Advancing age; books

[juliet]

I have reached a milestone: my eyes have stopped getting more short-sighted (in fact this happened a while ago; my prescription's been fairly stable for a few years now) and started getting less short-sighted. Or, in fact, more long-sighted. I am given to understand that at some point this will mean I need reading glasses whilst simultaneously not actually getting me to the point where I don't need glasses for distance vision (my sight is fairly bad so that would take quite a lot), but happily I am not there just yet.

I celebrated this by dropping a larger sum of money than I intended to on *two* pairs of glasses: one with light-reactive lenses, and one without because I'm not sure I wholly trust the light-reactive thing. But prescription sunglasses are a PITA with all the putting on/taking off, so I hope it will be worth it.

ION, I sold a story to The Future Fire! It will be out sometime next year, possibly February. And I got a good review for the novel; and although the people who published my novella decided to stop publishing things, they've handed back the rights and given me all the files so I can self-publish with absolute minimum hassle. So that could be worse.

Comments

[mrs_leroy_brown]

I've been experiencing that weird correction in short sightedness, alas my astigmatism isn't playing ball :(

cor well done on all the writing sucess! I'm still writing the short story I started in JULY. Partly because some nights I can't bear to stare at a computer after all day doing so at work, but a big part is the ol' self-censoring weevils and my tendency to delete four paragraphs for every one I keep :/

Huzzah for good review! I found my kindle (it was cleverly hiding in plain sight IN MY BOOKSHELF where I never thought to look for it) so can actually start reading it.

[mrs_leroy_brown]

Oh and I haven't bought the novella YET but when I clear more books off the Kindle I will purchase :)

[doug]

Yay writing success!

On the eyesight, I think it helps a lot to know that presbyopia (inability to focus close up caused by stiffening of the lens with age) is a different phenomenon to hypermetropia (inability to focus close up caused by the eyeball being too short), even though the upshot is the same (you can't see stuff close up, i.e. 'long-sighted'). That distinction makes it clear how it is entirely possible for your eyes to be both unable to focus close up _and_ unable to focus at a distance: if you are myopic (unable to focus at a distance caused by the eyeball being too long) and presbyopic (unable to focus close up caused by stiffening of the lens with age). So you're long- and short-sighted at the same time. Which is what I am. It sucks.

I got led up the garden path as a teenager by the loose names. I was short-sighted, and fondly imagined that as I got long-sighted in middle age, I'd have at least a period of time where my vision was fine. No such luck: the middle-aged long-sightedness isn't caused by a change in the shape of the eyeball (which I'd need to fix my short-sightedness), but by the lens stiffening up. So now I need corrective lenses to see at a distance, and different lenses to see close up. There are multiple options for this. At the moment, I'm mostly using contacts for distance vision, and adding reading glasses for reading and laptop use. (Desktop screens are just far enough away at the moment.) But when I wear my distance glasses, I can see close up reasonably well by simply taking them off. This is the one bonus of myopia when you get presbyopia - and it is only actually helpful if your myopia isn't so bad that you can't focus unaided at usual book-reading distance, and you don't have much astigmatism (inability to focus caused by the eye not being perfectly round where it needs to be). The other options are bifocal or varifocal glasses or contact lenses, but I've not gone for those yet.

So while it's good news that your short sight isn't getting any worse, don't expect it to get any better as presbyopia sets in. :(

[juliet]

See interestingly it has actually got better in one eye, as in, my prescription has fallen. Perhaps this is an effect of something else, then, rather than the presbyopia. Like all the stuff about how maybe looking at things at distance regularly is good for your eyes; but I would have thought that any change along those lines occurred when L was born, and I started spending a mere 3-4 days a week looking at screens almost all of my waking hours rather than, uh, about 7. Or it's a measurement error, I suppose, that's always possible.

I think I can't focus quite as close as I used to be able to but that distance is still closer to my nose than is useful for comfortable reading. But my myopia kicks in before I get to comfortable reading distance; I can't really read without glasses on (I do occasionally in bed with the Kindle really close and/or with the print size bigger.)

The biggest change I've noticed is that over the last couple of years I notice a lag between focussing on, say, my knitting, and then looking up and focussing on the TV.

I do not think I would like bi/varifocals; more likely to go for two pairs of glasses in due course, annoying though that is. Or switch back to contacts, I suppose.

[juliet]

hope you enjoy it!

Good luck with the short story. I am a big fan of the 'just bang it out' first draft but that is not a process that works for everyone, of course. (There being no process that works for everyone, contrary to all the "do X! do Y! it is the one true way!" folks.)

Screw astigmatism. I have that too so IDK where it will all end up. One of these days I might try the laser thingy but apparently it affects your night vision, and I like that my night vision is really good :/

[mrs_leroy_brown]

I know there isn't ONE SEKRIT TRICK but I do think it's sensible to bash it out and deal with the crap on the edit. The super annoying thing is I can do this for any other kind of writing. I spend most of my time writing FT posts thinking THIS IS INELEGANT, but I carry on and just edit the crapola out of it. It also helps that I have a beta reader for them! I also do this for poetry. But I am just paralysed by fiction, probably because I'm so desperate to write it again:/

I think I am going to book a writing holiday (maybe by myself?) as a way to try and force a tonne of pages out! :)