Did You write? Feb 08, 2010
One moment, you are sitting, enjoying your life, The next moment you realize that it is almost Monday and you have not written yet. You have a decision to make. Report that you did not achieve your potential, or sit down for a few minutes and write SOMETHING on your present work in progress? One might start on some vague idea that you have no intention developing so you just have something written. If you write, then this note will have done its job. It got you to put something on paper and one step closer to having developed a habit to write.
'What is written, how much is written, is unimportant here. Others might not even consider it writing. As long as you DECIDE to call it writing, it counts. Along with any new writing, and any editing (since few of us can write perfectly the first time, and can be someone else's work), poetry, blogging, article writing, technical writing, world and character development, writing assignments, and even E-mails (as long as it is wordy and pertains to story or writing) can all be writing. Critiquing and other assistance to other writers, also count. It really is what you decide to be writing, counts.
As for me, I did write. I added two pages, which is 1459 words. I expended a lot of words with my writing partners on the story too, and also sat with my drafting program and drew up the area the story is happening, and the bottom floor of the building it happens in. The drawings have problems, but it gives me something to work from.
I am in an excited mode about the story and am already seeing a third new story in the series to get in all that needs to be handled before I get to rewriting the rest of the series. This is a fun stage of writing.
In my story ideas, I am in an idea creation stage. I am coming up with two and three ideas on many days this week. I love that. ON the posting front, I am a day behind. I got home late last night. That does not matter as I still have the whole month to catch up on.
Counting what I am posting today, I have 44 story ideas on the compost pile. Just about all the top ten in the stack is worth writing soon.
I am in a period where I am trying to get ready for an art show at the end of next month. My problem is that there is all sorts of things getting in the way of my spending my weekends working wood. I am going to a renaissance fair next weekend. Another day of not working wood.
I am getting results though. It dawned on me that when I start on a "real" carving, (not little hand held ornament sized figurines), I start out very gingerly, not exactly sure what I am doing. There comes a point where I have gotten far enough to where I can really dig in with gusto as I know what I am doing, at least for a while. Later, I will get into detailing and work gingerly again.
I am working on several projects at once, and this weekend, I made big headway on three projects. I am carving a flower vase where the base has the shape of a flower pot and there are a series of knots around the top that are the centers of the flowers. Last weekend, I fought with the leaf shapes.
This weekend, it actually looks impressive, even if it is barely started. the stems, flowers, and leaves are now raised above the background and really looks like something.
I had to remake a system for making platters easily and figured out a new trick that actually will make it easier to do. I made a platter and did not have to fight it the way I used to, I then printed a picture with a design I needed and have started carving the design on the plate,
I also attached the handle on beer stein I am making and redesigned the mechanism for lifting the lid. the lid is not attached yet, but I solved a design problem I had. My sister in law saw it and said she wanted a set of them. All I can say is that making one has been a trial. I am not likely to make a set...
A friend told about where when he was working in front of the customer, he worked slowly. When the customer left, he would kick into overdrive and get a whole lot of work done while they were gone. it helped keep the customer from watching him work.
For all the above as a story idea,
The watchers insisted that workers work with approved methods on the job. No short cuts, no applying one's self, no making use of natural talent. One is not to make anybody else feel bad because they are not as good.
She was given the job to get a project done for an official festival. She saw she had plenty of time. A month before the festival, the watchers started preparations for the festival and the workers were required to go to meetings, do training work on other one-time projects in preparation. they had less or no time to work on Saturday Workers were expected to work on Sunday, but there were no watchers, which was a day off for them.
She needs to get the work done, along with her normal work, so she decides that, since there are no watchers, no one important is going to complain if she goes against the rules on Sundays.
She comes in early and leaves late(against the rules). Instead of making each part one at a time, she instead stacks them and makes them in batches (also against the rules). She takes other short cuts and she applies herself at the best of her ability, and she is much better than anybody else in her department.
There are complaints by a few other workers about her, but since the watchers never saw her do it, they cannot do anything about it.
When the festival comes up, Everybody is taking advantage of the Sunday with no watchers, having friendly competitions on who can make the parts faster, at a higher quality, and get their other work done besides.
Their division is the only one that was fully ready for the festival. the watchers are really proud of the displays and the division leaders among the watchers all get accolades for their work.
The workers back down on Sundays, taking things easy, but will work at full skills if they have to catch up. That division never had a late project again.
As to the question of the week, I can proudly say
YES, I DID WRITE!!!!
DID YOU WRITE?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Week 526 Woodworking
year 10, Week 4, Day One (week 526) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 02-06-10 Saturday
78 degrees. fairly clear skies at dawn, some heavy cloud cover mid morning, then blue skies with lots of puffs in the afternoon. Stiff breeze and plenty of sun shine most of the day. it is supposed to get below freezing, at around 50 degrees tonight and tomorrow night. I have to move to a warmer climate. This weather report is brought to you by the Fort Lauderdale Department Of tourism.
I checked in on my stuff at the antique shop. He has not sold any of my stuff. They have been in there a year. So far, he has purchased a few of my cheep items, two saucers and a pear, to make something of his complete. Even so, it is on display. That is good enough.
Next month, I will be bringing my stuff home so I can refinish the pieces that are below my finishing skills.
We went yard sailing again. I ended up with some books, some kitchen stuff, and a bag of plumbing and electrical stuff for my brother.
Mom and emptied the canvas bag that had the plumbing and electrical stuff, and we sorted through it, separating them out in quart zipper bags. We figure there must have been a good hundred dollars worth of stuff in the bag. we took out the screws and fender washers, and still there was loads of stuff in there.
One thing I did was to keep a few fittings to use for ferules for some tools. They are about the right size.
I did get to do some woodworking after lunch. I needed to change the thumb piece on the beer stein. I needed more wood for the hinge itself. I did something stupid. I tried to pry off the piece I glued on, rather than cutting it off and sanding off the remains. It broke off. I then tried cutting that little piece off, and the saw found it so it was unusable. I cut the gap square, then cut a piece of wood to fit in there and glued it in place. Since it is where the thumb lever is going, it won't be a problem. It sticks out from the edge of the lid, so I will have to cut it to size and do some surface sanding. Luckily, it won't matter if it is seen.
I also applied myself to the duckling bowls. They have a saucer like piece around the base to be the feet. I chose which part of the bowl would be the front, and cut the saucer off the back. I then shaped that to match the shape of the bowl. None of them are perfect. They will come out good anyway. I have a lot of work to do on them, inside and out.
While I did not get too much done, I did get something done. That is one step closer to being finished.
Last month, I had taken everything out of my spare bedroom where I have a permanent model railroad layout. All the boxes got stacked in front of my finished woodworking. I have filtered through a good number of the boxes and most of it turned out to be papers to toss out. I can now access my finished woodworking. I now need to take those pieces out to sand and refinish to the level I can now do it. I still have more stuff to sort through and put away, so I am not sure when I will actually get to work on finishes. It has to be soon as I have a whole lot of pieces that need to be improved. I also have new pieces coming up that will need loads of work.
I want to finish adding the lid on the beer stein, which I might be able to do tomorrow. I also have to glue on the lid. Then I can work on the finish of that piece.
I need to do some strip sanding and dremmel grinding on the duckling bowls and finish up the duck heads I made. I need to work on the flower vase, digging in deep to make the flowers and leaves to stand out.
I have decided to hold off some projects until after the art show, but there are some that really needs to be done.
I do need to make some finials for the sea urchin shells. I also need to make a few platters. Whether I will actually have time to make them and get them finished, will be something else. The platters will have to be carved which will take even more time.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 4, Day Two (week 526) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 02-07-10 Sunday
Below 60 degrees strong wind with stronger gusts with wispy puffs, against a blue sky, in the morning. 64 degrees with a weaker wind, great sunshine in the afternoon.
What a difference from the beginning of the winter. When the cold first arrived, we were walking around, bundled in coats, at 70 degrees. Today, I was working outside for a while, noting that it was sharp, but quite tolerable, when I saw the temperature at 58 degrees. that was one shocking surprise. When I was ready to carve, I sat out in the open, soaking in the sun, the wind slightly blocked to make the weather warmth stick with me more. Of course, on the way home, I cranked up the heat in my truck and had the hot air blowing on me all the way home.
This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of tourism.
Mom had a yard sale this morning. I arrived early and went out back to get to work. After dragging out my equipment, fully planning to carve all day, The urge to turn wood came over me and I had a project that would need to be carved anyway.
I dragged out the lathe, after petting the cat twice, and mounted a platter I had started a while back. I had a few mis-steps on centering it, but got it figured out and got it pretty much right. I used some thin double sided tape to attach it to the wooden face plate that was held in the chuck. I also used, at times, double sided tape for the wooden face plate I used to hold the plate in place.
The design of my system is to have one face plate act as a template for cutting out the rim of the base. That rim is then just big enough to fit around the other face plate, automatically centering it.
I made a little mistake on this piece. I forgot about the matching size of the inset of the base. I made it bigger than it was supposed to be. Centering it was out of the question the way I planned. I then got a great idea. Since it was still centered by the face plate held in the chuck. I added double sided tape to the tail stock face plate, centered it and applied pressure with the tail stock. I spun it to make sure it was centered. I then was able to turn the piece around, pry off the opposite face plate and hollow out the inside of the plate. I will have to remember that technique.
rear of light house platter
After I made the platter and cleaned up, I brought an electrical cord out by the shed at the back of the lot. I got a chair, and something to act like a table. I printed a flyer for the art show and cut the light house out. I then glued it to the platter. I traced the line with a Dremmel bit called an engraver. It has a super tiny cutting bit. I got the impression of the light house of the flyer. I cut back the background slightly, around the drawing. It shows a little better what it is going to be, but I will have a whole lot more work to do on it to make this work. I could have worked more, but chose to work on something else.
Light house I am copying
Light house platter with start of carving.
Knot and inclusion is the ground of the light house
I attacked the flower vase. Now that I have a good idea where the flowers and leaves are I dug in deep, sending the backgrounds farther back, and sending some leaves farther into the background so they go under others. This made a big difference in how the vase looks.
I admitted to my Mom that I had no idea how I was doing it, but somehow, it was appearing out of the wood.
flower vase with deeper carvings.
My brother came and he was excited about the stuff we picked up at the yard sales. He was drooling. A whole bunch of the stuff was stuff he was about to buy or would soon be buying.
Mom had gotten him a hundred foot long roll of solder and he had me make a spool so we could have some for my model railroad layout. I took a two by two, rounded the center to about an inch in diameter, and we simply wound the solder on it while it was on the lathe. we tried using the motor to wind it on, but the solder had some weak spots and broke, so we started the end again and I wound it by hand. Got a good length of the solder. That is known as quick and dirty tool making.
Beer stein with handle attached
Lid just sitting in place
For today, I had the best woodworking day in many months. I am proud of my accomplishments. if every woodworking day was as good as this one, I would be in heaven.
Next week, I will be working on more of the same projects. the problem is that we will be going to a Renaissance fair on Saturday. I do not know if I will be able to go to it twice this year. I will have to see. We usually have no time to do anything else after the fair.
I expect any production I do, will be on Sunday.
Will see what I actually do next week.
78 degrees. fairly clear skies at dawn, some heavy cloud cover mid morning, then blue skies with lots of puffs in the afternoon. Stiff breeze and plenty of sun shine most of the day. it is supposed to get below freezing, at around 50 degrees tonight and tomorrow night. I have to move to a warmer climate. This weather report is brought to you by the Fort Lauderdale Department Of tourism.
I checked in on my stuff at the antique shop. He has not sold any of my stuff. They have been in there a year. So far, he has purchased a few of my cheep items, two saucers and a pear, to make something of his complete. Even so, it is on display. That is good enough.
Next month, I will be bringing my stuff home so I can refinish the pieces that are below my finishing skills.
We went yard sailing again. I ended up with some books, some kitchen stuff, and a bag of plumbing and electrical stuff for my brother.
Mom and emptied the canvas bag that had the plumbing and electrical stuff, and we sorted through it, separating them out in quart zipper bags. We figure there must have been a good hundred dollars worth of stuff in the bag. we took out the screws and fender washers, and still there was loads of stuff in there.
One thing I did was to keep a few fittings to use for ferules for some tools. They are about the right size.
I did get to do some woodworking after lunch. I needed to change the thumb piece on the beer stein. I needed more wood for the hinge itself. I did something stupid. I tried to pry off the piece I glued on, rather than cutting it off and sanding off the remains. It broke off. I then tried cutting that little piece off, and the saw found it so it was unusable. I cut the gap square, then cut a piece of wood to fit in there and glued it in place. Since it is where the thumb lever is going, it won't be a problem. It sticks out from the edge of the lid, so I will have to cut it to size and do some surface sanding. Luckily, it won't matter if it is seen.
I also applied myself to the duckling bowls. They have a saucer like piece around the base to be the feet. I chose which part of the bowl would be the front, and cut the saucer off the back. I then shaped that to match the shape of the bowl. None of them are perfect. They will come out good anyway. I have a lot of work to do on them, inside and out.
While I did not get too much done, I did get something done. That is one step closer to being finished.
Last month, I had taken everything out of my spare bedroom where I have a permanent model railroad layout. All the boxes got stacked in front of my finished woodworking. I have filtered through a good number of the boxes and most of it turned out to be papers to toss out. I can now access my finished woodworking. I now need to take those pieces out to sand and refinish to the level I can now do it. I still have more stuff to sort through and put away, so I am not sure when I will actually get to work on finishes. It has to be soon as I have a whole lot of pieces that need to be improved. I also have new pieces coming up that will need loads of work.
I want to finish adding the lid on the beer stein, which I might be able to do tomorrow. I also have to glue on the lid. Then I can work on the finish of that piece.
I need to do some strip sanding and dremmel grinding on the duckling bowls and finish up the duck heads I made. I need to work on the flower vase, digging in deep to make the flowers and leaves to stand out.
I have decided to hold off some projects until after the art show, but there are some that really needs to be done.
I do need to make some finials for the sea urchin shells. I also need to make a few platters. Whether I will actually have time to make them and get them finished, will be something else. The platters will have to be carved which will take even more time.
I will see what I actually do tomorrow.
year 10, Week 4, Day Two (week 526) (January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.) 02-07-10 Sunday
Below 60 degrees strong wind with stronger gusts with wispy puffs, against a blue sky, in the morning. 64 degrees with a weaker wind, great sunshine in the afternoon.
What a difference from the beginning of the winter. When the cold first arrived, we were walking around, bundled in coats, at 70 degrees. Today, I was working outside for a while, noting that it was sharp, but quite tolerable, when I saw the temperature at 58 degrees. that was one shocking surprise. When I was ready to carve, I sat out in the open, soaking in the sun, the wind slightly blocked to make the weather warmth stick with me more. Of course, on the way home, I cranked up the heat in my truck and had the hot air blowing on me all the way home.
This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of tourism.
Mom had a yard sale this morning. I arrived early and went out back to get to work. After dragging out my equipment, fully planning to carve all day, The urge to turn wood came over me and I had a project that would need to be carved anyway.
I dragged out the lathe, after petting the cat twice, and mounted a platter I had started a while back. I had a few mis-steps on centering it, but got it figured out and got it pretty much right. I used some thin double sided tape to attach it to the wooden face plate that was held in the chuck. I also used, at times, double sided tape for the wooden face plate I used to hold the plate in place.
The design of my system is to have one face plate act as a template for cutting out the rim of the base. That rim is then just big enough to fit around the other face plate, automatically centering it.
I made a little mistake on this piece. I forgot about the matching size of the inset of the base. I made it bigger than it was supposed to be. Centering it was out of the question the way I planned. I then got a great idea. Since it was still centered by the face plate held in the chuck. I added double sided tape to the tail stock face plate, centered it and applied pressure with the tail stock. I spun it to make sure it was centered. I then was able to turn the piece around, pry off the opposite face plate and hollow out the inside of the plate. I will have to remember that technique.
rear of light house platter
After I made the platter and cleaned up, I brought an electrical cord out by the shed at the back of the lot. I got a chair, and something to act like a table. I printed a flyer for the art show and cut the light house out. I then glued it to the platter. I traced the line with a Dremmel bit called an engraver. It has a super tiny cutting bit. I got the impression of the light house of the flyer. I cut back the background slightly, around the drawing. It shows a little better what it is going to be, but I will have a whole lot more work to do on it to make this work. I could have worked more, but chose to work on something else.
Light house I am copying
Light house platter with start of carving.
Knot and inclusion is the ground of the light house
I attacked the flower vase. Now that I have a good idea where the flowers and leaves are I dug in deep, sending the backgrounds farther back, and sending some leaves farther into the background so they go under others. This made a big difference in how the vase looks.
I admitted to my Mom that I had no idea how I was doing it, but somehow, it was appearing out of the wood.
flower vase with deeper carvings.
My brother came and he was excited about the stuff we picked up at the yard sales. He was drooling. A whole bunch of the stuff was stuff he was about to buy or would soon be buying.
Mom had gotten him a hundred foot long roll of solder and he had me make a spool so we could have some for my model railroad layout. I took a two by two, rounded the center to about an inch in diameter, and we simply wound the solder on it while it was on the lathe. we tried using the motor to wind it on, but the solder had some weak spots and broke, so we started the end again and I wound it by hand. Got a good length of the solder. That is known as quick and dirty tool making.
Beer stein with handle attached
Lid just sitting in place
For today, I had the best woodworking day in many months. I am proud of my accomplishments. if every woodworking day was as good as this one, I would be in heaven.
Next week, I will be working on more of the same projects. the problem is that we will be going to a Renaissance fair on Saturday. I do not know if I will be able to go to it twice this year. I will have to see. We usually have no time to do anything else after the fair.
I expect any production I do, will be on Sunday.
Will see what I actually do next week.
Monday, February 1, 2010
February 01, 2010 - Did You write?
February 01, 2010 - Did You write?
A new month have arrived. A new Monday has arrived. It is time to report your writing activities. Knowing this note is coming should get you to sit down and write something, anything, of any length, on some project so you can report you have written.
This is for those of us who will go months without writing, then write a bunch of stuff for a few weeks, then go another couple months without writing. The idea is that you develop the habit of writing even a little bit each week so you can report that you accomplished something. Do this each and every week, and you end up with some visible production by the end of the year.
The amount of words that you write, is not important. What you write, is not really important. While new writing is thought of as writing, Editing, world and character creation, poetry blogging, article writing, writing assignments, are all writing. there are others that also can be writing if that is something you are willing to accept as writing. The object is to develop a habit of placing words onto "paper."
As for me, I barely wrote. On one piece, I added a total of 40 words. On another I added a hundred words. Neither production is much, but that is a hundred and forty words I won't have to write the next time I open the files to work.
I finished the month with 31 story ideas posted. That ended up as 55 pages at 33272 words. that is not too bad for about an hour, hour and a half of writing drivel.
For those couple of you who are interested, you can see my story ideas at http://www.xprodigy.net/board/index.php and Go down to Writer's Roost. While you are there, if you click on page 6, you will find the beginning of the board and you will see the Waxy Dragon stories I have posted. Spread through the rest of the board, there are some 60 Waxy stories posted.
I did a count of my compost pile and including the story idea I don't have time to post tonight (I started writing it but have run out of time to finish it) I have 41 concepts to post. The top six are still good ones to post. Will have to see about the ones lower in the pile. It is called a compost pile since the worst ideas tend to sink to the bottom.
I can say,
YES, I WROTE!!! (even if it was a pittance)
DID YOU WRITE?
A new month have arrived. A new Monday has arrived. It is time to report your writing activities. Knowing this note is coming should get you to sit down and write something, anything, of any length, on some project so you can report you have written.
This is for those of us who will go months without writing, then write a bunch of stuff for a few weeks, then go another couple months without writing. The idea is that you develop the habit of writing even a little bit each week so you can report that you accomplished something. Do this each and every week, and you end up with some visible production by the end of the year.
The amount of words that you write, is not important. What you write, is not really important. While new writing is thought of as writing, Editing, world and character creation, poetry blogging, article writing, writing assignments, are all writing. there are others that also can be writing if that is something you are willing to accept as writing. The object is to develop a habit of placing words onto "paper."
As for me, I barely wrote. On one piece, I added a total of 40 words. On another I added a hundred words. Neither production is much, but that is a hundred and forty words I won't have to write the next time I open the files to work.
I finished the month with 31 story ideas posted. That ended up as 55 pages at 33272 words. that is not too bad for about an hour, hour and a half of writing drivel.
For those couple of you who are interested, you can see my story ideas at http://www.xprodigy.net/board/index.php and Go down to Writer's Roost. While you are there, if you click on page 6, you will find the beginning of the board and you will see the Waxy Dragon stories I have posted. Spread through the rest of the board, there are some 60 Waxy stories posted.
I did a count of my compost pile and including the story idea I don't have time to post tonight (I started writing it but have run out of time to finish it) I have 41 concepts to post. The top six are still good ones to post. Will have to see about the ones lower in the pile. It is called a compost pile since the worst ideas tend to sink to the bottom.
I can say,
YES, I WROTE!!! (even if it was a pittance)
DID YOU WRITE?
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