Sumi-E on the iPhone.

I came across a review for an iPhone/iPad app called Zen Brush. It looked like a lot of fun and got a good review so I thought I would try it. The frog picture is my first attempt with it. I think it must be easier to get in a lot of detail if you are using iPad. There is no zoom-in function so it is hard to do detailed work on the smaller screen. You can change brush sizes, but the small screen just isn't a lot of canvas. This is probably a plus for me since it means I just have to accept that the drawings need to be simple. Zen-like.

The maker PSoft has some excellent examples on their website. They are based in Sendai and have put together a book to raise money for the earthquake.

Looking at the Idea of Epic Fictional Couples Through the movie Thor

I recently wrote a kind of review of the movie Thor. While it is a super hero movie, I think it has some strong romantic elements and it got me thinking about what makes us elevate a fictional couple to epic love status.

You can read the whole piece at www.naughtynellie.com

Naughty Nellie is a romance novel review site. It's new but I think it has a fresh take on books, and has had some really interesting pieces written by guest bloggers. One, written by dark, Tudor period romance novel writer Laura Navarre, is about dark heroes. The piece about inspirational romance, by Andrea Therese, gives one of the best descriptions I've come across for the genre.

I'll repost my own piece on In The Works tomorrow.

Running Around New York

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to attend Romance Writers of America's National Conference in New York City. I met up with some old friends, made a few new ones, got some great tips about writing and discovered a lot of new authors.

I think the workshops that impacted me the most were Laura Joh Rowland's "Twenty Questions to Answer Before writing 'The End'" and Candace Haven's workshop "How to Write Your First Draft in Two Weeks". I am one chapter away from finishing a manuscript I started a long time ago. I had abandoned this manuscript in favor of other project but one day figured out how to solve a plot issue. I pulled it out of my heap last month and started working on it, trying to get close to finishing the first draft before RWA. It was an interesting experience. I have no idea how good it is, but I learned a lot from the process. I was interested to learn that many of the techniques Candace Havens presented were ones I used to just get that draft finished. I wasn't on a two week regimen but I now have some more refined tools in my writers kit for the next first draft. The next step is, of course, revision hell. After the length of time it took for this draft I'm actually looking forward to revision. Rowland's workshop gave me a chance to sharpen my thinking about revision at a time I really need it. I bought the CD of the conference so I'm looking forward to listening to all the other great workshops I wasn't able to attend.

The week following the conference was spent touring New York and taking a lot of photos. I brought my Petri 1.9 rangefinder and a load of film. I shot at least 6 rolls which is not bad considering I also used a small digital camera to shoot lots of material for my Estello Project. As usual, it was a lot of fun to shoot Estello and it was interesting to see how many people were curious about him. I had been doing more Estello stuff on Facebook, than the blog. Blogger doesn't work as well with Facebook as Wordpress but I'm loathe to move to the other platform.

I managed to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met, see fireworks over the Hudson River on the 4th of July, see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Public Library on 5th, Bryant Park, Coney Island, Hoboken, the World Trade Centre rebuilding, DC Comics, New York Botanical Gardens, City Hall, Grand Central Station. I ate hot-dogs, pizza slices and drank lots of coffee. I also saw fireflies in the graveyard of Trinity Church one night. A trip to Zabars and B and H Photo really polished the stay.

I leave New York tomorrow for another week in Calgary before I return to Tokyo. The raw-creative phase continues in Calgary. I have plans to go to Brooks and Drumheller to shoot photos of the Badlands or to do to Banff to photograph the mountains and do some research. Both are great options and it pains me I won't be able to do both.

The last month has been amazing and I'm grateful to have all the opportunities to write and photograph. It's perfect that all this creative work will need extensive editing and formatting because it gives me the perfect excuse to sit in an air-conditioned room and escape the Tokyo summer humidity.