeah, this has been a developing problem for me the last few years, limiting just how much detailed work I could do. It’s gotten to the point where I can typically do only a few hours a week of the difficult, careful work required. Other kinds of hand work isn’t nearly as demanding, unless it involves shock to my hands, so for the most part I’ve been able to continue with the rest of my life with minimal difficulty.
So, after posting that, I started referring new queries about conservation work elsewhere, and focused on my established clients and institutional work.
Then Covid-19 showed up.
After we got a good handle on just what that meant, I stopped meeting with even established clients. Because while my health today is just about better than it ever has been, I am nonetheless at very high risk of having a very bad case of C-19, should I catch it. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t survive it. So I’ve been telling clients that things can wait until there’s a safe & effective vaccine, and I’ve gotten my dose(s) of it.
Which is fine, because there’s rarely a reason to “rush” conservation work. And besides, I had a backlog of work waiting for me in my safe, as I always have.
Well, had.
Last week one of my institutional clients popped by to collect the last couple of items I had to work on. Just a brief, masked, socially-distanced visit. Previous projects had been mailed off, or likewise returned to clients with minimal contact/interaction.
And now the cupboard is bare, so to speak. For the first time in literal decades.
I mentioned a couple of months ago that Covid had likewise changed something else for the first time in decades: my usual mild bipolar cycle. That’s still disrupted. Well, honestly, it’s almost nonexistent. I don’t really have any sense of change currently; I’m in just a new, vague limbo which is neither good nor bad. It’s an odd feeling. Like so much, these days.
Anyway, to ‘run out’ of conservation work isn’t really a problem for me. We’re fortunate enough to be financially stable at this point in our lives, and I had been accounting on much reduced income from conservation for a while.
And, in a way, it’s good. Just this last week I also got the ‘proof’ of the printed pages of St Cybi’s Well, so I can do the hand-bound editions of that book soon. Here’s the proof copy:
That’ll keep me busy for some time.
And beyond that? Well, reinvention is an American’s birthright. I have more artistic impulses to explore and revisit. I have more writing I want to do (no, I’m making no promises of anything). I have life I want to enjoy.
So, for the time being, I’m going to take reasonable precautions to make sure that I can enjoy it, and do those things. I’ll get back to meeting with clients, and doing book conservation, when it is safe (in my assessment) to do so.
Take care of yourself.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Connections, Depression, General Musings, Health, New Horizons, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Society, Survival, Writing stuff | Tags: bipolar, book conservation, Covid 19, depression, Legacy Bookbindery, life, manic, mental health, pandemic, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I’ve been pretty open about my mild bipolar condition since I started this blog a dozen years ago. It’s real, and I have to pay attention to it, but I’ve understood it and been able to manage it safely for decades. My natural bipolar cycle (from trough-to-trough or peak-to-peak) is very long, about 18 months, plus or minus a few weeks, and has been remarkably stable since I was in my 30s.
Until now.
As expected, I hit the bottom of my trough sometime last December. I tend to be stuck in that condition (or in the manic peak, which is actually more dangerous) for a month or so. Then things will slowly start to rise, I’ll feel the depression clear, and energy will return for six or seven months until I get into a truly manic state. And early this year, going into the spring, that’s what happened. And that, in large part, is why I was able to finally finish St Cybi’s Well.
Of course, at the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Now, I’ll be honest: Covid-19 has had minimal impact on my life. I’m semi-retired from book conservation due to increasing problems with osteoarthritis in my hands, so I seldom meet with clients. I’m a strong introvert, so I rarely feel the need for much human company beyond time spent with my wife, and easily resist temptations for socializing. I have plenty of things to do at home, and our financial situation is stable. The lockdown and need to be socially distant were not a hardship.
But still, Covid had an impact on me. More than I realized. Because rather than continuing my bipolar climb, I started the downturn back towards depression sometime in May without ever entering into a manic state. It took some weeks before I could be certain that this shift was real (minor fluctuations up & down is normal within the overall bipolar cycle), but it’s been long enough that I am now certain.
When you’ve lived with something like this for literally decades, it’s disorienting and a little frightening to have it suddenly change like this. I can’t predict my baseline psychological state a month from now, or six months from now, or a year from now. I don’t know if this is just a one-off truncation of my more manic period, or if the cycle is now shortened, or is gone altogether.
Kinda like what the pandemic has done to a lot of things we used to consider ‘normal’. We’re left off balance, uncertain of the future.
Now, there’s no reason to worry about me. Having lived with periodic depression for so long, I well understand how to deal with it. My coping skills are very good (writing like this is one example), and I know what to watch for, when to turn to help if I need it.
But take this as a cautionary note, and pay attention to your own mental health. This pandemic is more far-reaching than you might realize.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Faith healing, Feedback, Government, Kindle, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Wales | Tags: Amazon, coronavirus, Covid 19, Darnell Sidwell, faith healing, hope, Kindle, News, pandemic, police, politics, racism, reviews, St. Cybi's Well, survival, Wales, writing
I’m just going to post this entire review:
Filed under: Amazon, Bipolar, Book Conservation, Connections, Failure, Feedback, Flu, General Musings, Government, Health, Kindle, Pandemic, Politics, Science Fiction, Society, Weather, Writing stuff | Tags: arthritis, bipolar, book conservation, bookbinding, Covid 19, flu, government, health, influenza, Legacy Bookbindery, pandemic, politics, St. Cybi's Well, writing
I’ve been in a bit of a funk the last few weeks. Which, on the one hand, is surprising, since I’m about at the top of my natural long (18 months), mildly bipolar cycle. On the other hand …
… we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, one which has been incompetently managed at the federal level to the point where we’re likely to see hundreds of thousands of additional unnecessary deaths here before the end of the year. (Don’t bother to post a political comment disagreeing — I’ll just delete it.)
… St Cybi’s Well has failed spectacularly to find an audience as of yet, with fewer than 500 total downloads/sales. Given how long I struggled with the book, and the very positive responses to it by people who have read it, that’s very frustrating.
… I’m having increasing problems with arthritis in my hands, which greatly limits how much book conservation work I can do. Given that I love doing this work, that’s been another source of frustration.
So it’s not terribly surprising that I would have this reaction. Lots of people are struggling with the stress of this current time. I know I am extremely fortunate in most ways, so I’m not asking for sympathy or anything.
But it pays to understand what is happening to me, and why. Only by doing so can I decide on the best way to proceed. And my morning walk helped.
I now walk 3 miles a day, about 5 days a week. Two or three days a week I take a break to allow my joints to recover a bit, or to accommodate appointments, inclement weather, et cetera. This morning I was supposed to have a solid couple hour window between thunderstorms to get my walk in, but I took along an umbrella just in case.
And it was a good thing I did. About 2 miles into my walk the skies were too heavy and unburdened themselves. I decided it was something of a metaphor, and that I should do the same. Hence this blog post.
No brilliant insights from this to share. I know how to deal with the frustrations, and am well equipped to do so. More precautions, in spite of the isolation. More writing, in spite of the failure. More work, in spite of the ache. More reaching out and doing what I can for others, in spite of the funk.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Emergency, Feedback, Flu, General Musings, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Writing stuff | Tags: coronavirus, Covid 19, epidemic, fire-flu, flu, News, planning, reviews, science, Science Fiction, society, Spanish flu, St. Cybi's Well, Wikipedia
I’m not an epidemiologist. I’m not a medical professional of any sort.
And yet, I spent a lot of time studying the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, because I used that as the model for what the Fire-flu would be like in St Cybi’s Well. And it largely paid off, as I’ve noted previously, since so many people have seen the eerie similarities in how the Covid-19 pandemic has unfolded to what I depict in the novel.
That’s because a lot of these things happen consistently in all pandemics, as you can see time and again if you look at the history.
And, having studied that history, even though I’m not an epidemiologist, I feel honor-bound to say: be worried about where things are headed here in the US. Currently, the C19 virus is largely uncontrolled in most states, and I’m afraid that it is going to get MUCH worse in the coming months. Place the blame for that where you will, the fact of the matter is that each individual needs to take whatever precautions you can to limit your chances of catching this disease. Follow the advice of the real epidemiologists out there. Don’t listen to the politicians. Or the conspiracy theorists. Or your buddy from high school who barely passed biology class.
St Cybi’s Well actually contains a lot of solid practical advice for how to prepare for a pandemic, if you step back and think about it. I added all that stuff because I wanted the book to ‘feel’ real, and to show what an intelligent, well-educated person might do when faced with the prospect of a pandemic. That it now might add some insight into what you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones going forward is just serendipity.
If you think so too, maybe share the book with your friends and family. It’ll be available for free download this coming Saturday, as it is on the first of each month.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 