*The Long Bridge at Bjärred, Sweden on a January afternoon. One of my first images of 2017*

New year...now what?

January 17, 2017 in Books, Photography, Project, Writing

At the start of a year you're supposed to write a "this is what I will try to achieve" post (at least that's what seems to be the consensus among many bloggers), and I did one of those last year, where I stated that in 2016 I would do two things photographically that year; an Instagram 365 project (which I finished) and I would do more analog photography (which I've at least I've begun to do). So that's great for 2016...but that makes me think of goals for 2017.

Summer is for reading

June 21, 2016 in Books, Reading

For as long as I can remember I've loved books and reading. For many years as a kid I averaged about a book per week, but lately I have been sorely lacking in my reading discipline. I chalk that up to the fact that I had to switch to bifocals awhile back and before that I sort of weened myself off reading since I couldn't read the smallest printed letters with my old glasses. Now though I don't have any excuse NOT to read, so I should have a crack at my "to be read pile".

A Book Project To Be

February 21, 2016 in Books, Project, Photography

I want to make a book!

In the past I've dabbled in making print-on-demand books (I did a few for me and my beloved travel companion for holiday trips years ago and one for a finished book project that I printed and gave to two of my First Readers), but that was quite some time ago. I've thought of making another book or two through the years, but haven't really found a project that would fit in a book (or rather a project at all. I'm more of a single picture photographer). At least not until now when I'm in the middle of my 365 project. That's an obvious book in the making; there's a built in chronology, so I don't have to worry about the sequence of pictures, and all the pictures will be the same size and format, so layout-wise it is pretty easy...should I choose to do it the easy (and potentially boring) way.

Easier to do

Thanks to the fact that I'm now on a new PC using Lightroom CC rather than Lightroom 3 on my old machine, I can also do a book project right there in one of the modules, without having to go through Blurb's software BookWright, which frankly has some flaws, or Adobe InDesign, which I don't have even own.

All up to me

So....the obstacles are no longer there, which makes the creation of a book all up to me. Yay! That's also part of the problem...it's all up to me. Sadly, since I may very well be in the regional final for the procrastination championships! Anyway, I've begun to put my 365 images (by now I'm up to 51 images out of the 366 that'll make up this year's batch) into a book layout just to see if it'll be worth it or not. I've not decided on that yet, but at least there is a concrete folder and project file on the machine now that I can fiddle with as the year progresses, and maybe by the time our calendars say 2017 there could be a physical object that shows this year's effort in a nice way!

Post NaNoWriMo thoughts

December 02, 2014 in Writing, Books, Reading

It’s now December and that means this year’s edition of National Novel Writing Month is over. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing to be honest. I will not miss the feeling of “having to” write all the words just to keep up, but at the same time...when you hit your stride, your flow, it’s such a great sensation! That’s when you can easily chalk up 5,000 words in a day, while some days just typing 1,000 feels like you’re dragging an NFL linebacker up a hill!

My story this year ended up in the sci-fi field, partly inspired by the ongoing rendezvous with the comet 67P (I know it has a longer double Russian name but I can't spell, nor pronounce it). It also ended up with a lot of similarities with Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. So much so that if I ever decide to do more with it than sticking the manuscript in a box I’ll have to do LOTS of rewrites. But hey, that’s what the months after NaNoWriMo are for! Right? Right!

Instead, these few weeks before it’s time to board a plane westward towards the Lone Star State I will spend some time on reading some fiction and edit my never-ending project (from here on called The Book That Shall Be Finished...or TBTSBF...hm...not sure that acronym is all that good). Anyway, it’s something that’s been on the back burner for much too long and I need to finish it to get it over and done, so it moves from the "To be Finished" to the "Done and Ready" pile, which is embarrassingly small in comparison.

I've also promised someone very dear to me to read the first book in the Outlander series before Christmas, so that's also on my list of things to do. It's a shame that the paperback version of the book that I've got has a really, teeny, tiny typeface and my eyes aren't what they used to be! I've given serious thought to borrowing my mother's magnifying rig that she used to use when she did needlework so that I can read the text without squinting myself silly! We'll see if I actually need to do that though. I hope not, because it does look somewhat silly to use that thing to read!

I hope the book is good...that’ll make it worthwhile. I've gotten great reading suggestion from this very person before, so I am counting on it being worth the "effort".