A New Visual Venture...

No sooner do I get a little bit on top of my to-do list than I am bursting with new ideas and plans. Perhaps you saw my shared post over at Chila's blog; if not, head over and check it out - Pub Talk: two publishers meet in a fictional locale to talk indie.

There are other things cooking as well... but the one I want to tell you about today is something I've always wondered about doing. It was forever in the back of my mind, yes, I should do that sometime. Well, the day has come.

I am now making some of my photographs available for the first time, beginning with a selection from France called Castles & Cafés. There are currently two ways to get hold of them:

One, buy the calendar on Lulu.com for a fresh monthly spread;

Or head over to my Imagekind gallery if you want something solid to hang on your wall. You'll see there that it has a snazzy little RSS feed which you can grab to keep informed when I add new stuff.

There will be more as time goes on, for sure. This is only part of the France collection, and then there are other travels to add in. So have a look, tell me what you think, and tell me what kind of photos you'd like to see more of!

No Grace

I don't say grace at meals. I don't mind if you do, just don't ask me to. Part of it I suppose is the endless chuckling at my name when it comes up, though I have gotten used to it. But mostly I just don't see why we should make a religion out of thanking the Man Upstairs for food and not for anything else.

Imagine if it were a cultural norm to say a prayer of thanks before using cosy socks, a hot water bottle, a cup of tea, a friendly cat, thick curtains, fleecy blankets (it's the dead of winter here! can you tell?). Or for the phone line, the modem, the computer, and the cables that run under the sea all around the world to enable these connections. Or my favourite shirt, the old car that still runs well, my jobs that pay me money, good books (oh BOY, good books!!), the beach...

I know food is the first prerequisite for survival, and I don't take it for granted. But I'll say my silent thanks for these other things too, because they make life what it is.

Virtual Glue

Virtual glue is a term that's come up in my conversations quite a bit lately, in connection with creating a full book manuscript out of 26 different story files and I think about ten edit files, too. To say nothing of the contributor pages which have to be filled in with author photos and bios and book blurbs and cover images and links and ISBNs. I have often felt like I'm all gummed up with virtual glue all over my hands from all the copy-pasting.

But it will be worth it. Aquasynthesis has been an awesome project to work on, and the end result is shining through the disparate parts. It's going to be great.

Meanwhile, the blog I've left up for days now is this one: http://christinakatz.com/how-to-be-the-most-productive-person-you-know/ - lots of wisdom in there. I guess I left it open in the hope that some of it would stick in my head. No, I don't leave my computer on all the time - it hibernates overnight, retaining my working windows and tabs. I hate it when I have to restart for updates or program crashes, but who doesn't hate that? Oh well. A reboot is healthy now and then, same as for people :)

Lookie here what just came in the mail for Paul Baines! The perfect reason to celebrate my blog's spacey new layout for a space travel book that is going places :)

If I were...

Borrowed from Kat and Robynn in turn...

If I were a month, I’d be February, because I'm a child of summer.
If I were a day of the week, I’d be Saturday, because good things happen on Saturdays.
If I were a time of day, I'd be 11 P.M. because it's late enough to be interesting, but early enough to be awake.
If I were a planet, I’d be Earth, carrying much turmoil but ultimately the spark of life. Or maybe on my off days Eclectia, a little more volcanic.
If I were a sea animal, I’d be a Shapeshifting Octopus.
If I were a direction, I’d be Up.
If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a fold-out couch.
If I were a liquid, I’d be black tea with milk and honey.
If I were a gemstone, I’d be a Lapis Lazuli, like they used in paintings in the Renaissance, and it was more precious than gold.
If I were a tree, I’d be a Pohutukawa. But I don't just come out at Christmas, in fact rather the opposite.
If I were a tool, I’d be Pliers, and don't forget the No. 8 wire.
If I were a flower, I’d be an Iris.
If I were a kind of weather, I would be Wind, huffing freshness in your face to wake you up.
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a synth with a thousand voices. No, that's not enough... They have tens of thousands these days, so I'd want a hundred thousand.
If I were a color, I’d be right between royal blue and royal purple.
If I were an emotion, I’d be swinging wildly and completely unpredictable.
If I were a fruit, I’d be a Feijoa, that guava-related local that tastes sort of like banana and sort of like pear.
If I were a sound, I’d be drum 'n' bass that you can feel through your feet and into your insides.
If I were an element, I’d be Silver.
If I were a car, I’d be an old-style campervan with murals on the outside.
If I were a food, I’d be an avocado, surprisingly versatile.
If I were a place, I’d be a wild beach: cliffs, sand, waves, wind, feeling alive.
If I were a material, I’d be polar fleece.
If I were a taste, I’d be Manuka Honey: Slightly sweet with a strong dark undertone, too much for some, but very good for ya!.
If I were a scent, I’d be cider: fruity, tangy, and just a little tipsy. Yes, the smell.
If I were an object, I’d be a glass and copper candle-holder: older than I look, fragile, and holding a light safe from extinction.
If I were a facial expression, I’d be enthusiasm (whatever that looks like).
If I were a song, I’d be “Open Road Ahead.” (today, anyway)
If I were a pair of shoes, I would be Jandals (flip-flops, for the rest of you).

If I were an item of clothing, I'd be a thick sleeveless fleece with loads of pockets.

If I were a computer, I'd be a battered ThinkPad with faulty memory.

If I were a book, I'd be Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead.

If I were chocolate, I'd be Rocky Road.

If I were a cloud, I'd be Cirrus, because in my mind I fly high and cover a lot of area.

On bad typing and how not to work

I can't type very well today. I keep on making silly mistakes and having to fix them. This is a problem when my work efficiency depends on fast and accurate typing as the meaning flows into my eyes, through the translation matrix and out my fingers. I spend enough thought on the translating as it is, without the typing being messed up. And no, you do not want to know how many times I hit backspace in this paragraph.

It's 8.30 PM and I've had all three meals of the day, been to the beach and shopping, made ebooks, chatted a little online, worked on a story that's due this weekend, and generally enjoyed myself. Now we get down to the real work. I'd like to polish off a couple of thousand words of translation tonight if I can, knock the remaining total down to 11500 or so. Yes, tonight.

Windup...

Partly against my better judgement, I have just accepted a translation job of over 13,000 words. Due June 5th. Heck, what can I say, I need the cash, and it's definitely more than doable. Don't let me push it all to the last day or two this time, or I will almost certainly be dead on the 6th.

What's the bet I'll get more done alongside it than I would have without? Ebook formatting and upload, a book launch party, critiquing, finishing a serial episode for Digital Dragon, reading 17 books, reading submissions, organising the Avenir project, preparing two anthologies, and hopefully a little exercise while revisiting Season Two of Doctor Who. All that plus the builders hammering around in my basement and a flatmate moving out on the weekend, not necessarily conducive to getting lots done.

I must be nuts.