Filed under: Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, excerpt, Habren, jim downey, Lydney Roman temple, River Severn, Roman, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
It’s been a few months. Have another taste, from the chapter of St Cybi’s Well that I am currently writing (meaning that this is very much just a rough draft, subject to change or deletion). Links added for your amusement.
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“Here’s your fish,” said the girl as she placed the basket down in front of him. “Will ya be needin’ anything else, then?”
Darnell looked down at the golden planks of Haddock and the pile of chips. Then back to the girl. “I think that’ll do it. Thanks.”
She nodded, turned and went back through the small chippy, which was still mostly empty, it being before the usual lunchtime. Her amber hair bobbed as she walked, and that jogged a memory in him. The memory of a dream he had had the night before. He had stayed at a little inn not far from the River Severn in Gloucester, and had eaten in the small pub there. While he sipped his ale, waiting for his dinner, he had read about the history of the inn, and the legend of the river’s name. That legend had evidently fueled his dream.
It was a strange dream. A real dream, during real sleep, but with … echoes … of the ‘dream’ he had experienced earlier in the day at Stonehenge.
He was standing on a high hill, looking down at what must have been the Severn, watching the bore surge coming up the estuary. Just behind him was a great temple, classical in design and almost new, but empty save for himself and the old man. The air still held the fragrance of burnt herbs and offerings, banners and ribbons still fluttered from standards marking some kind of ritual path down the hill.
And there, on the bank of the estuary below, was a wide wooden platform, covered in a bright and colorful canopy. It had a score or more of people on it from what he could see, and they were looking down on something on a smaller, lower platform just above the level of the river. The tidal wave swept up the estuary, two meters or more high, and swept over the low platform as the people watched. As it did, there was the distant sound of horns and the deep thrumming of drums.
“That’s it. She’s gone,” said Eleazer, standing next to him, watching the scene below.
“She?”
“Habren. The river has claimed her, and henceforth will carry her name as well as her spirit.”
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Jim Downey
Filed under: Bipolar, Book Conservation, Brave New World, Connections, Depression, Discover, General Musings, Mars, Predictions, Ray Bradbury, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, tech, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Charles Lindbergh, Chris Hadfield, Globe and Mail, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, Mars, Martians, predictions, Ray Bradbury, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, technology, The Martian Chronicles, writing
The Globe and Mail has a wonderful essay by Col Chris Hadfield as an introduction to a new edition of Ray Bradbury‘s The Martian Chronicles. Here’s an excerpt:
Bradbury’s Mars offered unlimited new opportunity for exploration and discovery, and expansion of human awareness. Yet virtually every step in the Chronicles, as through much of human history, is a misstep. Mutual ignorance and distrust between normally peaceful peoples leads to violence and death. Greed causes unfathomably bad behavior; uncomfortably reminiscent of gold-hungry Conquistadors in the New World, five hundred years previous. Anger and frustration at the constraints of an intensely bureaucratic society somehow permit the craziest of personal behavior. And the ultimate threat of the destruction of it all somehow draws everyone back into the maelstrom, as if there is no escape. As if we all have a necessity to accept the consequences of everyone’s actions, and take our punishment, no matter how deadly.
Bradbury’s inclusion of the repeated patterns of human behavior, right down to inadvertent genocide caused by external pestilence and unfamiliar disease, makes The Martian Chronicles an ageless cautionary tale. It made me pause and ask myself – could it be possible that we are forever unable to go beyond who we were? Will every great opportunity of discovery be tainted, tarred and eventually destroyed by our own clumsy, brutish hand?
Are we so cursed by our own tragic humanity?
Wrestling with that very question … and depicting it … has been at the heart of my struggle to write St Cybi’s Well. And wrestling with my own demons at the same time has led me into some very dark moments, particularly over the last couple of months.
But there is hope. Here is the closing of Hadfield’s essay:
Their spaceship will be improbable, and the voyage will have been long. But as our first emissaries thump down onto Mars, stand up and look around, they will see who the Martians really are. And with that sense of belonging will come the responsibility and appreciation that has allowed us to flourish and grow on Earth for millennia, in spite of ourselves. By the time we land on Mars and first step onto the dusty, red soil, it will be alien no longer. We will know that we are home. And that may be what saves us.
As chance would have it, yesterday I started working on another conservation project which, in its own way, also affirms how exploration may save us. You’ve probably heard of the author, who had his own struggles and failings. Here’s the title page:
Maybe there’s hope for all of ‘we’, after all.
Jim Downey
Thanks to Margo Lynn for sharing the Hadfield essay.
Filed under: Book Conservation, Science Fiction, Survival, tech, Violence, Wales, Wired | Tags: A-10, Battle of Khafji, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, Desert Storm, Dinas Maelor, jim downey, Jordan Golson, Legacy Bookbindery, military fiction, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, Warthog, Wired, writing
I don’t write military fiction. Not my thing.
But for St Cybi’s Well, the main character has a relevant military background, as an A-10 (Warthog) pilot. Here’s a bit from Chapter Seven: Dinas Maelor when he and another character are reminiscing about their service in Desert Storm:
The two men sat for a moment, considering one another. After a while, Jones spoke. “I’m not surprised you don’t remember me clearly. You and I just shook hands in passing at that meeting. And while I was pretty worn out by several days of babysitting a royal in the middle of an ongoing battle, you’d just barely gotten out of your A-10 in time to clean up and make the audience. How many sorties did you fly in those three days?”
“A lot.” Darnell took another sip. “And then a lot more a month later.”
“A whole lot. And always in the thick of it. Two of your Hogs were so badly shot up they were scrapped. And that’s saying something, as tough as those things are.”
“Yeah, it’s a hell of an airframe.” Darnell smiled. “So, you checked up on me?”
“When this assignment came in, I recognized your name, so yeah, I went back through your record. Impressive.” Jones returned the smile. “Almost as impressive on paper as what I saw you do to that line of T-55s and BMPs. You crippled just the right vehicles to pin them in place so you could then coolly destroy them. Most other pilots would have tried to take out the line in the first pass, giving too much time for some to scatter. Not you. You nailed the head and tail, then came back for the rest. That was smart, and daring.”
I was reminded of that by this passage in an article on Wired:
Close air support is a vital job that, when properly executed, can mean the difference between life and death for soldiers. It’s highly dangerous, because it requires flying at altitudes low enough to discern friend from foe, leaving the plane particularly vulnerable to ground-based anti-aircraft fire.
But the Warthog was specifically designed for close air support: the cockpit sits in a 1,200 pound titanium tub, specifically designed to withstand fire from anti-aircraft shells at close range. Every system is double or triple redundant, and it can take a ridiculous amount of abuse. It can continue flying if it’s lost an entire engine, part of its tail, or even half a wing.
It’s been a very busy week for me with book conservation work. But I delivered that this afternoon, so can relax and appreciate the next couple of days for what they are. More on that later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ballistics, Book Conservation, Connections, Guns, Humor, Writing stuff | Tags: 1776, ballistics, BBTI, blogging, Boberg, book conservation, bookbinding, cats, entirely too cute, humor, Independence Day, jim downey, kitten, predictions, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
Remember this little fellow?
That was three weeks ago. Well, here he was about an hour ago, watching me from a rag bag under my workbench in the bindery:
Kinda hard to tell from those pics, but he’s grown and is starting to take on more “cat” characteristics, though he is still *very* much a kitten. And my shins have the scratches to prove it.
* * *
Been busy: Ammo test results in the Boberg XR45-S
Prep & clean-up took most of a full week. But good to get that test sequence done.
* * *
“Spirit of 1776”? It’s a little early to be invoking Independence Day stuff, isn’t it?
Yeah, I know. There’s more than a month before we get to that.
But that’s the number of this blog post, in the running tally which WordPress keeps. Who woulda thunk it?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Astronomy, Babylon 5, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, Fermi's Paradox, Gardening, Habanero, J. Michael Straczynski, Man Conquers Space, Marketing, Promotion, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Space, Survival, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Babylon 5, Bad Astronomy, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, Dukhat, feedback, free, gardening, Glen Tickle, Habaneros, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, Kurzgesagt, Laughing Squid, Mother's Day, promotion, science, Science Fiction, space, St. Cybi's Well, video, writing, www youtube
Via Laughing Squid, a nice little animated exploration of the Fermi Paradox:
(Does not contain spoilers for Communion of Dreams. 😉 )
* * *
Been a busy week. Part of it was putting in my garden:
(That’s just the tomato plants — the super-hot peppers will go in next week.)
Part of it was a MASSIVE job converting a 16 x 16 storage space into the beginnings of a workshop:
(There’s still lots to do, but man, what a change from being hip-high in grungy boxes and scattered junk!)
And part of it was we have a new addition to the family:
(He’s just 6 weeks old, entirely too cute, bold & adventurous, and tiny. For now. No name yet, though given his grey color I suggested perhaps we should go with Dukhat … )
* * *
I’m just now finishing up the first major revision to the working copy of St Cybi’s Well. I already have a couple of people lined up to take a look at it with fresh eyes, but if anyone else is interested also having a preview, leave a comment and I’ll get in touch with you.
Lastly: for Mother’s Day weekend, the Kindle edition of Her Final Year will be available for free. Check it out, download it, share it with others!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Gardening, Habanero, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, gardening, Habaneros, health, hope, humor, jim downey, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, tomatoes, writing
Because I want this:
And this:
I took advantage of the cool but beautiful Spring day and did this yesterday:
That’s about 40×40. Good deep churn to about 10″ depth. The soil conditions were just about perfect. Now it’s prepped for me to plant things in a couple more weeks (it’s still a little too early here for tomatoes and Habaneros). And surprisingly, I don’t hurt nearly as much today as I expected.
Back to work on St Cybi’s Well. All that time tilling yesterday gave me a chance to think through some things.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, Humor, Science Fiction, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: Armageddon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, Darnell Sidwell, humor, jim downey, Pillar of Eliseg, Science Fiction, serendipity, St. Cybi's Well, Tel Aviv University, Valle Crucis Abbey, Wikipedia, writing
Man, I love serendipity … all along I had planned on including the Pillar of Eliseg as one of the sites in St Cybi’s Well. It was one of the first places I saw in Wales, and I’ve always loved it and the nearby Valle Crucis Abbey. Well, they’ve recently discovered that there is an Early Bronze Age cist under the medieval ‘pillar’ — something which I also wanted to include for other reasons related to the story.
Now, the protagonist of this novel — Darnell Sidwell — lives in Tel Aviv, and we know from Communion of Dreams that he has some history doing volunteer work on archeological digs in Israel. So I checked the Wiki entry for Tel Aviv University, found a member of their archeology faculty who it would be logical for Darnell to have known and volunteered for. I just like to have those sorts of details all accurate or at least plausible. Yeah, it’s part of the reason why this book is taking me so long to write.
Anyway, I found a faculty member who fit the bill, and who is a specialist in the Early Bronze Age. Cool — everything worked out just fine. But in continuing to dig a little into that guy’s background and research, I found that he has done a lot of work at one particular site which it would be logical for Darnell to have also visited, if not actually volunteered there: Tel Megiddo, or often as just Megiddo.
But you probably know it as “Armageddon“.
Hehehehehehehe …
Jim Downey
Filed under: Google, StreetView, Wales, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, excerpt, jim downey, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, travel, Wales, writing
Excerpt, set here:
She reached a hand out to help, steadying herself with her other hand on the tiller, and Darnell stepped down onto the small deck area. There was a low rail around the deck, about knee-height, but there was nothing else between him and the low rail of the bridge trough. And on the other side of the trough rail was a drop of almost 40 meters to the valley floor.
“Very nice,” said Darnell, one hand on the roof rail, as he leaned out and looked over the edge. He turned back, extended his hand to the woman. “Thanks. Name’s Darnell.”
“I’m Sharon. And welcome to the Tedford’s Folly, if only for a short hop to the other end of the aqueduct.” She patted the tiller in her hand, then gestured off the open side of the boat. “Pretty remarkable, isn’t it? You know the history of the Pontcysyllte?”
“The basics, anyway,” said Darnell. “And yeah, it is remarkable what people can achieve when they put their minds to it. Both for good and ill.”
She smiled, and there was an intensity to her bluish-grey eyes. “I love all the canals, but especially this one. There’s always something new to be found when you cross over from one side to the other. A new perspective, depending on the time of year, the time of day, and where your head is at. But not everyone understands that.”
Jim Downey
Filed under: Music, Writing stuff | Tags: jim downey, music, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
It’s been a surprisingly long time. Sorry about that. Nothing to worry about. Mostly just life intervening; a pile-up of other projects needing my focused attention, an annoying but non-serious respiratory virus took the wind out of my sails. But there was something else, which I thought I’d share.
After finishing Chapter 12 of St Cybi’s Well, as I was looking forward to the rest of the story arc, and the outlines and notes I had made, I realized that I had reached the point where I needed to make some major revisions before I could continue. My plans for the rest of the book had become too at-odds with what the actual book was turning out to be.
For those who haven’t attempted a book-length work of fiction, this sort of thing happens. It’s not cause for panic. If you read/hear/watch author interviews, you’ll often come across the notion that stories and characters seem to ‘come to life’ for an author, who is then in the position of having to negotiate between what is happening on the page and what they intended. It’s a bit like being in a marriage (or a similar long-term relationship of any variety). If you’re smart, you learn how to sing that duet, share your voice to make something greater. You don’t entirely give up your vision of what you want to say with your story and characters, but you can’t be so insistent on that original vision that you lose the potentially interesting developments which occur naturally as part of the writing process. You’re telling a story, not writing an instruction manual. And stories don’t come from just within ourselves — they’re part of the larger human tapestry.
So, anyway. I went back, cut out about 2/3 of the original “Prelude”, made a number of other substantial edits to the chapters I’ve already written. And I’m adding in an “Interlude” between Chapters 6 and 7. There will be another “Interlude” to come between chapters later in the book, and then a “Coda” of sorts when the story is closed. Because I’ve learned to listen to the other voices on the page.
Back to it.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, Science Fiction, Writing stuff | Tags: blogging, Communion of Dreams, failure, jim downey, literature, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, The Guardian, Tim Lott, writing
Gods, this is so painfully, penetratingly accurate: You think writing’s a dream job? It’s more like a horror film.
Just one excerpt:
However, as I emphasise to the fledgling writers who come and attend my Guardian Masterclass courses, writing novels for a living is hard – unimaginably hard, for those who have not tried it. I cannot imagine that it is less complex than brain surgery, or, indeed, the proverbial rocket science. To master dialogue, description, subtext, plot, structure, character, time, point of view, beginnings, endings, theme and much besides is a Herculean labour, not made more appealing by the fact that you always – always – fail.
And as I noted the other day, the knowledge that you are failing never leaves you, and it is only then that self-confidence can get you though. Maybe.
But Chapter 12 has been finished and put to bed. Now working on revisions for the rest of the story arc before getting into the next chapter.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 