Writing

Writ­ing about writing.

Writing Retreat 2020, day 5

Posted on by Patrick
Comet NEOWISE

Wednes­day:

  • Processed pho­tos
  • Wrote 1,000 words in the morn­ing, 1,000 in the evening
  • Biked about 6½ km
  • Kayaked for a bit more than ½ hour
  • Read a few more chap­ters in The Knight
  • Went to the cof­fee shop for some (rel­a­tive­ly) high-speed internet
  • Rejoiced that the fore­cast calls for clear skies tonight — fin­gers crossed for more comet action!
  • Mut­tered to myself when the sky was, in fact, cloudy at 10pm, 11pm, and midnight
  • Checked one last time in my pyja­mas at 1am, and saw stars
  • …and so I found a cou­ple dark spots, snapped some more pho­tos, and fell into bed at 3am
  • The comet
  • The comet and the horizon
  • I found a nice pho­to­genic tree with the Milky Way behind it

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat, Day 4

Posted on by Patrick
Canola field panorama

Tues­day’s action:

  • Processed last night’s astropho­tog­ra­phy (it was past 2 AM when I got back to the cabin)
  • Biked up 16A again, fur­ther this time (a bit over 10km round trip), and got a cou­ple panora­mas of the fields and skies (the image at the top is a wide panora­ma of a canola field)
  • Panora­ma with canola
  • The prairie sky
  • High­way 16A
  • Wrote 1,000 words in the morning
  • Went to town for some gro­ceries and a (short) cof­fee / WiFi break
  • Read a few more chap­ters in The Knight
  • Wrote anoth­er 1,000 words before supper
  • Took some comet and Milky Way pho­tos, since it was clear again despite the forecast
  • The Milky Way, fac­ing north
  • Comet NEOWISE and a shoot­ing star
  • Comet NEOWISE and some faint aurora
  • Milky Way panorama
  • Milky Way panorama

I wish I’d noticed that there was some flick­er­ing north­ern lights just as I was pack­ing up for the night; I’d have stayed longer, even though I was tired.

It’s sup­posed to be clear again tonight, and hope­ful­ly the solar wind will strike twice.

As always: if you’re inter­est­ed in prints of any of these pho­tos, let me know. We’ll see what we can work out.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 3

Posted on by Patrick

Mon­day, I:

  • wrote 1,100 words in the morn­ing (even­tu­al­ly)
  • went for a 11 km bike ride (top speed, com­ing down a hill: 48.5 km/h)
  • Morn­ing coffee
  • Mason­ry
  • Flow­ers
  • Close­up
  • I heard you like canola fields
  • Leaf and sign
  • Mixed mes­sages

This rein­forces my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence with the Lens­ba­by lens: it’s great for macro shots, like the one with the sin­gle stalk of flow­ers against the grass, but in most oth­er uses it reduces most if not all of the frame to an impres­sion­is­tic blur. If that’s your aes­thet­ic, great, but more often than not I’m dis­ap­point­ed in the pho­tos I take with it.

It’s still fun to play with, though.

  • wrote 1,000 more words before sup­per (a lot of con­ver­sa­tion; sto­ries being told)
  • evad­ed clouds and fog (oh my so much fog — I had to change loca­tions 3 times because fog rolled in) to cap­ture shots of Comet NEOWISE and the Milky Way
  • Comet NEOWISE, just as the fog start­ed rolling in
  • Comet NEOWISE
  • Comet NEOWISE
  • Milky Way and a shoot­ing star
  • Also the Milky Way, and also a shoot­ing star

The bluer pho­to of the comet, the close-up, was tak­en with my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Look close­ly, and you’ll find I caught both tails. You might have to view the pho­to at full size.

As always: if you’re inter­est­ed in prints of any of these pho­tos, let me know. We’ll see what we can work out.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2

Posted on by Patrick

Saturday

  • Fin­ished the final out­stand­ing scene in “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse”, so that can sit for a cou­ple weeks’ aging before I start editing
  • Read a few chap­ters in The Wiz­ard
  • Tried to get some pho­tos of the comet, but the clouds were in the wrong spot
  • Got pho­tos of light­ning, the ISS, and Jupiter and its Galilean moons
  • Dis­cov­ered the cof­fee shop isn’t open on Sun­day or Monday
  • International Space Station overhead
    I waved to the astro­nauts as they went overhead.
  • Jupiter and the Galilean moons
    Tak­en with my 55–250mm lens, if you can believe it.
  • Startrails and Lightning
    The clouds to the north­east were a bit active, but the stars came out above them, too.

Sunday

  • Wrote two sprints in Trans­la­tions, 2,000 words total
  • Rode my bike up 16A, which is closed to vehic­u­lar traf­fic due to a washout, and snapped some photos
  • Went for a scout­ing dri­ve to Polo­nia, which I don’t think will be a venue for any astropho­tog­ra­phy (but is pret­ty pret­ty all the same)
  • Dis­cov­ered that, just because the cof­fee shop is closed, does­n’t mean I can’t park next to it and use its wifi to post this
  • How­ev­er, not hav­ing the café’s wifi pass­word is a bit of an imped­i­ment, so right now I’m using my phone’s data
  • Macro of the grass on the side of High­way 16A
  • A crow (?) har­rass­ing a hawk (?)
  • High­way 16A, with no traffic
  • The prairie from a hill
  • Seen bet­ter days
  • Polo­nia in its valley

And now I’m just hop­ing it won’t be quite so cloudy tonight. I’d like to get some more pho­tos of the comet.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

Writing Retreat 2020

Posted on by Patrick

Minnedosa writ­ing goals

  • Fin­ish the last scene in “The Slow Apoc­a­lypse”, first draft
  • 1,500−2,000 words a day in either Trans­la­tions or “Dried Flowers”
  • Pho­tos of the Milky Way (pos­si­bly a video) and Comet NEOWISE
  • Pho­tos of the countryside
  • Dai­ly bike ride
  • Some kayak­ing

The cab­in does­n’t have wifi any­more, so I’m going to have to post stuff from the cof­fee shop. No promis­es of any kind of reg­u­lar schedule.

Series: Writing Retreat 2020

The entire series: Writ­ing Retreat 2020; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 1 & 2; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 3; Writ­ing Retreat, Day 4; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, day 5; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 6; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 7; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 8; Writ­ing Retreat 2020, Day 9; Writ­ing Retreat 2020: The Num­bers.

These things happen

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad
https://twitter.com/pjohanneson/status/1282043868515631104

And then I got home, and made some notes, and it turns out that the “bril­liant sto­ry sug­ges­tions” intro­duce some more con­flict, at the cost of mov­ing a few scenes around.

No spoil­ers for the short sto­ry, but it a) makes my antag­o­nist a more inter­est­ing char­ac­ter, b) makes my pro­tag­o­nist have to make a very dif­fi­cult deci­sion, and c) allows me to illu­mi­nate how the pro­tag­o­nist plays games with the truth.

And now, to actu­al­ly fin­ish this draft.

Two sentence Tuesday

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

All the lies he’d told her were, so far as he knew, still undis­cov­ered. To his cred­it, they were few, and most­ly unimportant.

₣rom “The Slow Apocalypse”

I’m work­ing on the last flash­back sec­tion of my short sto­ry. It’s still in first draft. I’m not sure if these lines will sur­vive the even­tu­al edit, but I feel like they’re important. 

Who is the Black Beast?

Posted on by Patrick
Red-winged blackbird

Some time ago, I start­ed writ­ing a short sto­ry, which at that point was titled “The Lake in the Library”. In its neb­u­lous first lines, it fea­tured a librar­i­an, a library, and a lake in that library. Oh, and a lake mon­ster of some sort.

Lat­er, I had more ideas for the sto­ry, and a theme came to me like a bolt from the blue. I excised the lake and the lake mon­ster, not with­out regret. (There’s no guar­an­tee they won’t reap­pear; the sto­ry is very dreamy, in the lit­er­al sense of the word.)

Con­tin­ue read­ing “Who is the Black Beast?” →

No spoilers, please

Posted on by Patrick
fountain pen on notepad

On my bike ride this after­noon, I think I fig­ured out a the­mat­i­cal­ly-sat­is­fy­ing scene near the end of the short sto­ry I’m work­ing on. It involves the doc­trine of true names, a lawyer, a wiz­ard, their son, and a rather dire threat.

I’m look­ing for­ward to writ­ing it. I’ve got a cou­ple sec­tions to write before I get there, but now I’ve got a tar­get to aim for.

Head­er image: Pho­to by Aaron Bur­den on Unsplash.