129 - March 15, 2020 - Blind Reset, The Devil, Oxsigh Prism glasses, Terry Pratchett, 1177bc, The Art of Possibility

Welcome to Jon's author diary for the week ending March 15, 2020. I finally finished the second draft of Blind Reset…finally. That took so much more effort than it needed. I ended up adding about 20,000 words to the manuscript. But it’s done and ready for…draft number three! Fans of The Ravenglass Chronicles will be no doubt glad to hear that I’ve switched b to working on my draft of episode 15, The Devil. I’ve cleaned up the scenes I’ve already drafted and gone over my outline to make sure this is another fun episode. I cannot wait to start writing The Tower, which is episode 16, as…well, let’s just say some faeces hits the proverbial fan.   Oxsight Prism update Last week, I mentioned that I was going to try out some specialised glasses made for people with my eye condition called Oxsight Prism. They were much better than I thought they would be. They work by using a camera to project a streamed high definition image onto the lens. You can adjust the zoom, the contrast, the brightness, etc. And it didn’t take 15 minutes to adjust to changes in light like my eyes usually do. When I spoke to the rep prior to trying the glasses, I could see most of her face, and little else due to my lack of peripheral vision. With the glasses on, I could see her face, the wall behind her, the sofa, the table between us, her bag in the corner…it was crazy. I played around with them for about an hour. You can adjust the colours, make it monochrome, highlight the edges of objects, and there was even one option specifically used when looking for signs, which pixelates everything but signs so you can find them easier. So, I’m definitely going to get some. The trouble is, they’re £4,000 (about $5,000), so I need to work out some options for raising the funds. A few people have suggested using Facebook or GoFundMe to raise the cash, but I’m not particularly comfortable asking people to hand over their hard-earned money. I might run a few sales on my books and get some author friends to share them with their readers. If you have any ideas for raising the funds that don’t require me to ask for donations or do anything illegal, hit reply and let me know. Take care, Jon