Delving Into the Past
All writers delve into the past. Our characters are experiencing some deep emotion. Off we go into the past to explore a time when we felt something similar.
This enriches our writing. We can add those little nuances that make the emotion seem real to the reader. I’ve done this a lot while working on “Mistaken Promises”, the third book in the Hazel Whitmore series.
There is another way for a writer to delve into the past. This has occupied my last week.
One of the first books I completed, “Exploring the Ozark Hills,” needed some attention. I hadn’t intended to do this. The nature essays are as valid today as the day I wrote them. The photographs are still suitable. But…
I needed more copies of this book. Before I printed them on my home laser printer. This takes time. And the local newspaper has gone into the printing business doing a much better job on the covers than my printer. Why can’t they print the entire book?
There is the original file on my computer, the enormous file, nearly 300,000Kb file. The size is ridiculous. Why is it so big?
I thought back. When I assembled the original file, I happily inserted original photograph files into the text and adjusted them to fit. The original files are huge.
“Expl0ring the Ozark Hills” is 187 pages long with around 100 pages of pictures. That might be a large part of the size problem. This matters because the last time I tried to print some copies, my computer locked until the printer was done.
My journey into the past began on the title page. I go page by page, stopping at each picture. Each picture is put through my photoshop program and resized to fit using the desired dpi. Each picture in the manuscript is replaced with the resized picture.
The file size is shrinking. However I’ve come to another aspect of delving into the past. It is the past. I’ve learned and seen things since then.
Not all of the pictures in “Exploring the Ozark Hills” are now the original ones. I even found one essay needing extensive rewrite to correct a mistake.
The same is true when I delve into the past to recreate emotions for my writing. For “Mistaken Promises” these range from boredom to annoyance to despair to anger to panic. I can remember these from when I was a young teen as Hazel is in the book. But I can add to them from times since as emotions don’t stop when you become an adult, only how we react to them changes.
This enriches our writing. We can add those little nuances that make the emotion seem real to the reader. I’ve done this a lot while working on “Mistaken Promises”, the third book in the Hazel Whitmore series.
There is another way for a writer to delve into the past. This has occupied my last week.
One of the first books I completed, “Exploring the Ozark Hills,” needed some attention. I hadn’t intended to do this. The nature essays are as valid today as the day I wrote them. The photographs are still suitable. But…
I needed more copies of this book. Before I printed them on my home laser printer. This takes time. And the local newspaper has gone into the printing business doing a much better job on the covers than my printer. Why can’t they print the entire book?
There is the original file on my computer, the enormous file, nearly 300,000Kb file. The size is ridiculous. Why is it so big?
I thought back. When I assembled the original file, I happily inserted original photograph files into the text and adjusted them to fit. The original files are huge.
“Expl0ring the Ozark Hills” is 187 pages long with around 100 pages of pictures. That might be a large part of the size problem. This matters because the last time I tried to print some copies, my computer locked until the printer was done.
My journey into the past began on the title page. I go page by page, stopping at each picture. Each picture is put through my photoshop program and resized to fit using the desired dpi. Each picture in the manuscript is replaced with the resized picture.
The file size is shrinking. However I’ve come to another aspect of delving into the past. It is the past. I’ve learned and seen things since then.
Not all of the pictures in “Exploring the Ozark Hills” are now the original ones. I even found one essay needing extensive rewrite to correct a mistake.
The same is true when I delve into the past to recreate emotions for my writing. For “Mistaken Promises” these range from boredom to annoyance to despair to anger to panic. I can remember these from when I was a young teen as Hazel is in the book. But I can add to them from times since as emotions don’t stop when you become an adult, only how we react to them changes.
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