Home Posts tagged "new things"

Tag: new things

Smarter Than the Machine

Years ago when a friend bought herself a fancy new car, my favorite thing about it was the backup camera. I’m an aficionado of the “where’s this road go?” school of exploring, you see, and sometimes you need to be able to turn around in very tight quarters. And my usual partner in exploring is really bad at telling me when to stop. She’s afraid she’ll send me and the car tumbling down a mountain, I guess, so instead we get a move like this. I wanted a backup camera. Really bad. My car is a 2007 Corolla. She (my Precious) came with a three-CD changer as part of the stereo. So that led to…well, I don’t like to listen to commercials, and I hate DJs talking. HATE. So I made two CDs of some of my favorite songs, and stuck those and a CD of soft jazz for headache music in, and they stayed. For years. YEARS. Sometimes I’d put a song on repeat, and not notice for a couple days. Once the child and I were headed up the mountain, and halfway up she asked if we could please just turn the music off. She couldn’t take that song one more time. Recently I did something about both problems. I had a new stereo, with screen, put in my car, and I had them install a backup camera. When the tech was showing me the basics of my new system, he told me to “play something” from my…

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Playing Around

Hi, friends! I hope you’re having a lovely Tuesday! (Also, I was looking at my post from last month talking about how nothing was a catastrophe, and then three days later I had a car accident. Still not a catastrophe, but March was really determined to make life hard.) It’s always interesting to write these posts each month, because it is only once a month, and it’s hard to remember what I was talking about, and because Siri, Erin, and KD have come in and talked about different stuff. Do I build off of the other posts? Do I wander off on my own? But anyway. 2019 has been a year of exploration, for the most part. Aside from the anthology, most of what I’ve been working on has been trying new things. I think this is an important part of creativity, really, to help you think of new things and give your brain a workout. Plus I was feeling a little discouraged and burned out, and having fun doing new things always helps. So, what am I working on? Children’s books of all shapes and sizes, from picture books to chapter books. Mostly just playing around, but writing some. Nonfiction books and potentially video classes Workbooks and journals Writing a book to a new technique from a class I’m taking Drabbles just to drabble New genres It’s a bit freeing, though I will admit I feel a little guilty about not working on any “serious” projects, though the story…

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What I Did (Planned to Do) On My Winter Vacation

With some thoughts, you know when you think them that it means you’re a grownup. When you would love to just go take a bath. When you wish you could take a nap–but you acknowledge that you can’t. When you look around your bedroom at the beginning of a week off for staycation and think, “I need to clean.” It’s bad in here, y’all. I mean, of course there’s the Christmas clutter. My room is the only safe place for wrapping, and also to get that big ol’ tree in the living room, other stuff needed to be stuck out of the way. So there’s that. Boxes that need breaking down but the dumpster is already full. Wrapping paper odds and ends that I should just stick in the recycling, but I always think one day I’ll need that tiny odd-shaped piece. Need to put the rolls of wrapping paper away, get the bows and the boxes for lights stashed under the bed, make sure the ribbons are out of reach of the cat… There’s also the new things. I got candles and movies and a book and yay! But all that stuff has to find a home now, and that’s not going to be easy. There was a lot of STUFF in here already. Which brings me to the old things. Yesterday I spent a pleasant hour getting rid of things I haven’t touched all year (well, since unpacking after the move, and probably for the year or two…

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It Gets Everywhere

The stars have aligned, friends, and I am finally taking a beginning drawing class at my local rec center. (I’ve tried to take this class a few times before, and it either gets cancelled, or it’s at an impossible time, or…) It’s two hours every Monday for the duration of October, and apparently each month the teacher picks a technique for everyone to practice. This month we’re doing straight pencil drawings (which is good, because that’s what I wanted, and if it were charcoals or pastels or something I would be disappointed) and working on reproduction using a grid. Basically, you draw a grid on whatever you want to copy, and a grid on your paper, and then you painstakingly copy everything, square by square, to help you get everything in the right place. We’re doing M. C. Escher’s Drawing Hands (just one hand, so as to not go insane). I mean, we are anyway, but it’s the thought that counts. On one hand, I’m not wild about copying another picture, even one by Escher. It’s a good technique to know, I suppose, but I’d really like to learn more about how to draw in general. On the other hand, I get two hours to myself to do nothing else but draw, which is relaxing and wonderful, and it really helps clear everything out of my brain. So, you know, it evens out. Though I do really just want to learn how to draw, and shade. Specifically shade. I am…

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