I’m not going to have a long, interesting blog today because in preparation for my writing retreat next week I’m actually working on my newsletter today. Early. What’s up with that? LoL

As promised I will be revealing the news about one of my super sekkrit projekts in this one. If you don’t subscribe don’t worry, I’ll tell you too…you just need to wait a couple days LOL

Because I wanted to offer something other than ‘Shh I’m trying to think here’* I’ve included a picture from this weekend. Danica was dressed a -little- bit country with a plaid button-up shirt and a huge cowboy hat, so I filtered it in post to emphasize her freckles and really make her look country.

*If you caught the Jaina Proudmore reference you rock. Just sayin’.

This is Jo’s bike. We store it in the same place as the lawnmower and when I moved it out of the way to get the mower the other day it got me thinking. Jo’s bike says a lot about him. A LOT. I don’t want to turn this blog into my ‘I talk all about Jo because he doesn’t even like privacy or anything’ place, but it did occur to me that my characters belongings (or one or two primary ones at least) are likely to say as much about them as this bike does about Jo. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard said (or implied) before and always just sort of nodded and smiled, but Jo’s bike really solidified it in my brain and made it real. I think I get it now. I’m looking forward to seeing how that understanding will play into the new first draft of Shadows I’ll be starting soon

What are you doing for summer this year?

I’m planning a couple day trips, largely influenced by where I want to go take pictures LOL We’ll be doing that as a family (Calgary Zoo, Drumheller, etc.). In addition to that though, my daughter is taking her first solo flight and going to visit her grandparents for a couple weeks. She will have a wonderful time; they live near the beach, which she loves, and will take great care of her. Jo and I have been trying to decide what we will be doing while she’s away. So far I’m coming up with nothing.

We have pets that would make it complicated to do something that involved leaving the house overnight or what not, but as much as we love Danica and will miss her, we’d like to do something special when she’s gone. No idea what that might be though.

One thing I plan to do a lot of is reading. Do you use a summer reading list? I never have, but I’m thinking about changing that this year…or maybe doing a book bingo thing. Our local library had it last year, if they aren’t continuing it this year I can make up my own card LOL Basically you got a bingo card with squares on it like ‘Read a book by a Canadian author’, ‘Read a book with a color in the title’ or ‘Read an autobiography’. That sort of thing. It could be fun.

So, summer reading. Do you do it? Wanna play bingo? I’m seriously thinking about it…in addition to trying to figure out what to do with two weeks while Danica is away.

I took this in April 2010 and then played with it in PhotoMatix. It’s probably a pretty good example of why some people think HDR is the devil, but I like it despite that

It’s a weekend and I’m posting. Odd, eh? I know.

It’s about pictures. I am sort of looking for a new place to share them. I post some here, of course, but I also like to be able to share with my Twitter/Facebook/un-bloggy friends. I used to use Facebook for that but their privacy options, or lack of them, make me less inclined to do that than I once was. Does anyone have any great ideas? Is Flickr still sort of the standard place?

In the meantime, I posted a couple via TwitPic today, allow me to share them here for you.

I took this shot of the white lilac in my front yard on Friday morning.

Two more pics under the cut–

(more…)

I took this one in the late winter/early spring of this year. Jo and I are working on a project together and this is going to be one of the images for it. I love how the frost has just formed into this long spikey things that look quite scary but are really incredibly fragile.

p.s. Feeling much better today than I was yesterday Thank you to everyone who commented or dropped me a line to empathize

So far today has been a tough day energy-wise.

Firstly, it’s overcast and rather blah out there. My mood is strongly connected to the weather, more so in recent years than in the past. It’s really making me dreary and ass-draggy. For obvious reasons, that’s not my favorite.

It’s also my volunteer day in a grade two classroom. Usually I find that time energizing, positive and fun, but sometimes when you see the issues, huge issues, that these kids are having to deal with it’s depressing. They are seven years old for goodness sake, they shouldn’t need to worry about these sorts of things. I, obviously, can’t go into details, but I’m sure you can all use your imaginations. Teachers — I commend you. Truly. For some kids school is the only safe or stable place they have. It’s -so- important!

Sadly, many of the kids who struggle the most with reading are the ones who would benefit most from being able to do it — to use it as a sort of escape. That really shows me that the little bit of time I spend every week with them is important, seeing them progress is usually very rewarding… Today was hard though.

Plus, some people (of the grown-up variety) I care about are going through some tough times and having to make difficult decisions today. I’m keeping them in my thoughts too. They’ve got it harder than I, no question at all, but they are borrowing a little bit of my energy too (even if they don’t know it).

It might sound as though I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I’m not. I’m just pretty low energy/motivation. As much as I adore zombies on somedays I feel like I belong more amung their number than that of the living. Today is one of those days.

Speaking of zombies, I’m not all gloom and doom today despite how it may seem. One of my zombie poems, White Noise, was published at Everyday Weirdness today. Yay! I love this poem, it’s one of my favorites in my slowly-increasing zombie collection. I hope you’ll read it and like it too.

This isn’t a new picture, but it’s newly filtered to give it new life I took this at Alcatraz when we went last year and it suffered a bit from camera wobble, but I used a Camerabag filter (I use the app on my ipod) on it and now I love, love, love it. I think it’s Cell Block A, but I could be wrong — it’s been a little while and my memory can be fail sometimes.

Spiffy, no?

I had a blog post almost completely written, then I stopped to think and realised despite my best intentions I was coming across as petty and bitter. I don’t want to be *that* writer so I stopped. It’s made me think a bit about writer brand/personality, oddly enough. I’m not sure what mine is. I’ll never be as nice as Carrie Jones, as funny as Jim Hines, or have Neil Gaiman’s hair. I’m just me, I guess. Usually nice, often snarky, hopefully occasionally amusing…me.

Who are your favorite authors? Do their personalities have anything to do with how much you like them or is it all about words on the page?

I know I’ve been known to read books I really didn’t enjoy because I liked their author as a person, and one writer I saw at a convention was so dry and arrogant I swore I’d never read anything they’d written, so I’m definitely influenced by people’s personalities. Strongly, in fact. I’d be willing to bet I’m in the majority there.

The internet has been a blessing to writers who are charismatic and no doubt a curse to those who aren’t. My intention for this blog is to just be myself, but maybe on the days my entries start to sound like they were written by *that* writer I’ll just take a step away from the keyboard before I hit the publish button.

…mostly.