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lobo_luna community, I've completed a question and answer session. I thought I'd post the questions and answers here as well.
Can you tell me about your experiences working as a blind writer?
I was recently the guest speaker at a teleconference for the "Behind Our Eyes" writers group, a dozen blind writers from various states who have banded together for mutual support and to act as their own workshop group, so talking about working as a blind writer is fresh in my mind!
Okay, first let's talk about Michael's vision. I have a degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. It basically wrecks the photoreceptors (rods and cones) or the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of the retina, leading to progressive visual loss. In my case, I have reasonable correctable forward vision, but only 7 degrees of peripheral vision. It's a bit like looking through the cardboard tubes of your toilet paper. I have almost no night vision left, struggle in low contrast situations, and have days when I don't really see much of anything, as RP sometimes causes your residual vision to be erratic. I'm not totally blind, but I am legally blind, which is the case with most blind people.
From a technical perspective, I do use a variety of adaptive technologies to assist me. When working on the computer, it depends on what kind of day I'm having (my vision changes from day to day). At the bare minimum, I use a high contrast setting (either white letters on a black background, or black letters on a light blue background) and larger fonts.
Sometimes I use a screen magnification program, especially during the proof reading phase. I use a screen reading program, JAWS for Windows, to read my work back to me when I'm editing, though I still haven't loaded it up on my new laptop. You might be amazed at the things you can catch when you hear your work being read back to you. All of these programs are easy to use with a bit of practice, and make the experience of writing easier. They are good tools.
Sometimes I like to work longhand, especially if I'm stuck in my project. There a couple of things I do here. My preference is to work with my fountain pen, a Waterman Phileas with an extra-broad nib gifted to me by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
porphyrin, and a moleskine notebook. It writes in big, bold lines that I can still read off the page with my glasses. If my remaining vision is badly off on a day I want to work longhand, I use a yellow legal pad and a 20/20 pen, which is basically a heavy black magic marker that doesn't bleed through to the page underneath. I can make the handwriting pop off the the page with the high contrast of black ink on yellow paper, making it easier to transcribe later.
There will, I realize, come a day when I will no longer be able to work longhand because I won't be able to see well enough to transcribe what I'd written to the computer. I'll cross that bridge when I reach it.
From the perspective of how my blindness affects my writing: I touched a bit on that in a previous question, where I talked about writing "Out Among the Singing Void," and my desire to write a story for the point-of-view of a blind character. I would say the way blindness informs my writing is that I have a keen interest in exploring disabled character in general. William in "Out Among the Singing Void" is blind. Robert in "Rainfall" has lost both his legs below the knees. There are characters who are dying, characters who are stroke victims, and characters who have crippling phobias.
I want to go beyond the characterizations I've seen too much of in science fiction and fantasy, where either the disabled character is an Object to be Cured! By! Science! (or Magic!), or else they play The Wise Mentor ™ who was once whole and a hero in their own right, but now can no longer adventure/fight/fly/whatever. Though gruff on the outside, they have a golden heart within and will guide THE HERO on his journey. Until they get killed by the VILLIAN (in order to show just how Villainous the Villain is).
I try to write stories where disable people are just people trying to get through their lives--heroically or otherwise. I write stories where their presence in the narrative is not driven by the other characters need to "fix" them. I try to write stories where that disability is simply part of who they are, as opposed to being the focus, the identifying mark of that character. I think it's important to write disabled characters as they are, to show them living and working with, through, and around their disability. To show the reader all the joy, pathos, and the full range of emotions that makes any character (disabled or not) endearingly, heartrendingly human.
lobo_luna community, I've completed a question and answer session. I thought I'd post the questions and answers here as well.Can you tell me about your experiences working as a blind writer?
I was recently the guest speaker at a teleconference for the "Behind Our Eyes" writers group, a dozen blind writers from various states who have banded together for mutual support and to act as their own workshop group, so talking about working as a blind writer is fresh in my mind!
Okay, first let's talk about Michael's vision. I have a degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. It basically wrecks the photoreceptors (rods and cones) or the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of the retina, leading to progressive visual loss. In my case, I have reasonable correctable forward vision, but only 7 degrees of peripheral vision. It's a bit like looking through the cardboard tubes of your toilet paper. I have almost no night vision left, struggle in low contrast situations, and have days when I don't really see much of anything, as RP sometimes causes your residual vision to be erratic. I'm not totally blind, but I am legally blind, which is the case with most blind people.
From a technical perspective, I do use a variety of adaptive technologies to assist me. When working on the computer, it depends on what kind of day I'm having (my vision changes from day to day). At the bare minimum, I use a high contrast setting (either white letters on a black background, or black letters on a light blue background) and larger fonts.
Sometimes I use a screen magnification program, especially during the proof reading phase. I use a screen reading program, JAWS for Windows, to read my work back to me when I'm editing, though I still haven't loaded it up on my new laptop. You might be amazed at the things you can catch when you hear your work being read back to you. All of these programs are easy to use with a bit of practice, and make the experience of writing easier. They are good tools.
Sometimes I like to work longhand, especially if I'm stuck in my project. There a couple of things I do here. My preference is to work with my fountain pen, a Waterman Phileas with an extra-broad nib gifted to me by
porphyrin, and a moleskine notebook. It writes in big, bold lines that I can still read off the page with my glasses. If my remaining vision is badly off on a day I want to work longhand, I use a yellow legal pad and a 20/20 pen, which is basically a heavy black magic marker that doesn't bleed through to the page underneath. I can make the handwriting pop off the the page with the high contrast of black ink on yellow paper, making it easier to transcribe later. There will, I realize, come a day when I will no longer be able to work longhand because I won't be able to see well enough to transcribe what I'd written to the computer. I'll cross that bridge when I reach it.
From the perspective of how my blindness affects my writing: I touched a bit on that in a previous question, where I talked about writing "Out Among the Singing Void," and my desire to write a story for the point-of-view of a blind character. I would say the way blindness informs my writing is that I have a keen interest in exploring disabled character in general. William in "Out Among the Singing Void" is blind. Robert in "Rainfall" has lost both his legs below the knees. There are characters who are dying, characters who are stroke victims, and characters who have crippling phobias.
I want to go beyond the characterizations I've seen too much of in science fiction and fantasy, where either the disabled character is an Object to be Cured! By! Science! (or Magic!), or else they play The Wise Mentor ™ who was once whole and a hero in their own right, but now can no longer adventure/fight/fly/whatever. Though gruff on the outside, they have a golden heart within and will guide THE HERO on his journey. Until they get killed by the VILLIAN (in order to show just how Villainous the Villain is).
I try to write stories where disable people are just people trying to get through their lives--heroically or otherwise. I write stories where their presence in the narrative is not driven by the other characters need to "fix" them. I try to write stories where that disability is simply part of who they are, as opposed to being the focus, the identifying mark of that character. I think it's important to write disabled characters as they are, to show them living and working with, through, and around their disability. To show the reader all the joy, pathos, and the full range of emotions that makes any character (disabled or not) endearingly, heartrendingly human.
