New Things

It’s my birthday week!  Clearly noted by the change in blog design and upgrade to the site and what not.  New year.  New things n shiz.  You know how those things go. At least I assume everyone does things according to their birth day.  Caesar can’t tell us ALL what to do amiright?

Blog Elevated

Last year I went to Blog Elevated and learn lots of bloggy things (recap here and here).  I didn’t think I was going to go this year but I did and went both days (to Galveston, Moody Gardens to be exact) and learned A LOT of things.  I know I said that last year.  I want to write.  I like writing.  I NEED to write.  And that’s why I blog.  There are so many opportunities to make sweet sweet moolah from it.  But it’s one of those things where when you start working at your hobby then what do you do for fun.  So I might stick an ad on or do the occasional sponsored post but I’m not ready to shove products down your throat.  Not faulting bloggers who do that, but yes faulting the ones that ONLY do that.

However, I have been putting a lot into my Facebook page so go check that out. I will probably be doing a birthday giveaway cause that’s how I roll.

NaNoWriMo

(if you don’t know what NaNo is then you must be new here and it is a challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November and it will drive you absolutely nutty and I “won” once and failed like 3 years)

November is next month.  Clearly.  And if I really want to give NaNo a solid try, I need to start prep work for it now.  Find a plot.  Start fresh or revive one of the (many) unfinished things.  I love all my plots and I have abandoned like 98% of them.

So to remedy my half assed ways, I have been keeping a notebook with me.  It’s a great reason to finally use all of these notebooks I’ve been stockpiling.  A Free Write book of sort like this is 12th grade Creative Writing.  It has things in it like “BLOG: Facebook makes you hate everyone” or “BLOG: Addy requests toys then tells me I can’t say no” or various lists and questions with no answers.

Just the physical act of capturing a stream of concsiousness.  Which in theory sounds good but I get bogged down with pesky things like a full time job or traffic or showers or a family that needs dinner.  But they say you make time for things you want to make time for.  So this just might require a few useful hours at Starbucks from time to time.

I need to do some prompts and outlines and just type something and see how it goes come November.

Photography

I shot a birthday party. That’s how photographers talk.  It was…trying.  Mostly because there’s pressure when people are paying you to take pictures of things.  I spend most of my time taking pictures of the things I want to take pictures of and then you’re like “ok well how many pictures do they want of their kid being 1???” I want 5. I say that but then I look back at Addy’s 1st Birthday and there were a million. So you click and click and see how it all shakes out.  It just mostly confirmed that I don’t like to mix work with whatever it is I do at home.

Not that I won’t take pictures for money.  Just I will heavily exercise my right to say no.  See aforementioned note about hobbies becoming jobs.  I’m sure that’s what broke up the Neelys.

However, I did rent this lens and (I won’t bore you with the technical specs) it worked pretty well.  Not drooling to go get it just yet, but it is on the TO BUY list.  And I took this totally pinnable picture.

AND Brownlee went with me to Discovery Green so I could take pics cause it was 80 degrees and gorgeous outside.

Anyway we’ll see how progress goes on all fronts.  And how many more notebooks I can justify buying.