Mouthful o' metal.

I did a bunch of finagling on iPhoto with this one. Can’t tell can you? Yeah, I thought it was okay that way for a while, and as soon as I finished I thought otherwise. It should be doing something it’s not doing. I don’t know what it should be doing, though, or how it should be doing it. This photography stuff is really tough. I’m pushing myself in much different areas than I ever have before. I only had one class in it ever, and it met twice a week. My total instruction in lighting – all of the whole of the subject of lighting – was 90 minutes in length. You might see why certain abilities are beyond my grasp. Honestly, looking at stuff I’ve been doing these past couple of weeks, I’m stunned anyone ever paid me to do work for them. I’m also stunned that I was able to produce work for them that really was halfway decent. This isn’t it. Good thing they didn’t need this, whatever it was I was going for.

We’ll see, kids. I’m finding it very hard to keep up with things lately. I have pretty much filled my plate with things. I love them all, but I wonder how wise this all is. At the same time, I want to give none of them up. Didn’t I blog about this a week ago or something? Probably. Perhaps you’ll have to hear me rant about it for some months before I figure something out. It occurs to me that Bruce Springsteen never had this problem. I’ve read about him. He knew, from the moment he picked up a guitar, that that was it. He’d found IT in his life. He said, “The first time in my life I could stand to look at myself in the mirror was the first time I ever looked in it and held a guitar.”

I don’t have that. I seem to have many choices, and unfortunately I have some amount of ability in many areas. I suppose that’s better than when I used to think I was only good at one or maybe two things, but it brings with it a wealth of other issues, issues which I’m struggling with right now. The universe isn’t reaching out with any obvious answers just yet, either. I’m waiting for some outside force to make things a little clearer, for someone to say to me, “We’re going to pay you sixty grand a year to write for us,” or “We want you to do this public installation of this sculpture,” or “Someone broke into your car and stole your camera,” or “We need someone who can build an engine while taking photos, writing, and playing harmonica.” You know, something like that. SOMEthing!

And while I wait, I keep doing.

Oh, tonight’s writing group meeting went well. It was a mad rush getting there, but I made it, and the folks said I did a great job on my writing prompt, the “barn exercise” taken from John Gardner’s much-lauded “The Art of Fiction.” I’ve not read it yet myself, but it’s on the to-do list. The exercise: describe a barn from the point of view of a man who has just found out he lost his son in war. Do not mention the son, death, or war.

It took me about four hours to write one page, but at least an hour of that was devoted to reading about barns so that I could describe on appropriately. I think I used a single word from that hour of research, but somehow the whole thing was a help anyway.

Keep at it, folks. Keep creating. You owe it to yourself.