This is mostly about photography, not much about writing.
I’ve always taken pictures on trips, when I found things worth shooting. I have ten thousand pictures posted at http://gryphontravel.shutterfly.com, and I post more in batches after each trip or so. I have traditionally used the best point-and-shoot cameras I could find and done zero work in photoshop. Post-production has been limited to orienting photos as portrait rather than landscape, when I notice it’s needed, in the rare cases where I’ve taken sideways shots. I avoid it because that’s too much post-production for me.
After a fishing trip on which I took pictures of wildlife more than I fished, I upgraded to a camera on which I could change out lenses. I hadn’t been able to zoom as far as I needed to, or frame shots well enough, and wanted to upgrade. I wanted the Sony NEX-7 but it wasn’t being shipped due to meltdowns or earthquakes or something in Japan.
So I got the Nikon 1 V1 instead. When I went to central Europe over the new year, I took the V1 and the results were pretty good. I also acquired a Leica D-Lux 5 while I was there, which is an excellent-quality (though low-resolution) point-and-shoot. I found myself using it a lot for its low-light capabilities and creamy yellow coloring in available-light shots (I almost never use a flash).
When I returned from Europe, I left the V1 sitting for a month or more on my table here and then when I tried to start it up, I found the viewscreen wasn’t working. I had to have it sent back to Nikon, which took a month and annoyed the hell out of me since it was a new camera. Partly as a result of this and partly because I now realized that the sensor is too small, and the resolution too low, I decided to upgrade to a real semi-pro DSLR. I probably shouldn’t have tried to get what I needed out of an intermediate camera anyway. Guess I’ll sell it.
After much research I decided on the Nikon D800 or the Canon EOS 5D Mark 3. I was leaning toward the Canon due to the problem I’d just had with the Nikon 1 V1, and since I’ve been happy with Canon point-and-shoots over the last several years since I stopped buying Sony products due to terrible service. But the Nikon D800 had won in the court of internet reviews, and I decided to go for it. Except, I couldn’t get one, since it was backordered worldwide.
Due to the surprising quality of the Leica D-Lux 5, I decided to also look into higher-end Leicas. I found out that the M9-P and its lenses are collectible and therefore resellable, in the case of the lenses, even scalpable for more money, though I’m not so into that. So I decided against my better (cheaper) judgment to get one of those too, though I could only find one lens at first. I figured I’d just sell it if I didn’t find out it was phenomenal. It arrived just before I left on the recent trip.
Setting out on that trip, I planned to beg at camera shops in different cities in case they had a D800 that had just come in and not been allocated to a customer yet. In a stroke of extreme luck, I got one on the first try. So now I had two real cameras, half of the US to shoot, and very little knowledge about manual-mode photography. I spent a lot of time learning about this stuff and took a decent number of decent pictures in the process, including attempting some full-auto, manual-focus, manual-shutter-speed pictures of interesting lightning near the border of Georgia and Florida. I also seeked out Leica M-system lenses in various stores in various cities in various southern states; they are very rare and hard to find, and I figured I was traveling anyway so I might as well have a quest.
One thing I learned was that you have to have your mind in the right state and your camera ready to go in order to catch some interesting shots. I took to wearing the Leica M9-P around my neck near-constantly since it’s so much smaller, and using the Nikon D800 for anything requiring zoom, distance or tricky focus. I haven’t really studied the results yet but I’ll bet both cameras performed fantastically.
Sadly, I found it hard to be in both photo mindset and writing mindset. I find that to write a lot, I have to be in a frame of mind where it’s not just the most important thing I’m concerned with, but rather, the only thing. I have to learn to balance it a little, because I need to be able to do other things and not lose the aggressive write-every-day mindset that it takes to finish a novel. Maybe it will be better now that I have (a little) less to learn about photography.
It had better be better, because the next road trip is less than 3 weeks away, and I want to complete my first draft before I leave.
This blog post is not about writing per se. It’s more about not-writing, due to vehicular problems on the road trip I just returned from.
My Itasca Navion has been a lemon from the very beginning, which could be kind of charming in a Milennium Falcon sort of way. Except that it’s been me it’s happening to, instead of some fictional character. So it’s actually been more inconvenient and dangerous than, you know, comically romantic.
I won’t get into details about what went wrong with it in the past, but in the first months after I got it, it had multiple separate incidents of serious engine computer problems and various other issues on both the chassis part (the Mercedes Sprinter van that’s the engine and drive train and most of the cab) and the house part (the Winnebago RV box that’s the shell of the turtle). At least it’s still under (extended) warranty, so I don’t have to pay for much of what happens to it. Except apparently headlights are only covered for the first six months.
On this trip, both headlights burned out at different times, which about doubles the number of headlights I’ve had burn out in my entire driving career. I also had a propane leak, which is as dangerous and disturbing as it sounds, and it sounds like a loud hissing with a sulphurous stench. Simultaneously there was a sewage leak, which would be as gross as it sounds except I don’t really use the built-in facilities. Also a hubcap went flying off somewhere in Atlanta, which is probably more a testament to some of the awful potholey roads on the outskirts of that city than to the vehicle’s assembly, though I suspect it wasn’t solidly attached (since the other three are still there).
The air conditioning started to malfunction in Florida, which isn’t really the place you want that to happen. It would be blasting lots of cold air goodness with loud wind tunnel sound effects and then suddenly not be blowing at all, though still sounding like it was blowing just as hard. I’m not sure that one got fixed right, since it didn’t happen for the two Mercedes dealers I took it to. We’ll see on the next trip, I guess, which is soon. Also, the rearward of the two ceiling fans failed, and needs to be replaced and ideally upgraded. And the TV antenna stopped working at some point; I don’t watch TV, so I’m not sure how long that’s been out, but I was trying to demo it.
The vehicle consumed a great deal of various fluids, more than it should have in my opinion for a three-week trip, including, oddly, antifreeze, and less surprisingly, the ever-delightful Diesel Exhaust Fluid, which is basically synthetic urine in a bottle (I am not making this up) that somehow cleanses diesel fumes. I’d had the truck serviced the day before I left, so it should have been good for at least 7000 miles…although, regarding that service, the first problem I had on this trip was that they’d put too much motor oil in, which I discovered on a Sunday, and which I had to have fixed at a truck workshop that I was just lucky was open. So who knows what state it was in really.
So, in addition to all the other majestic sights on this trip, I got to see the inside of several Mercedes Sprinter dealerships and Winnebago service centers. And there’s more to do at the local warranty service place before my next trip, which is soon. I did meet some interesting characters at these places, though, and generally received good service.
I just don’t understand how a new vehicle can have this amount of trouble without the maker going out of business. Or makers, in this case, since there’s the chassis and the house and they’re completely separate. These constant problems are really distracting when all you want to do is drive, look at cities to possibly move to, take photos, and finish the first draft of your novel. Instead you’re constantly worrying about whether you’re going to die in a fiery gas explosion or faint from heat exhaustion, or run out of some fluid you didn’t know you needed when you’re hundreds of miles from anywhere. It’s all the delights of boat ownership coupled with road hazards and traffic.
Though I still do like having my house, and my stuff, with me wherever I go. In principle.
In the last few months I’ve been talking a lot to a friend who was stalled in the novel he’d been working on off and on for a year or two. We’ve been discussing what we’ve learned from experience and books and trying to motivate each other, and in fact, the first of my road trips this year was with him, and we both wrote on most days, as I posted about before.
Among lots of other excellent advice (most of which I learned from other people and not my own brain) I told him that all he had to do to get started was to write for 10 minutes each day, even 5 minutes, just long enough to get a taste for it but not long enough to feel like it’s a pressure. He blew it off at first, then started doing it, and has been very consistent about it, as I was before these road trips began. He’s started doing hours at a time, which is rare for me. Now he’s very nearly done with his first draft, which puts him weeks ahead of me, and which also makes me proud of him.
I lamented to him several times over the last couple of weeks that I’d been breaking Rule #1 to the point where I might as well have never formed the habit in the first place. The first few times, he said it’s OK, you need to let things stew sometimes, to let ideas gel and problems to be solved by your subconscious, or whatever.
I told him that might work for him, but it’s not what I need, and it’s an unfairly generous interpretation of my slowed progress. Those sorts of inspirations and epiphanies do come to me in the shower or dreams or whenever, but productivity comes from following Rule #1 above all.
Finally he said, OK, you’re right. You do suck, plus you’re whiny. So go back to 10 minutes a day. (Some of that might be paraphrased.)
This, of course, was a really good point. I’d gotten to where I was expecting myself to do 1-2 hours per session, and it had become hard to find that kind of time on road trip days, so I was blowing it off entirely…when all I really had to do was 10 minutes to keep the habit going. Of course, it’s the rough gear shifting between mindspaces that’s hard, and probably takes more than 10 minutes to achieve after driving hundreds of miles, but the principle is sound.
I’ve said in the past that it’s much easier to keep a habit than form it. Now I’m going to have to find out. After I post this, I’ll be doing my 10 minutes for the day. Maybe even much more. I have to get back in the saddle.
Setting goals is another key to completing your novel. Maybe Set and Achieve Goals should even be Rule #2, though if I’m going to be declaring a whole set of rules I’ll need to put some time in to get them just right. Anyway, I haven’t done this as much as I should. So, my goal, now, shall be:
to finish my first draft before I leave for my next road trip in about 3 weeks.
Can I do it?
I guess we’ll see.
Meanwhile, my message to all working writers is, as always, follow Rule #1. Write every day! Don’t blow it like I did and have to form the habit again from scratch. 10 minutes is enough to keep yourself on the wagon.
Well, I’m home from my three-week trip across the southern half of the US. I saw a lot of places and took a lot of photos, which is my other sort-of-creative pursuit. I learned a great deal about photography on this trip, since for the first time I’ve been working with semi-professional camera gear. Maybe I’ll write a separate blog entry about photography. Also about the many problems my lemon of an RV had along the way.
I got about one week of writing done in the course of a three-week trip. This was due to the following excuses:
Obviously none of these excuses are worth a damn, with the possible exception of photography, which is at least a semi-creative pursuit. I’m not one of those people who views it as an art form, though, since it’s so much easier than, say, sculpture or painting or even writing. But it’s still worthy, in my opinion, and you have to get the shots when you spot them. Or maybe that’s pure rationalization, which is probably the case since it’s the less comfortable interpretation.
Rationale and rationalization aside, writing one week out of three is a clear violation of Rule #1: Write every day.
What am I doing about it? I’ll tell you tomorrow.
So I took those two road trips back to back and something just didn’t go right along the way, in terms of writing at least. Went to the Grand Canyon, took a bunch of pictures, that was fine. But—and I don’t know if it was tiredness or jadedness or just using travel as an excuse—I got very little writing done on that trip.
And worse yet, I broke my habit of writing every day. And it turns out I was right: that’s really bad. I still haven’t gotten back into it.
Now, I have spent time on some other things. Early preparations for moving, for one thing. Also I decided to take photography up a notch and research better camera equipment. There were a couple of other personal projects in there. And, I’m starting yet another road trip tomorrow: another research trip to figure out where I might want to move.
So the time hasn’t been a total loss, but obviously I feel very crappy about having done maybe five days’ worth of writing in the last three weeks.
This next trip I’ll be solo, and that should help. I shouldn’t be in a huge rush, and should be able to find time to stop to write. Bernadette is safely at the ex’s, where she seems happy enough, so that’s not a worry.
Maybe I’ll do some blog updates from the road, though that was never really my intention. I’d rather spend the time writing. But I do want to keep this going at a reasonable pace. One of these days I need to release the half-written, long-awaited entries on the third and fourth walls (blockades to writing that I’ve experienced). Hell, arguably what I’ve been dealing with lately is a wall in itself, although it’s not related to the writing work, the subject matter, lack of ideas or any of the usual issues.
I think foremost I have to re-form the writing-every-day habit. Maybe the distractions are over with for the time being. But the whole point is that nothing must ever be allowed to distract you from writing every day. If it happens even two days in a row (maybe three), you’re screwed…because re-forming a habit is a lot harder than forming it in the first place. Take it from me….
