Category Archives: Photography

Imagination

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Christianity, Inspiration, Photography, Travel, Writing

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Saw this public art on a downtown building in Greeley, Colorado. Einstein is right. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

What precedes imagination also counts: stopping to look, listen, think. My life has been hectic and fast-paced lately. I can’t get to the service stations for oil changes soon enough between the thousands of miles logged on our poor abused Prius…

While driving, one of us (my husband or I) will often say, “stop!”

We both understand that this word means inspiration has hit. Recently, somewhere in Kansas, my husband said, “stop!” I braked, pulled over and he shot this:

Imagination at work. He’s got some cool inspiring thoughts about this scene and wanted a photograph.

Imagination also involves another aspect: The Holy Spirit. God. I believe that where we lack creatively, the Holy Spirit fills in. A small prayer often guides my imagination, infuses something more grand and excellent than my puny brain can conjure up on its own.

So, if you’re not feeling inspired, do this: Stop, look, listen, think. And pray. The Creator of the Universe is awesome and can always guide our imaginations into greater realms than we can imagine.

Traveling, Making Friends & Playing Tag

13 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Photography, Travel

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Traveled to Estes Park, Colorado and everyone there was so friendly. Met a new friend right away.  

We both enjoyed the beautiful view around Lily Lake…

 

And my other really good friend (husband) enjoyed the day, too…

And so did Christine, our friend and teenage fellow traveler and parish member from St. James Anglican Church in Kansas City.

Then, we headed back into town…

…saw a beautiful church built on rocks.

Had lunch. This was the view across the sidewalk from the restaurant patio where we ate:

…beautiful place…shops on one side of the walk, river on the other, surrounded by mountains.

Got back home and discovered my blogger friend, Virginia, over at Poeta officium, tagged me in her blog. Thanks Virginia. I’ll answer your questions below, then tag some other friends. Traveling, friends, playing tag. It’s all good!

These are Virginia’s questions (it’s all part of the game):

1/ If you could change your name, what would you change it to and why? I like my name. Holly. It’s me. I was born around Christmas so it fits, but I also appreciate Christian names and like my grandmother’s name: Celeste.

2/ Name 3 things you couldn’t live without (not people or animals): I might not die without coffee & chocolate (but not willing to give them up and take the chance) but I might come close to death without my laptop, kindle, and iPhone. 

3/ Which do you prefer – beach or forest? Why? Easy, forest. Take a look at the pictures above. I love the serenity of the forest. Trees are my friends. They make me happy. 

4/ Do you have a ‘I need to do this by the time I am ……‘ age? Which one is it? Though I’m published, I’d like to get my first novel published before I turn another year older. (see how I avoided mentioning my age.) 

5/ Laptop or desktop? Which one do you prefer? Absolutely lap top. It has to be willing to go where ever I go. 

6/ Are you still friends with your best friend from childhood? Does Facebook friend count? Then, yes.

7/ If you could critique any book, which one would it be? Gone With the Wind. Why? First one that popped into my mind and one of my favs.

8/ Describe your perfect day? I just showed my photos of it above.

9/ Where in the world do you feel most at home? Since I travel around quite a bit, I’m home when I’m with my husband and kids.  

10/ Do you talk with your hands (ie do you gesture wildly when you talk?) Yes, I must often sit on my hands to stop from hurting people. 

11/ How well do you know the history of your country of birth? Interesting question because when my husband opened the book to study for his citizenship test several years ago, he already knew more about the United States than I did. I learned a few things. 

And now my turn to tag. Since Victoria’s questions were good, I’ll pass the same one’s along and ask the tagees to answer them and to tag others. (Though feel free to make up questions for their tagees.) Here are some friends with wonderful blogs:

1. Christian Mihai at http://cristianmihai.net/

2. Kate @ 40 is the new 30

3. Staci @ Spirit Light Books

4. Enjoyed this inspirational post today from Eddie Poole’s blog

5. Terry 1954: Inspirational stories that touch your heart

6. Gracie’s Quest: Awe inspiring

7. Rachelle Ayala’s blog

8. This Corner of the Woods: Wonderful Photo Blog

9. I was thinking the other day about

10. Lynn Dove’s Journey Thoughts

11. The Squirrel Nutwork

12. New Friend. Author Sherri Wilson Johnson Great blogger

13. See My Travels, another new friend and great blog site

Enjoy all of my friends, even the fuzzy one at the beginning of the blog. Thanks for coming by!

Baaaaa….I’m Still Journeying….

27 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in Guest Blogging, Inspiration, Journeys: In Writing and Life, Photography, Travel

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…at baaaaa.com: Bleats From God’s Sheep. It’s such a cool site. Don’t miss it! I love sheep. When we journeyed in Iona, Scotland, I took these sheep photos:

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And, found these sheep while journeying to Casper, Wyoming

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Hope you liked the photos, now check out baaaaa.com, for bleats from God’s sheep (the human ones).

Journeys in Writing and Life

22 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Guest Blogging, Journeys: In Writing and Life, Photography

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Today, I’m guest blogging on K.W. McCabe’s site wherein Kareen rants about manuscripts and editing. Visit me as I journey there and answer her question about writing the new while editing the old. And speaking of journeys, here’s a couple random photos of a recent journey to Greeley, Colorado:

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Guest Author Sherry Gloag: This “Pantster” Discovers Gems in Side Journeys

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Books, Guest Blogger, Photography, Writing

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I’m honored to have multi-published author Sherry Gloag as a guest on my blog today. Sherry is a transplanted Scot now living in the beautiful coastal countryside of Norfolk, England.

She considers the surrounding countryside as extension of her own garden, to which she escapes when she needs “thinking time” and solitude to work out the plots for her next novel. She says while out walking she enjoys talking to her characters, as long as there are no other walkers close by.

Apart from writing, Sherry enjoys gardening, walking, reading and cheerfully admits her books tend to take over most of the shelf and floor space in her workroom-cum-office. She also finds crystal craft work therapeutic.

Sherry is also a pantster (one who “flies by the seat of their pants” when they write versus a plotter who well, plots out every bit of their work.) She’s here to share about her “pantstering” and FAITH. Heeeerrrrreeeee’s Sherry:

or a ‘panster’ writer like myself, creating characters is never straightforward. It almost amounts to ‘plotting’! rofl. So how do I ‘get’ my characters when I start writing? Well, strange as it may seem, they come to me. Usually when I’m at the kitchen sink. I’ve still not worked out how or why it happens that way, but it does. Sometime they give me a name, sometimes I’m given a full scene. Then it’s up to me to work out where in the story that scene’s got to be placed. Many’s the time I’ve assumed I’ve been offered an opening scene only to discover it belongs somewhere else in the book.

nother thing about being a ‘panster’ is the capacity for me to write myself into a corner and then spend ages trying to work out how to get out of it. I can hear so may people asking why I don’t get myself better organized and plot my way through the story instead and thus save myself getting sidetracked. It just doesn’t work for me, and there are many times when those side journey’s unveil an unexpected gem of a twist in the plot. Does that also entail re-writing vast tracks of story? Quite often. Does it bother me, sometimes, but not always.

nstead I concentrate on the bonus of the unexpected, that twist that often lifts the story to another level. In From Now Until Forever, the first of my four books Gasquet Princes series, published by Astraea Press in December, Melanie, the heroine’s use of a dust/garbage truck as an escape vehicle had me chuckling all the while I wrote the scene. When I began I assumed they’d use some fast flashy make of car, but no, up trundled a dust/garbage truck!

he arrival of His Chosen Bride the second book was a great surprise to me when Henri, Liam’s eldest brother of the hero in From Now Until Forever demanded I write his story about a week after the first book was published. As for Monica, the heroine in this book, she turned up before I realized she was destined to be Henri’s Bride. She is also a completely different kind of heroine from Melanie. Where Melanie is an ‘in your face, get things done’ heroine, Monica is quieter, more introvert and yet she has qualities that compliment Henri and makes her his perfect choice.

enri and Liam have two more brothers, twins Sacha and Simeon. Writing their stories is creating several problems because they keep walking in and out of each others’ stories, and this makes keeping my plot lines straight quite a headache. 🙂

For this ‘panster,’ FAITH is a big part of my writing. Faith in my characters, faith that the plotline will evolve in a ways that makes sense and faith in my writing as with each new book comes a new challenge that having faith in the unknown will prevail.

For Now And Forever Blurb: For Prince Liam, families meant bad news, unwanted commitments, and the loss of his personal freedom. Love spawned white picket fences, slippers at the hearth with a wife and kids making demands, so why did those images disappear when he met Melanie Babcot? Melanie Babcot fought hard to escape the horrors of her youth and vowed to remain single and free, so when paid to protect Prince Liam from insurgents why did her personal pledge fly out the window?

Purchase: Amazon.com   AmazonUK  Barnes&Noble.com    AstraeaPress.com


His Chosen Bride: Prince Henri Gasquet is happy to let his father, the king, choose his bride for him until he meets Monica Latimer. Monica Latimer is not prepared to risk letting any man close enough to learn about her Gift. A gift that normally has men running for the hills when they find out about it. Purchase through Astraea Press or Amazon.

To contact Sherry:  SherryGloag.com    Twitter    Facebook   LinkedIn   

The Heart of Romance.blog

Amazon Author Page

Church Synod, Cowboy Style

10 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in Christianity, Photography

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I’ve been away from writing and blogging, attending our church synod. Sound boring? Not! Here’s how we do it up, Wyoming style, in the Holy Catholic Church Anglican Rite: “soul whisperers” become “horse whisperers”…

…at a session led by our very own cowboy, Mike Buchanan (below). Mike and his wife Karen took the concept of “horse whispering” in a new direction during their demonstration at the corral in front of our Church of the Holy Family in Casper. The couple developed a program through which the relationship between a person’s action and a horse’s reaction can reveal aspects of the person’s personality. The interaction and what it reveals has a strong influence in helping people develop skills in human relationships that they may lack.

Even Pastor Phil Waugh, “Marriage Whisperer” got into the corral. (He and his wife, Cindy, taught an excellent session on the Covenant Marriage Movement.

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Great time! Our synods are the coming together of our larger church family across the United States and we always have a blast. Below: Gail and Helen, our faithful from the Fellowship of St. Andrews in Helena, Montana. Helen, to the right, told me about her “God box.” She says she writes out her worries and puts them in her “God box,” then she lets go. Occasionally, she says she visits the “God box” to put in and take out and finds that no “worry” ever remains in there very long. I really loved this idea. I think we all need God boxes.

Mass at Holy Family

And a healing service as well.

We also had our church business, which was all good! We got some really cool gifts, too. Coffee mugs and awesome cowboy boot “folders”, hand-made by our Casper family.

And great presentations and updates on our churches across the country. These two (below) look like they are having fun, don’t they? Nicole and Natalia are the children of our Father Julio Jimenez and his wife, Mareus of St. Joseph of Glastonbury in Wichita, Kansas.

Photography: The Cure for Writer’s Block

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Best Web Sites for Writers, Crooked Lines, Diabetes, Football, India, Jake Byrne, Monday's Connections, Photography

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Writer’s block? Quit staring at a blank page. Let go of rearranging words that refuse to coalesce into art. Come away from your aphotic state and sneak a peek at photos that enlighten and inspire a thousand words. Today, I visited photography web sites and found several thought-provoking photos, beginning with this one from Brian Gaynor Photography. I want to know who stole the flowers. And why is this shop closing?

Michael Fiveson, at Mike’s Look at Life, says on his blog about this post: “A group of small town fellows who enjoyed beer to excess would gather here and discuss prospective conquests. Unfortunately, none ever occurred, but it was great fun to imagine themselves as playboys and lovers extraordinaire.” Yeah, I imagine a great novel about the guys who built this club, or the women in the red house behind it sharing a glass of wine and talking about their husbands/boyfriends who are boozing it up in their “Playboy Mansion” out back. Lol! Great site, Mike! One of my favs.

For inspiration with scenes, especially in the western genre, check out Kimberly Beer’s photography. Here’s a few of her photos. This man looks like a real hero with a story to tell.

These two also have something to say (to each other). Beautiful!

Finding Subjects Magazine: one man, one camera, one journey to motivate and inspire others by sharing photographs, stories, and humor with the world is awesome. Tony’s site is chock full of photos that make you laugh and ponder, including the one below. I’m curious about the guy who owns this puppet.

Kevin George Travel Photography Blog also has some great photos if you’re a writer looking for inspirational settings. Thanks for the permission to use this one Kevin:

And last, but most prolific, Charlie and Tom over at Photobots.com have put together PhotoBotos to create an open forum in which a HUGE community of friends can discuss photography and travel openly. Visit this site every day for a new photo awe-inspiring experience. Here’s a couple of photos from their site:

So, if you have writer’s block, peruse photography sites, like the ones above. Your muse will thank you.

Fortunately, I don’t have time for writer’s block. My first novel, “Crooked Lines,” is about ready to hit publisher’s doorsteps. Now working on my second novel, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

This setting (my own amateur photography) in Tamil Nadu, India is seen through the eyes of my character, Sagai, in Crooked Lines.

Below, Bishop Kenneth Kinner of the Holy Catholic Church Anglican Rite and the scenes in Central Wyoming inspire me in my current WIP, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

I also have the bones of another novel coming together for an inspiring book about connections between people, from the beginning of time. By the time I get the next two books published, my son, Jake (newly signed on with the New Orleans Saints and a type 1 diabetic) will be have a platform to write his book about kids, sports, and diabetes. (Read about his journey here) As a ghostwriter, it’s a future project I look forward to working on with my son. He’s a great kid and destined to be a fantastic NFL football player. I’m a proud mom of a saint!

The A to Z Challenge is over. The NFL Draft is over. I survived both! I’m back to my regular schedule. This is my Monday Connections, connecting writers to photography sites. NOW LET’S GET INSPIRED!!! Kill Writers block with photography!

W is for Walsingham and Winners

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in A to Z Challenge, Books, Photography, Travel

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Keeping in mind my “Person, Place, and Blog” theme for the A to Z blog challenge, I’ll begin this W blog post with PLACE:

W is for Walsingham, England. I used this photo I shot for my header photo:

Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

My husband, Rt. Rev. Leo Michael, (Holy Catholic Church, Anglican Rite), celebrating Mass at Our Lady of Walsingham Shrine.

Our Lady of Walsingham Chapel

And here’s two really fantastic PEOPLE who wrote a Wonderful Winner of a book that begins with W…and the setting of the novel is also in England:

Wind Over Troubled Waters by Francene Stanley & Edith Parzefall has been released on April 24!  Corn World. Britland. After the great flood, only memories, debris and derelict buildings speak of a past civilization. Visions of these disturbing times haunt Cerridwen’s dreams. When her dying mother sends Cerridwen to find a mural in Saint Eyes and lead Britland into a better future, the young healer has little choice but to set out on a life-changing quest. Her ability to perceive auras convinces her to accept nature-attuned Trevly’s offer of protection.

Bent on adventure and enthralled by the promise of treasure, beautiful Sasha, cunning Aron and uncut Boris join forces to get the most out of life. Their selfish plans collide with Cerridwen’s when they learn about a powerful ring and a mural pointing the way to its location.

I’ll review this book after the A to Z Challenge, but I’ve helped critique this novel and highly recommend it. Francene and Edith are very talented writers. Click to buy it on amazon.com

And for a Winner blog: Glenda Mills. Writing for Hope and Encouragement. A must visit blog. I love her blog. Her photos are fantastic. Her prose is superb. And she and her husband are winners because they’ve been married for 48 years. Happy Wedding Anniversary.

X is next. Hmmm…I’m coming up blank, a big X…We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

L is for ….Lame Reblog and a Last Minute Late Night L

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in A to Z Challenge, Books, Photography, Travel

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It’s late. No time to post, so I did a reblog of an older post that began with the letter L. Then….a lovely lady posted a sweet encouraging comment on my blog. She said that she would pray for me. I needed prayer. It’s been a tiring week. So, with that I got inspired to redo my A-Z Blog Challenge, using the letter L in my Person, Place, and Blog theme.

PERSON: The lovely lady who offered prayers of encouragement: Author Becky Doughty and her book starts with L: Life Letters: Fruit of the Spirit

Her book sounds lovely and I’m going to buy it. This is from Becky’s website: In my new book, Life Letters: The Fruit of the Spirit, I have reconstructed in letter form the memoirs of several women from Biblical history. Life Letters: The Fruit of The Spirit is a collection of letters introducing us to nine of these women whose lives demonstrate what it means to produce the character traits of a believer; the “fruit” of the Spirit. Each letter focuses on one of the fruit listed in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, while expressing the joys and sorrows, the blessings and hardships, of being a woman, regardless of generation, culture or status. It is my prayer that by giving each one a voice of her own, these matriarchs of the faith will speak into your life as they share from the their hearts.

Here’s Becky’s bio: I grew up the daughter of missionaries on the island of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, where letters were the only means of communication with friends and family back home in the United States. The power of the written word was instilled in me at a very young age and I lived vicariously through those precious letters as well as through the pages of the many books that filled my imagination with adventure, romance, and far-away places. To this day, if I’ve gone missing, my family knows that I’m probably tucked into a corner of my garden, book – or pen – in hand. Kevin, my champion husband, and I, along with our three copacetic children, share our lives with two pound pups named Vito and Betsy, Hollie The Horse, a wee herd of dairy goats, and a flock of fat hens who lay (liquid) golden eggs. For more information about me and my books, or to contact me, please visit www.beckydoughtybooks.com.

Doesn’t she sound like a lovely person!

Places we visited this past year that begin with an L: Lander, Wyoming

And London

And another lovely Blog: Life’s Little Surprises by Emma L. Moore

She blogs about Live, Laugh, Love. Live life to its fullest. Take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way that will further your purpose. Do something you wouldn’t normally do. Step out of your comfort zone and into place that makes you a little uneasy…. Check it out!

M…is next…Maybe I’ll be more creative