People making things
A double win for me today! I spent most of the morning outside with Yosemite Sierra Artists for a plein air session just down the street in Wawona at the Yosemite History Center. It’s a destination that I have often wanted to spend some time in with a sketchbook, and I’ve been passively following YSA … Read more
“We’ll bivy here, and go for the summit in the morning.” It’s the classic play – calling your parents to see if they have the money to fund your next grand adventure. Fortunately, instead of spending $150K to pursue the canonical Seven Summits – the highest point on each of the seven continents – one … Read more
It was a bit of a false start in the morning in terms of connecting with our instructor, but once that minor detail was sorted, we were off to the races. Sarah Sugarman is a Tuolumne Interp ranger in the summer and works for NatureBridge during the winter, and has been living full-time in Yosemite … Read more
After seeing so many of these charismatic moths on our backpacking trip, we were both so excited to see a sphinx moth caterpillar in our backyard when we returned. I spent an hour watching it and sketching in my nature journal. I started off with my favorite light blue Pilot Color Eno pencil and then … Read more
Yesterday I did something that I rarely make the time to do – I went to one of the Evening Programs put on by either NPS or DNC Interpretation. After a long day at work, it can be hard to motivate for anything other than a relaxing evening at home. However, this program was being … Read more
According to some of the things I’ve read, one of the most enjoyable parts of NaNoWriMo is the sense of community and the pleasure of sharing the experience with other WriMos in the area. Perhaps I’m missing out. I know I haven’t talked much about NaNoWriMo this year – not on the blog and not … Read more
I had the good fortune, a few months ago, of running into Lynne Joiner, an Emmy-award winning journalist and author who was visiting Yosemite and had the kernel of an idea to write a story about the people living and working in Yosemite after stumbling across one or two employees with an interesting history. She … Read more
The great thing about books, real live paper and ink books, is that in addition to sitting on your shelves collecting dust, sometimes they call out to you, to just take a quick peak inside, for old times sake, or to jog your memory a little bit. When you listen to them, sometimes there’s a … Read more
I finished! During the month of November, I and more than 32,000 other people around the world each completed 50,000 words of fiction. This was just over 19% of the people who signed up. Collectively, according to the NaNoWriMo stats, the word count of everyone who participated and uploaded their writings to the NaNo web … Read more
There. I did it. I pushed the little sign up button on the NaNoWriMo page and now I’m basically committed to writing a 50,000 word novel next month. Hoo boy. Part of me is really excited about the challenge, and another part is wondering what the hell the first part is thinking. First of all, … Read more