On Writing & Blogging

I am proud to say I have been updating the blog with regularity it has not seen in some time. This is, of course, because I am on winter break from school.

Not unlike a garden, blogging must be tended to in regular intervals to bear the desired fruits of labor. The last thing anyone, especially a writer, wants is for his blog to have three posts from two years ago with sporadic updates until the blog is a barren wasteland. Nobody wants one of those blogs—certainly not me. I have had one of them before, and it is not a scenario I wish to repeat.

Where the blogging garden might only need the occasional watering, writing a novel—or three—is a different beast altogether. First, you plants the seeds of your novel in reams of notes. Then, you write each chapter, carefully tending the garden bed to assure you grow a beautiful carrot or cabbage, and not a soured rutabaga. Finally, for many writers, comes the taste test: you hand over your draft to a test reader or two. If you are lucky, like me, you have several ample readers to write notes and comments in a draft. Once you have read through such comments, it is time to edit the draft—numerous times.

This editing stage is the stage I am currently at with two of three books. The third, only having notes, a prologue, and chapter i written, has barely germinated beneath the soil.

Now that I have rambled on for a bit, I suppose I will wrap up by saying I have worked a bit more on the painting I previewed in a prior post. With any luck, I will post a larger preview within the next few days. Stay tuned!

Year's End

The leaves are gone, and crisp frost clings to the grass nearly every morning. The winter solstice is less than one week from now. I have always loved this time of year.

I will soon be wrapping up the latest volume of my journal* and having it shipped to me. I believe 2011 makes the fourth book on the shelf. This year was so filled with content, however, that I needed to have two books for this volume—Vol III, Book 1 and Vol III, Book 2.

Speaking of books, I have started writing the first draft of the third book in the trilogy. As of this blog post, I have written the prologue and first chapter. I had not intended to start writing the third book until after finishing the final draft of the first book, which I will be working on this winter, but I cannot seem to stop myself when inspiration hits.

The semester is over at this point, so I have a little over one month off from school before the spring semester starts. As I said, I plan to work on the final draft of the first book while I have this time to myself. I should have the third copy of editor's notes back relatively soon, and then it will be time for me to get to work. Some people dread editing their work, and others love it… I am rather ambivalent toward the act. While I enjoy expanding on what I have already written, it is an arduous process, rife with stress and littered with anxieties.

I should wrap up this post, I suppose. Chris and I are going to Hunt Valley today for a bit of shopping. We have not gone in quite some time, on account of his injuries, so it will be nice to be out and about.

*For those unaware, I am such a typography nutcase, I write my journal in Adobe's InDesign—following the Van de Graaf canon of page design, of course—complete with section titles, headers and footers, and filled with footnotes. I then have it printed and bound in hardcover each year.

Update on Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 11:15AM by Zach Risso

Side note: I have finally gotten around to adding the tutorials from my old website to this one. It only took two and a half years.

Book & Publication Design

I added a new gallery to the site this morning. I decided the Graphic Design gallery was getting far too cluttered, so I separated the book and publication design into its own space. I find it far more organized now, and I've also added a new book cover, only just recently finished:

First Week of School

Hmm… where should I start?

School has been going along swimmingly thus far. Admittedly, it's only the second week of the semester, but I'm enjoying myself immensely. I think, so far, my favorite class is my 400-level writing course, Writing Against the Rules. I was not too thrilled at the prospect of having to read James Joyce's A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but the in-class discussions were not only helpful, but enjoyable as a whole. Our assignment for Thursday, for instance, was to write a short story—and when I say "short story," I mean as short as possible. Mine went through several revisions, mostly focused on formatting changes, but I arrived at a nice conclusion for the assignment. I actually managed to whittle it down to a mere six words… I certainly hope the professor likes my interpretation.

Untitled "Painting" Experiment, 2011 I think it is too early in the semester to say, at least with any amount of certainty, what my second favorite class would be. Although, I think my Writing, Editing, and Publishing course will be the most advantageous, as far as my writing is concerned. It presents us with real-world problems to tackle. This week's assignment was a 500-word article for a magazine. The first draft is due on Thursday, while the final copy is due the following Thursday.

In other news, I think I have stumbled upon an interesting technique for portraiture; an example can be seen to the left. I really discovered it accidentally, so I'm quite pleased at how well it turned out. Those who I've shown the image to seem to find it striking, which I, of course, love. I will need to keep working with the technique to see where it takes me.

As far as my writing is concerned, I have not had any time at all to write—aside from school-related work. Upon inspecting the college's course catalogue, I learned there is an independent study course, with permission from a faculty advisor. I hope to enroll in the course next semester. Though I am uncertain as to what requirements would be placed upon me to meet the advisor's expectations, I would like to propose I write a novel for the course. Then, I could work on my books and get credit for them as well. Dependant on my GPA this semester, I might actually be able to enroll in graduate-level courses next semester as well, which I am excited about as well.

Going (UB) Postal

Well, as you can see, the Weekly Photo Project has fizzled. But, it is not my fault!* I have been busy preparing for school at the University of Baltimore. The autumnal semester begins on Monday, but my first classes aren't until Tuesday.

As far as school is concerned, I remain immensely excited. In addition to my classes in the Corporate Communications major—and my minor in Marketing Communications—I will be involved with the production of The UB Post, the school's magazine. Essentially, though I lack a proper title, I will give myself the ever-important-ego-boost of saying I'm a production assistant. I will be working with the Production Manager, Roger Market, as well as the other members of the design team, whom I've not yet met. The current issue is nearly completed, so I will have to wait until next month to actually work on anything, but I'm excited nonetheless.

As far as my books are concerned, I still have roughly seven pages to write in the first draft of the second book before I can consider it finished. Most likely, I'll make an earnest attempt to finish those seven pages this weekend, assuming the power doesn't go out because of the hurricane. I know I have a considerable amount of work to do, regarding rewrites, but that can be done at a later date. The most probable scenario is my not writing anything more until this winter, after the semester is over. At that point, it will come down to whether I feel like working on the fifth draft of the first book or the second draft of the second book. I won't even entertain the thought of starting the third book until next summer at the earliest.

*Okay, it actually is…