NaNoWrimo Update – It’s the Last Week

I thought I’d give an update on how I’m doing for NaNoWrimo so far this month. Let’s just say that during this last week of the challenge I’ll be writing A LOT! I’m behind just like I was last year, but just like last year I feel very determined to reach the goal. I’m definitely not giving up. I won’t give my word count at the moment, but I’ll say that I’m not so far behind to make this seem impossible, but I’m far enough behind that I’ll have to stay very committed to writing this week to reach 50,000 words.

One of the problems I’ve faced this year is that I wasn’t really happy with my writing in the first two and a half weeks. I wasn’t feeling connected to it. I realized this and re-focused and was able to get back on track, but it definitely put me behind. The good news is that I’m enjoying my story again, and enjoy the writing process, and it’s making the words come much faster. If I can keep this pace, I should have no problem hitting 50,000. I’ll update again at the end of the week. Hopefully I’ll be able to say that I’m a Nanowrimo winner!

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Free Shipping!

I wanted to announce that the site where I offer prints of my art and photography is offering free ground shipping on US orders from Nov 22nd to Nov 26th. This is a great deal for those that might be interested in larger items, like framed prints, canvas, acrylic prints etc. If you’re interested, take a look at my online gallery at murdocksgallery.com

Country Road Adventures!

Our GPS tends to have a mind of its own. Generally it works well and gets us where we need to be, but every now and then it gets into a bad mood and takes us wherever it pleases. Most of the time it’s frustrating, like the time it took us deeper and deeper into the hills of West Virginia and told us to make a right turn onto what looked like an overgrown walking path that probably would have lead us to a horror scene like that of the movie Deliverance. Needless to say, we turned around. Then there was that time we set it to find the Amazon warehouse where my husband had a job interview, and it took us to a woman’s backyard. Thankfully, she happened to be standing in her backyard, and gave us correct directions. There was also that time when we set it to find a local Kroger’s grocery store, and it took us to the front door of what looked like a drug lord’s house. We didn’t stop to ask for directions that time.

This last time we used it, it failed to take us on the correct route like expected, but it took was on an adventure through the countryside of Ohio, down dirt roads showing us gorgeous Autumn scenes. There were no other cars, so we were able to pull over when we wanted to do our photography, and we fully enjoyed the fall leaves and colors. We had no idea where we were, but we didn’t care. In the end we didn’t get to photograph what we actually planned because we never found the place, but we got so many other photographs and found places that we never would have known about if it wasn’t for our crazy GPS.

Here are some of the roads it took us down. Prints available here, along with many of our other Autumn landscapes.

Autumn Reflections

Fall started late for us this year, really late. Here we are in November and we are just now at our peek for the autumn leaves, which is a bit unusual. Last week we had mostly heavy rain, so I thought for sure we’d lose most of the leaves before we had a chance to get out and do some landscape photography, but thankfully over the weekend the rain stopped, and the weather was perfect for a little road trip with our cameras.

I’ll talk more about our drive out in the country on another blog post because first I want to show off one of the images I took at Alum Creek in the morning. The lighting was great, the water was calm, and the trees were still full of their beautiful leaves. I especially like those water reflections.  The water was so calm in some areas it looked like ice.  I couldn’t be happier, and I’m so thankful I got a chance to take in some of nature’s gorgeous scenes and colors.

Prints available here.

It’s time for NaNoWrimo!

It’s November which means NaNoWrimo is back, and I’m going to participate again this year. This will be the third year in a row I’ve done it, and I’m pretty excited for it this year. I’m going to do things a little differently this time. I plan to work on my main story, but I’m also going to possibly work on a few short story ideas as well as write some posts for this blog. I’m not really a writer, but it does help get my creativity flowing, and I really need that right now. Hopefully this will be a great way to get some ideas down on paper.

For those that aren’t sure what NaNoWrimo is, it is writing challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That comes to about 1667 words a day. It’s not as hard as it seems, especially when you focus on the smaller daily goal, but it can be a challenge. For me it has always sparked my creativity, and as an artist it helps generate ideas for illustrations. If you have any interest in writing, I recommend giving it a try. You’ll push your creativity further than you realize it can go.

Rainbow Over Cumberland Falls

I celebrated my anniversary with my husband a couple of weeks ago, and we visited Cumberland Falls, Kentucky.  Cumberland Falls is a beautiful waterfall on the Cumberland River, and we were happy to see the rainbow over the falls.  It’s such a gorgeous sight, and thankfully it showed up nicely in the majority of our photographs.  I’m still going through many of our images, but I have this one ready and on our site, and it’s one of my favorites.

Prints available here.

 

Ready for the Music

When I was in high school this time of year was exciting because of Marching Band.  I loved band!  I have such good memories of music, marching, band camp, football games and fellow bandies.  I still have my clarinet.  Maybe I’ll bring her out to play.

Prints of this photograph available here.

 

 

Hot Air Balloons

I had the chance to view the hot air balloon launch at the All Ohio Balloon Festival in Marysville, Ohio.  It was fun, but not exactly what I expected.  First, we didn’t actually go into the festival, but instead found a place nearby where we parked and could watch and photograph the balloons.  The spot we chose was great for actually seeing the balloons, but the sun was bright and facing towards us, which made it a little difficult to photograph.  Next year we’ll take that into consideration when we look for a new location.  There also weren’t that many balloons.  We had this idea in our heads that there would be 50 balloons in the sky, but there were only 13.  I’m not sure if this is typical, or if the numbers were lower because of the weather.  It also could have just been that our expectations were way too high.  Regardless, it was fun to watch and I look forward to next year.  Here are some of my photographs from the day.

Prints are available here.

 

Canopy of Trees

While camping we drove under a canopy of trees.  We had to stop the car to get this photograph.  The scene was too beautiful to pass up.  Little did we know that this would be the first of several scenes like this we would experience on our little drive through the countryside that evening.  It was lovely.

Prints available here!

 

Electric Blue Flames

A couple of weekends ago we went camping and had a campfire which meant I got to play with fire . . . I mean take photographs of fire.  Using a slower shutter speed gave me the opportunity to create some fun abstract designs from the flames, and I later changed the colors during editing.  These three blue photographs are just some of the Abstract Flame series I did, and I’ll share more later.

Prints available here for those interested.