Weekly Photo 18 & 19 / 52 for 2013: Happy Dog & Rose

Weekly Photo 18/52 for 2013: Happy Dog by Kristen Koster on FlickrI got behind on posting my weekly photo last week, so you get a double dose again today. The kids are amazed that Olivia is quite comfortable laying this way. Of course, this dog lays in all sorts of ways I wouldn’t think were comfortable either. One of her favorites is upside down on her back on the hard tile. It’s cooler I guess.

Weekly Photo 19/52 for 2013: Rose for Mother's Day by Kristen Koster on FlickrWe have a line of roses that runs across the hill behind our pool. I don’t think two of the varieties are the same and there are probably a dozen bushes along the row. Some are very dark, but I always seem to miss their peak blooms. Most of the others have variegated blooms and the colors range there from pale pink to almost a cantaloupe color to dark pink. Again, I’ve missed the peak of the blooms, but found this one interesting in how the edges of the petals contrasted with the rest of the bloom.

Weekly Photo 17/52 for 2013: Clover Among The Rocks

Weekly Photo 17/52 for 2013: Clover Among The Rocks by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is not a flower and it’s not purple! We still have plenty of those in the yard. One of the things that fascinates me about the vegetation here is how persistent it is. When and where there’s enough water, it will grow. Several of the streets have cracks in the pavement, and sure enough, grass grows because of the aggressive irrigation. These clovers have decided to grow despite

We’ve been inundated by urban wildlife this week. We have a pair of turkeys who have moved along the ditch between our drive and the neighbors’. I finally caught a picture of them on my iPhone the other day. Today, we had a young Southern Pacific Rattlesnake on the patio today, but while that photo was good enough to use for identification, it wasn’t a great shot and I didn’t think my mom really wanted to see it. She’s going to freak as it is. There are also the various hummingbirds and songbirds who visit the yard, but after the spectacle of the snake, I saw a new bird with really long tailfeathers that I didn’t recognize, but I think was a roadrunner. By the time I grabbed my camera and switched lenses, he was gone.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/500 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 1600 • 300 mm

Weekly Photo 15 & 16 / 52 for 2013: Fish & Cosplay

Weekly Photo 15/52 for 2013: Panda Cory by Kristen Koster on FlickrI didn’t have a chance to post a weekly photo last Sunday and by the time Monday rolled around, I didn’t feel much like sharing a cute little cat fish with the world. Life goes on with sweet, cute and innocent right beside the horrible, shocking and evil.

I need to remember to use my tripod for these aquarium shots. Using just the tank light, really slows the shutter speed down if I take it off auto. If I leave it on then I have to fight the flash and worry about the fish darting. I should look into the hand-held dusk dusk option as well. I definitely have to play with this more as the tank is looking quite nice, but I can’t do it justice.

Weekly Photo 16/52 for 2013: Humanized GladOS from Portal by Kristen Koster on FlickrThis second photo is from this past week when my daughter decided she wanted to get some pictures of her humanized GladOS cosplay since she has a portal gun now. Yeah, I liked how this one with the companion cube came out better. There’s lots of post-processing on it, but only things you can do in iPhoto. I’d be really scary with a copy of Photoshop! Anyway, she gave me permission to share this one with everyone. And yes, our son does exist, but the birthday boy escaped the camera once again.

Weekly Photo 14/52 for 2013: Birthday Bouquet

Weekly Photo 14/52 for 2013: Birthday Bouquet by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post prolongs my birthday celebration from Wednesday. These are the Peruvian lillies my mom sent and DH’s family also sent flowers too so even inside our house looks like Spring now! Hopefully everyone is starting to enjoy a little Spring in their corner of the world, well except for those of you in Australia or New Zealand and other areas south of the equator… time to snuggle up for some Autumn coziness!

If you’re curious about some trivia from my birthday, check out this post from 5 years ago where I did a Thursday Thirteen round-up of things that happened on April 3, 1968. And yeah… now you know exactly how old I am. And some days I feel it, plus a couple decades. =)

Thanks to everyone who sent me Happy Birthday wishes from all over the internet, they were greatly appreciated!

Weekly Photo 13/52 for 2013

Weekly Photo 13/52 for 2013: Easter 2013 by Kristen Koster on FlickrI missed posting Sunday’s weekly photo, but I did take pictures last week! I didn’t like the way most of the ones of the white flowers came out, too over-exposed. I’ll have to find a better time of day for those. I’m still not happy with my candid shots of people.

Anyway, I hope everyone that celebrates had a great Easter Weekend. If you don’t celebrate, then I hope your weekend was fantastic too!

I couldn’t decide which Easter bunny I liked better, so you get both! The dog definitely found the “SPROING” noise that the ears made when squeezed on that red dot very interesting. That’s why she’s jumping up to grab the ears from off my daughter’s head. Olivia did sit still to pose with them for a bit, but only if someone sat with her to distract her from trying to paw that thing off her head.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • Oops, I don’t have this handy since I combined the two into one.

Weekly Photo 12/52 for 2013: Iceplant

Weekly Photo 12/52 for 2013: Iceplant by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post could be considered cruel and unusual punishment for those of you stuck in winter mode. Here, spring has definitely sprung and the hills are green (this is usually seen as a bad thing here because by fall it will make abundant tinder for raging wildfires) and the flowers and trees are blooming. From the amount of pollen on our cars, I’d think we were back in Austin, TX. I’ve never seen it so thick here. I got to watch a stand of pines dump pollen on a couple of students walking beneath them the other day. A good strong breeze caught the trees and it looked like someone had taken a huge bottle of yellow talcum power and dumped on them.

The iceplant pictured here is a succulent that’s used for sunny hillsides and in some of the medians on the streets. Once it gets in full bloom, like phlox, it looks like someone came along with a bucket of bright magenta paint and stood and swung it. Apparently, it also spreads to cover the area really well and can be quite invasive as well. Good thing it’s pretty.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/100 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 100 • 35 mm

Weekly Photo 11/52 for 2013: Flowering Hedge

Weekly Photo 11/52 for 2013: Flowering Hedge by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is NOT a daisy! Spring is starting to burgeon here in full force. It’s been in the low 80s this week and the flowers are loving it.

This also means that it’s warmer at night and that means foggy mornings. I was going to grab a shot of the sun coming over the hills this morning, but I got sidetracked and by the time I remembered I had been going to grab my camera, the effect I was looking at had gone.

Timing is everything. Ok, maybe not EVERYTHING, but certainly a huge chunk of getting some of those great shots! The other day I was coming back from school and a plane flew between me and the summit and the way the sun flashed off it was very cool, but of course, the plane veered off and I didn’t have my camera with me, let alone turned on and ready.

Settings: Sony A33-SLT • 1/100 • ƒ/5.6 • ISO 250 • 55 mm

Social Media: Where You’ll Find Me

Social Network IconsThis week my accountability group’s How I Write series asks, “Which social media platforms do you do? Which do you prefer and why?”

I’m not an extrovert by any means, but I can almost pretend to be one on the internet for short periods of time. I do have a tendency to lurk, but I have met some great people through various online social media networks that I wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise.

I think the most important thing when trying one out is whether you like the atmosphere and the people you connect with. Surround yourself with positive people, people who inspire you, make you laugh. While it’s important to find “your tribe”, it’s also important to look beyond it to escape the filter bubble

Daily Social Media

Twitter

Likes: In and out quickly. The instant information when something happens. The cocktail party atmosphere. How approachable most people are.
Dislikes: 140 characters. Straight web interface. Impending death of Tweetdeck — I need to find a replacement.

Facebook

Likes: Games. Groups, ability to find people you’ve lost touch with. More than 140 characters. Ability to filter what updates you get from some people.
Dislikes: Games. Privacy issues. Repeated sharing of hoaxes or just plain misinformation.

Frequent Social Media

Flickr

Likes: Online photo sharing and organization. Groups if I want to read them. Random pic(k)s!
Dislikes: I always forget to check the groups. Some of the organization tools are a little clunky.

GoodReads

Likes: Finding new books from my friends! Tracking what I’ve read.
Dislikes: I tend to lurk on groups, not sure why.

Pinterest

Likes: Ooooooh, shiny! Lots of neat stuff out there.
Dislikes: Ooooooh, shiny!

Forgotten Social Media

Google+

Likes: Ability to do hangouts. Clean appearance. Communities seem like a good idea.
Dislikes: Circles aren’t necessarily intuitive to set up and use. Is it just me or is it still VERY quiet?

StumbleUpon

Likes: Easy to find cool new things! Great way to help spread the word about cool things on the net.
Dislikes: Remembering to use it! (Yeah, I never got into digg either.)

Spotify/last.fm

Likes: I like listening to new music. I like listening to old music.
Dislikes: Remembering to open up something other than iTunes, heck I even forget that some days.

Tumblr

Likes: Umm… I never really got into it. My kids use it and love it though. I like looking at other people’s when they’re linked from twitter.
Dislikes: Remembering it’s there?

I’m sure there are several others I’ve forgotten I signed up for. You’ve also probably noticed that LinkedIn isn’t on the list. I’ve gotten numerous invitations (Haven’t we all?), but don’t feel like I have time or really a good reason to be there. (I’m happy to listen to reasons why I’m wrong though.) I also currently use YouTube and IMDB, but I don’t post or comment on either of them.

I do also use NetworkedBlogs, Technorati, Gravatar, WordPress, and Blogger (for commenting on other blogs), but those are much more passive than the platforms listed above.

YOUR TURN: Which social media platforms do you do? Which do you prefer and why?

And if you’d like to check out the rest of my accountability group, you can find their blogs here:
• Alexia Reed • Kimberly Farris • Danie Ford • Emma G. Delaney • Susan Saxx •

Weekly Photo 10/52 for 2013: Purple Daisy 2

Weekly Photo 10/52 for 2013: Purple Daisy 2 by Kristen Koster on FlickrToday’s weekly photo post is another of the purple daisies from our front steps. The photo didn’t quite come out how I wanted it to. The flower itself looked as if it were purple in the center and white on the tips of the petals.

I should have gone back inside to grab my Sony, but we were heading out to the dog park with Olivia. Didn’t think to take pictures over there either.

It was rainy here last week, so we should be getting some more variety in what’s blooming soon as the temps this week are expected back in the upper 70s if not 80s.

Settings: iPhone 4S • 1/120 • ƒ/2.4 • ISO 50 • 4.3 mm

Target Word Count

Target Word Count: Screen capture of word meter and deadlines in Scrivener's Project Target window.
My Very Unhappy Wordmeter in Scrivener

This week my accountability group’s How I Write series asks, “When you’re writing, do you have a wordcount in mind that you HAVE to stick to? What’s your happy WIP word zone? If you don’t have enough, do you try to add more to reach it?”

I’m going to tackle this week’s question two different ways. First, I’m going to look at the smaller scale: the daily (or weekly) targets. Then, I’ll talk about what this means in terms of a full manuscript. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like small stories. I’m not sure how well, I’m doing at writing bigger ones, but I can’t seem to write super short. I know what I want to write and I know I need to stretch to make it there both in terms of holding a coherent story together that big and finding the time and energy to put toward writing that kind of story on an on-going basis.

Daily Target Word Counts

Number in Mind

This number has radically changed for since I began writing. In the beginning, when I was eager and didn’t know any better, I could sit down and rattle off 600-800 words in a 20 minute sprint and I could do a couple of hours at that pace. These days, I got tired just typing that sentence. My ideal daily target work count would be to get a scene or two done each day, which has been averaging around 1500-1600 words.

Happy Word Zone

So this has shifted for me in a not so positive direction lately. Some days I’m lucky to get 100 words down on the page. Others, I’ve done 2,000+, well over the target word count. I can’t seem to find the groove again.

Coming Up Short

I’ve been known to go back and add stuff, but on a first draft, I don’t try to do it too much. I know there are several places where I will be required to go back and add layers in later drafts, so coming under by a bit isn’t too horrible a feeling for me to leave with. It also tends to average out in the end.

WIP/MS Target Word Counts

Number in Mind

Like I said, I like big stories. I’m not sure I can write to novella or category length right now. That said, some of my first drafts have fallen far short of my target word counts. This usually tells me I’m missing part of the story and to go back to the drawing board. I really want to write single-title historical romances which tend to have target word counts of at least 90,000 words or somewhere around 360-400 pages.

Happy Word Zone

I don’t know what my eventual sweet spot will be, but my complete rough draft is about 72k. I’m sure there’s stuff I need to add. The two that I feel are nowhere near finished clock in around 36-42k words. My current project is sitting stalled at 25k, but is just a bit over 25% of that with 1/4 of the outline drafted.

Coming Up Short

I usually feel that description and emotion are the two places that I tend to run short on. I was talking with my husband about this not too long ago (he’s a writer too) and he asked if I saw the movie of the book playing in my head. What I get is often more like a radio play. I get dialogue and sounds. In the first draft or so, I tend to use body language that’s boring, obvious and more of a place holder to remind me of the emotional tone of the scene as I dictate it.

YOUR TURN: What length stories do you prefer to read or write? Why?

And if you’d like to check out the rest of my accountability group, you can find their blogs here:

* Alexia Reed * Kimberly Farris * Danie Ford * Emma G. Delaney * Susan Saxx *