30-Day Photography Challenge

I haven’t been cross-posting anything Facebook-related to this blog, but a recent challenge I decided to take on seems to be worth putting on here as well. (It’s deeper than normal for Facebook).

For the next 30 days I’ll be posting photos based on the prompts to the left. I’ve already done three, so I’ll upload them to get caught up. Then I’ll post something every day thereafter, and I’ll use the tag 30dpc to indicate the posts.

If nothing else, this challenge will encourage me to keep my SLR ready-to-hand. And maybe rationalize buying a nice telephoto lens. And a tripod.

500 words

I made a commitment yesterday: ≥500 words of creative writing a day. (I made other commitments, too, but I’m making this one public because I want witnesses).

It doesn’t have to be all in my novel (writing in here counts, too), but it does have to be creative. Or thoughtful. Or at least not business-oriented. I do a lot business writing every day, and the purpose of creating a creative writing goal is to expand into concepts and words that go beyond the business case or the project plan or the almost continuous emails. I hope to expand beyond my novel, actually, in order to give my mind a break when I’m stuck with a scene or with the plot. Shifting gears into a poem, a short story, an essay, or even a philosophical aphorism may allow me to continue writing without the writing feeling forced.

That may mean more writing on this blog. Which, let’s be honest (or at least, let me be honest with myself), wouldn’t have to be much to be considered more.

The deep end

This stimulating little article needs one more sentence at the end: “Of course, drowning is also a very real possibility.”

Real

Left to my own devices for even a short time the ideas stream in and the story becomes real again. So real I can sense it. So real I can feel it. So real I am part of it. So real that the words flow out like quicksilver.

London, city of my imagination

Several people I follow on Instagram are visiting London right now. Their images make me heartsick for a city I lived in just long enough to fall in love.