Revisiting

I am in the midst of explaining how to set up a little website on blogger.com to a friend and check in at my own site just to refresh my memory. Duh! I have not been here since mid-November—the Nano days.

Nano went just fine. If you call getting the wordcount but no real novel fine. I can't even remember what I wrote this year. Oh, wait, it was some angsty thing about making life choices. Yeah, that's what it was. I will add it to the stack of other unfinshed works that I will "get back to later" just as soon as life allows me or I get organized enough or I hit my stride or blah blah blah. Still having a bit of trouble with that whole disciplined artist thing.

Which brings me to my next phase—I am actually working on organizing my over 25,000 photographs that reside in the hallowed inner workings of my computer. Yes, 25K is a bit excessive; especially when the VAST majority of them are not likely to ever see the light of day. Snapshot quality photos do not make for interesting subject material, except when you want to embarrass one child or another and show the latest (or earliest) clicks from Christmas or birthday parties or whatever. But, I do have some pretty good shots that have potential. I have actually polished a few up, as well as doing a bit of graphic work on them—then loaded them up at http://SMicheleSmith.imagekind.com/ which is a pretty good place to be. Though I have not spent a lot of time working on that, either. Need to get busy!

I guess I lost my stride completely after I had the heart attack. Yep, that was fun. First there was Nano, then the whole December holidays thing then BANG! have a bit of a heart attack. From that, I went into a really nasty depression—that I have since learned is "normal" after surviving a heart attack. Gee, wish they would have told me back several months ago. Maybe I could have done something more, I don't know, intelligent about it? Bet that as it may, I finally got bored with being depressed—than you God! But I still didn't get up a lot of steam for getting things done. And the RA seems to have flared even worse since the attack and I'm thinking some of the meds they put me on may be contributing to that whole mess. And having to pay through the nose and all other orifices for the medical bills has put me in a funk on top of all that. I am ever grateful that there was insurance to cover a lot of it, but these co-pays and the number of doctors and specialists and etc etc etc that have inserted their hands into the bank account is staggering. Hospitalists? Who's ever heard of those??? Well, now I have…and it's not good news for folks who don't have large incomes and endless resources. A five day stay in the hospital brings these hospitalists out of the woodwork and they charge hefty fees to spend a few minutes telling you nothing and scaring you silly. That's a whole other story. Suffice to say, I'm grateful to be here and now I'm hoping to actually get serious about my work and my life again. Or finally?

Where I'd rather be...

Halfway through the month, another NaNoWriMo effort underway. I'm way behind but making progress, if you call what I'm doing progress. I should be over 26,000 words by now. I just broke the 13K mark. My goal is to make it up this week. If I can. I my fingers hold out that long. I may switch over to using Dragon for the next few days and see how that goes. How it will impact my word count and the pain in my hand. We'll see. I like to type. Close my eyes and type.

My last three NaNo efforts still languish in limbo. I have yet to dust them off and look at them for any potential they may have. And I've actually been considering that--seriously. Editing may not be my strong point, but why not? What have I got to lose? Dignity, maybe. Looking back at those past efforts could cost me a lot of that--especially if they are as bad as I recall them being. But, even if I could salvage a chapter here or there? It could be worth the effort just to see if my writing has grown, if my skills have picked up any along the way. Then again, it might be an exercise in futility. Won't know until I try.

But, for today, I've gotten almost 3K new words to add the the current mess and if I keep going, I may make it to the finish line after all. My heart has not been in it this year. Not sure why, just has not been there. Still working with the same two characters I started with. No one new has shown up, no real plot has materialised, no over-arching theme. However, that is the point of the whole challenge. Type. Type fast. Type for fun. Just let go and move along. Okay. But I'm brain fried right now. I'll get there in bits and spurts and let this one collect a bit of dust as well. But this year, I'd really like to take a look at what's gone before and see what I can make of them. If nothing else, I'll have learned something, eh? For right now, I'd like to curl up in front of a blazing fire with a cup of hot cocoa and just stare into the flames. Maybe they can tell me something...

w.bloggar Test

This is a test. I am trying out a new program--new to me, at any rate--called w.bloggar. My friend, Steve, told me about it. This is a test to see if it will work or not. According to my source, I should be able to use this program to write and publish blogs to my blog site without having to sign into that account. That would be wonderful! We'll see how it works--and whether or not I can use it with my other blogs. Or, should I just dump those other blogs? Hm....it's not like I use them that much anyway. Or this one. But, I can do better. That's what I keep telling myself, at any rate.

I have just discovered that I can't insert an image simply by clicking on the icon. It does not give me the option of browsing through my image files on my hard drive. Interesting. I need to study on this. Lots to learn. But, this is a test run. I will let you know how it goes as I figure it out.

Why Write?

The question has been put out—why do I write? What is the reasoning behind the words spilling out onto the page? I don't know. Most of the time. Sometimes I do know. Sometimes it's no more or less than to untangle the thoughts jumbling about in my mind. Sometimes it's to slow down the thinking process itself. To make sense of it. Other times, it's about a dream I've had. Working through it and trying to make it fit into a semblance of—what? How it fits into my life? Normalcy? Most of the time, though, I think I write to make sense of everything. And especially the foreign landscape that is my soul.

At the heart of the matter, my heart, not everything makes sense. Sometimes, hardly anything makes sense. There is a straight path that I try to walk. Not always successfully, I must say. The struggle is there. I walk it as best I can. When things become—twisted?—and messed up, then I write. Making stories out of happenings that seem strange. Making stories out of things from a distant past—that does not stay in the distance. Resolutions. Those stories are sometimes resolutions. Other times they are just stories made up of the bits and pieces that wash up at my feet from other lives—or others' lives. Making stories out of the ebb and flow of life as it sweeps me along. Washed up. Washed away. Life is nothing if it is not ebb and flow. There, in the waters, are reflections of alien-ness. What seemed certain only yesterday has become unclear. I write to clarify it. Make it certain again. Or, at the very least, bring understanding to the uncertainty. I write to let go of the pain of experience. To find beauty in the struggle. Writing a story here and there of things that are, at their very core, incomprehensible.

In everything I write, there are pieces of the real rather than the purely imagined. Each story starts out with a piece—perhaps very small—of a truth. Mine, yours, ours. Somewhere someone may have experienced this piece of life. Where it goes from there is where my understanding takes it. Or my attempt at understanding. Some of these stories contain more reality than others. Of course I've never been visited by aliens. But there was that time, when I was younger, that I wished aliens *would* visit me—and take me away with them. And what would that look like? And why would it look like that?

And what better way to try and understand someone else's truth than to write about it—try to become that person for a time. At its worst, the story falls apart because the understanding just won't come. Ah, but when it does come, then things fall into place a bit more. I can almost see through those "other" eyes. Feel with those "other" feelings. To know, almost, what it might be like to *be like* that person in that situation. And how would I have done things differently? I've learned what it feels like to hate with unbridled passion. To be a zealot, a coward, a saint, a thief, a liar…all by shifting my view to that of an alien landscape—and find small pieces of myself in those others. What must it feel like to *be* that person for a small while? Those exercises may or may not reaffirm that the path I have chosen is the right path—at least right for me. Or reaffirm that this other path is too full of hate and unreason that it's surprising that anyone could or would choose to live that way. But I can see, if only for a moment, why they would. And maybe feel a bit more compassion and tolerance. Maybe. Sometimes I discover that evil is just evil, no matter how it's sugar-coated.

And when I've gone too deeply into this process, there's always the option—these last few years—of taking out my camera and looking through that other lens at what is beautiful. Because with that other lens, I seem to look for symmetry and beauty. Color and light. Another way of seeing things. If my writing takes me down too many dark corridors, then there is this other escape into sunlight—where the shadows can't always vie for control of my thoughts. So, I suppose I write to exorcise those demons we all have at one time or another—some more than others. Because, quite honestly at this point in my writing life, the demons want to dance. So, I often let them. And sometimes achieve acceptance, if not understanding.

Now I ask myself: Is this me? one of my characters? or both? Hmmm….yes.

Way Later

And here I am again. Much has happened and most of it has been energizing--though a bit nerve-wracking. I got started looking at the concept of starting a business. Using my degree in Graphic Arts and my graphics software and my camera. Put them all together and see what I can do. So, here's the final product--thus far: http://smichelesmith.imagekind.com/ and that's just a small start. I'm also going to be working on ideas for CafePress shortly as I want to design smaller pieces and such. Not to mention getting back to my mandalas. But more on that another time--like when I get to that point and actually have something to offer you.

We took a vacation this year. Two, actually. Went back to Arizona and visited friends. Went up to Washington State to visit family. Wonderful! Have not taken a vacation like that in, well, forever. Never, actually. I got a massive amount of photographs going on little side-trips with my sister and her hubby. Beautiful. Sadly, the DVDs that I burned the shots to did not "take" the images so most of them are still sitting up there on their hard drive. Ah, that means another trip to go fetch them! Yes, that's good--another trip is good. LOL

My just paid off Nikon D40X bit the dust shortly after we returned home. Early demise, only a year old. And I was just learning to do wonderful things and getting better at it. But, thank God for warranties! Took the camera in and they traded straight across for a Nikon D60--since they no longer stock the D40X and the D40 would have been a downgrade. And, yes, the new lens that I'm paying on that I got for the D40X fits perfectly on the D60. I'm happy and learning what a great camera it is. And learning...and learning.

So, as you will see when you wander through my galleries at imagekind, I have decided to take a fully professional approach with my work. I'm good at it, so why not *do something with it* as my hubby is always wondering. ;-) I take a *lot* of time and care with each image before I upload it into a gallery. Doing a highly magnified scan of each image searching for dropped pixels is pretty intensive--and makes me wonder if that's how it felt to be in a darkroom with film. My computer has become a digital darkroom, I guess. One dropped pixel can have an impact on a wide area around it. I won't go into all the gory details. Suffice to say it is fixable in most cases, and I'm getting faster at it. It's *really* interesting to zoom in on a shot so that you are at the level of seeing individual pixels of color. It feels like getting lost in an alien landscape. Really! Not that I have to do that with every picture, but sometimes... They all get scanned at 100% zoom, which allows me to see where there might be a problem.

I am becoming intimately familiar with my photos. And it becomes a more personal, deeper, experience when working on those shots that have a connection beyond just taking the shot because it will be a good shot. For example, we went last weekend to visit the wild horses again. We walk around with them and interact with them--keeping in mind that they are *wild* horses and not pets. They don't mind us as long as we maintain proper dignity and respect for their space.

There are far fewer this year than there were last year. They've culled again. We saw about fourteen this time instead of the forty or so from other visits. I did not see Toughie, Aunty Girl, NotsoTough, Little Boy, or any of the others. (Yes, I name them...) I went back into my older image files from those days and looked through them again. I had thought about not using those photographs at imagekind because they will not be large enough to print the very large sizes. But, I decided that they are still good images and a smaller to medium sized print would be fine for lovers of wild horses. So, they are going into the collection as a tribute to Toughie and his band. I will miss him.

Moving right along...

No, I'm not taking up a musical instrument--though it does sound tempting. Just a dash in, drop the pic--and promise to finish today's blog shortly. Many things happening. Later!

Much later...and more interruptions. I will get back to this. Life sometimes has a way of offering first and second choices. My first choice is to get this finished. But, help is needed elsewhere that takes priority over other choices. So, later it will be, again.

Life it the Fast Lane

It used to be that joining clubs and organizations kept a lot of people pretty busy trying to keep up. The good thing, in most cases, is that you didn't have to remember a secret handshake or password. In most cases. In our techno-savy world, things have changed. I just spent over an hour rooting out and changing passwords for way too many sites. Did everyone get a computer and promptly sign up for everything on the Internet, or was it just me?

First off, it was time to change all my passwords. I'm sure there are tens, if not thousands, of crackers out there just waiting to hack through my firewall, sandbox, security defenses and whatever else I've got running on my computer to keep the bad guys out and my codes safe and secure. NOT! I don't even pay my bills on-line, let alone bank from the comfort of my four-wheel office chair. I've never trusted cyberspace enough to go digital in all things. But I'd sure hate to have my family and friends receive some slutty e-mail from someone who's managed to hack into one of my on-line e-mail accounts and wreak havoc in my name. A good friend of mine had that happen once. Shocked more than the socks off of several people.

Change your passwords at least once a month is what the pros say. Okay, so I manage to get around to it about once a year—or not. But Internet protection has come a long way since the days of my first computer. My current Virus Protection Plan has a tool bar that sits snugly on my browser bar. It logs all my passwords for whatever sites I have joined, subscribed to, signed up for. A simple two-click process of hitting that menu and clicking on the site I want to log into and there I am. Pretty cool. I no longer have to remember my passwords or do all that logging in and out by keystroke—which keeps me somewhat safe from keystroke hacks. After copying down—pen and paper—all the sites and their passwords, I decided to also change the password that protects my password protection plan. A not-happening event. Seems that though I did remember to write down that particular password—guess you'd call it the Master Password?—the program does not recognize it as valid. I'm looking at the paper, making sure I am reading it right, trying over and over again to get it to take. And sweating bullets that the program will lock me out, do an unarmed takeover of my computer, start a full-scale attack or something, all to keep me safe from my own information—because I've passed the limit of attempts to break into my own system. Thankfully, that did not happen. I just clicked the cancel option and continued on my merry way. Though not quite as merry. However, I had already stripped all the log-in information from the program. Not a problem.

I revisited twelve of the multitudinous sites that I have joined over the years (writers join a lot of sites—it's how we procrastinate) and changed all passwords—while my security system pleasantly asked me if I would like it to record the sign-in information. Well, duh. Isn't that what you're here for? Or do you just take up real estate on my hard drive? That was not the appropriate response. I clicked on "yes" and moved along to the next site. And the next. And the...you get the picture. And that's not even counting the sites that did not make the list! I mean, seriously.

So, as I'm making my way through cyberland, I decided that I don't have to actually sign in to every place I've ever joined—and some places make you sign up just to have a look around. Did I really want to keep my membership? Did I want to keep up with a site that I didn't even remember? Especially the ones who demand that cookies be enabled on my browser?

I don't much like cookies and I sure don't like enabling cookies. As a rule of thumb, I try not to be an enabler. Unless the cookies come well appointed with chocolate chips and tall, cold glasses of milk. Computer cookies are a whole other ballgame. I have recently set my browsing security option to medium—which effectively shuts me down from visiting most sites that require cookies. They, whoever "they" are, want to drop little tracking bots into my computer so they can keep track of where I've been and what I've done while I've been there. The way I see it, calling them cookies is a rather tongue-in-cheek way of telling me that they want to know what I want to know. None of their business. Yeah, I know the so-called business aspects of cookies. If they can track what I'm doing while I'm at "their" site, they can better serve me later. Demographics. Who I am, what I look at, what other sites I might click-through to from their site. And my ISP info. And whatever else they can get out of my surfing. I'm not buying it. If it's a business site, then obviously I'm there to do some sort of business. And they will know what I buy from them when I finish my transaction with them. Unless they are truly stupid and forget to do inventory, charge my credit card, what have you. They don't need to put cookies on my computer to keep track of what I'm doing on their site. Cookies leave crumbs and crumbs muck up my system. Just ask my Virus Protection Plan. It's always telling me I have "potentially" malicious tracking cookies gumming up the works.

As for sites that don't offer anything other than information, it would be obvious, one would think, that I visited their site because I was looking for the information they have on it. Duh. Don't tell me that your cute little cookies are to better serve me later. It is an invasion of my privacy. Besides, as I said, I don't buy on-line very often at all. I may do some comparison shopping, but I rarely will do a transaction. Call me paranoid.

So, after changing all the passwords I felt inclined to change and refusing to sign in again to those places that wanted to drop cookies into my system, the world—my world—is a safer place again. Now, if these earthquakes would just stop...

Life and Learning

I have sent an e-mail to a few people about this lecture I watched yesterday--I want to share it with a lot of people. So, I decided the best way to go about it is to mention it here for anybody who might read this blog. Here's the scoop:

My daughter told me about this professor, Randy Pausch, who gave his last lecture--something that profs do at Carnegie Mellon University. The twist on this is that the man, Randy Pausch, is actually dying--and he was only 47 when he was told he had only a few months left to live. It's a very good lecture--has little to do with death and more to do with realizing your dreams and your life potential. Also, he's involved in a program that takes a special interest in young girls and women going into the computer field--specifically virutual reality and computer animation. So, the team at Carnegie Mellon developed a program called Alice, that is more a game and interactive environment that makes learning fun. It's also free. I thought you might like to take a look at it and maybe your children might be interested in the Alice program. I downloaded it and played with it a bit yesterday and it really is fun! I made an ice skater do a spin. lol But, if your kids are at all interested in computer animation and want to "play" while they learn, take a look at it. Even if they aren't interested, they might find it fun and end up becoming interested. Who knows?

Here's the site where I watched The Last Lecture:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5700431505846055184

Here is the site for the Alice programs:

http://www.alice.org/

The Last Lecture is about life, not death. It's about dreams and getting to them. It's about success and failure and how we can learn more from our failures than our successes. It's a great and humorous look at how we live our lives. Take a look and have fun. And if you think it is something your children or anyone else might be interested in, talk to the schools and tell them about it.

Crux

I sit staring at the screen, locked in frozen admiration for the words not yet planted firmly in their place. Where are those words? What has become of them? My hands rest above the keyboard, ready to let fly with even the vaguest of notions. Where are the notions? Is this the dreaded writers' block that so many talk about? Isn't talking about it writing? Well, isn't it? Should I talk about the block? Talk around the block? Over or under?

Take a walk, instead. My mind is drained of, empty of, without thought of words. Words. Build with them, destroy with them. Tear down and recreate with them. Words have power to do either thing—build or destroy. Which will it be today? I am empty of meaning and without concern for the outcome. Just plug the words in any which way and see where they go. Nowhere. They go nowhere. It makes me angry that they go nowhere. Why angry? What is the point? Get a grip and just let them fly. Freedom of restraint and freedom to choose. My mind has hit a brick wall of indifference. Thoughts do not come readily to the equation. And why should I care? What does it mean that I seem unable to form a coherent story in my mind or out of it?

Lying in bed—or is it laying in bed? Either way, in those cool dark hours of twilight when the mind rambles between dream and reality, thoughts come unbidden and flow out unstopped into—nothing. There is no page to catch those thoughts. Those bursts of stories that seep out in the dark. Where is my pen? Beside the notepad on the table next to my pillow. Just there. If I reach for it, that little nudge of conscious effort shoves the words out of mind, out of sight, off the page. They spill onto the floor and skitter under the bed, playthings to the dust bunnies living there. New friends and old gather together as the dust bunnies laugh at my plight. What will she do? What will she do? She will turn over and go back to full sleep and let the words spill where they may.

Dreams are better, anyway. Dreams and more dreams shuffle around in my half-awake state, taunting me with their insanity and pulling me deeper into the crux of the matter. Crux. What a strange word. The crux of…life. The cross I bear. Weariness clamps its slimy fingers around my last coherent thought and I drift closer to the rocks and cliffs, waiting to be pounded down and out. I can't climb high enough for freedom, there is no purchase for my fingers to grab onto. I slip and slide back down into the darkness of cool shadows and lapping water. Whose dream is this, anyway? Why are there so many questions? and so few answers? Write the damned letter. Get it done. Unblock the flow of words and let them falter around in the dark where what? What happens in the darksome night of despair where angels fear to tread? And why do angels fear the treading? Ha! They don't.

Anger rises inside my gut, making me queasy. Anger that words no longer come to me unbidden. Pulling them out of my brain is painful. Let it go! Leave it alone. They will come when they want. But that is not good enough. I want them NOW! Not in their own good time. Now, when I am awake. Not at night when the slightest movement puts them to flight. I want the sweet flow of words in the daylight hours when I can see them and measure them and taste them with my mind and feel them with my fingers as they leap onto the page, fingers flying to keep up. I want them beating down the doors and storming the castle. Not all stopped up. Not under the bed hiding with the dust bunnies in the carpet. Not sliding under my pillow and away from my attempts to capture them and put them onto a page in the midnight hours where all the good ideas hide. Midnight madness, that's it. Only when drifting and letting go do the words come—unbidden—carrying a narrow horizon, a thin line between the writer and the dream.