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My first writing machine wasn't a Mac
My winter project this year is to sort through bunches of old files that I have packed around with me and moved from place to place to place for decades. That includes various file drawers full of writing projects, correspondence, and research material, along with a few gigabytes of electronic files stored since the 80s when I became an early-bird personal computer user.
It’s sort of the ultimate treasure hunt through my life. A life review in words. A mirror-image of where I have been.
I spent the last week at the start of my hunt by gathering together a huge amount of paper and putting it through the first sort. Much of my early writing was created on electric typewriters with no digital backup. After gathering I jettisoned the first pile of stuff that I clearly had no interest in saving. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very small pile. There was a lot I wanted to pick through sheet by sheet.
Enlighten yourself with your camera
Here is a fun way to amuse yourself during the holiday season. Get your digital camera out and go play in the dark with the pretty lights. I call these exposures light paintings because I’m making art with lights.
The procedure is pretty simple. At night, point your camera at some brightly colored holiday lights. The new vivid LED lights are particularly good for this. Press the shutter, and while the picture is exposing, move the camera around. Pan it, tilt it, even wiggle and jiggle it. This action will blur and streak the lights.
You can of course experiment with different camera settings, but I find the ubiquitous program mode to be just fine. It’s pretty hard to predict what you’ll get, so take lots of photos and try lots of camera movement techniques. Even if you can see the results on your camera’s LCD, you won’t really know the full extent of what you got until you download the photos to your computer. So keep snapping!
