Sun Setting on 2010 - and some people on horseback

It's about that time of year again, where I have to get all intro- and future-specty and have a couple of long, stream-of-consciousness posts that will likely bore most people but are a help to me and figuring out what I want in the upcoming year.

But before I do that, have a NaNoReadMo plug. It starts tomorrow, Dec 15th, and goes through Jan 15th, the goal in that time being to read (at least) four books and then properly chew them over and cogitate publicly about it. Which sounds rather embarrassing when put that way, doesn't it. But you have no problem with that, I bet.

So for this coming year, I think I need to get back to grinding on the photography skills. I've reached a definite plateau, where I feel quite comfortable but where I also recognize there's still ton of room for improvement, but all that improving isn't going to be nearly as nice and easy as it was up to this point. Like any skill, the leaps and bounds of improvement when you initially set out on it are very visible and help quite a bit to keep you propelled along. Until those leaps and bounds become steps and shuffles, then inches and crawls, and then you have hit that proverbial reverse exponential wall, where every further move towards perfection is a struggle through a bog, since you can never really attain perfection. Mathematically, it's like constantly dividing by 2 - an infinite series tending towards zero but never, ever reaching it.

But I need to keep slogging forward, even though at this point it is harder and harder to see the improvements, necessary as they are. So I'm trying to decide between doing a weekly or daily photo project - the daily worked quite well for stretching myself and giving myself license to make mistakes. The problem with that then became that I would shoot photos instead of writing, which is my other - and more important - lofty goal of 2011. If I do weekly, though, it doesn't quite feel like enough. So I am going to look for a way to merge the two - perhaps weekly with a theme. Hmm. Either way, more photos needed.

I do want to do another one of these. After tweaking the layout and adding text (go see if you haven't, by the way, and please feel free to critique - I am a newb when it comes to laying things out), I think it's not that bad. I'd love to do one of Tucson proper - that was actually the idea before I did this one. I want to go around Tucson taking pictures of the city itself and then present -that-. This other one is more of a Tucson-surroundings photo book than anything.

But above and beyond photos, 2011 is the year I submit. Something. Anything. I want a rejection letter, gosh-darnit. I have done a lot better with writing every day than I have in years past, but now I want to step that up and edit like nobody's business. As soon as I finish the novel I was writing for NaNo, I am going to go back and edit the heck out of Becky's story and my aim is to have that ready for sending by March - preferably sooner, but I also have tentative new job prospects on the horizon for January which will likely slow that down.

So I could still use a beta reader of some sort. I could probably pay you back in baked goods or photography, since I recognize that a good beta puts a lot of time into their beta-ing and skill into their critique.

In short: 2011 is for writing, is for photo-ing, and is for saving and actually starting to plan a wedding.

Next post: What was 2010 all about, anyway?