Writing to write.

Henery miller quote

It’s November and it immediately puts an extra spark of excitement in my everyday. We are closer to special birthdays, the beginning of holiday season and of course Nanowrimo where thousands upon thousands of masochistic individuals take on the task of writing a novel in 30 days. Michelle and I accomplished our goal of 50K words in 2015, took a year off of writing to basically recuperate and here we are November 2017. We aren’t going to go full on novel, but we decided to write one word or sentence everyday, I figured we could accomplish that, right? The purpose? Just to write. We love writing and being immersed in the worlds we created with the characters we have come to love, even the most wicked of them. Writing for us also has a really profound effect, it makes us feel more creative and in an industry where we need to constantly be producing it’s nice to know we can find something to re-charge those batteries. I decided one of my goals was to tackle writing a synopsis that would make you want to pick up our novel. I wrote five really, really bad ones yesterday, none capturing the magic of the story. Honestly, writing those synopsis last night was harder than any of the many thousands of pages we churned out previously. Michelle had one note on agreeing to this November and it was that we didn’t judge (ourselves of course) and that we just kept going. It’s so easy when you are writing to come back and censor or really tear your own writing apart, I think that a story could use a little distance, write it, come back to it with fresh eyes if you can and then edit. For today, I just want to be able to write my couple of sentences, hoping they may spark more and that I can come up with a synopsis that is utterly irresistible, I think that it’s an achievable goal (the few sentences, the synopsis, totally striking fear in my heart). I am including some resources below if you want to check out Nanowrimo for yourself or if you have done this before we would LOVE to hear your experience and any insight.

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Nanowrimo

Dabble writing software (this sounds so cool!)

Scrivner writing software

What to do after you finish your Nanowrimo novel

Besotted with simplicity

pare-down-the-essence-quote-1080

The other day I stumbled upon a quote by Albert Einstein, ‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.’ I loved it and shared the quote at dinner with Michele and our friend Renee. Renee said she had written something similar– ‘Pare down the essence not the poetry’. We loved it so much that we wanted to share! Meaning, when you are simplifying things don’t simplify so much that there isn’t any ‘soul’ left. This whole minimalist movement, it’s so easy to go overboard and then be left with a room with no joy. For Michelle and I we have minimalist leanings in our work, but we always try not to cross over into something that is cold without feeling. We hope that our simple translates as a breath of fresh air when you are dealing with the cacophony of this life with all it’s visual and information overload. We try hard to simplify within our designs, it extends to our products, end users and our teaching style. Life is complicated enough, we always hope that what we bring to the world makes life more beautiful and simplifies, so our clients have more time to do what they love. Wishing you more poetry in your everyday.

Besotted with photographer Romina Ressia

Romina Ressia via besotted blog

Michelle and I were doing research today, we are planning a shoot soon (if you know of any interesting looking folks in the Seattle area that want some artful photos of themselves have them email us!), we were going through our inspiration boards and this image popped up and I said, “we need to mention Romina Ressia on Besotted !”.  And indeed we do!  We love it when people don’t take themselves too seriously and it is evident in Ressia’s work that although she obviously has a proficiency with light, texture and color she has a twinkling wit as well.  We hope you take time to visit her portfolio, it is definitely a little inspirational nugget sure to bring a smile to your face!

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Romina Ressia

Foto Rx |Cure for the Common Capture

 

photo by romina ressia

Tristan B. is the co-creator of the world’s best + easiest product photography editing tool-Foto Rx | Shopkeeper’s Helper and one of the writer’s of this delightful blog.

 

Besotted with :: Watercolor Markers

winsor newton watercolor pen with brush review via besotted blog

Have you ever tried watercolor markers yet? We were recently introduced to watercolor markers and have been duly impressed! The one featured in the photo is by Winsor & Newton and is professional grade, it was the first we tried and we wanted to give you our first impressions. The one we purchased is a dual tip, one for detail work and a brush tip for covering larger areas. As you can see from the photo you do get a beautiful even wash of color that is very true to the original watercolor medium. For sake of convenience, we are putting together a quick PROS + CONS, this is by no means extensive as we have only tried this one brand but we are eager to try more!Read More