Oh, My ...

What can the matter be?  Not only is processing photos slowing my writing down, now I have a new camera to learn.  It is lighter, a marshmallow of a camera with interchangeable ping-pong-ball lenses.  What it doesn’t have is a mirror to lock up to prevent it from messing up a shot.  That function is handled somehow by the computer inside the marshmallow.  

Why do I need a lighter camera?  Because my hands can no longer hold the weight of my old SLR cameras with their heavy lenses.  Why do I want a brand-spanking new camera?  Because Trixsay wants to play photographer in spite of Mystery’s problems.

The Panasonic Lumix is a descendant of the first digital cameras I used, the ones that lured me into nature photography which in turn fed my wanderlust.  I just hope this new version produces a quality comparable to the SLRs.  For that to happen, I need to figure out how to play ping-pong with a marshmallow.

This is an example of one of those early Panasonic shots:

Watching the Watcher
by Jeter Skeet

I'm Back

I’m back, but I’m not as organized as Humdrum was.  When Trixsay takes over, things scatter—and she always takes over when we travel.  For example, the neat narrow-ruled notebook was to be used exclusively for my travel journal.  But the information about most of the animals we saw is in my messy writing journal where any topic goes.

Worse than that, photography has begun to compete with my novel’s snowflake for my heart and soul—again.  I know I’m going to have to give up wildlife photography eventually for health reasons.  I was assuming that this Brazil trip would be my last one.  How wrong I was.

In the last three weeks, we’ve had one photographer invite us to join him and other amateurs on a new India trip next year.  In Brazil, our photographer-leader asked if we would be interested in a South Africa trip she’s thinking about for 2017.  So my brow raises, my heart pounds, and I begin to taste dust and smell curry.

I love wildlife photography.  That’s a given.  But can I physically endure these trips?  I decided that it was time to talk with my rheumatologist about prednisone.

Withdrawing from prednisone is a distracting process. My head spins like I’m riding a tilt-a-whirl.  I can’t walk a straight line, yet I don’t drink gin.  I’m just dizzy, ditsy me.

Monday at my rheumatologist’s office I received my overdue shots of the biological I take—one of those miracle treatments for RA.  It was time to withdraw from my self-administered flare treatment.  Or was it?

I confessed to the doctor that I started taking prednisone in Brazil.  She sees to it that I have a supply of prednisone on hand for flares.  I really didn’t want to come back from Brazil because without the steroid my corporal tunnel problem is worse, my feet hurt, my knees hurt worse, and my fatigue problems are downright depressing.

We talked about my feet.  My big toes tingle most.  It’s more annoying than actually painful.  She said I probably have the equivalent of corporal tunnel in my ankles.  The prednisone was treating all three problems.  She suggested that I could maintain treatment with a low dose as long as I get enough calcium and continue my Prolia shots.

I accused her of blessing me.

Trixsay was sticking her tongue out at Mysery.

I now know when I’ll get back to my novel (which already had been postponed at least five times for various reasons.)  When I break a hip or a leg, then I’ll give up wildlife photography and work on it (but I may be turning my photos into art by then).

In the meantime, I’ll write my blog (irregularly), process photos, and smile.  Trixsay is taking over my life.

Stained Glass Window at Chicago Museum of Art

Blog Hiatus

This is my last post for about six or eight weeks.  July and August are going to be busy months for us. You may know by the time you receive this that I've left for Brazil.  I'm guilty of writing these posts ahead of time, then scheduling them to actually appear by magic later.

My niece is going to visit with us for one week in July.  She seems to remember some adventuresome places around here that they don’t have in Spokane, WA.  She would like to visit childhood memories shared with her cousins and lit by fireflies.

After that we are going to pack for a photography trip to Brazil.  We’ll leave on the last day of July for a two week excursion into wildlife refuges in search of maned wolves, anteaters, and jaguars.  Then there are various monkeys and birds that will pose for our cameras—we hope.

I’m planning to keep a journal of our experiences as well as take photos that will take some time to process. So it will be awhile before I get back to my blog and my novel.  Expect me online when you see me.

Spectacled Caiman frrom Brazil
by Jeter Skeet

Writing Suggestion (1)

I have had some ideas for novels that I’ve worked on for years.  I have written this scene and developed that character for no other reason than I liked exploring the situation, but I never could figure out how all the situations could be fit together into a whole novel. In other words, I have plotting problems.

I have found a method that seems to help these divergent ideas converge into one story for a novel. I’ve known about the idea of a central story question for a long time now, but sometimes a story question has many answers, sometimes no answers.

I have since discovered from the Snowflake Method. From a story question comes designs or snowflakes. For you who have a mathematical background, this method is based on fractals.  Essentially using a 10-step method, an intricate matrix of plot points evolves from a 15-word (or less) summary of the novel.

I am just at Step 4 of the process, and I have already discovered a couple of important elements for my story that had never occurred to me before during all those years of tryimg to write this novel and going nowhere.

The Snowflake Method was developed by Randy Ingermanson, Ph.D. and is on his website at this link www.advancedfictionwriting.com.  The method is spelled out at no cost after a rather long introduction.

Snowflakes Piled High
Jeter Skeet

Why Science Fiction

I, like so many writers, have dreamed about writing a novel—or four.  When I started writing, I drifted toward SF because I was studying the sciences and because Sputnik’s timing was just right for a student to imagine walking on the moon and eventually Mars.  My dreams expanded throughout the universe when I read the words of Asimov, Heinlein, Clark, and especially Ursula K. LeGuin and C.J. Cherryh—science fiction writers all.

Science fiction has an ally called fantasy.  Fantasy is more popular these days because it focuses more on characterization than traditional SF which is usually more about ideas.  What I would like to do is to transform traditional SF themes using strong characterization.

In good science fiction, the science element or predicament plays the role of metaphor which reveals some aspect of ourselves.  In too much science fiction, however, that aspect is heroism.  What story might arise if the protagonist were not heroic, but perhaps a coward or villain or just indecisive about what to do?

That has been my dream since I sold my first short story decades ago.  I’ve since had two more published. Expanding one of those is where I want to start.  I am a member of Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Writers of America or SFWA which I hope will give me a head-start with readers.

What I’m considering for my blog is posting an update now and again about my successes and failures.  I will also have suggestions about the writing process itself.  One such suggestion will be in the next post, a suggestion I have already found invaluable.

Topi Dreams
by Jeter Skeet

Kneeling by a Toadstool

I went outside on a gloomy day which can be ideal for photography because you don’t have to contend with glare or your own shadow.  Instead I noticed a different shadow, a mental one.

I was practicing for a trip to Brazil we’ll take at the end of next month.  I thought that I would take macro pictures of day-lilies, but I became enamored with tiny toadstools instead.  After a couple of weeks spotted with frequent rainstorms, these cap-like spore-bearing organs of fungi were blossoming in the moistened earth. I even saw a small toadstool under construction.

The circle of what would become the cap was being made with a thin spring coiled and stretched along a string-like fiber, and I, a former biochemist, was watching a protein helix and a protein pleated-sheet (like those that make up our fingernails) come together into a single organ.  It was like I was watching microscopic chemical reactions on a macroscopic level.

Building Toadstools
by Jeter Skeet

Bookstore Café

I’m sitting at a flat-topped toadstool,
my legs astride its pedestal,
inhaling cinnamon-spiced hallucinogens
from the spores that pass
between the mushroom and my pen.

I’m sitting at a square-topped toadstool
inspired to seed the forest in which I live
with words inscribed on paper leaves
that grow on terraced nourishment
surrounding this mushroom place.

I’m sitting at a table toadstool
inside a café inside a bookstore
inside alternate realities found
in books trying to create possibilities
out of the magic practiced here.

I’m sitting at a toadstool among many
watching phantom toads be toads
while I pretend to be a novelist even
while I know my pen is being guided
by inhabitants of this fairy forest.

                                        12/10/08

Toadstool in Florida
by Jeter Skeet