Clarification Of My Ebook, Self-Publishing Wave of the Digital Future Views

So, the digital future of ebooks.

Self-publishing.

The death of print and book stores and all.

So, where do I stand?

I've made no secret about my aversion to ebooks as a reader and buyer.  On one hand, Kindles and Nooks are a bit too expensive for a guy on a Catholic School salary anyway, and I simply have no desire to read a story on my laptop.  Hurts my eyes.  Ironically enough, if one of my favorite authors in the world came out with a story that was only ever going to be in ebook and I was desperate enough, I'd probably just print the sucker out.

Recently, a friend pointed me towards a free download of H. P. Lovecraft's work.  I responded in truthfulness, I'd rather pay for a print copy.  That's just how I am.   I hit my local used bookstore twice a week.   

I love my books.

Understand, my aversion to the digital revolution is an emotional one, not based in reality or common sense whatsoever.    I literally get depressed when I hear about book stores dying and how print's going away.  In my head, rationally, I know the importance of a writer exploring the future.  Recently, at the Horror-Drive In, Brian Keene was gracious enough to offer his insights about newbie writers getting on the digital train, and he pointed the way towards affordable, reasonable, and efficient ways to self-publish digitally.

So I get it.  Publish or perish, as they say in academic circles.  But I have such a hard time working my head around it.  To me, ebooks are not books.  They are electrons.  That's all they ever will be.

Am I being needlessly stubborn and nostalgic and backward?

You bet I am.

But I'm not against digital self-publishing.   It might be cool - if there's ever a demand - to self-publish a small digital collection of some of my shorts.  But right now, I've really got no audience, no one to sell to.   Maybe I don't understand the digital market very well, but therein lies my recent vexation with the whole thing:

Seems like there's several authors who are consistently beating the "self-publishing digitally" drum.  Over.  And over.  To the point of it being ridiculous.  And yes, we've all heard about the guy who walked away from half a mil from a traditional house to self-publish (Personally, all I can think when I think of THAT is our obsolete and leaking septic tank, crumbling foundation, fifty-years out of date wiring, and all my college loans).  And I don't disbelieve those folks.  I'm sure they CAN make money self-publishing.  I'm don't think they're lying, at all. 

But they seem to want all the rest of us to do it, too.  And if we don't, we're not being smart new writers.  That, and even though they all claim to love books just as much as the next guy, they seem to be rubbing their hands with an inordinate amount of glee over the death of book stores and traditional print in general.   "The lady doth protest too much", really.

A fact:  publishing is changing.  Can't get around that.   BUT...

A fact: no one can predict what's going to happen.  Who knows what the landscape will look like in ten years.

A fact: there are still thousands of authors apparently publishing with NY and doing just fine.  Unless they're all lying to us.  So there must still be good traditional publishers and editors out there.

A fact: I have no audience.

A fact: If I self-publish digitally tomorrow, I might make some pocket change.  But not nearly as much as our current self-publishing champions.  And not nearly enough to make abandoning traditional print worthwhile.

A FACT: I'm not against self-publishing digitally, even for myself.  I'm just tired of a select few whose circumstances are radically different from the "newbie author with no audience" telling us all we'll get rich self-publishing and make more than we'll ever make with traditional publishers and that we're stupid if we don't self publish right now.

Way I see it, unless you've established yourself, something "happens" to your career: a great blurb, an award, a Stoker (even though people like to trash it), or through years of writing and word of mouth, making any kind of money writing is fast becoming a much harder thing.  You can still do it.  But it's much harder these days.

Maybe that's a good thing.  I always thought I wanted to write for a living.  But now I'm not so sure.  I'll still want to write WELL, to write stories that stand and that people will love to read.   But hey: I know now I'll probably never be able to write fast enough and finish enough things to write for a living (Luckily, I'm a teacher, and for the most part, I still really like my job, so I don't feel the pressure TO write for a living).  And, I probably won't jump onto the digital wagon quick enough to make a good career at it.

But maybe that's best.  

Because then I'll just write things I love, and write simply because I NEED to (Which DOES NOT imply that people who right for a career or who digitally self-publish are heartless mercenaries who don't love to write.  Just so we're clear).

PS:  This week begins "Autism Awareness Month".  As you can see, our house is lit in blue as part of recognizing this.  Expect a post concerning this later in the week....

My Totally Normal, Average Little Girl

I met with Madison's teacher for our first ever parent-teacher conference yesterday.  It was a pretty relaxed affair - this IS kindergarten after all.  Not worried about standardized state tests or college applications or SATs quite yet.  

And, we knew what to expect.  Abby and I are very involved parents.  We've kept abreast of Madi's progress, we communicate with her teacher often, so we knew we'd be getting a good report.

Still.  I felt a little trepidation, because this was a huge milestone.  We don't talk much about it in the light of Zack's autism,  but Madison was diagnosed with something called "Sensory Integration Disorder" long before Zack was diagnosed with autism.

Now, I know.  All these diagnoses and disorders. These things never existed when I was a kid.  Madi is almost a carbon copy of me, and what was I called in elementary school?  Busy.  Wiggly.  Unfocused.  Inattentive.  Very, very active, with a huge imagination and a tendency to tell stories (go figure).

But, I attended school in a different era.  Education was more formal, stricter, more structured.  Though I had a very hard time fitting in, I eventually sorted things out because school forced me to sort them out.

However, sometimes when these things get passed down they get worse. Whatever it is that causes these sensory issues, Madison got a huge dose.  We noticed after Zack was born a radical change in her behavior.  We couldn't take her anywhere.  At age three, in a crowd, our normally quiet and polite little girl became an uholy terror.  

Plus, though her vocabulary seemed very advanced, we noticed her muscle tone seemed underdeveloped, as well as her fine motor skills - she couldn't dress or undress herself, when most three year olds we knew were at least experimenting, and she had trouble holding a pen.  

Very loud noises reduced her to hysterics.  We had to create a sound vacuum in her room at night with fans, air conditioners and humidifiers, and even to this day if the power goes out and those things go off, the sudden SILENCE makes her wake up, screaming bloody murder.  

She also experienced sleep difficulties - not as bad as Zack has been having - but then it seemed bad - she got up every night around midnight and got up at the crack of dawn, so eventually we bought her a weighted blanket to help her sleep.  We've also had to seek out some herbal alternatives which finally allowed Madison to sleep AT LEAST to 6 AM every day.

She also suffered high food sensitivity.  From infancy, certain food textures made her vomit.  Automatically.  We thought that would fade with age, but as her diet became more varied, it got worse.  Some foods just made her puke, either because of allergies or the texture. She couldn't eat chocolate or sugary foods. They made her puke.  Heck, touching things like play dough or shaving cream made her gag.

Also, because of this sensitivity, she wouldn't take medicine willingly - of any kind.  We couldn't even hide it in her drinks.  Imagine what a nightmare that became, when she got really sick and ran very high fevers. I'll say one word and then move on: suppositories.  

Ironically enough, if you look at the Autism Spectrum of Disorders, Madison's issues place her very near Aspberger's Syndrome.  She doesn't have that or ADHD - we're very meticulous in getting her diagnosed every year, to have it on paper she DOESN'T have either - but it'd only take a nudge.  For her to have those traits and for her brother to have autism is very thought-provoking about the nature of autism, in general.

She started getting intervention, saw an OT twice a week for almost two years.   This turned out to be a small blessing because it paved the way for Zack's more intensive intervention, made us more prepared.  

She did very well from the start.  We saw immediate improvement.   Still, her intervention carried - still carries, actually - a daily burden that we've probably gotten so used to, we forget about it.

For example, the last two years, we've used a brushing protocol on Madison.  Basically, because she struggles with a higher than normal difficulty in processing sensory stimuli - either she feels too much or not enough - she got wild.  Hyper.  Out of control.

Either the overload in sensory stimuli pushed her behavior over the egde, or lack of it caused her to act out in order to feel sensory stimuli.  So we "brush" her - on her arms, legs, and back - to not only give her a regular does of physical stimuli so she doesn't act out in search of it, but helps her learn to regulate stimuli and not get overloaded.   

But we've had to brush her every two hours.  We've done that for that last two years, no matter where we were or what we're doing: brush her arms, legs, and back every two hours.  We also do joint compressions - which involves compressing the joints at her elbows, wrists, ankles, and knees.  This also provides regular sensory input and calms her down, but like the brushing - we have to do it every two hours, sometimes ON the hour.

At this point, it's become part of our lives.  We're used to it.  Luckily, she's showing a lot more control, so we see ourselves phasing out of this soon.  Already, she goes through her entire day at Kindergarten without brushing or compressions.

And that's where our anxieties lay.  Left to herself and in controlled, quiet environments, Madison is cheerful, relaxed, polite, easy-going and easy to manage.  Wildly intelligent. What a shame it'd be for such an intelligent, cheerful little girl to struggle in school - maybe academically - because of behavior issues that had nothing to do with intelligence.

Well, this summer and fall have been banner months.  She's done SO many things she's never done before.  Like take risks on scary amusement park rides.  She attended several summer camps unattended, on her own, and she thrived.  She even played soccer this fall (it was a kiddie program, of course), something we never thought she'd be able to do.  

And, as per the meeting yesterday, she's thriving in Kindergarten - again, something we feared wouldn't happen.  In fact, even though she's busy (in the words of her teacher, "she needs to be moving even when she's moving") likes to talk and is prone to telling stories (hmmm), she's right where she needs to be, and neither her teacher nor the building OT see any sensory issues at all.

She's totally normal.   You may think, "Well, of course she is.  Why wouldn't she be?"

Us? We're sorta thinking it's a miracle.  Guess it all depends on perspective...

Sleepless Hell

This is one of those times when I don't know if we're just going through a phase all parents and kids go through, or finally entering the hell I'm so afraid of (shamefully) in raising an autistic child.

Many autistic children don't sleep well.  At all.  I remember working for the HCA (Handicapped Children's Association) and we had one autistic adolescent there who slept maybe 2-3 hours at a clip.  On our overnight weekend respites, we had to lock him into a room (kid-proofed) and stand guard at the doors while he trashed the room until he finally passed out and slept for two hours, then he'd wake up and the whole cycle would repeat, all night long.

We've been very lucky.  Zack has slept very well. 

But every now and then, he goes through these stints where he just keeps getting up, and won't fall asleep.  Thing is, we're not sure if it's the autism or other things.  For example, right now he's potty training, so a lot of time he legitimately has to go bathroom, but he can't take himself.  Last night, Abby thought maybe his pajamas were too warm, plus it was her first night working the weekend night shift at the hospital, which probably threw him off.

Still.   This is the third night in a row he's not made it through the whole night.  At least Thursday and Friday he eventually went to sleep (though he gave the babysitter a tussle Friday night, which isn't encouraging)  and didn't start waking up until 1-2 AM, so I could say "Heck with it" and get up extra early and write.

Last night, I put him to bed around 8:15.  He proceeded to get up almost every thirty-five minutes, until about 1-2 AM.

Needless to say, I did no writing this morning,  My head's pounding.  I'm dead on my feet.  Abby's still sleeping.  And after all that and maybe only 4 1/2 hours sleep, Zack promptly got up at 6:30.

Maybe Abby working threw him out of sorts.  He actually didn't fall asleep until she came home.  Maybe it was the pajamas, (which I was too flustered to think about until, again, Abby came home and mentioned it), because with lighter pajamas he fell asleep.  Either way, the world right now is this hazy not-awake-sorta-dream world, and I feel ashamed at how much it scares me that he'd continue to do this, reducing Abby and I to sleep-deprived zombies who will stumble through the day in an almost drugged, sleepless hell.

Pardon the grumpiness and whining.  I'll be honest.  I feel like crap. Maybe later will be better...

Aside: Setbacks, Relapses, and A Long Ways to Go

Just as I have to remind myself that Zack has come very far and isn't nearly as bad off as some others, I also trick myself into forgetting that he's still got a long ways to go, yet.  That, and as any parent probably experiences with their toddlers - but special needs parents certainly experience - there are relapses into undesirable behaviors that can prove frustrating, even disheartening.

Again - not whining or complaining.  Just a window into our lives...

The beginning of the school year has been a little rough for Zack.  First of all, he's got a new one-on-one teacher we're not sure of yet.  She's not bad, it doesn't seem...it's just that we get used to one teacher, learn to decipher how hard/easy she's going to rate Zack's performance every day, and then he gets a new teacher.  So we're still trying to sort her out.

Second, he's relapsed to a few of his old habits, which is common in all kids I suppose, but especially disheartening in special needs kids, because often their old habits are inappropriate and hindering in their social and intellectual development.  One habit he's resumed in particular is called "light gazing":

light gazing:  a compulsive behavior in which children constantly stare at light sources for stimulation through flickering shadows or shifting light patterns

Basically, Zack will get himself stuck in an almost mindless loop of running the same pattern through the house and staring up at the lights, "stimming" off the shadow flickers.  He won't watch where he's going, runs into things, and if we don't try and interrupt him, he continues this pattern indefinitely.  It hurts to watch, really, because it's visual confirmation of Zack's disability, which cuts himself off from others and isolates him in a looping, repetitive, mindless world.  

It also makes it hard to get anything done: dinner, dishes, vacuuming - and we're always faced with this choice: continue the chores and everything else that needs to get done, but let Zack stim himself and lock himself deeper inside himself, or take the time to drop everything by the wayside and go interact with him, try and knock him out of his loop. We'd really thought he'd moved past light gazing, so it sucks to see him doing it again.

Also, I'll admit to feeling a little depressed when I picked him up at daycare yesterday afternoon.  Zack now attends a mainstream daycare briefly in the morning before his bus picks him up and in the afternoon when the bus drops him off.  Again, here at home: his interaction with us and Madi has skyrocketed.  He's like a "normal boy".

However it's very obvious that he doesn't interact with his peers yet; hardly at all, other than a robotic 'Hi' and 'Bye', during which he doesn't even look at who he's speaking to.  Yesterday I saw packs of 3-4 year olds playing and interacting with each other, babbling to each other in mutually confusing conversation but still acting as if they belonged together.  And there sat Zack, all by himself, fiddling with his Thomas Trains as usual, as if none of the other kids in the room even existed.

We'll get past this.  We always do.  Sometimes, however, it's easy to trick yourself into forgetting how long the road ahead is...

Blog the Fourteenth: What's In a Name?

When I started this blog over the summer, "Running With Shadows" wasn't just a cool name that was supposed to reflect my "darkity-darkness".   In many ways, it IS reflective of my life perspective:  in this world, we can never really run away from our shadows, or outrun them.  Often, we're forced to run with our shadows, pacing them, never quite gaining...but never giving in to them as we continue to run our part in the Great Race.

However, this title has a literal meaning that comes back into effect today.  Last year I took to running in a big way.  During my college basketball career, running was a reluctant necessity, something a mid-sized white guy who couldn't jump had to do all summer just to compete during the year.  After basketball ended I continued to workout  - mostly weights - and play pickup basketball, but run by choice?

No way.

Last year, however, stress REALLY slammed into me at the start of the year.  Sending our two year old to an all-day, five day a week school in which he took NO nap and had to ride on a bus, sending Madison to Pre-K, dealing with the reality that my son was AUTISTIC, and on top of that: usual school business, gearing myself up every day NOT to fail in front of my students and peers.  

We couldn't afford anything and couldn't pay our bills because Abby couldn't work as much because of Zack's school hours, we struggled to stay afloat financially. That...and my grad school progress sputtered.  Stalled.  Let's be honest...it failed.  I burned out and had to drop all my classes.

Through this, I found running.  At first after school around the football field, which students must have thought quite the sight: their 36 year old, 6'4" 230 lb English teacher lumbering around after school.  As it got colder, however, I began getting to school early in the morning (hey, I was already up, right?) around 6:15, and after lifting weights in the weight room, I ran laps around the gym.

In the dark.  Cloaked by shadow.

And I fell in love with it.  

Now don't get me wrong.  At my peak, I ran 4 miles a WEEK.  But still, I kept at it.  My energy spiked to unbelievable levels.  I lost weight.  I wrote TONS. 

And I beat back the pain.  See, pain exists for many reasons: to teach, to punish, to nurture, to mature, to remind.  In my youthful arrogance, I'm going to say this also:  pain exists to be beaten.

And I mean this literally as well as figuratively.  The irony?  I have really bad feet.  My left arch is 90% collapsed.  The right arch, 75%.  They hurt, almost all the time.

And still I ran.  Through the pain.  Made it my friend, even.

Pain exists to be beaten.

Very arrogant, to be sure.  I'll grow old someday, and then the pain will beat ME.  For now, however...I get to beat on the pain, 24 laps around the gym, three times a week.  After that, everything else seems manageable. 

Time to beat some pain, today, running with the shadows.