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Recently, a friend of mine has been toying with the idea of “finding his inner author” and posted a status on Facebook asking for some suggestions about what books/resources he should read to get started – or, as he put it, build a good foundation.
Since he posed the question, and because I’m always a sucker for an inviting status post like that, I’ve been thinking about this a bit. As a former teacher (and now curriculum developer), writing, teaching writing, and working with the writing of others is part of “what I do.” Clearly, it’s also something I do “off the clock”. In fact, I’m not sure I can compartmentalize writing anymore – it’s vital to both my professional success and mental well-being.
But, his question made me think.
What would I tell folks who are not in a place where formal instruction is desired or necessary?
[I need to admit here that one of the coolest things about teaching is taking something that you know and trying to remember what it was like to NOT know it. The act of dissecting something that's second nature is extremely interesting and I highly recommend it. Please warn friends and family prior to starting though - it can become an obsession and I'm all about the warning before the OCD kicks in!]
So here are my top 5 writing tips – in no particular order. Hopefully, these will be helpful for someone struggling to find “their inner author”.
1. Don’t THINK about writing. BE a writer.
Too much thinking can kill a good creative streak! Now, don’t get me wrong, good writers think and plan and draft and think and plan and draft … but those are actions toward a goal! Don’t get stuck on the idea of “being a writer” or think that there is a method or procedure or recipe that you can use to become one. Just write. … and write and write and write. It doesn’t even matter if what you are writing is formal or grammatically correct or even if it makes sense. It matters that you are getting your thoughts on paper. That’s the biggest hurdle most of the time!
Oh, and please fortheloveofallthatisgoodandrightwiththeworld, please don’t worry about your spelling or handwriting!!! [You know, assuming that you still write on paper with a real pen, pencil, or even a nice colorful crayon from time-to-time.]
Blank paper, like the dark, can be scary and overwhelming. Turn the light on – get something down. Draw a picture. Write a letter. Scribble. Write down everything that comes into your head. Rhyme as many words as you can. Write a shopping list. The act of writing is the first step to becoming a better writer.
While we are here at the “being a writer” discussion, I should mention that it will probably help to rid yourself of any romanticized notions you might have about writing. It’s very often hard work. Although I secretly have visions of writing from a perch overlooking a crystal clear, blue ocean in a house full of windows. Of typing away, hearing the breeze, listening to the waves and the seabirds, and seeing an occasional whale or sea lion. I do know that this daydream is more than a tad unrealistic – both from a monetary and work efficiency standpoint. While I’m sure that some writers write in these exotic/romantic settings, I’d be willing to bet that most find their get-away at Starbucks or on their very regular living room couch. So, get thee a pumped up cuppa coffee and find a comfortable spot!
2. Embrace the messiness.
Writing is a messy business. It’s all thoughts and scribbles and phrases and rabbit trails [*grin*] and run on sentences and … you get the idea. It’s OK. Relax. That’s part of the process. It can actually the best part of the process if you let it. This is the place and time when anything is possible. Anything!
Sometimes the messy is in your mind. You incubate your thoughts for a long time and then whoosh, it all spills on the page in a mostly-coherent draft. Although some writing teachers don’t formally count that as drafting, for my money that’s one solid way through the writing process. I tend to be a fan of what works over formal process definitions – especially when it comes to stretching the creative muscle.
Sometimes that mental drafting doesn’t work. When that happens, the mess may show up as hundreds of sticky notes or words flowing over pages and pages in a document or journal or blog. While this looks a bit messier, this often brings all of the possibilities together. [A very beautiful thing, I think!] At this point the ideas need a little tidying up … sort of like scrapbooking your family vacation. You make decisions about what ideas and phrases work in your current project and the rest becomes material for other/future projects.
Whatever your mess looks like, don’t be in too much of a rush to reign it in and don’t be embarrassed or shy about it. Celebrate the mess! Embrace it … let it be messy. You’ll clean it up eventually … probably more than once!
3. Read. Read. Read.
It’s almost cliche at this point and if it wasn’t so dang true, I’d skip it here. But, the role reading plays in becoming a good/better writer … well, it’s vital. Good writers have good models. Good writers read. If you are a blogger (or want to be), read blogs. If you want to write fiction, read a lot of fiction. If you want to write non-fiction, read a lot of non-fiction. Yep, it’s about that simple. Well, sort of.
Just reading good writing won’t automatically make you a better writer. You’ll need to pay attention to the devices, tone, and style used by the folks you are drawn to. What do they do to move the story along? What tone do they use? How do they handle dialog? What forms of poetry do they choose? What topics do they tend to write about? What draws you to their writing? What do you like/dislike about their approach to a topic? In short, you want to read like a writer. It takes things to a whole different level.
Then, the fun begins. You can try on their style for size. Pick an author’s style/tone and write something that mimics it. See what’s comfortable. See what’s not. This part is play, but I think it’s important play. You don’t want to mimic or become someone else long-term, you just want to wear their literary shoes for a bit.
I believe it’s also incredibly helpful to read what good writers say about writing and their process. I’ve mentioned Anne Lamott here before. Her Bird by Bird remains one of my favorites – and a perennial read for me. There are some online folks that I’ve found as well. I really like The Novel Doctor. I love how he uses language and humor … and I adore, absolutely adore, this post. It is spot on!
Literature, blogs, writing discussions … these become your resources and models. The advice and examples become part of your tool box! Invaluable.
4. Get social.
One of the things I’ve found most true about writing is this … audience is everything! Knowing your audience matters. Having an audience matters.
When you are your only audience, you write differently than when you write KNOWING that someone else will read your work. The difference is more than content. It’s more than dealing with the distinction between personal and shared content. There is something about “being published” that causes you to carefully consider your words and writing structure in a way that simply doesn’t happen when you are writing in a personal journal.
Oh, and here’s the good news. Being “published” doesn’t have to mean submitting work to a publisher and getting it printed in a known or highly distributed print/online publication. It simply means putting your work “out there” in a place where others can read and react to it. This opens up a wide range of possibilities that include personal blogs, “notes” in Facebook, and sharing with a colleague.
Time for a fair warning. Getting social on this level can be scary. The “What Ifs” can be overwhelming. What if the readers don’t like it? What if readers are highly critical of my work? What if everyone else posts something that is so much better? What if I can’t be as good as [insert writer's name here]? It can be terrifying. But, it’s a necessary part of getting better. You need feedback. You need to be pushed. You need to know, specifically and in some detail, where others are struggling with what you’ve written. That’s how you grow. It’s how you become better. It’s how you get out of your own way … out of your own head. It’s scary and frustrating and hard to hear (sometimes).
But, guess what? It’s likely that this new social group of yours will also tell you what’s good about your writing. They’ll celebrate your strengths and help you work through the challenges. They’ll give you support. They’ll become your writing family. They’ll make the hard work worthwhile because writing is meant to be read! Having readers is wonderfully energizing … having readers that make you want to be a better writer is a gift.
There are quite a few places writers/artists congregate online. Here are a few. You might want to try them on for size.
- National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) -is an annual (November) novel writing project that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world.
- National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) – National Blog Posting Month is the epicenter of daily blogging! People who want to set the habit of blogging by doing it every day for a month, including weekends, can come here for moral support, inspiration, and the camaraderie that only marathon blogging can provide.
- Art House Co-op – Art House creates massive, nationwide art projects that tie hundreds of artists together – and anyone can participate.
5. Play with words.
Sometimes work really is play and the old saying, “All work and no play…” comes directly into focus. I find writing is one of those situations. Mixing up your writing time with a combination of “real” writing and just taking time to explore or work with words is, in my opinion, vital for keeping the wheels on the road. (It’s also a fun way to get past a spell of writer’s block!) The great thing about this one is that there are ALL KINDS of ways to mix it up so, by all means, play your way!
Here are some of my favorites.
- Complete an “assignment”. I like the challenges in Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg.
- Design a Twitter-friendly/tweetable story .. 140 characters at a time.
- Find or take a picture of something and sketch out the back story.
- Create and describe a new character.
- Invent humorous/clever status entries for Facebook (or the social network of your choice).
- Find a poetry form/pattern and write a poem using it. (I especially like to write against type – like using Haiku for distinctly non-nature oriented topics.)
- Rewrite the words to a favorite song or nursery rhyme. (Really want a challenge? Work your kids/family into the new song lyrics on the fly to entertain them while making dinner. Write these down, they’ll ask you to sing them again!)
- Challenge yourself to write a paragraph about an everyday topic using using alliteration a la
I have a soft spot for black and white photographs. There’s just something about the “lack of color” that allows a good black and white to tell a story in a way that color shots just can’t mimic. So, when Beth threw down the black and white gauntlet this past week, I was pretty pumped.
This challenge is all about processing in these days of digital. The good shot is really the starting line … and it can be a long way to the finish. That said, a good shot is really where it all begins.
For this week, I decided I wanted to play a lot with the different ways to covert to black and white. I decided that I wanted to start with a picture of a building that, if photographed when built, would have been photographed in black and white. I took a short tour of a nearby town and shot this. This was my original shot.
I processed these in Photoshop Elements using standard tools … except for the last. On the final shot I used a free brush to get the marks and scratches. The first thing I did was straighten the shot using the straightening tool. Then the fun began.
desaturated color using hue/saturation tool
adjusted color using remove color tool
color removed with convert to black and white tool - scenic landscape
color removed using tonal adjustment
removed color with convert to black and white tool - newspaper
If you want, you can see an actual black and white shot of St. Mary’s Catholic Church from a local historical society. If I was going for realism, this newspaper setting seems to be the closest!
But, “real” isn’t necessarily part of the challenge so…
aged photo
To age my photo, I started with a black and white created with the convert to black and white tool set to scenic landscape. I added a border, noise, and scratches to make it appear old and well looked at. Then I adjusted the black and white tones one last time. I also find a nice handwriting font to “write” on the border … just for fun!
So, here’s what I learned/confirmed.
- The way that you convert a color digi shot to black and white matters – a lot.
- It’s helpful to know what look (purpose) you are going for before you convert.
- It’s not difficult to make a photo look old but it helps to envision in your mind what type of environment “the photo living in” so that you can scratch and mark it realistically.
Strangely enough, my favorite from this set is the one that’s technically not black and white. I really like this shot desaturated. I also really like how the aging turned out. Although, when I do it again, I’ll start with a lighter black and white shot.
In the process, I discovered about 4 more processes related to black and white processing that can make my photos look better at the end of the day. Now, I just have to practice!
Head on over to Beth’s to see how other folks stepped up to this challenge!
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
When I think of shapes, I instantly think of so many, many things. So when Beth challenged us all to capture shapes this week, I began my normal weekly process of over-thinking the whole thing!
Yes, I know, it’s a recurring theme nightmare. As usual (and blessedly, I might add), life intervened and the plan for the challenge started to take shape. [Oh, sorry, really bad pun. I actually groaned out loud as I typed it.]
So here we go. My sweet husband bought me some glass art to hang in our bathroom windows and I just love them. They make beautiful rainbows in the morning sun. [He also hung them for me on demand after changing the filter in my van so that the AC would work decently ... and when I'm certain he would have rather been doing anything else!!!] I heart him. Very much.
glass art from eisenart inovations
My second photo op came out of the blue, or rather, out of the blacklight. After a night of fun with some folks from church, our pastor pulled out a blacklight and announced that he was going to go scorpion hunting. He’d not seen any since moving here and really wanted to. Well, it just so happens that we currently have a plethora of scorpions living in our backyard. I don’t heart these. Someone has been called!
mama scorpion and her two babies under blacklight
When I first looked at his creepy critter, I thought it was dead – it looked a bit flat and skeletal to me. Upon closer examination, I noticed the tiny shapes of two baby scorpions on her back. This shot really needed a tripod and some play with lighting, but it was well after midnight and these guys are CREEPY! I was afraid (um, hoping) that she’d scurry away so I just took the shot. It’s cropped, but otherwise straight out of the camera.
Scorpion fact: The babies are more poisonous than their mama and they don’t glow yet because they lack a protein buildup in their exoskeleton. I learned something this week! I also found myself wishing that we had the kinds of critters Shell gets to photograph!!!
When Husband heard that “shapes” were the in thing this week, he suggested that I get up-close-and-personal with our very blockish pavers. So, I got the wide angle lens out and captured these. [I checked the ground for scorpions first!] I think I’ll be trying out some more shots like this. The perspective is really fun.
These were just begging for a quick shot. I snapped a very organized stack of kindling on a whim and then played with the black and white conversion setting. The landscape setting was the most realistic for sure, but I’ve been doing ancestry research and the newspaper setting gave this kindling a sort of “old treasured artifact” feel that I liked. It also really made the wood jump out!
old plant stakes waiting for winter fireplace use
I’ll end this where I started, I think. You see, my first plan of action was to make a picture using shapes … a mosaic picture of the photos I’ve taken. While I tossed the idea aside as too complicated for me to pull off, I couldn’t help doing a search for some software that might do it for me! Lo and behold … Mosaic Creator. [OK, the page this takes you to is horribly, sickeningly busy. The software is pretty cool.]
This is my first attempt using the software. If you look closely, you’ll see Little Man and BK in there … and a clock I shot for one of these challenges is in the lower right. The tree is made from a lot of beach shots. It’s like a seek and find! I’m going to play with it some more as it looks like it’ll do some pretty cool stuff.
me and a sycamore tree - first try using mosaic creator
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
I’ve had a love affair with Sedona for many years. Seriously, I think it’s been almost 15 years now. With all of that love and history, where do I begin? [Can you hear me humming?]
Here are my “5 Things” about Sedona.
1. Peace
There is something about Sedona and the Red Rock area that puts me at peace. I’m not sure what it is. I just know that when I’m there, the stupid self talk stops and the still,quiet voice inside gets heard. Also, I think I’m just generally a much nicer, happier person when I’m there. That self talk can do a real number on your disposition.
The Sedona area is said to be the location of some spiritual vortexes and there are certainly quite a few folks making money selling tours and what I’ll call “vortex paraphernalia”.
Depending on your beliefs, you can chalk it up to the vortexes supposedly there, I guess. My personal beliefs don’t necessarily run that way, but I can’t deny that there is something different about the place. I just know that when I can use a little peace in my life, I’ll find it in Sedona.
2. Diversity
Sedona is a place where everyone can find something. For such a small town, that’s pretty amazing. And the diversity is everywhere in everything!
- You can tent camp next to Oak Creek or find a posh $250+ a night bed and breakfast. [We splurged one year ... if you are going to splurge on a B&B in Sedona, I can recommend this one!]
- You can find a quick deli snack or a $50+ a plate meal.
- You can be in the desert one minute and in a riparian area – so green you can’t imagine – it in the next.
I’ve not been there yet with someone who didn’t find something to like about the place. You can go to shop, hike, visit galleries, mountain bike, ride horses, or just hang out. In the times I’ve visited, I’m not sure that we’ve ever done the same thing twice. It’s all good!
3. Umm … Red Rocks
OK, seriously. There is no place on earth like Red Rock country. I actually think it’s better than the Grand Canyon – although that might be because it’s more accessible.
The colors are just stunning everywhere you turn and the formations are just awesome. Most pictures don’t do the area justice … although on our recent trip, I certainly tried! [It's an amazing place to practice your photography habit!]
One of my favorite places to visit is the Chapel of the Holy Cross. The architecture is just amazing and the church itself is so simple. The simplicity makes it a perfect match for the amazing “cathedral” of rocks around it. I just love it!
There are hikes and tours to just about anywhere you would want to go want to go – and you can find something suitable for all ages and abilities. [I don't hike, normally. I will here. It didn't/doesn't kill me.]
At the end of the day, however you get wherever you get, a good long sit and stare is necessary and appropriate!
4. Water
When you are surrounded by desert, water is important – and interesting – and wonderful. Oak Creek is life to the areas around Sedona. The area gets about 10 inches of rain each year and depends on the run off from the Flagstaff area. But, no matter what the season, water is a main attraction.
In the summer, Slide Rock State Park is packed with folks trying to cool off in the cold waters of Oak Creek. I must tell you that it’s not my cup of tea … but clearly it works for a lot of people!
I think I prefer to experience the life of the canyons here in other ways. I love to sit and eat at The Hideaway where you can thoroughly enjoy a great pizza and cream soda (or whatever you like) on a terrace overlooking Oak Creek. And I’ve recently ventured into the canyon itself … the hikes into the Oak Creek area – West Fork Oak Creek Trail and Huckaby Trail were two that got us “waterside” and allowed us to see the area from a different perspective!
5. Tlaquepaque
OK … this may be a stretch, but I have to put Tlaquepaque (pronounced Tla-keh-pah-keh) in the mix just because it’s a fun word to say!
Seriously though, you can watch artists sculpt in clay as they prepare the models for amazing bronze sculptures. You can get a great meal. [Can I get a WOOT for beer-battered fries prepared in the local brew?] You can sit and listen to musicians play in the courtyards. It’s an amazing place … and one of the many places to see artists of all kinds in the Sedona area.
Oh, and the flowers, fountains, and sycamore trees in this place are just wonderful! And, at Christmastime? Forget it. You just want to stay!
For me Tlaquepaque represents all of the cool places to discover in the Sedona area. It’s a place where you can see/get things you just can’t anywhere else – some are pretty pricey (fantastic art usually is) and some are perfect for taking a bit of Sedona home with you.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you get a chance to visit Sedona, don’t turn it down. Whether for the day or for the week, it’s worth it. Yep, everyone goes there – it’s not off of the vacation radar. There’s a reason for that – embrace it!
Oh, and while you’re there? Don’t be afraid to “go off-road” a bit. There is a lot to see and do … and learn!
[Wow. I may have just sounded like your mother there. Sorry about that! Now, go book your ticket! What are you waiting for???]
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
The challenge over at Beth’s this week was “Independence Day” (or food) and I’m so glad that she didn’t say “the 4th”!
See, Husband and I were truly experiencing independence this Independence Day. Little Man and BK are spending a few weeks at their Gram’s house and we found ourselves on our own for the long holiday weekend! What to do?
We headed to one of my favorite places on the planet – Sedona, AZ – for a get-away and it was a wonderful weekend full of exploring Red Rock country. [Also, we got to eat many meals in restaurants without worrying about meltdowns and kids' menus.]
I must confess before we get to the pics. I don’t hike – well, not normally. But, you really can’t experience all of Sedona without going off-road at least a little. So, like all sensible people, I decided that I could do two hikes a day – one in the morning and one in the evening. [Um, suffering for art? Nah, I'll blame the heat!]
So, without further ado, we’ll start with nature’s red, white, and blue and then move on a sampling of nature in northern Arizona!
red rock state park - believe it or not this is straight from the camera
It’s monsoon time in the desert so it’s quite common to get late day rains. We thought we were going to get rained out of a sunset hike in Red Rock State Park. Instead, we got treated to a lightening show followed by this rainbow (which actually ended up being a double). Then it passed and we were able to hike away!
cathedral rock shot from red rock state park - slightly modified the shadows/highlights
Oak Creek supplies water to the area and it’s truly a life giving thing. There are quite a few riparian areas in Sedona and they are just stunning in their colors and creatures – so different from the high desert that surrounds them. Amazing!
running water in oak creek canyon - straight out of camera
I had my polarizing filter on almost the whole time we were out and about. I love the green of this funky old tree against the blue sky.
red rock state park - used a polarizing filter
This guy. Oh my word! He was just hanging out when we walked by on our sunset hike. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get my camera to focus so that I could capture him. He stayed still for something like 20 attempts – just posed. He finally moved when the guide with us moved his hand to show us the petroglyphs that were above him!
red rock state park - adjusted color slightly to bring out his green
I have no idea what these are, but they just begged for a picture. They were the only plants like this and were surrounded by a field of green!
oak creek canyon - used polarizing filter
OK … this next one is funky and I like it. We went up to the airport to watch the sunset (popular place to watch the sunset, by the way). We’d been out hiking in Fay Canyon until right up to sunset and we were tired! I wasn’t even going to take a picture because the sunset wasn’t all that pretty. But, we’d driven up there, so I took a shot just after the sun sunk behind the mountain.
I forgot that I had the polarizing filter on and this is what the sunset looked like to my camera. The shadows in the black are the layers of the mountains west of town.
sunset from the airport - polarizing filter and some shadow/highlight adjustment
Did I mention that Sedona is one of my favorite places on the planet??? Yeh, I get kind of carried away. These are seven of the almost 500 pictures I shot in four days! (More pictures will be coming in my 5 Things – Sedona post.)
I hope you enjoyed and if you get a chance to visit Sedona? Do it!
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
The You Capture challenge this week was “photographer’s choice” … wide open. Oh my word.
I spent a bunch of time thinking about this one night when I couldn’t sleep and then, through the miracle of RSS, I got inspired!
A couple of weeks ago, Stephen the Novel Doctor posted a writing contest and Robin tweeted that she’d been working on an entry. Writing contests interest me a lot so I went to check it out! The contest involved writing a scene where a wristwatch played a key role. Interesting.
I’ve been following the results of the contest and reading the entries – some of which are very good, by the way. [The aforementioned Robin was in the top 10! You should go check out the results and read the scenes!!]
Then, it hit me! Wristwatches = time. I don’t have enough of that particular commodity right now. It’s fleeting. My challenge this week should be about capturing time.
And so it was.
I started out complicated (which is insane given that whole lack-of-time thing I just mentioned). I planned a series of progressions over time. None of them came out as I had envisioned, but this one certainly shows that all daylight is not the same when it comes to photography.
All four pictures in this “progression” were taken at different times of the day, in natural light, and using the same camera settings. They are straight from the camera with regard to “touch up” … I only pieced them together.
8am ... 11am ... 2pm ...4pm
When complicated got, well, complicated, I decided to punt. I carried my camera around for a couple of days and took shots of things that I ran into as I raced around.
I just loved the sun and shadow on our fireplace one night this week. It was catching the light just right. Not a huge fan of the UGLY red pot sitting there, but meh.
6pm
When I took my eye from the viewfinder and looked up, I saw the moon against the blue sky. I’m a sucker for the moon against a blue sky! It’s kind of hard to believe that these two shots were taken at the same time of day by the same person standing in the same spot!
6pm
One morning on the way to work, I spent a few minutes watching them work the ground for a new tire shop (ironic, right?). The earth mover was right up by the road. I couldn’t resist. We’re quite smitten with really big earth-moving and construction equipment in our family!
8am
The earth mover got stuck while I was snapping shots. I couldn’t imagine that it would actually get stuck, but it appeared to be! [The guys on the job looked extremely pleased that I was capturing it on film. Oy, the looks!]
8am
The thing I like about this shot is that, after a little touch up, it looks like something I’d expect to see in a 1970s CAT catalog. It’s not what I intended … it’s a happy little accident!
And there it is. Time well spent?
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
Ahhh … summer is here and has found its way into the You Capture carnival! This week we were all challenged to capture the season of sun and fun.
Summer in our neck of the woods is hot. There are no two ways about it. It’s our least favorite season. It’s just too stinkin’ hot to do much of anything outside.
For the computer nerds in my family (uh, that would be me), it’s not really a huge deal. For the outdoor addicts in my family (yep, that would be everyone else), it’s a very long stretch.
So, all week I’ve been thinking of how to capture “hotter than sin” on film and even thinking about it made me hot. Blech.
I asked Little Man what he thought about when he thought about summer. He just giggled and then asked me when fall was going to get here. [OK, I may have taken creative license on the timing of those reactions, but...]
Like most weeks, the pictures planned in my head didn’t make it into the camera.
Some of my shots worked pretty well, I thought.
this great pitcher of sangria was just screaming summer to me
But, then, I got stuck. I carried my camera around for days … nothing!
Today, with no additional pictures to add, I figured out why! My “pictures” of summer were captured last weekend … by Husband [OK, mostly.]!!!
So, I’m cheating a little bit – wait, let’s call it a guest post. Na, it’s cheating. [I was going to make a bad joke about us living in a community property state ... thus sort of making all of these mine ... but decided against it.] But these two were having such fun and they are so cute that it’s really worth it! So, I’ll start with one I took.
bk has slurped up an insane amount of water from this pump
OK … let the fun begin! These are Husband’s!
One of the only ways to be outside in the summer here is to be in the water. And, what better way to be in the water than to slip and slide! These pictures are just, well, summer.
little man in an action shot ... he's really good at this!
when you're too small to slide ... crawl!!!
one of our favs ... both kids having fun together in their own way
This is what summer should be about, don’t you think?
By the way, Husband is a lurker so if you like these, let him know!!! Thanks!!!
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
This time of year produces a rollercoaster of emotions for me. If I didn’t know better – if I didn’t know the root cause [CRAZY work schedule] – I would probably be a great candidate for therapy. [LOL ... please know that I'm not claiming sanity here. I might be a good candidate anyway!] So, when the You Capture challenge for the week – Emotion – popped up, I was a bit, er, uh, well, emotional about the whole thing.
I really wanted to do something that asked me to challenge myself. I wanted to think in ways that would either push my photography skills – lighting and subject and composition, oh my – or my photo editing skills.
What to do? What to do?
Of course, the first thing that came to mind was that it would be fairly easy to catch emotion on film for this little challenge – the kids offer up heaps and loads of emotional outbursts daily. So, I started there.
joy, zest, enthusiasm, zeal, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
Then, I had the idea of finding inanimate (or at least non-human) subjects that would serve to represent – or perhaps be a metaphor for – different emotions. So, I started with the definition of emotion and see where that might take me. [I really love Wikipedia, by the way. I know many educators don't ... but I think it's fantastic!] Then, I looked for other lists and found this one. Yep, got pretty cerebral about all of this. But, these little rabbit trails took me all over my community! And, I’m so glad that they did!!!
I live in a place where there is a lot of new. New homes, businesses, roads … everything. But all of that new encroached on a very old farm community. Driving around, I found that there’s not a lot of emotion to be found in the new … but the old? That’s a completely different story.
Here’s some of the emotion I found today while I was out on the dusty roads [OK, literally ... you should see my van.] with my eyes open!
loneliness
ambition
lost, resignation
despair, hopelessness
defiance ... caution ... pride
I have a greater respect for what was here before all of the subdivided neighborhoods that we call home. I love our community and I love the sense of the past that I found as I was driving around. It made me love my community even more than I did before!
I’ve plunked these into this post in order from least to most favorite – picture of BK all excited about playing in the water aside! [The burrowing owls win partly because they are so dang cute and I was shocked to see them just hanging out.] In looking at the actual photographs and comparing them to last week’s shots … these are not as vivid and “alive” to me. Yet, in so many ways, they are more … ahh, hard to explain. So, we’ll just let them marinate for a tad and see!
Oh, and before I sign off … Andrea over at Prairie Lady posted her capture for this week early and it’s stunning. Seriously. If you’ve not gone to take a look yet, you should!
I'll be hoppin' along now ...
I’ve been meaning to participate in the You Capture challenges/carnival Beth’s got going over at I Should Be Folding Laundry for a while now. I mean well. I just never have managed to do it! [My self-talk is now taunting me thank-you-very-much.]
This week the challenge was “nature” and I was mulling it around and around for much of the end of last week and the weekend. I thought I’d go for something cerebral and try to capture something of human nature. Good, right? Unique and thought provoking … and lives up to the word challenge!
But, then, the aforementioned human nature reared it’s ugly head and all of the best creative intentions got sucked up in work, the book I’m enjoying, and my family. So, it was looking like another week of NGH. [For those of you playing at home, that's Not Gonna Happen.]
Enter serendipity. Saturday, Little Man decided we needed to go on an adventure to the zoo. [... and friends, I'd be lying to you if I told you that I immediately hatched a plan to save my You Capture intentions. Yeh ... didn't happen that way. Never even crossed my mind as I was trying to figure out what we needed to take for our big day out ... we don't pack light!]
We had a great time! The weather was darn near perfect and the kids were really well-behaved. [ I can't say the same for some of the other park visitors, by the way.] And … as we made our way through the zoo, several very natural things caught my eye and, of course, I snapped a few shots. [Although I still wasn't thinking about the challenge.]
So, here they are … my unplanned acceptance to a challenge.
in bloom
complicated
texture
dramatic
In the end, I’m happy with my shots here – especially the lily pad. They are better than my usual suspects – even before I edited them for the challenge. I still hope to take a crack at capturing the elements of human nature, but that’s a challenge for another time!
So, I’ve been in a creative rut for a few weeks. It happens. But today I read a blog post about why teachers should use Wordle. What?
I’d not heard of Wordle, but intrigued, I trundled over and … well, just cool. So I wordled this blog post.
Created at www.wordle.net
I must say, I just love this. So many applications … some serious, some just for fun.
Go visit! Make your own … I’d love to see what your Wordle art looks like!
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