The Journal of Michael Merriam

June 18–24: 4th Street Fantasy Convention
June 28: Attended An Inconvenient Squirrel
July 2–5: CONvergence
July 17–21: Family Visit
July 21: Attended RockStar Storytellers
July 30: MN Art Council Artist Initiative Grant Deadline
July 30–August 9: Fringe Festival (We are hitting several shows this year)
July 31–August 2: Diversicon
August 14–16: Cabin Trip for a Friend's Birthday

Add in lots of one-night fun stuff with friends, a regular gaming group, MinnSpec, going to Renfest, rehearsing for a bit of performance storytelling, and... well, the days are just packed.

Oh, and writing fiction. Let's not forget that.

I'm not complaining, mind, because it's all fun stuff. I'm just letting you know why the blog has been quieter than usual lately, and might be for a bit yet (though I really do have things I want to blog about).

Somewhere in there I need to have cataract surgery.

Oh, and I have a new default icon. This is from the KFAI radio show I was on a few weeks back. That's my talented friend Jaye Lawrence (aka wordswoman) sitting next to me.

Off to bake bread.

After dropping The Reverend Selena at her new boarding place, we made it to the convention on Thursday, around 3:30pm. The positive was that we did get an ADA room in the short (north) tower, which made getting around easier for the blind man on a lot of programming items. The negative was that, even by then, all of the refrigerators had been checked out (which was annoying, considering that someone at the hotel told me over the phone there were fridges in each room). greykev drove back to his place to retrieve his fridge, but that cost us a good parking space. I was surprised at how packed the hotel was so early in the convention.

I attended the Poor Unpublished Author to Poor Published Author, panel with the two Guests of Honor, Pat Rothfuss and Kelly McCullough. It was a good panel, and both of the GoH were engaging, though I was unsure if I agreed with some of the things Pat Rothfuss said. I got a nice shout-out from Kelly and chatted with dmbaird

( Cut Because This Is a Long Report! )

And tomorrow will be a better day.

It was rough sledding at Merriam Manor today.

careswen had a terrible migraine last night after class, so she stumbled in and simply tossed her contacts, knowing we had just received a new shipment of contact lens a few days ago. Except I had ordered the wrong prescription, getting "+" contacts instead of "–" contacts. Her glasses are way out-of-date, and she has a final exam tonight. Fortunately, we were able to get her a sample pair of contacts in her strength and brand. New contacts are on order, as are new glasses.

Speaking of careswen having a final tonight, we are not at 4th Street Fantasy Convention. Yet. We had planned to go to the work party and play reading tonight, but that was before we knew when her final was scheduled. We will probably arrive tomorrow sometime around opening ceremonies.

If you are at the convention, please come up and say hello. I'm the six foot, two inch, 270 pound blind guy with a 58 inch white cane. I may or may not be wearing a patch over my right eye, which is having issues at the moment. I'll be with the cute graduate student.

In other news, Reverend Selena is clingy and full of hairballs. Yeah.

I have been invited to be the guest speaker at a teleconference for a group of blind fiction writers and poets. One of the members read the piece I have up at Breath and Shadow and sent me an email, asking if I'd like to take part in a discussion session with their moderator, followed by Q&A with their members. The moderator said it follows a format similar to the one on Inside the Actors Studio. Of course I agreed! I am both honored and boggled.

I've settled on the conventions I'll be attending this year. I'll at Con of the North (gaming con), Minicon, 4th Street Fantasy Convention, CONvergence, and Diversicon.

Since all these conventions are local, careswen and I will only be staying at the hotel for Con of the North (because we need someplace to change into costumes for the nightly LARPs) and CONvergence, (because I always end up on too many programming items and because the con is super-frantic, making it important to have someplace quiet to retreat to). We'll be driving back and forth to Minicon and 4th Street (both of which are close to our home) and I suspect I'll only be at Diversicon on Saturday.

Finally, I'm thinking of taking an internet sabbatical in February. I would only be checking email twice a day, and staying off the internet and all the networking sights I frequent for one month. Unless, you know, I sold a book and needed to make an announcement.

I take sabbaticals from the news from time-to-time where I won't watch news, listen to news, or read news, because honestly, it depresses me. I've feeling that way about the internet in general and blogs in particular for the last couple of months. There just seems to be an awful lot of doom and gloom and bitching and fighting and anger out there right now, and while I know it's always been there (because I've been on the net for a long damned time) I find myself just--out of energy for trolling, internet slapfights, flame-wars, and even heated-if-polite discussions. This has begun to affect both my mood and my writing negatively, and it needs to stop. I'm thinking I need to step away for a while, hit the reset button, and get myself pointed back in the right direction again.

So...

I've known for several months that I've developed an allergy to shrimp.
( Cut for Health TMI )

Who here is surprised?  Next week I see the retina specialist to find out how much and how badly I've degraded.  We are talking about me having the cataract surgery on my right eye, but there's also a little bit of: what's the point?

As flippant as my subject line is, I have to remember that not everyone in my position has reached the point I am at, this place of both acceptance and the ability to see the humor in the situation.   

While we are in the office waiting to be seen, there was a couple across and a few chairs over from us.  When we arrived they were talking quietly to each other, smiling, at ease.  Later, when they came out (probably to wait for the dilation drops to work) before I went back, you could tell the news wasn't good.  She was quiet, fidgeting with her hands, giving little sighs.  The expression on her face kept cycling from sadness to upset to angry to resigned to something unreadable and back again.  She would tense up, and then suddenly deflate. At times he would lean over and say something.  A couple of times she just shook her head, another time I thought she was going to burst into tears.  The optician came out with a bag and talked to the woman quietly, explaining about the various eye drops.  Later, when they left the office, she seemed in better spirits, but I'm well acquainted with being "fine" or even "upbeat" in the face of disaster.   

And all I can really do is hope that--whatever the news was--she has people around her to help and support her.

Hi Michael,

I'm Z, 18, from Washington.  I share your eye disease.  I was diagnosed at 14 and would like to know what to expect in the future with my eyes.  Blessing.

Thank you,

Z

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Hi Z,

For so few words, that is one big question, and a tough one to answer.  The problem is, retinitis pigmentosa takes on so many forms and reacts differently in each individual.  I've know of people who lost their vision very quickly, and I've known people like me, who had a slow decline.   

I'm guessing you've already read up on the disease, looking at places like wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinitis_pigmentosa) or the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind (http://www.dsb.wa.gov/), so all I can really do is speak from my own experience.

For me it was a gradual decline, a thing so slow I almost didn't realize how bad my vision had become.  Almost.  I was diagnosed at 15 years old, and was almost 40 before enough of my vision was lost to make me legally blind.  I started by losing my night vision first, then came a slow decline in my forward daytime vision and peripheral.  I've reached the point now where it's like looking through a tube at the world, and I can't really see much of anything at night.  The thing is, I lived a normal life for years before I had to start making adjustments (which we will talk about in a bit).

I think the important thing is to acknowledge that it will change your life, but to not let it stop you from living.  As your vision degrades and fades, things will get harder, there will be things you have to stop doing for safety's sake (like driving, which was the hardest transition for me to make). 

Another important thing is: Don't lie to yourself.  Once you start losing vision, once it become noticeable, deal with it head-on. Get help, get training.  Learn to use all the adaptive technology out there, like JAWS for Windows, high powered magnifiers, voice software, talking clocks, microwaves, and stoves.  Learn to use the white cane or a guide dog and to read Braille when the time comes.

Don't be afraid to be a part of the world around you.  Too many people, faced with the difficulties of dealing with a disability, stop interacting with the world, shut their doors, withdraw from life.  Don't do this.  Ask for help.  Be engaged with the world around you.  There are people who are willing to help, and in fact are paid to help.  Let them.  

Never let anyone tell you that you can't be something.  Okay, you might not be able to do some jobs, like drive a truck or operate heavy machines or fly fighter jets, but there is plenty of opportunity for folks who are blind or who have low-vision, especially in the arts and technology fields.

As you lose vision, you'll have to learn to adjust.  You'll learn to memorize the placement of furniture (and I promise, you'll trip over it from time to time when people move it).  You'll learn to move a little slower and to be aware of your surroundings.  You'll learn to move through space you cannot see, or at least cannot see well, by trusting your ears and your nose and the air currents on your skin.  You'll learn to count steps on the stairs and count steps to places around the house.  Routine will be your friend, but don't let it chain you down either.

It's a big, scary thing, but you can't let it destroy you.  You can't let it leave you angry and broken and bitter at the world, because that is no way to live.  Find something you love and do it.  Surround yourself with people who care about you.  Let them help, but learn when to tell them to give you space.

The best thing you can do--the very best thing--is to make a good life for yourself, whatever that means to you.

I don't know how much this helped, but if you want to talk again, please feel free to email me in the future. 

Best Wishes,
Michael Merriam

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The best thing you can do--the very best thing--is to make a good life for yourself, whatever that means to you.

That goes for all of you.

In Peace,
Michael

I sent out my 300^th submission yesterday.  It seems like so -- few -- for five years of working at this writing thing.   Still no SFWA/HWA pro sale either.   I guess there's nothing to do but forge ahead.  I'm at one of those nadirs writers sometimes hit.  Hopefully I'll pull out of it soon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I haven't been working on Rija's Tale this week, instead I've turned my focus back on Dark Water Blues for awhile.  I gave it a continuity read this week, tweaked a few things.  I'm setting it aside again, and then I'll jump into tearing it apart and putting it back together in December.   I think it's nearly good enough to sell right now, but I can see where it still needs work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A friend of mine, not_han_solo , passed away recently.  I realized I've been out of sorts since them.  We had drifted away in recent years, but were the same age, had a lot of the same interests.  He started my interest in fire-dancing, and made our fire-chains, we gamed together.  I'm having trouble believing he's really gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This came in my inbox today (which is why this post is f-locked):

Hi Michael,

I'm Z, 18, from Washington.  I share your eye disease.  I was diagnosed at 14 and would like to know what to expect in the future with my eyes.  Blessing.

Thank you,

Z

Oh man, for few words, that is one big question.  Wish me luck as I try to answer.

Peace,
Michael

I think I'll hit the end of the first draft sometime late tomorrow or early on Wednesday, though I think I'm going to run a little over the 20K mark. Of course, by the time I rewrite and reach the final draft, who knows how big it will really be. Well, at least 20K, because that's what was called for.

Kudos to the wifey, careswen, who was understanding about my complete meltdown earlier today. I really wanted to have this first draft finished by tonight, but a million little things that needed my attention keep cropping up during the day, and the writing never got on track. She let me work this evening after dinner so the day wasn't a total wash for writing.

The fact that I was having a terrible vision day and kept bumbling into walls and doors and cat tails didn't help my mood, and when I dropped our best cold pack from the freezer to the floor and it hit with a splat and burst, sending white gel goo everywhere, frankly that almost ruined my whole day. Of course I was stupid and bent down to pick it up and then...

Well, if you guessed I hit the back of my head on the slowly closing freezer door, you would be correct.

Yeah, one of those days.

Tomorrow I plan to take the laptop to a coffeeshop, someplace away from all the distractions of the house, and write until I either finish the first draft or explode from espresso overload.

Untitled Weird West Steampunk Novella

The weekend was packed with stuff.

Saturday was all about the gaming, with some writing and housework thrown in. The gaming session went well, I thought, though another character bit the dust, again through nothing I did as a GM, but instead caught in "Friendly Fire" during a particularly nasty battle. That's the second character causality, and we're just now getting to the hard stuff.

On the negative side, I broke a glass at the host's home, and kept walking into people, things, walls, and otherwise stumbling over stuff like some gigantic club-footed blind cow. I know the why of it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

The Twin Cities Speculative Fiction Network meeting was good as well. We talked about world building, and as you might guess with a room of over a dozen Spec Fic writers, things got a little weird. I won't talk too much about what we came up with, because I think some members of the group might want to try writing stories in the world we created as a group. More power to them.

My main contribution was, I think, the Giant Space Kraken lurking hidden somewhere in the dark matter of space, coming out in answer to the prayers of the aquatic life on the planet we created and destroying the human spaceships in orbit. Because really, I think most spacefaring science fiction and space opera stories could be improved with a god-like Giant Space Kraken lurking in the dark matter, waiting to pounce on hapless and unsuspecting starships.

Next month we are hosting Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm looking forward to the Q&A.

Sunday night I helped careswen a little bit with her paper for class by going through her textbooks and flagging pages she might need for citations.

I wrote a little bit this weekend, mostly while waiting for buses, though if I am to be completely honest, I wrote a little during the TCSFWN meeting as well.

I talked to my mother, who is much improved from her surgery.

I'm not going to Wiscon this year, not because I didn't enjoy it last year (I did!) but for purely financial reasons. I've picked up 4th Street Fantasy Convention instead, which is local and promises to be filled with coolness.

I applied for a full-time position with a major shipping company, because the pay and benefits were simply too good to ignore. It is unlikely I will even make the cut for an interview, but I have to try. And yes, I realize that I had trouble writing when I was working part-time and given that, working full-time might well stop me cold as a writer, but the siren song of the pay and benefits could not be ignored.

I also applied for a couple of part-time positions, and started writing a short (200-250 word) article on spec for a local news and media outlet that is considering posting short pieces of local Twin City interest on their website.

I feel pensive, sad, and worn. I wonder if I am not the most terribly tedious correspondent in the entire blogosphere. I suspect that I might be whining at this point. I suspect I need a decent nights sleep.

Dark Water Blues


ETA:I bought a French Press. It makes little individual cups of coffee heaven!