Category: To Occupy my Time

Requiem: Canon PowerShot Digital Elph

Oh beautiful camera, you are not fixable.  And this is a sad thing, because you have been my constant companion for the last six years.
 
I resisted getting a digital camera for a very long time.  I had always enjoyed film photography, though I enjoyed it less once everyone else was suddenly carrying around a camera.  Back in the day of print film, only the dorky film people with the big cameras could take the really good pictures.  I liked being one of those people.
 
But a strange thing happened when I got you, darling camera.  You were so small that I could carry you anywhere.  I never had to decide if I was going to bring the camera along because you were so small that you just came with me everywhere.  And, unlike all the small film cameras, you actually took good pictures.
 
And with the whole blog thing happening, and I had somewhere to put all those pictures I was taking aside from a drawer in my dresser.  So we spent our years together, until that dreadful day when I dropped you and you split open.

The loyal part of me wants to repair you, but the sensible part won out.  For less than the cost of repair, I now have a brand new camera.  But you were always my first, little friend.  And I won’t forget you.

Somewhat blurry images from Wordstock

Wordstock is Portland’s Festival of Words and I managed to attend this year’s event.  I always forget to put it on my calendar and then have too much going, but this year I made it there.

Walking around the exhibit hall, I saw the great scarves with words from famous literature on them.
 

I heard Whitney Otto discuss her new book.
 
Here she is.  Here novel is fictionalized portrayal of different women photographers in the 20th century.
 
This panel was called “A Songwriter, a Novelist, and Some Poets Walk Into a Bar.”  Great title, lousy panel.  It started off badly when one of the poets disregarded the question asked, said, “I express myself best through what I write.” She the proceeded to read an endless poem.  It must have been four single-spaced pages at least.  It went downhill from there.
From my notes:  the poet is pretty much confirming the general belief that poetry is inaccessible.  She is reading what she wrote and I’m not sure when she started writing this, but it is very long.  And it is not accessible.  We, in the audience, are lucky as we can process this out of view, but her four panelists are stuck in full view of us and are tasked with keeping a straight face.
Whew.  Over.
 

Karen Karbo and Kim Dower told us about Publicity and Publishing Secrets No Author Can Afford to Live Without (and Some Gossip, too!)  They were hilarious.  I was already a Karen Karbo fan, and I liked Kim Dower so much I bought a book of her poetry.

From my notes:

  • Every author needs a one-line description of their book.  Then figure out who is interested in it.  Then go and find those people.
  • When you start a book, put aside a little money every month to promote it.  Then you can pay someone to do the promoting things you are uncomfortable doing.  Plus, you will have a partner in crime and that will make you feel better.
  • Cooperate.  Be fun to work with.  (This is a Karen Karbo adage I learned years ago)
  • Keep a folder of anything in the news that is relevant to your book. When the book is published, these are your connections for promotion.
  • You must have a website.  On it should be:  who you are, what are your credentials (esp. for nonfiction), the cover of your book (if it exists), reviews, anything anyone has said about the book, a way to contact you or your representative, two minutes of you talking about your book–so media people can see you are articulate.

 

At the “Captivated by Contemporary” I noticed a local author. Laini Taylor.  I’m usually horrible at noticing famous people in my midst, but the hair helps.  That’s her in the pink.
 
“Captivated by Contemporary” was a great panel full of four YA authors, only one of which I have read, though I quickly remedied that situation.  Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss) moderated and I was introduced to Corey Ann Haydu, Miranda Kenneally and Gayle Forman.  Remember Gayle Forman’s name.  She will come up again soon.  Stephanie Perkins was the best moderator of the panels I saw.  Her questions were insightful and fun.  She was also wearing a fabulous dress and incredibly cute shoes.

Here’s what she did to run such a fabulous panel.  She had four clear topics:  Parents, Friendships, Love Story vs. Romance, Sex.  (“I feel like we’re on a date” Gayle Forman quipped)  Those broad categories gave her panelists a lot of room to talk, so good things were said.  Then she opened it up for questions.
 

The crew waiting for the “Literature Online:  Publishing New Fiction on the Web” panel.  “All white dudes.” remarked the white dude on the right.
 
This woman was captivated by the words on the face.
 

The white dudes in action.
From my notes:

  • The thing about online is that you can take tiny steps toward your writing goal.
  • One guy used a Google Ad to name his character.  He had 10 possible names and a tag line. He then bought 2 hours of Google Ads for each name.  After the two hours were up, he was sent a handy graph of which name had the most clicks. I found this to be kind of genius, but he seemed a bit embarrassed by the whole thing.
  • During the question section a nuts-and-bolts-type person said, “But where is the literature published online?”  And then we got a list.  Here’s what I wrote down:  Jute, Hobart, Atticus Review, Slope, Front Porch Journal, American Short Fiction, New Pages.com, Review Review, Duotrope Digest.  There was also the suggestion to get the collections of modern fiction that are published each year and see where those works were originally published.


I then attended a hideous writing workshop which I paid for, but no need to go into that. Overall, it was a good day.

Really? No Desk? Really?

And the hits just keep on coming.

Thanks, Oregonian, for getting rid of three days of home delivery, the movie critic, the music critic, the theater critic, so many other things I’m too mad about to remember right now.  Thanks also for getting rid of the Desk, the column that watches out for consumers.  What, were you afraid that we might report our formerly quality newspaper to its own consumer complaint column?

This would all go so much better if you would just admit you are giving us a lesser product. 

You can take your new era and shove it.

How I used to read the paper seven days a week:  a bundle of a paper was delivered to my doorstep and I read it.
How I will read the paper 3 of seven days per week:  supposedly on my tiny phone.
 
Except the stupid digital version doesn’t work on my phone.  That blue square is where the content is supposed to be.  You know, because we are calling it “content” now, not “news”.
 

Missing the point of the qualities inherent to glass:

I see this a lot at school and it amuses me.  Since glass is transparent, another way to do this would be to stack both signs together and affix them on just one side of the glass.  By doing so, you get the following advantages:
  • the flier facing the elements is protected by the glass, yet still readable
  • four pieces of tape hold up two fliers vs. eight pieces of tape holding up two fliers
  • you need not spend time carefully aligning two posters so they match each other

Colette Patterns’ Laurel. Tracing Dress pattern.

Remember how I still have two dresses to make before I finish with the uniform project?  Me too!  It’s been a while, but I did some work today.

First I checked the shirt pattern against the dress pattern and found that the dress pattern is exactly the shirt pattern, but longer.  Score.
 

Then it was a matter of taking my personal shirt pattern and marking where it hit on the dress pattern.

Then I just traced the shirt pattern and switched to the Collette Pattern original pattern for the bottom of the dress.