Tag: writing

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Writing: Correspondence adds up

top view of a matcha latte featuring a foam heart
Mmmm, almond milk matcha latte: I love you back.

I’ve tried to have a restful and unproductive weekend, but got antsy, put away laundry (my least favorite chore), and through my restlessness made my home slightly less chaotic.

I mailed holiday cards out to my short list of active European correspondents, skimmed through my mail to find some unanswered letters, and wrote long, handwritten replies with fancy pens on obscure papers. Of the 43 cards and letters received from my pen friends so far this year, I’ve only got one left to respond to. I wrote ~67 letters this year (!!!!), and will likely write more during Xmas break. I’ve made 172 posts on this blog (this will be 173), and 185 photo posts (only some of which have wordy narratives) at my photo blog. I also filled several notebooks with personal nonsense that I needed to clear from my mind…

So perhaps I can go easy on myself for not completing the editing of my first NaNoWriMo novella, which I left somewhere in its third draft? Or at least easier on myself? Let’s pretend the answer is yes.

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Writing: My Largest Fountain Pen and a Shimmering Ink

Noodler's Neponset fountain pen in blue and white pearl, with a Goulet stub nib. Writing sample in shimmering red and blue Diamine Polar Glow ink. Text about exploring my neighborhood after a long absence.
Noodler’s Neponset fountain pen in blue and white pearl (which may have been named Ghostly Lapis?), with a Goulet stub nib. Writing sample in shimmering red and blue Diamine Polar Glow ink. Text about exploring my neighborhood after a long absence.

I’ve written about how much I love stub nibs, and the nib on this enormous Noodler’s Neponset pen is no exception. This is the first nib replacement that has required multiple adjustments. When it is aligned correctly it works well and wetly, as you can see, but sometimes I somehow lose contact between the feed and the nib – it just isn’t seated properly in the pen – and it just won’t write! I never had this problem with this pen before, so it is clearly my doing, and all about how I insert the nib and feed after cleaning it.

(There was a similar acrylic Neponset with peach and pearl coloring, and I resisted it for too long – it sold out. If I knew how comfortable the pen is to hold, I might not have resisted! I understand the limited editions that pens are released in better now…)

The gorgeous blue ink with a red sheen is Diamine’s Polar Glow. I love it beyond reason, and it flows well, but is demanding. The red sheeing particles never seem to settle in the bottle, but definitely settle in the pen, which is entirely fair for such a lovely special effect. (But it interrupts the flow of my thoughts when I am eager to write!)

Content-wise, the sample writing notes that I’m settling back into my neighborhood. I am happy to be back, even though it is not as new or fashionable as the area I moved to during construction. My normal neighborhood was built in the 1920s, whereas my apartment was from 2008-ish, so everything feels and looks 90 years newer – because it is! There are no power lines visible in that newer neighborhood, the sidewalks are smooth and even, the trees are well maintained, the paint on all of the buildings is in great shape… It makes me want my own neighborhood to be better maintained, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I hope the images of the ink tempt you to consider special effects in your writing, and wider nibs to show the inks off!

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Hello (again) world (2023!?!)

Evening sky over San Francisco Bay by A.E. Graves, copyright 2023

For someone with a very steady and predictable blogging habit, it’s exotic for me to START posting for the year in December. But… it has been quite a year.

In brief: a death in my immediate family, an enterprise-wide technology project, an underperforming vendor whose work I took on, an incompletely staffed team, a previously unenforced building code, a potentially broken bone, an immediate family hospitalization, a death in my partner’s family, countless COVID tests, and other events inflated 2023 beyond a year’s natural dimensions. It has been… an experience which would make for low-quality television, though there have been numerous comedic side quests which could be garishly animated to break the tension.

I still have books to write about, of course. I don’t plan to write often about coffee: though I enjoy my precious French press brews often, I don’t want to write about my local coffee suppliers in a commercial-feeling way, despite recent internet trends (which I’ll write about eventually). But there are plenty of books, and even Korean comics (!), to fill any perceived gaps.

So, I’ll get back to it.

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Writing: First Novel’s Second Draft Completed on December 2nd

This version clocks in at 65,484 words!

It looks hefty, printed out on regular office paper in a 12 point font. It’s 151 pages long.

I have a sense of accomplishment… And I don’t want to downplay what I’ve achieved while trying to juggle so many other things… but still need to get to version 2.1, which will have all the weird auto-correct typos taken out of it!

(My other three novellas are sitting in binders on a shelf behind me, quietly waiting for their turn.)

I’m very glad I did edited and updated my first novel, and hope to soon have it ready to USE.

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Writing: Novel Progress

“Novel Progress” here means I have an update on the progress of my novel, not that making progress is novel in itself… English is silly, isn’t it?

I’m over 43,000 words into my rewrite of my first novella. There’s still a lot of story to go, and I’m impressed that I’ve got so much, considering I’m 62% of the way through the printed first draft, and that draft was just over 50k. (I’m truly rewriting it, and not just retyping it. 62% of 50k would be just 31k, so…)

My writing isn’t as steady as I’d hoped: I’ve had many real-life interruptions and minor crises to resolve. I also take abundant breaks to ensure that I don’t inflame my arms from doing too much of any one activity, having just finished physical therapy for an arm injury recently.

The breaks are unexpectedly beneficial, because the time away from the writing allows me to rethink some of the motivations of the characters. There have been several nights and mornings when I’ve sat up in bed, re-evaluating how some powerful beings came to power, and how they maintain it. There’s another story there, one that I reveal partially in the climax of the first draft. While it should not be fully revealed in this book – I’m keeping the focus on the central character and how she is affected by power struggles from her point of view – refinements of these motivations have already contributed heavily to the wording of the re-write.

I hope to use breaks to decide whether or not the lead character will realize why no one else remembers the things she is talking about from earth. Not even really basic things. There’s a reason, and it was hinted at, but she missed the hint at the time, and hasn’t revisited it. Her understanding of [the cause] won’t change the arc of the story, but it may make things easier for a friend of hers, and that may be worth doing before the story ends…

Summary: I want to complete this draft zealously, and then move into continuity editing and additional story refinements. I know editing is complex, and I’m unsure how long it will really take. I am enjoying the process, and feel I am improving on my old draft. I’m glad I am making the time and space to do this!

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Writing: About Travel

Clouds offer a gorgeous range of landscape-like forms…

Having been unable to travel for so long due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have a wicked case of wanderlust.

Some of my wanderlust is just caused by escapism: I’m dealing with lots of dull obligations, so the appeal of being AWAY is as alluring as the idea of specific places I may enjoy! I know myself well enough to recognize this, and am evaluating my fantasies carefully, to see what they are REALLY about.

As part of thinking about why I travel, I’ve been reading my writing about past trips, from my first, solo, trans-Pacific trip (to Japan) to my more recent writing about my taxing, trans-Atlantic business travel, where I was able to convey both the hardships AND the glamour.

That first solo trip was an amazing experience, but writing about it while I was sick with a persistent case of bronchitis skewed my reporting. Writing to friends who didn’t share my interests in art narrowed it further. I managed to convey the difficulties well, but not the gorgeousness of misty paths leading to ancient shrines in wet, shady forests, or the beauty of clouds clinging to mountain tops, or the satisfaction of soaking in deeply sulfurous waters… While my friends (fairly) interpreted my writing as disappointment, and I did describe negative experiences and states of mind, I still enjoy memories from that trip: of oversized leaves that fell so noisily while I sat in a forest, lush carpets of moss in a chess-board-like temple garden with stone lanterns as chess pieces, the unexpected appeal of my German hiking companion as he boarded his departing train, the hot lemon drink that warmed me when I was rain-drenched, the bliss of soaking up to my neck in deep hostel bathtubs that I didn’t describe…

The frustrations of the noisy crowds and the jostling students are also vivid, but are less important now: that wasn’t my only trip to Japan, that wasn’t my only visit to those sites in Kyoto, and my subsequent experiences at popular tourist sites mean I understand the limits of what they can and can’t offer me in a way I didn’t at the time.

That trip helped me see and accept what popular mass tourism is. I accept that there are lists of “must-see” destinations (which I don’t actually have to see), and that some of those destinations may be worthwhile if I am willing to accept the consequences of their popularity. (This has also led to my intentional photo series of tourists taking photos at crowded sites, which I enjoy making, and which are only possible due to the nature of such sites.) Accepting this helps me make more informed choices about opting-in AND opting-out. I freely do both.

*

My business travel was also highly educational. Being overseas as part of an initial team that dispersed at the end of the business day/week, leaving me unexpectedly alone in a new place, I had to orient myself, and then decided to use my newfound knowledge to orient others. I recognized and appreciated the collegiality of someone with more experience there, and ensured I repaid that collegiality when our project changed sites, and that I followed his example in general. I knew what kinds of social and logistical support I had wanted, and I provided that to those who followed.

I gave tours, and took newcomers to my favorite spots if they shared my interests; I wrote a brief visitors guide; I recommended restaurants, dishes, beer, museums, hotels; I met up for meals with colleagues who didn’t want to dine alone; I translated; I learned train lines, bought tickets, and guided colleagues to work, and in doing so, expanded the practical hotel range for a suburban office with a limited pool of hotels, so my colleagues could spend time in a world-class city rather than sit in a remote, rural hotel at night; I took colleagues on field trips… That felt GREAT! I felt useful, I made things easier, I enjoyed good company, I had good fun.

With multi-country business trips that spanned several weekends, I had a chance to learn about different approaches to exploring: about how to use hotels (the sort that are too cramped to linger in, and the sort that are a pleasure and destination of their own); how to pace myself based on my energy levels, moods, and the weather; how to go away for a weekend; and how to stay put.

Both on business and on my vacations, I learned about the complexity of traveling with others. Of how the wrong traveling companions complicate a trip, and the right ones make my experience of a destination better than I could have managed on my own. This last point is the best lesson: I do have a few friends whose company is great ON THE MOVE, and I should experience places with them more often!

I’ll now return to my daydreams (and online research and list-making) of safe and enjoyable travel, with expectations well grounded by my actual travel experiences…

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Book: Another Day of Novel Editing

I crossed 28,000 words of the re-write/editing project!

I think it’s going well. I’m excited about some events that take place in the story: it really does build up to a proper climax or two.

During this rewrite, I’m seeing that my chapter breaks aren’t well placed within the story. I’m sure I can do better! I should also examine the number of subsections I have, which mark changes of scene. I don’t know if they should be chapters or not, but I do think it is useful to announce location/place/participant changes.

There is a crisis/subplot that feels really relevant to the main character, but I’m unsure whether it plays out at the right time within the story. I’ll have to examine it again. It may be possible for it to occur at the same time, but be explained and examined by the characters later in the story…

There are some nouns that I’m renaming from the first draft as I write, and I’m trying to rename them consistently throughout the book. (Since the book is being re-entered, I can’t just do some sort of global search and replace yet.) This is the sort of thing that I was diagramming in a mind mapping program earlier this week, but a simple table or set of tables listing characters and the names of things (departments, hallways, offices, whether the cafeteria is called that or if it is a staff lounge, etc.) would also help me maintain continuity. So would an editor, but I’m not there yet!

I’m also doing fun internet searches for things like, ‘how many words can I type without injuring myself,’ because the all-meeting era of work meant that I really was NOT typing all day, every day, and my arms have their doubts about this. I’m still learning the ergonomic keyboard. I am learning to take breaks more regularly, and to use my amazing headphones to have a few lively dance numbers in the kitchen, so my blood circulates, and my body remembers life beyond my office chair.

Summary: I’m enjoying this, I’m glad I’m doing this, I’m gaining some new perspectives on how to improve it. Also, I believe this revision is now a higher priority than writing my fifth (!) novel(la) in November for NaNoWriMo, so I’ll keep at it.

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Book: Progress on Editing My Novel

It is the season for one of my favorite, messy fruit: the pomegranate. Oh, how I love it.
A pomegranate snack is a great reward for hours of novel editing.

I’m 20,000+ words into revising my first novel(la), and… it feels like being employed! I am in my home office, at my computer, typing for hours on end, forgetting to stretch, and drinking lots of caffeinated beverages, so that seems about right.

My progress comes in streaks – I’m either in a writing mood (when I do my better work) or just plodding along doing more retyping than editing.

So far, I have about 47 pages of text with normal spacing, one space built in after each paragraph, and a 12 point font. Based on (gu)estimates from my small print first draft, where I’m on page 38 (of 134), I’ve added a light amount of clarifying and descriptive text, but haven’t yet made any big interventions in the story.

It is exciting to have gotten this far. I am aiming for about 80,000 words, so it is encouraging to know I’m about 1/4 of the way through this version of the rewrite. (But also: I’m only about 1/4 of they way through!)

During NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words over the month of November comes to writing about 1,667 words each calendar day, and so my 20,000 word progress equates to about 12 days of writing. Excluding days of reading and studying, this is my 5th day of just editing (and retyping), and my first with the new, ergonomic keyboard.

I need a nap. And more coffee. And then, to get back at it!

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Books: My Books in Development

I had an interesting experience over the weekend, which was reading a novella that I wrote (!) in 2004, to see if I think it is viable for development into a full novel.

At the time I wrote it, I was concerned that it was too fresh in my mind to evaluate properly, so I set it aside and wrote three more novellas, one each in subsequent years, as part of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Then I allowed my demanding job(s) to take over my life again. Now that so very much time as passed, I thought I’d see if it is worth working on.

The answer, to my own surprise, is YES.

Editing and expanding on a draft novel is a HUGE project, and… I’m a bit alarmed and intimidated.

But… I’m already more than 50,000 words committed! Why NOT develop it?? I was briefly indignant while reading about some confident middle schooler seeking agents to publish the first thing they ever wrote, before realizing that nothing is preventing me from taking similar steps. (Aside from my career, haha!)

I want to spruce it up and build it out a bit more, since the feedback I got from another writer is that there SHOULD be more of it – it held his interest all the way through, and he wanted to read more to read within the same story.

Editing a novel can take months or years, so I’m unsure how to set a schedule for myself on this. But I know it is worth starting, at the very least.

** ~ **

Meanwhile, I spent most of my energy yesterday laying out a new photography book, and… I’m supposed to do the same today!

It has been a while since I laid one out properly, and there are some new features at my favorite book printer, Blurb, that I am testing out. (I’ll write about those once my prototype arrives.)

I have laid out and self-published photo books before: eleven of them, including nine volumes of my iPhone 1 photo diary (!) and two thematic/place-based photo essay books. Blurb, which is based here in my hometown of San Francisco, does a beautiful job in printing and binding them, and provides a great online storefront to sell and display them. Their services are superb.

My best book so far was just an ordinary travel photography book, which I know is an awkward genre. Local photographers do the best work of documenting their location, because they see it in all seasons and in all of the lighting variations that occur over a year – there are photos local photographers take that a visitor is sure to miss. Visitors are subject to whatever the weather happens to be. I was just an outsider-tourist visiting during a cold and stormy month, and will never see these sites in all the familiar glory of a local who loves where they are every day.

Just the same, the process of creating this particular book was good for me. I had to think about photos as a set, rather than individually; think about how to lay them out, and how page spreads relate to each other; and learned how to mix slightly higher resolution digital images (from my whopping 4 megapixel digital camera of the time (weeping sound)) with very low resolution ones (from my iPhone 1), which inspired me to use some special effects to make use of the low-res images’ softness.

Under Autumn Clouds by A. E. Graves | Blurb Books
In 2008, I visited Kyoto again after a 16 year absence. Kyoto is a remarkably beautiful city, filled with both modern and ancient places. This is a collection of my favorite details from the ancient side, the little things that I want to remember, rather than an encyclopedia of everything in town…

While I was taking photos for this book, I was continuing my (ordinarily domestic) phone photo diary practice, which also resulted in a Blurb book as part of my photo diary series. This was educational in different ways, most relating to its different content from my efforts to follow conventions in my formal work.

My phone photos are created for my own satisfaction, rather than to attempt to impress others or formally document some monument, and so are casual. I take photos of details at odd angles that won’t be good for drawing; I photograph ads and menus; I intentionally take photos of crowds of tourists at tourist sites, and especially enjoy photographing other people photographing. That isn’t the sort of thing included in most artsy/destination books, but are true to my experience of a place. (Note: Sylvia Plachy does a GREAT job of photos of people at tourist sites, though she brilliantly captures their personal drama at a level I cannot hope to achieve!). My phone photos show that I take photos of ads, signs, trash, art museum displays, selfies, and things I want to buy in shop windows, and the result is more…. comprehensive? Realistic? Varied in subject matter and more contemporary in representation? Maybe all of those things.

Under self-imposed rules of my phone-photo diary series, I also had to include EVERY photo I took in the book, so there was no editing of either content or the resulting jpeg files (except for limiting myself at the time due to storage limitations, and awareness that I had this rule). This means the book includes images which indulge my personal quirks, meet social obligations, and capture extremely minor details that are not especially artistic. (I did use some of these as an appendix in the art book, to personalize the book with experiences without including images of myself.)

Call Me volume 3 by A.E. Graves | Blurb Books
Volume 3 of “Call Me” continues the author’s personal collection of EVERY phone photo taken since the phone was purchased. Set entirely in Japan, it includes photographs of fellow tourists taking photos, meal sets, train stations, hotel rooms, and other images that are concerned more with the exper…

(Aside: the garden on the cover was especially fun for me: I took a photo OF the other tourists in the designated/popular taking-photos-patio shown here FROM alongside the popular view of the landscape (an image of that appears within the book), and there was laughter from my fellow tourists when they looked away from that view and noticed…)

** ~ **

Back to the present: I intend to produce three photo books this autumn:

  • a book of black and white San Francisco architectural facades,
  • a book of images from an old, plastic-lensed camera from my paternal grandfather’s attic (which I can’t find my negatives for, so this project is delayed until those turn up), and
  • one of new (2021) Polaroid Duochrome images.

I only have one of these three books laid out, uploaded, and ordered. I haven’t scanned a single Polaroid yet, so I’ve got lots of work ahead of me… Wish me luck!

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Life: Mysterious Notes

What the hell.

I was going to write about how I have no idea why I would have such a note in my files, because it raises SO MANY QUESTIONS.

A few hours after finding this ambiguous note, I recalled that this is work-related. Which somehow makes it worse?

During a Kaizen exercise at work, a colleague told me of their desperate quest to get information from people who inexplicably withheld it from them , and this phrase came up. I do Shingo-style Kaizens, so this sticky note was a step in the process I documented. It was honest enough that it belonged in the diagram: it was more clear than a euphemism would have been.

(The honesty didn’t get the problem solved.)

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