A Space to Take Photos

I’m trying to improve the photos that I take of my books. As a start I’ve got my self a proper background – about 2 meters of white cotton to replace the A1 sheet of paper that I had been using.
All I need now is better lighting and I think I’ll be there. Of course it would be nice if I could leave it all set up all the time, rather than put it up each time for maybe only 1 book. But until I’ve got my dreamed for work shop that will have to wait. I think the material is a very good start.

The book is A5 and again I’ve used wallpaper to cover it. It’s actually turned out better than I thought it would. I hadn’t been too sure of the colour of the end pages but they work really well. I’ve quite pleased with it.

Neighbours From Hell

We had another writers group today.
The home work from last year (how weird that sounds) was to take some words away that Anne, our leader, had cut out of newspapers and magazines.
My words were:
Looking Backwards
A History of Violence
Family from Hell?

I looked at these long and hard but couldn’t seem to get started. Then I thought of an article I read somewhen about a lady who was living in the middle of nowhere, as she couldn’t deal with life with people. From this I started thinking about ‘neighbours from hell’ and about how something that irritates one person, might not really be that bad.
From these thoughts this grew.

Standing at the door of her tiny cottage, she looked out over the vast expanse of grass and heather. The only sound was the wind, as it stroked the grass.
No other sound could be heard except a tiny sigh of happiness. Finally she felt calm. Finally her ears had stopped ringing.

London had been so different. She had lived in a terrace house in suburbia, where people could be heard at all times of day and night. Car alarms would shatter the quiet; children would run about shouting; drunken people would talk loudly going home.
Although the street was considered quiet, she couldn’t stand the feel of so many people so close to her.
The vibrating rumble of the couple talking next door. The constant smell of cooking. The polite ‘hello’s’ of people she passed in the street.

She hadn’t wanted to live in London anyway. But her daughter, Claire, thought it best. Scared she would fall with no one to help her maybe? So she had moved in with Claire, to this tall thin house where the only green to be seen was the hanging baskets at no. 23.
She’d wanted to stay at the farm, but since Dan died, she was finding it harder to cope. And as Claire said, it was unfair on them all to know she was down there by her self, when it was a 2 hr drive for any of them to get to her.

It was after the lady next door had started chatting with her about her cat that she had started to plan her escape. There was no way she could stay here, cats should not be pets. They should work for the small morsels of meat that she put out, rewards for catching rats in the hay barns.
Claire thought she was old and out of date, but she knew how to use the internet and there she started her search.

It’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, but I like some of the descriptions. The group made the interesting point that it sounds like it really starts in the last paragraph with the line about the lady next door and the cat. Looking at it again I can see they are right. Look how it changes if I do this.

It was after the lady next door had started chatting with her about her cat that she had started to plan her escape. There was no way she could stay here, cats should not be pets. They should work for the small morsels of meat that she put out, rewards for catching rats in the hay barns.
Claire thought she was old and out of date, but she knew how to use the internet and there she started her search.

She hadn’t wanted to live in London anyway. But her daughter, Claire, thought it best. Scared she would fall with no one to help her maybe? So she had moved in with Claire, to this tall thin house where the only green to be seen was the hanging baskets at no. 23.
She’d wanted to stay at the farm, but since Dan died, she was finding it harder to cope. And as Claire said, it was unfair on them all to know she was down there by her self, when it was a 2 hr drive for any of them to get to her.

London had been so different. She had lived in a terrace house in suburbia, where people could be heard at all times of day and night. Car alarms would shatter the quiet; children would run about shouting; drunken people would talk loudly going home.
Although the street was considered quiet, she couldn’t stand the feel of so many people so close to her.
The vibrating rumble of the couple talking next door. The constant smell of cooking. The polite ‘hello’s’ of people she passed in the street.

Linden Avenue Designs

Sorry I’ve been quiet this week. The students started back for the spring semester on Monday, so I’ve been running round with timetables and registration forms, with no time to be creative.

Aren’t these just the prettiest beads? They have just arrived from Texas, where MaryAnn makes them all by hand. I found them on her etsy shop Linden Avenue Designs (you can find her on my etsy favourites below), and to be honest I think I could quite happily buy the whole shop. I love the colours and the variety and I’m really looking forward to using these beads. I can feel a necklace coming on.
It’s a shame I have to work, I’ve got so many things that I’d like to do at the moment. Watch this space.

Alien Planet?

Works a little slow right now for ‘im outdoors, what with a recession and it being winter so he’s been looking at other things to do. As someone who works outside he gets to see the world in a different light from all the rest of us stuck inside. So he’s started taking photos of it all.
The above is one of my favourites - a dandelion. I was there when he took it, and it’s amazing how different it looks when you bend down and get close, rather than stand over it.

If you want to see more of his photos you can visit his flickr page here.

Words Just Flow Out - part 2

This time last week I was reporting on the fact that I’d written a 3 page short story in pretty much one go. Looking at it again I don’t think it’s so bad. So I spent Thursday evening working on it – moved some thing’s about and gave it an ending, and I think I have myself a story.
So much so, that I’m going to send if off to the Mslexia short story competition.

If only writing was always this easy. I mean it might not be that good, but there is satisfaction in finishing a story and have it come out close to how you thought it would. In fact I wouldn’t mind if it deviated, as long as I managed to finish it. I must have a pile of stories that I’ve tried to write, but just don’t have the skills to finish, and each one dents the confidence. To finish one and like it, and I do like this one, is great. And even if it doesn’t win a prize and is never published it helps me work on the next one which, if I’m left with only the pile of unfinished stories I might not even attempt.

Guess I better start working on the Writers Group homework now.

Star Book

For Christmas I was given ‘The Essential Guide to Making Handmade Books’ by Gabrielle Fox. This book it full of step by step projects, and is very well put together, but although I found it interesting, it doesn’t quite go far enough. I’d hoped that it would have different kinds of stitching and other things that I’m unaware of at the moment. But it didn’t.
Her books seem to be more of the ‘Artist books’ – where the book itself is a work of art, rather than books that look good, but still have functionally, which is my aim. I think 'The Essential Guide' will be good inspiration on how to look at making books in a different way, but I’ll need something else for the technical details that I’m looking for.

I have made her Star Book (above), which has no stitching at all, being an accordion book, which was interesting and gives a fun finish - not sure what you'd write in it though.

Recycle Your Christmas Cards

I just want to remind you all to make sure your recycle your Christmas cards, and to do it through The Woodland Trust. If you do, they will plant a tree for you too, meaning you are helping the environment twice!
You need to get them to either WHSmiths, Tesco, T.K.Maxx or M&S before 31Jan, which gives us all plenty of time.
Go to their website here for more information and posters to put up at work.

New Camera - at last!

I know it’s taken me about 3 months, but I finally have a new camera! Yay! As you can see it is beautiful and shiny and gold – in the hope that ‘im outdoors and I, shan’t get out cameras mixed up.
It’s a Canon IXUS 870 IS and has 10.0 mega pixels amongst other things.
I can’t wait to get snapping. Bring on the snow, then I’d have some fun.

Words Just Flow Out

I’ve just done something I don’t remember ever doing before. I’ve just written 1,299 words or 3 pages of a short story in one go, with the story only occurring to me in the car as I drove home. It felt easy and so good, although I’m sure that when I read back tomorrow what I wrote today it won’t seem that great. But I think it has potential so I’m kind of looking forward to seeing.
I think I have to blame Stephen King and his latest book ‘Just After Sunset’, which is a collect of short stories. Some of his best I think. I’ve nearly finished it, and have really enjoyed it although some of them are pretty sad, rather than scary.
Isn’t it weird, I was just thinking I really should do some more writing, I haven’t finished a short in months, when ‘pop’ in comes this idea.

I’ll tell you more when I’ve had another look tomorrow.

The Handmade Pledge

Today, as part of my aim to improve myself in 2009, I took The Handmade Pledge.

The pledge is to buy handmade for myself and my loved ones, and request that others do the same for me.

Its all about getting away from mass production and the environmental effects that mass production has on our world. But it is also about people. Global manufacturing has left us all dressing, furnishing and decorating alike. When we buy handmade we reconnect with real people and start to be more individual. And from what I’ve found on etsy so far, who wouldn’t want a handmade gift?

Visit their website for lots more information about how we can leave mass production behind, and who else has taken the pledge.