Sunday, September 2, 2012

Can I really let some stuff go?

I love to take pictures. I always have. With the advent of digital cameras, it became even easier to feed my habit. I took 296 pictures last week at my writers conference, mostly of the grounds of the beautiful conference center. I have just started editing them.

Just like in my writing, some of these pictures need to be straightened or the color needs to be tweaked or they need to be cropped. And some pictures just have to go.

It's tough though. Every time I snap that shutter, I am creating another baby. It is hard to just delete even one of them.

Same thing with the words I write. You mean I have to crop every "just" and "only"? I have to rewrite that scene? I have to delete that scene all together?

Such is the writer's life, I guess. Seek and destroy!




This week I accomplished nine goals out of 17. Seems I can't break that single digit mark. There is always next week.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the excellent writing advice: "Seek and destroy!" I really needed to hear that, especially this week. Your post made me laugh for I love taking pictures as well. I have thousands. Each one evokes a certain mood, a scene, a mix of colors or light or theme. So write on, or I should say: Revise on!

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    1. Thanks for the comment, Beth. It is nice to take lots of pictures knowing you could delete the bad ones. Back in the day, we would pay to get them all developed and go "holy cow, what was I thinking?" I guess it was the same way too with the manual typewriter! You were kind of stuck with less than perfection sometimes.

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  2. Nine out of seventeen isn't bad - and seventeen's a lot! I spent the whole weekend killing writing darlings, but my story's tighter and better for it. Your photos are gorgeous - love the little chipmunk especially. :) Good luck this week!

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    1. Thanks, Jennette. I took about ten pictures of chipmunks to get that one.
      Editing is painful sometimes, but worth it in the end.

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