A few years ago, I used to do science workshops with children of whatever age. These were generally popular and successful although also hampered by lack of resources and poor attendance. The time came when our own children reached adulthood and I stopped doing them because of that, and also because I found them very discouraging. However, there is a quandary for me in home education, thus: how do you participate in home ed without becoming some kind of teacher when your own children are not participating? There is a danger that as your children leave that age group, you will cease to empathise as well and not be able to "keep your hand in", as it were. On the other hand, one does seem to acquire useful skills and experience as one raises children which are then lost to the home ed community when one leaves it.
In order to address this, I decided to produce a collaborative book with the children involved in the late lamented Big Science project. This kind of got off the ground with the design of two dragons, but after that failed to proceed, as is often the case with my projects. I decided to turn the germ of the idea into a book called 'Here Be Dragons'. The idea behind this was to write the kind of book I enjoyed reading as a child, and from which I learnt a lot (shades of Ross Geller here: "playing AND learning", but okay, if it's just entertainment that's also fine because childhood needs to be enjoyed for its own sake too).
I spent eight months on this book. At first I expected collaboration but found that people were unwilling to do so, probably because they had lives to live, so I ended up writing it myself with input from others. I also wanted it proofread by others, so I sent them copies and it didn't happen, so it's more or less stayed as a first draft. Most importantly, I wanted it illustrated. Each of these activities was to be rewarded by a share in the profits. None of them was forthcoming. I then got concerned that I would miss the deadline and that the bad energy created by missing the deadline would affect me in other ways unless I imposed swingeing consequences for missing that deadline. Then I missed the deadline. I stuck what I had on Scribd and did something else I forget - possibly put it on Smashwords - and abandoned the whole thing. Someone also suggested that I pay the illustrators, and I would of course have been entirely willing to do so but that would only have been possible after someone had actually bought the book.
That was someone else.
This person was not the one who made the rule that the book wouldn't be published, so I'm going to cheat and pretend that rule wasn't made by me at all, but by the previous occupant of this body, as it were, even though neither of us was dualist.
Therefore, I am now revising 'Here Be Dragons' with a view to publication. The illustrations problem has been addressed by exhorting the reader to illustrate the book, I have added a glossary and a preface, today I will be adding a table of contents and I will then be providing a cover. I will then submit the book to Create Space.
Then it will be ignored. Nobody will buy it, read it or even notice it's there. I will have wasted my time and the discouragement I feel as a result of the silence will probably provoke a bout of depression. I can't really avoid this depression, just acknowledge that it's lying there in wait for me, probably some time next week.
This is the thing about us, Liz and me. We put enormous amounts of effort into what we do, and incidentally what we do includes looking for paid work with an employer, and we're not even fussy about that work - shelf-stacking or street sweeping is fine - and nothing, nothing at all ever yields financial rewards, and we don't know why. Nonetheless, I'm convinced there's something I must be doing wrong, and I can't see what it is. I also find that the suggestions people make are entirely useless and reflect projections of their own issues.
So I dunno, I wrote a book, it's rubbish, and it's going to be on Amazon. Whatever.
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