Five Photos Five Stories — Day four

23 Replies

Back to Day one (books) and introduction to the challenge

Back to Day two (writing)

Back to Day three (Break out)

My retirement jetski

My retirement jetski

My retirement jetski

Geoff Le Pard threw me a challenge to post five photos and five stories over five days. He is probably just as surprised as I am that I took him up on it, especially as this week is particularly busy and significant.

Tomorrow I finally break up with a relationship that has been on-again-off-again for over forty years. Tomorrow is my last day working for Education Queensland. While I then become “officially” retired, some of you may know that I am not very fond of that “R” word and prefer to think of my life as taking a redirection.

In a couple of weeks’ time I commence another part-time job at the University of Queensland with the exact number of hours for me to remain “officially” retired, but nominally “working part-time”. The remainder of the week I will continue to write and work towards fulfilling my goal of establishing an online store of educational resources. This is where the jetski comes in.

There are many expenses involved with preparing content for the website including getting work illustrated, having the website designed and, hopefully, if I can figure out a way, having interactivity added to some resources. Deciding how much cost is acceptable is difficult when there is no guarantee of ever getting any return, and often the time I spend tapping away on my computer keyboard when I could be doing other things comes into question.

The fact is I love tapping away on my computer keyboard writing works of my choosing, and the expenses involved are necessary in order to make my “creations” available to others through a website. If I were to choose a jetski, a sports car or an around the world cruise as a retirement gift for myself, as many do, and spend hours each day riding the waves or the roads, no one would question my choice of activity or the cost of the initial purchase or ongoing maintenance. They would be pleased that I was having fun, enjoying my later years. Well, for the moment at least, writing is my pleasure and I (try to) justify the expense by calling it my “jetski”.

As my work targets an early childhood market, illustrations are an essential accompaniment to my work. When I first registered my business and domain name, my (graphic designer) niece designed my logo and beautiful banner, which you see at the top of my blog, and produced illustrations for some stories. Recently I have had other illustrations done by artists from 99designs so I am starting to make headway in that direction.

Kari Jones (ArtbyJonz), who did the S.M.A.G. badge has produced illustrations for two stories. Here is a sneak peek at one illustration from each:

ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015

ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015

ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015

ArtbyJonz ©Norah Colvin 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and sneak peeks of illustrations for stories by Sketcherlady, Goetia and Tyohermawan, to whom I awarded the first contest.

sketcherlady ©Norah Colvin 2015

sketcherlady ©Norah Colvin 2015

Goetia ©Norah Colvin 2015

Goetia ©Norah Colvin 2015

tyohermawan ©Norah Colvin 2015

tyohermawan ©Norah Colvin 2015

I have been very happy working with each of these designers. They have all been very helpful and accommodating and worked hard to produce illustrations to match my requests. I am happy to recommend any of them if you are looking at getting some work illustrated.

The next step is to speak with a web designer. I must say I’m a bit fearful of the cost, but hey, it’s my jetski.

What seems to be more problematic at the moment is adding interactivity to some resources. PowerPoint has some facility but not enough. I looked at another program recently which promised any interactivity I could imagine. But unfortunately the program designers had not imagined what I had! I discussed some of my requirements with a friend who is learning to code and he thought it would even be difficult to code what I want. Since these open-ended interactions are to be a point of difference for me, if I can’t have them, I may need to trade-in my jetski on something completely different. Maybe a novel? (That must be pretty easy, eh Geoff?) I’m not sure I’m ready for that. If you have any suggestions about adding interactivity to resources I’d love to receive them please.

I nominate my lovely fellow local Queensland bloggers to take up this Five Photos Five Stories challenge should they so wish:

Irene Waters who writes memoir and blogs at Reflections and Nightmares and already shares many beautiful photos and stories;

Desley Jane, a girl with a camera who blogs at Musings of a Frequent Flying Scientist; and

Marigold Dicer who blogs at Versus Blurb but who has popped off the scene temporarily while she completes what used to be called “prac” teaching when I went to college.

Please be aware that your participation is completely voluntary. I know each of you already post frequent photo stories. However if you choose to participate, I hope you enjoy the challenge as much as I have. 🙂

The “rules” of the Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge are:

1) Post a photo each day for five consecutive days.
2) Attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or a short paragraph. It’s entirely up to the individual.
3) Nominate another blogger to carry on the challenge. Your nominee is free to accept or decline the invitation. This is fun, not a command performance!

Thank you

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

 

23 thoughts on “Five Photos Five Stories — Day four”

  1. Pingback: Well I declare | Norah Colvin

    1. Norah Post author

      Thanks Anne. You’re not the only one that’s confused! I think I’ve said a few times that I’m not keen on the “R” word. I don’t see that I have come to the end of my days of contribution yet. I have changed jobs – swapped one part-time two days-a week job, for another. But because I have resigned from a long-term permanent position it is “officially” considered “retirement”. I prefer to think of it as working part-time. The rest of the time I’m working for me. It all makes sense to me, but doesn’t seem to make sense to anyone else. 🙂

      Like

      Reply ↓
  5. Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

    Firstly happy birthday for today and thank you for the nomination. I will do it but probably in a bit. Like you this challenge is a bit of fun and I’ve enjoyed your entries and learning more of you. I love the jet ski analogy and I couldn’t think of a nicer way to spend some hours in retirement. Interactivity I can’t help you with.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      Thank you for your wishes, Irene. I had a wonderful day. The challenge is not compulsory and I wasn’t even sure if you had already done it, but it is a bit of fun. For me it was an opportunity to do something a bit different.
      Pleased you like the analogy. I think others would understand it more if I was out getting frizzzled in the sun, churning up the waters, adding to the greenhouse gases and wasting the days away! Thanks for thinking about the interactivity. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
      1. Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

        Glad you had a nice day. I have done the challenge but as you have found it is not onerous to tell a story to a photo and can in fact be fun so I am happy to do it again. I will probably just wait until I have a bit of work that I have to do out of the way..
        Retirement is for what you want to do. Enjoy it. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓
        1. Norah Post author

          Thanks Irene. I look forward to your ‘second’ participation in the challenge. I very much appreciate that you have read and commented on each of my five posts in the challenge.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply ↓
          1. Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist

            You are welcome Norah. When I saw you were doing the challenge I knew you would be posting every day so I knew to visit. I don’t use the reader or look at the emails so I never know when people publish apart from those that are regular. Next year when I have finished my research I will have a lot more time to leisurely stroll around. I always enjoy your posts. They are usually food for thought despite me not being in the field of education.

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply ↓
            1. Norah Post author

              Thank you Irene. You must be looking forward to finalising your research next year and having a little more leisure time. I am looking forward to getting my website up and running for the same reason. I probably need to devote a bit more time to achieving that at the moment, but I’m easily distracted by interesting blogs, yours included. 🙂

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply ↓
    2. Norah Post author

      Hi Steven, I have now had a more detailed look at the information provided through this link. Thank you very much for sharing it with me. I am particularly interested in the possibilities with H5P and the interactive maps. Though I do not have a current use for their specific interactive abilities, I will be keeping them in mind for possible future projects. 🙂

      Like

      Reply ↓
  7. TanGental

    Now a jetski! That’s a fun idea. Seriously you will never stop so quite right to consign the R word to the junk pile. I wish you well with interactivity: I wouldn’t have the first clue where to go for that beyond suggesting to the IT (or whatever they call computer science these days) department at your uni as a competition for which you give a prize.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      Thanks Geoff! Of course I’ve never been on a real jetski – much too scary for me; but I’m looking forward to going full-throttle on my virtual one!
      Thanks for your suggestion re computer science department. I’ll give it some thought! 🙂

      Like

      Reply ↓

I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.