Tag: Weekly Update

Weekly Update: New Journal and 10 Years of Writing at Large

It’s been a while, mostly because life has been hectic, not because I don’t have things to write about. Here’s to trying to get more posts in, even if they aren’t perfect or particularly long.

I’ve just finished another journal (the yellow one on the left in the photo below) and have set up my new one. Both are Stalogy 365 B6 notebooks, and both have a similar initial setup:

1.I flip the notebooks upside down so that the header with the dates is on the bottom and out of the way, as I don’t use it.

2. I use the front endpaper to write an “in case of loss” message (my name, email, phone number and a request for the finder to do the right thing).

New journal on the right, old journal on the left.

3. I use the back endpaper as a sort of “dashboard”. One side gets stickers on it, the other gets a post it with some journaling and review prompts.

Endpaper view of the new journal.

My new journal’s cover was damaged in transit, so I covered the worst of the damage with washi tape. It adds some character to the black cover, and if it gets too grimy or peels off I can always replace it.

My old journal lasted me for 5 months, which is about what these notebooks last for. My Moleskine journals lasted for 3-4 months because they had fewer paged and I used them for scrapbooking as well.

In other news “Writing at Large” is 10 years old. I never thought that I’d be publishing it for so long, but I’m glad that I started it way back in July of 2015, and I hope to keep it going for many years more. I’ve been through a lot over the past decade, and this site reflects a tiny part of that. If I can recommend something it’s to invest your time in your own site and your own work instead of on social media. If you persist, it pays dividends.

Reading

Finished The Day of the Jackal by Fredrick Forsyth and found it fascinating. I’m planning on reviewing it here.

Started on We Solve Murders by Richard Osman and I’m working on some Ulysses posts.

Health and Fitness

It’s getting hard to run outside, harder than it ever was, in this heat and humidity. Global warming is making treadmill runs more attractive. I’ve started using the NRC app‘s guided treadmill runs and they are pretty good and making treadmill running more bearable.

Have a great week and be kind to each other.

Weekly Update: One Week 100 People, Newly Inked Pens and Preparing for a Doctor’s Visit

I finished the One Week 100 People challenge on day 4, but kept going for day 5 (which was yesterday) and added a few sketches on day 6 (even though the official challenge is 5 days long). It was the first time that I sketched only live subjects and not from photos, and it really pushed me to find ways to work fast.

Today I added a few final sketches to my Field Notes sketchbook, this time using Faber Castell Pitt brush pens for blocks of colour and a Pilot brush pen for the sketches themselves. I was trying to work mainly with silhouettes and capture people in movement. It took me longer than I thought to capture a mere 6 subjects, mostly because what people do when they walk around nowadays is stare at their phones.

As I wrote two fountain pens dry this week, I filled six new fountain pens, bringing my rotation up to nine pens. Next week I’ll write a post about the pens and inks that I chose, but I will say that there are some pretty rare ones in the rotation this time.

Next week is pretty stressful as I have some tests and a checkup coming up with my hemato-oncologist (that’s a cancer doctor that specializes in blood cancers, which is the kind of cancer that I’m in remission from). I will give out one important tip for anyone who is going to see a doctor for any reason:

Write down ahead of time whatever it is that is bothering you/you need help with, and make sure that it’s in order of importance. There’s a good chance that if you won’t do this you will forget things, or you’ll focus on the least important thing, or you’ll have trouble articulating the issue. A doctor’s office is a stressful location, so you want to take the time and prepare this list in advance when you are sitting calmly at home. Make sure that the first 2-3 items on that list are really the most important things that you want to focus on because there’s a good chance that you’ll only get to focus on these items (your time in there is going to be limited). Reference the list when in the doctor’s office (don’t be embarrassed, there’s nothing embarrassing about being prepared). Be clear and specific, and insist on getting all your questions answered when it comes to these things. Double check before you leave that all the medications you discussed and tests that the doctor ordered were properly documented. Doctors are people too and the electronic medical record systems they work with aren’t the best, so it’s worth checking that everything is in order before you leave (even if you do the check with the medical secretary, just so long as you’re still in the doctor’s office and any errors and omissions can be fixed).

Take care of yourself and have a great week!

Weekly Update: 10K Race, Field Notes Sketchbook and Poetry Anthology

Another busy week at work coupled with a packed weekend means that this update will be bullet-point style:

  • I ran my first race of the year, a 10K in what turned out to be surprisingly warm weather. I’ve been using the Nike Running Club App’s 10k race plan, for both this race and the one I ran in Disney World last October and it’s proven to be fantastic. I wish I could say the same about the app, which has lately had annoying audio issues that have made it downright unusable at times.
  • In preparation for next week’s One Week 100 People challenge I’ve been using a Field Notes Sketchbook, and I’ve grown to appreciate its portability. It’s not suited for wet media, but for pen, ink and pencil it works well. All the sketch photos here were done on a Field Notes Sketchbook, and I’ll be reviewing it sometime in the future.
  • I’m down to only five inked fountain pens, and I’ll likely write one or two of them dry next week. I’ll be updating my pen rotation sometime late next week, possibly looking to add some more spring-time ink colours to the darker inks I currently have in use.
  • I’ve finished reading Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, bringing my February book count to three. The book was just the sort of cozy, light read that I needed at the time, and I enjoyed it enough to immediately buy the sequel (which is actually a prequel) Bookshops and Bonedust.
  • I spent an annoyingly long time downloading all of my kindle books to my laptop before Amazon locked that option out. I’ve also moved to using Kobo to buy eBooks. I will admit that it’s not as convenient as buying ebooks from Amazon, but I’m angry enough at them for the change to put in the extra effort required. I bought Bookshops and Bonedust on Kobo and then used the Amazon “Send to Kindle” website to transfer my purchase (it was easy because Travis Baldree, bless him, demanded that the book be DRM free). I also bought another book (a bit on that in the next bullet) that had DRM applied, so I had to do some Calibre work to strip it of DRM before sending it to my Kindle. Next time the whole process should take only a minute or two extra beyond the usual Kindle book purchasing process, and again, for me it’s worth it.
  • After listening to Oxford poetry professor Tara Stubbs’s wonderful Demystifying Poetry podcast (Apple Podcasts, Spotify) I bought my first poetry book in years, the anthology “Staying Alive”. Even if you’re not a poetry lover, give the podcast a listen. It’s well worth your time.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: Model Sketches Take 2

It’s nice to have new pens and inks in rotation. I’m enjoying Diamine’s Writer’s Blood more than I expected, Diamine Autumn Oak is fantastic with a Waterman superflex nib, and Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo is becoming one of my favourite inks.

Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes are hosting the OneWeek100People challenge again this year, and I intend to participate again. The challenge starts on the 3rd of March and officially lasts 5 days. I normally sketch from photos, but this time I want to see if I can do the entire challenge from observation only. It may take me more than 5 days, but I’m OK with that. Are you planning on joining the challenge?

I went to the local art museum again this week, to sketch models in the museum. This was the last time this event was run, and the place was packed with sketchers. I didn’t have the best of locations, but I made the most of it. I sketched with Faber Castell 9000 2B and 3B pencils mostly, and added a touch of colour with Faber Castell Polychromos. The ink sketches were done with a Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.5. The sketchbook I used was once again the French Pascale Éditions. The models did fewer 20 minute poses and more 10 minute ones, which meant scrambling a lot. I wanted to visit the museum after the event, but I was so tired from 3 hours of non-stop sketching that I just went home.

Harman Photo just came out with a brand new colour film, Harman Red. It’s a red-scale film, and I’m curious enough to try and buy a roll or two and test them out. I love the wild, wild results I got with Harman Phoenix and the Harman Red is basically Phoenix pushed even more into red-scale.

Here are the sketches from today, and I hope that you have a great week!

10 minute pose.
10 minute pose.
10 minute pose.
10 minute pose – the hardest pose to draw because of the angle of the head. Had a false start on this one, so had only about 8 minutes for this.
10 minute pose – Staedtler 0.5 pigment liner
10 minute pose
10 minute pose
10 minute pose
The three models. The pose started with just the two top models, and then the third one joined, and it was a 10 minute pose.
A challenging composition, 20 minute pose
10 minute pose. I like the composition on this one – I placed her on the side of the page to give her room for thought.
Final pose, 20 minutes

Weekly Update: Model Sketches

It’s been a hectic week as my team at work is basically crumbling: our new senior member is leaving after just two months, the team lead is leaving after a bit more than a year, and the other team member is on holiday until the end of the month. That just leaves me with two trainees to hold the fort for a while, and it’s far from ideal. As I’m also working my way through an intense certification course, posts on this blog have taken (and will likely continue to take) a bit of a hit.

Reading

I’ve finished reading Looking for a Ship by John McPhee and I’ve reviewed it here. It’s a fascinating narrative of a now extinct world, that of the American Merchant Marine. I’ve now started reading Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks as well as Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

Stationery

My Field Notes order has arrived, as has the 2024 Hobonichi Techo (yes, 2024) that I bought with a Black Friday discount. The Hobonichi will be used to supplement my 2014 Hobonichi when it comes to testing out inks. The 2024 Techo has’s got paper that is close enough to original Tomoe River Paper that’s in my 2014 Techo, though from my understanding the 2025 Hobonuchi’s have worse paper than the 2024 ones, so take that into account if you’re considering buying one. I have posts planned for both purchases, and hopefully I’ll get the time to write them.

Model Sketching

I went to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art today for a special sketching event that they organized: three models dressed in clothing that reflected some of the artwork in the collection, posing for sketches for 3 hours. These were mostly 10 minute sketches, with the last two poses being 20 minute ones. The last pose was a rare treat – a group pose, which is something you don’t get to sketch a lot.

In general when sketching models, whether clothed or not, you have one model that poses. Here there were three, and they switched places, so wherever you sat you got to sketch all three (and you could always sketch a model that was a bit further than the one right in front of you). The museum was busy, and there were children’s plays being shown in the auditorium, and so a lot of kids were around us, sketching on bits of paper with coloured pencils, with parents and grandparents cooing with delight and hovering around. It was wonderful to see how joyously kids took to sketching, whether it was the ladies in the dresses before them, or just anything that came into their imagination.

Here are the sketches I made throughout the event. The sketchbook I used was by French maker Pascale Éditions (it was lovely), and I used a Faber Castell 9000 2B pencil, a Faber Castell 4B Graphite Aquarelle pencil, various Faber Castel Albrecht Dürer watercolour pencils, a Tombow brush pen, and a 0.5 Staedtler Pigment Liner (this was my most used sketching tool).

First sketch. Warming up, so trying to keep it as loose as possible.
20 minute sketch, so I had time for some shading.
The only sketch where I wet the paper slightly with a waterbrush before sketching
20 minute final group pose
Potato quality photo of the three models

Have a great and creative week!

Weekly Update: Ink and Prickly Pears

I haven’t done a watercolour sketch in a while, so I broke out the trusty Moleskine Watercolour sketchbook, my Staedtler Pigment Liners (0.3 and 0.5) and my Schmincke and Daniel Smith watercolours and made this quick sketch:

Prickly pear watercolour sketch

It was fun and it took me less time than I thought, so I should do it more often.

This was a big ink week, as I wrote many of my Inkvent fountain pens dry: Wishing Tree, Snow Globe, Winterberry, Salted Caramel, Pine Needle, Nutmeg, and Wilted Rose. I also dumped Sleigh Ride as I found the ink colour depressing. This leaves me with 9 Inkvent inks still inked in my pens, with most of them half or quarter full. I doubt that I’ll be able to write them all dry by the end of the month, but hopefully I’ll get as close to that as possible. In any case I’ll reassess in the beginning of February if I want to keep using my Diamine Inkvent inks or if I’ll just dump out and clean up whatever I still have inked at the time and start fresh.

I finished reading “The New York Trilogy” and it’s a very Paul Auster book. Next week I’ll start on “The Last Kashmiri Rose” by Barbara Cleverly and finish “The Comfort Crisis” by Michael Easter.

Have a great week full of pens, books and good news.

Weekly Update: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

This week and next week are pretty busy, so this update will be short and in bullet points:

  • I wrote three Inkvent fountain pens dry, leaving me with 17 (!) pens to go. I’m prioritizing the pens based on how damaging the ink can potentially be, so I’ve written the Star Bright inks dry (Chilly Nights and Noble Fir) and I’m working my way through the shimmer inks and chameleon inks next.
  • I spent a few minutes every day for the past 2-3 days unsubscribing from various email lists, store newsletters and SMS message lists. The joy of a less cluttered inbox and less noise on my phone is fantastic, and it took less time and effort than I thought.
  • I’m still reviewing 2024. It’s going to take a while because I have such a busy start of the year.
  • Goodreads have really started to gamify and commercialize their site more, and so I’m using it less. I know there are alternatives out there but I just don’t have time to actively seek them out at the moment – let me know in the comments if you have any recommendations.
  • I don’t do resolutions (or yearly themes, etc. I do quarterly plans with quantifiable goals), but my stationery goals for 2025 are to buy nothing (or as close to nothing as possible) and to use what I have instead. I have too much stuff and it’s time I used it.
  • I checked out the Tournament of Books shortlist and decided yet again not to participate. A few years ago the list had interesting and exciting contemporary fiction, but now there are only a slack handful of shortlisted books that seem worth reading, and I’ve heard of many of them from other places already. It’s a bit of a shame as I had a lot of fun following along when I did.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: 3 year chemo-versary

It’s been three years today since I finished my chemotherapy and have been in remission. I spent the day celebrating with my family, I’ll have another celebration next week, and I’m about to watch Mischief Movie Night In to finish a very nice day indeed.

Having dealt with cancer at a relatively young age sets certain priorities very straight in life. Health, family, friends are above all. I start my journaling every day with a 4-5 things that I’m grateful for. I’m constantly aware that everything in life is fleeting, everything can be taken away from you at any time, so it’s really important to take the time and appreciate everything that you have, even if it’s not always everything that you’ve wanted.

Teddy bears getting ready to be photographed for Inkvent

Reading

I have finished two books this week, Cal Newport’s “How to Become a Straight A Student” and Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital”. Newport’s book was excellent and I plan on using the advice within it to help me prepare for a big certification exam that I’m taking this year. Harvey’s “Orbital” won this year’s Booker prize, which is why I read it, and it’s a complete waste of time. It’s around 140 pages of bloated, purple description, with no plot, no interesting or fleshed out characters, and nothing but platitudes to say about humanity, humankind or the planet. I have no idea why it won, and it was so bad that it completely put me off of trying to read Booker award winning books.

Inkvent

I’ve managed to build a small buffer, which will come in useful as I have to write this year’s Inkvent summary post and I’m still not sure how I’ll tackle it. This year’s calendar isn’t like the ones previous, and so I will need a fresh approach to this summary post this time.

Planning

I’m gearing up to switch planning notebooks after next week, and to start a new quarter. My plan for next quarter is largely ready, and is a little different this time. I’ve pared things down, and I might even streamline them more. I have a week to hammer out the final details, and I’ll likely be dedicating a post to the process in the end.

Have a great week and remember to count your blessings.

Weekly Update: Sketching, Inkvent BTS and Fountain Pen Purchases

I went to a demonstration across the street from the American Embassy. The families of the hostages asked Jake Sullivan to pressure our current government to sign an agreement to release the hostages and end the fighting in Gaza. There was significant police presence and I was a bit worried to get too close to the centre of the action as they seemed jumpy, but I did sketch the demonstrators (Lamy fountain pen and Diamine Marley ink on a Cass Art sketchbook).

Sketch of the demonstration

I bought a Model 03 modified colour prototype from the Franklin-Christoph online pen show. This brings up the total number of fountain pens I purchased this year to three – which is one of the lowest it’s been since I started using fountain pens. The other two pens are the Fountain EDC from Big iDesign, which I got through kickstarter, and a Leonardo Momento Zero Grande 2.0 Galattica Universe. I’ve been buying fewer and fewer fountain pens over the years, and I expect next year won’t change that trend. The reason is twofold: all the vintage dealers I used to buy from have retired or died, and I already have enough modern pens to satisfy all of my needs and curiosities.

Inkvent has been a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to get much of a buffer going on. I basically write each review on the day it’s published, with the writing samples and the sketch being done a day or two beforehand at most. It’s so time consuming that I haven’t been able to find enough time to create a posting buffer this year.

It’s the middle of December and I’ve started planning for the next “13 week year” or quarter, and in this case also moving into a new notebook. I’ll probably write a separate post about setting up my new planning notebook and migrating from my old one, but for now I’ll say that starting a notebook with a few lists is a great way to get over the “first blank page” fright.

Have a great and peaceful week!

Weekly Update: Long Time No Update

I got back last week from a week in Orlando (no, I wasn’t at the pen show, I was on the Galactic Starcruiser — of which I will write a post later on) and am starting to get back to my routine, sort of. In any case, I haven’t posted a weekly update in a while, so I figured that it’s about time.

Health

  • I got my CPET (Cardio-Pulmonary Exercise Test) results back. I have less lung capacity to work with, which is likely the result of the chemo I underwent. There’s nothing to do about it but keep on running and hoping that my lungs will recover in time. It does mean that I won’t be able to break any more speed PRs anytime soon, but I can live with that. It’s better to be alive than to break running PRs.
  • I’ve been on an enforced break from running due to plantar fasciitis caused by my not getting my insoles replaced in time. As I have two races next month I’m really hoping to get back to running soon.
  • For the first time in my life I had perfect bloodwork results, which was very nice indeed and made me and my oncologist very happy.

Reading

  • I finished reading M Train, and found it both delightful and slightly disappointing.
  • I finished reading “Well of Ascension”, Brandon Sanderson’s second Mistborn novel. I really didn’t like this one, and I’m not really sure that I’ll bother with the third book in the trilogy.
  • I read “Winter’s Gifts”, a Rivers of London novella by Ben Aaronovich. I love the Rivers of London series, but this novella wasn’t the best, and you can feel free to skip it and not miss much. It was an OK plane read.
  • I’m reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport right now, and so far it’s been pretty insightful. As someone who gets constantly interrupted while working I was interested in seeing if there was a way that I could carve out bigger chunks of time for more meaningful work, and I hope this book will help.

Sketching

  • I did a tremendous amount of repetitive sketching as giveaways on the Galactic Starcruiser, to the point where my carpal tunnel lifted its head and said hi. I’m giving myself a bit of a break from regular sketching and starting to plan out Inktober. Anything in particular that you’d like to see?

Pens and Ink

I’ve replaced almost my entire rotation. As this is starting to get a little too lengthy of a post, I’ll post a separate blog post about what I’m currently using.

D&D, tabletop roleplaying and LARPs

  • I ran a convention game, a new one I wrote just for the convention, and it turned out pretty well. Something that I can tweak and rerun in a different convention next year.
  • My adventure got accepted to the biggest convention in Israel, I-Con, and for the first time ever I’ll be running a game in the “big league”. My game was one of the first to be sold out, with all the tickets going in the first 24 hours, which was super nice and big boost to my confidence.
  • I’m nearing the end of another adventure in my current D&D campaign, and it’s been going well so far. I took a risk of creating a no combat adventure, but everyone seems to be enjoying themselves so far.
  • LARPs – I got to participate in the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser before it shuts down at the end of the month and it was beyond amazing, and is going to get its own dedicated post. Locally, next week marks a turning point in the space themed LARP that we’re participating in and I can’t wait to see where the story takes us next.
Sketches of Banthas for the Galactic Starcruiser. I drew about 100 of these.

General Stuff

  • I watched season 1 and 2 of “Slow Horses” on Apple TV and I loved it. Phenomenal actors, excellent writing, and my beloved London at its best. I purchased the first book in the series because I loved it so much.
  • I spent about two hours today clearing out all of my plant pots, adding new earth, sowing seeds. I haven’t planted anything since I got sick in 2021 because I didn’t want to burden anyone with taking care of my plants for me. It took more time and courage than I thought I would need to get out there and sow some seeds, but hopefully I’ll get to see them germinate, grow and bloom. All the seeds I have are from 2021, so I’m not sure they’ll germinate at all, but as I planted basically only nasturtiums and they’re hardy little plants, I’m hoping for the best. In any case progress is marked in the little things, and this little step is something too, I guess.

I hope you have a great week!