Category Archives: digital play

Solnit link, walking forward collages

So many takeaways here in Solnit’s article in The Guardian! This is the piece Marti has been talking about. I have to prep for Tuesday Writing Workshop so I’ll leave you with just three points.

Self-care is an integral part of caring for others.

Uncertainty is the nature of reality. We do not know what’s going to happen and we can find a way to act anyway.

Hope and despair can, and often do, live side by side.

I am migrating over to Bluesky. Zuckerberg’s threads is suppressing political content and anyway, who wants to support another Trump-groveling tech-bro douchebag?

I’m at deemallon.bsky.social. It feels like Twitter in the old days and a lot of my favorite commentators are already there. I can’t even explain why it already feels so much better than threads, but plenty of others on the site are noting the same.

BTW Bluesky is an open-source social network owned by a public benefit corporation. Founded by Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, I won’t spend too much time spitting in his direction because what’s done is done (meaning, he could’ve just held on to Twitter).

Having a good social media stream is more important than ever because I’m barely watching cable news still.

There’s more to say about where we all source our news but I gotta go. Here are a few collages. The first two are purely paper, the rest digital combos.

I like the forward movement of female figures in what feels like haunted landscapes. I didn’t set out to make that but there you go.

Sunday catch up

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So many hydrangeas here have died. Not this one!

Lady’s mantle, predictably lovely after rain

A couple of quiet days. I can hardly believe it!

The funny thing about this is I was already planning to make lasagna!

After a pause in Paris Collage, I’m back

This and the first collage feature the same moon rubber stamp

She’s back! From paper doll collage series

Happy Father’s Day!

Publishing (boring) update. SO MUCH OF THIS PART IS BORING. Ken is helping me figure out the self publishing platform, D2D. I made an account with them and supplied tax info. This will be in conjunction with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). In advance of using D2D’s formatting feature, Ken was able to resize the margins and get the book under 500 pages. This is a good thing! I think I’ve landed on a cover with a designer from Connecticut (to be revealed before summer’s end!) AND

AND I may (finally) have written a decent blurb. Bit by bit! Now to try (for the third time) to figure out WordPress’s newsletter feature. Conventional wisdom is that it’s the most important marketing tool for writers, but? Really? Who wants another fucking thing showing up in their email box? I for one am getting six daily political newsletters.

Probably more important to rework my landing page here.

Established writers have other people write their blurbs

Rainy Wednesday

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Because a friend was in town for the Tuesday writing workshop yesterday, I rearranged the furniture in my little writing space. I’m gonna leave it this was for now.

Rain’s spattering on the skylight and Finn is relaxing nearby. Sigh, he sighs. Sigh, I sigh. Sometimes things are simple and simply good.

A few more wacky novel cover ideas follow.

Flapping sheet photo is from recognizable ad campaign, so that’s an issue.

Or these figures? Minus the lettering of course.

Two small not-resolutions

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Paris Collage Collective prompt response

Do I need to lose weight? Yes. Add cardio to my weekly routines? Yes? Eat less sugar, reach out to friends more, read more? Yes, yes, and yes.

Not going there at the moment! This year I’ve landed on two discrete areas of learning — so discrete that I’m confident I can follow through. Are you ready?

Countries in Africa. It’s time I knew them and where they were.

I’ll be printing out this blank map as an aid.

Dog breeds. I don’t know why, I just want to be more conversant in the many types of dogs out there. This week: Brussels Griffon.

What can you commit to in the new year?

Paris Collage Collective collage for this week

We are all, I imagine, spooked about what lies ahead in this pivotal year. When I woke this morning and heard “2024” in my head, I felt a distinct sense of dread. Ugh. Elections. So, in the realm of grounded optimism, I’ll be:

* continuing with my weekly “Seven Sisters” half-hour phone call;

* and with the same friends, continuing to show up for our monthly Healing Circle (with anti-racism focus);

* and writing POSTCARDS TO VOTERS. I topped 1,000 cards this past year (over several years, that is). I plan to write several hundred more in 2024 and to make it less tedious, to host a couple of parties. Sitting with two others at a table of pens and stamps and addresses is actually fun.

For the next little while, by way of annual review I’ll be scrolling through my photos and sharing some of 2023. Here are a couple of screenshots to start.

PS if you get the Boston Globe, be sure to read Dave Barry’s year-in-review in Sunday’s magazine section. He is so, so funny.

Light, silence, tooth, and time

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Dull light this morning but no percussive hammering. I think it’s over.

Also over: the first (and most invasive) step in getting an implant for my front right tooth. The one with a history.

Grievance: a doctor who didn’t answer my email about anxiety meds until it was too late to do anything about it.

Humor: my brother disagreeing with her assessment that diazepam prescribed eleven years ago probably wouldn’t work. “Unless it’s turned to fungus,” he said, “it’s fine.”

It was fine. In fact it was so fine that I was relieved when K said he’d walk over with me. I felt that woozy.

Tonight I’m eating ice cream. I can be a bit of a baby.

Yesterday I wrote a scene where a character spins and spins and spins. Sufis were mentioned. Imagine my surprise as I noodled around with this week’s Paris Collage Collective visual prompt in bed later to see the Sufis emerge (from an old SoulCollage card). I remixed extensively to make them more visible (along the lower edge).

I didn’t seen them at first. With many of the dianaphoto app filters they disappeared. I love to be surprised like this.

A far cry from where I started.

The Christ-like figure is from a photo taken by Andrew J. Whitaker, a photographer for the Charleston paper The Post and Courier. He took it during the summer of George Floyd protests — George Floyd who recently would’ve turned 50.