I read the blog of Anita James today, she’s about to do a sofobomo book as I am. The posting was about time planning and the frustration of not having enough time for everything. Among all these things were necessary preparations before the emerging starting day. I have felt the same. I month ago my head was spinning of all ideas that I would like to realise as a photo book. I actually come up with a pretty decent theme which I call life cycles. I started playing around with some InDesign templates I found on the Internet. Then nothing. You could say that I haven’t made any more thinking into this since my last sofobomo posting. Until now. For reasons. Usually I’m extremely tired early spring time, this spring being not any different from others.
Now as the flowers and trees are budding out, I’m slowly waking up. Luckily there is still a half month to go before we approach the starting line and I think I will be up to speed by then. If I know myself enough well, I will not make that much of preparation anyway. Usually I do best with a short deadline, and too much preparations brings me down. I have started to spot places where I will do photo shoots, and I have started to think of whether there is a need for a plot, or not. Thank you Paul Lester for this! He is doing a sofobomo book as well, and I must say his thinking helped me a lot in getting my things together.
I sidenote: Paul wrote a comment in Anita’s blog (the one I refer to above) about producing a set of photos and haikus. The haiku/photo combination is pretty expressive. I have started doing one for every month on this blog (in Swedish, though) and so far I find it very contemplative to invoke both mind and eye. 35 of them would nevertheless be quite a few to me while they take some time to write and photograph. Writing them in English would be even more challenging since it’s not my mothertounge and I wouldn’t be happy with using my too small toolbox of words and expressions. If it weren’t for all this, I would go down that lane, definitely.
Great write up and thanks for the mention, Ove. Regarding plots and such, I don’t know if it ‘needs’ a plot, but I certainly want to have one, I think, just to tie things together really well.
Regarding the haiku/photo combination, it sounded intriguing to me. I’ll write a haiku occasionally and I really love the simple, romantic form of haiku. I don’t think that you need a rather large vocabulary for haiku. Perhaps you should give it a try by writing one English haiku per day between now and then. Don’t judge it, just write it.
I’m glad that the post helped you think about some other possibilities.
No, I don’t think a plot is needed either, but it surely help getting you through the project.
When it comes to haiku I tend to weight words and their meanings carefully, a little to much maybe since mostly it is my own perception of the word I’m measuring, not necessarily the reader’s. I might give it a shot, have to build up my courage first and as you say, just get down to writing. Thanks, Paul!
Thank you for the mention. I certainly am comforted to know that I am not the only one who hasn’t fully settled on my project. I do think the theme of life cycles is a powerful one. I am looking forward to seeing your finished book. I am already impressed by the fact that you write so wonderfully in a second language. Gracious, I struggle with the only one I speak. By the way, I hope you will share some of your practice haiku with us.
Oh, how kind of you, such a nice thing to say! I try to learn to express myself as good as possible in Swedish and like to be able to do that in English also.
When I have made my first haiku in English, I promise to share it with you. I might take some time, though, so many things on the todo list…