Photo-A-Day Challenge Revisited

"For this is the artist's great responsibility, to listen, see, feel, smell, taste. To experience everything as intensely as possible, and then report our findings." --Silas House

I took time the other day to revisit my photo-a-day challenge, the project I undertook last year where I set a goal to take a photo a day. On this "revisit," I wanted to see if I could narrow a year's worth of pictures to a handful of favorites. Not an easy task, but here are the ones that made the final cut--a picture for each month with a few extras thrown in.

I remember how I started the project with a shake and a quiver, fearing I had set out on an impossible task. How could I ever expect to be able to snap a picture a day? Would it be too much to ask? What if I failed to stick with it, how would I feel?

Yet, over a year later, the results are in along with fun memories, fond images and an awareness of what an extraordinary experience it was. And I like this quote by Diane Mariechild that I ran across: "Trust that still, small voice that says, 'This might work, and I'll try it.'" 

I'm sure glad I did.

I'd love to hear from you on which of the above in the final grouping is your favorite, and why. Each one speaks a different word to me. I wonder what they might speak to you.

And, any daunting tasks you've ever set out to explore in which you questioned if you could stick it out, only to step back when it was all over to say, how in the world did I do that!?

Isn't it a wonder when we stop to listen to that still, small voice--and follow through?

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Photo-A-Day: December

"How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?" --Dr. Seuss

Not only did December seemingly get here before June this year, so did the new year the way the last twelve months flew by. Was it the same for you?

Yet as this year closes and another begins, milestones are noted and memories are catalogued. And in particular, my photo-a-day challenge comes to an end. Wow. So hard to believe it really got done. I surprised myself, really. Didn't have much confidence going in, I guess. But, the results?

366 days (Leap year, remember?) minus 4 equals 362 pictures. Well, many more than that actually since some days I took multiple pictures and chose one from the lot, but I did it. I only missed those four days total. Two because (ahem) I forgot. And two because I misplaced my camera. It had fallen out of my purse into the backseat of the car, and we couldn't locate it for awhile. Good intentions are good but life happens! Other than that, I looked forward to the moment each day that I picked up the camera. Some days I pocketed it as I went for my walk. Some days I was in the right place at the right time and had it handy. Some days--particularly on our fantastic November trip--I couldn't stop snapping photos. And then there were the late nights, just before going to bed, that I realized I had *almost* forgotten and so hit the deadline just before the night turned to the next day.

I found I loved the challenge. It was a great deal of fun. And as I snapped today's photo, the last of the last, I found myself feeling a bit  nostalgic. "You mean it's over already?"

Well, not really. I have all these things to carry with me from the experience like inspiration on:

Detail. Patterns. Texture. Contrast. Serendipity. Surprise. Ideas. Visualization. 

Light and Shadow. Wonder. Nuance. The Unexpected. Focal Point. 

Particularization. Emotion. A Character's World. Insight. Tributes. Whimsy. 

Potpourri. Travel and Story. Fairy Tales.

Along the way I learned about nurturing the creative side, waking up to beauty in the simple things, the value of trying something new, perseverance. All lessons that will carry over into a new year's writing projects, too.

I'm still contemplating what might be my challenge for the new year. It will involve writing, of course, and reading. It should incorporate stretching--as in reaching for a new level--and passion. We'll see what ideas gel in the next few days.

In the meantime, here is the final photo-a-day gallery. You'll see that there was much to celebrate this month, including the birth of our second granddaughter, born 12/12/12, and special family time. Hope you enjoy. And thanks for stopping in with wishes to each and everyone for a wonderful, creative, and happy new year!

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Aim, Shoot, Bull's-Eye: Writing Targets for The New Year

"It's the sheer act of writing, more than anything else, that makes a writer." --John Gardner

photo courtesy of photobucket.com

I know it's just semantics, but I've decided to set writing "targets" rather than resolutions for the new year. The "dart board"--what I'm aiming for--is to write every day. No matter how much,  how little--my goal is to at least hit one of four targets every day. Each is represented by the graduated concentric circles of a dart board. (I wish I could diagram this, but such design skills aren't in my repertoire yet!)

The four targets include:

1. The Bull's Eye: Write 1000 words. I hope to hit this mark more often than not in the upcoming year. But that is the real prize, and often hard to attain. So if circumstances--like life's challenges away from the computer--preclude this then I'll aim for...

2. The Inside Ring: Write two pages. Linda Sue Park, author of the 2002 Newbery Medal Winner A Single Shard, in an interview over at Cuppa Jolie, said: "My most valuable tip came from Katherine Paterson, who wrote in an essay about how she tries to finish 2 pages a day. I read that when I was starting work on my first novel, and it was a huge light-bulb moment. I thought, I can do that! I don't know if I can ever write a whole novel, but I sure as heck can write 2 pages a day. I've written every single one of my novels that way, and I'm positive I never would have written even one if I hadn't read that tip." Still and all, though, if time is at a premium on a busy day, I will at least shoot for...

3. The Middle Ring: Write for 15 minutes. Dan Goodwin, at Coach Creative, says: "Create every day and you get used to starting creative sessions quickly and easily. They become a routine, a habit, and you begin before you've had a chance to procrastinate. The less often you create, the harder it becomes to get started, and the more excuses and 'urgent' tasks that have to be done before you create begin to stack up...(so) start today, set aside 15 minutes, make an appointment with your creativity, and write it down. Do the same tomorrow." Yet, being realistic, on days I can't even do that I will at least...

4. The Outer Ring: Write ten words. This from Mary E. Pearson, on a  guest post at Dear Editor: "When I feel like I can't move forward, I will do all kinds of things to help me keep going, like...Trick myself. I sit down to write and tell myself I only have to write ten words and then I can get up and do whatever I want guilt free. TEN. That's all. But I have to do it every day." She says it's amazing how allowing yourself ten simple words more often than not jump starts the writing process and you end up writing more than you thought you would.

So there you have it, my targets for 2011. Every day, hit at least one. Now my aim might be poor at the beginning. After all, I haven't been all that consistent in the past. But with practice, who knows what  will come. I'm looking forward to finding out!

What are your writing targets for the upcoming new year?

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. --Vita Sackville-West

Detour

Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours. --Doug Larson

Confession time. I didn't make my goal. You might remember the challenging stack of books I brought home from the library recently. Well, the results are in. 11 books = 7 read, 4 renewed. But it's okay. I took a bit of a detour when I added Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer to the pile.

I have no regrets, though. Otherwise, I may not have slowed down enough to catch some really memorable writing.

For example, in Chapter Two, Words, Prose says, "All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another." Here, in Avi's Poppy, the word "syrupy" makes all the difference: "Only thin ribbons of light seeped down through the green and milky air, air syrupy with the scent of pine, huckleberry, and juniper." It wouldn't be the same if "thick" had been substituted instead.

In Chapter Three, Sentences: "Read your work aloud...Chances are the sentence you can hardly pronounce without stumbling is a sentence that needs to be reworked to make it smoother." How about this from the prologue to Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting: "The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning." The cadence of this sentence, when read aloud, is delightful.

Chapter Four, Paragraphs: "In general...the paragraph could be understood as a sort of literary respiration... Inhale at the beginning of the paragraph, exhale at the end." Breathe this, from Alan Armstrong's Raleigh's Page: "The crossing was rough. It rained and sleeted on the Channel, the wind shrieking and snarling in the rigging like spirits. The ship creaked and groaned like she was dying. The trip was all staggering up steep hills of frothing waves and falling down the other side, only to begin the same again as waves dashed and slobbered them. They made nothing forwarad; it was all side to side."

Chapter Eight, Details: "If we want to write something memorable, we might want to pay attention to how and what we remember. The details are what stick with us." See if the following, from Karen Cushman's Alchemy and Meggy Swann, sticks with you like it did me: "The smiling and nodding Master Grimm was stuffed into a doublet so tight that Meggy thought his belly might burst forth and fire buttons like cannon-shot across the room."

I'm not finished with Prose's book yet. I still have Narration, Character, Dialogue, and Gesture to study. But that works out just about right. Four additional categories. Four more books. The detour's been worth it.

What words, sentences, paragraphs, or details have jumped out at you in your reading lately?

Sharpening Pencils

A new week--a new writing month. Time to sharpen pencils and get down to work. July's goals? Tie up loose revision ends, tighten up query letter--and target initial markets that I've researched. Maybe a bit optimistic for what I might actually accomplish--after all, it is summer--but a girl can dream can't she?

Like Joyce Myers said, "A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere."

What else has been said about the pencil? Well, how about this: "The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser--in case you thought optimism was dead." --Robert Brault.

Optimism is not dead.

Other pencil-themed thoughts (thanks to BrainyQuote):

•  "When you write down your ideas, you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools."--Michael LeBoeuf
• "I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you really need is a pencil and a piece of paper." --Robert Wyatt
• Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away." --Earl Nightingale
• "The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly." --Bernard Malamud
• "I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil."--Truman Capote

And a personal favorite:

• "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led."--Stan Laurel

Happy writing this week...this month! What current goals have you sharpened your pencils for?