Project: Electric Internet Writing

I need help. On any number of levels.

I haven’t written anything longer than a few sentences, 2 or three paragraphs at most, for fun in ages. The occasional bit of workbloggery, but that’s about it. This is, well, not right.

And my beloved black-ink.org domain languishes dusty and unloved. I mean, dead-air.org has see more posting in the last 12 months, and it’s barely a thing at all.

So, new project. Between now and February 1st next year, I aim to produce 52 pieces of writing of a minimum of 800 words length each. I may keep going after that, but let’s start small, eh? Yeah, I know some of you do more than that in a month. I am lazy, and easily distracted by shiny things.

Where you lot come in to this is simple: tell me what to write. Left to my own devices, I don’t seem to do anything, so I’m opening this to you lot. You can suggest titles for short fiction, or request essays and opinion pieces on a given subject. Ask for diary entries for a certain day. Ask me to review something (you can be specific, as long as I can reasonably get hold of thing you’re asking for, and it isn’t going to eat entire days of my life) or leave me to pick freely, or within some set of parameters. Get me to do a bit of research, and provide a synopsis of what I find. Anything, as long as I can reasonably produce a minimum of 800 words worth of writing on it, and it isn’t going to cost me the earth.

Obviously, I need at least 52 suggestions for this to work, so I’ll probably repost this a few times over the next year or so. I do reserve the right to say “sorry, come up with something else” but only if the very idea of whatever you suggest makes my eyeballs bleed.

In the meantime, though, your suggestions, please…

Posted on by Alasdair 0

Electric Site

Electric Site

Yes, it’s the London Eye again. I travel into town by river, if I’m coming in from work, and want to get anywhere in the vaguely Soho area, and so I did on Tuesday night. This isn’t really very good at larger sizes, but it’ll do for on-line.

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Nicked from, y’know, whoever was passing…

“Because we never really know each other as well as we think, in response to this post I’d like you to ask a question. Anything about which you are curious, anything you feel you ought to know about me. Silly, serious, personal, fannish. Ask away. Then copy this to your own journal, and see what people don’t know about you.”

Posted on by Alasdair 0

Nicked from, y’know, whoever was passing…

“Because we never really know each other as well as we think, in response to this post I’d like you to ask a question. Anything about which you are curious, anything you feel you ought to know about me. Silly, serious, personal, fannish. Ask away. Then copy this to your own journal, and see what people don’t know about you.”

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In Place Of Original Thought

That random song title meme that’s doing the rounds. You know the one – hit randomise, then paste the titles in as answers to the questions, without changing the order. Just like everyone else, some of these are tripe, some erm, accurate, and some just funny.

Play along at home, and see if you can guess which is which. I’ll award marks for the most correct answers. And a small prize. Or something.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY?” YOU SAY?
The Torch

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Closedown

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GIRL?
Sealclubbing

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
BulletProof!

And there’s more….

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Mother and the Misogynist

Mother and the Misogynist

Louise Bourgeois’s Sculpture “Maman 1999”, outside the Tate Modern, with the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral below. (St Paul being the titular misogynist, of course.) This is another one of those shots that’s going to niggle at me, as however much I like parts of it, it’s still full of little imperfections, particularly in the bottom left and right corners.

As is almost always the case with by B&W work, I’ve left the merest hint of a colour wash in – a very slight red tint, this time around. I experimented with versions of this where the red was a much stronger element, but in the end, settled on this.

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Another(wise) Dull Day

Another(wise) Dull Day

A retake, several years later. If you look back in my flickr archives (in fact, if you look in my “Most Interesting” photos), you’ll find a shot titled “An Otherwise Dull Day“, taken years ago when I was first getting interested in photography. I like the shot, but there were things about it that niggled at me, especially as the standard of my photography has improved. So when I was passing the spot where I took the original the other day, I thought I’d have a go more or less the same shot again, with the benefit of several years practice. I like this shot rather better – it’s better composed, and much better post-processed. Let me know what you think?

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Finale

Finale

Possibly the nerdiest photo I will ever post – at my players urging, I took a photo of the final do-or-die dice roll of our long running Mage RPG. The roll was a success, the world was saved, and here it is, captured for posterity.

I actually quite like this as a photo – post-processing it for colour was a bit of a bastard, as the yellow backdrop was made even yellower by the tone of the light in my living room, and anything that toned that down often did weird things to the colour of the dice, but I like the backdrop and the effect I eventually decided on.

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2007

I was trying to do one of those year-in-review memes that’re traditional at this time of year, but it turns out that really nothing interesting happened to me this year. I took up, and gave up, rollerblading. Work was busy, and is going to get busier in the first few months of next year. My friends and loved ones were ace, as always. I met some cool new people. I didn’t do enough photography. Nothing momentous really feels like it happened.

Looking ahead to 2008, well, I’m about to be very busy with work, which is kind of obscuring everything else – until that settles down to whatever it’s new level turns out to be (I hope around May) I’m not really thinking of much else. I’ll be single again in April, which is depressing, but I’ve had plenty of time to come to terms with that. I’d like to keep up the gym going I’ve managed to re-establish. My Dad’s 60th is coming up. A number of friends and family have recently spawned/are due to spawn in the next few months which is nice for them.

I guess it’s kind of indicative of the general flatness of 2007 and the start of 2008 that I can see that I really don’t feel like marking the new year terribly much, which is unusual for me. Now, the last time I asked for exciting surprises around this time of year, everything went tits up on me over the course of the next year, so I shall refrain from doing that, but it’d be nice if 2008 brought a few significant and ace things to remember for me personally, because I don’t think 2007 did.

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Belfast Eye

Belfast Eye

Belfast has a large wheel set up for the next little while, and it looks terribly festive. I took a ride on it with my brother and cousin on Boxing Day. I’m not sure if I like any of the views I got from it enough to post them, but I do like this shot of the thing itself.

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