Category Archives: Art

My Manuscript

Posted on December 16, 2013 | Leave a comment

Editing Progress

Greetings, fellow readers, writers, and other lovers of the written word. My Manuscript is back from the editor and I have gone through each of the suggested revision points. I applied those that I deemed complimentary to my work (which was most of them) and discarded a couple that altered the direction of a particular protagonists plight or adversely affected the story in some other way. I found the following message from the editorial team very encouraging:

“Your editor has reviewed your manuscript and determined that your writing is strong enough that the editing package you selected would not provide a great benefit.

Therefore, the service has been changed to the standard Comprehensive Copyediting service, which will offer you the best benefit in cost and for your writing.

A refund in the amount of $427.00, the difference in cost between the two services, has been approved and is currently being processed.”

Wow, I didn’t know this type of thing actually occurred. I find it quite promising that a professional editor, one whose eyes fall upon countless manuscripts in a given year, is telling me that my writing is strong, and that they would not have put as much effort into their process in order for my manuscript to be developed into a publication ready piece. Nice!

Stay tuned… more will be revealed.

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Posted in Art, Photography, Writing

Ghost Writers

Posted on December 4, 2013 | 1 comment

window grunge1

Ghost Writers

I needn’t come to terms with why I do the things that I do.  I know what I’m doing.  I am comfortable with it.  What is intuitive to one may seem a compulsory act by another.  Who is to say what makes up the intellectual interests of one mind over another, what fills the heart of one than another… to another?  This is not for me to say of others nor should it be the mission of others to say of me.  At this moment I am sitting in a cafe in the Oak Park neighborhood of Sacramento hunched over my computer, double mocha half reach to my right, doing what I love… I am writing.  Surrounded by like-minded souls in a cafe of an eerily similar name we gather each week for the same purpose.  Seeking, striving to attain the same goal which is not really a goal at all, per se… more a need.  For some of us, perhaps an obsession.  An obsession to write.  The product of my efforts, or hers; his; theirs, are unimportant to you.  They are all important to me… to us.  I write for the pure joy that the creation of life on the page gives me.  I write for the sake of dropping a dime on that little voice in my head that tells me that I have no time.  I have no desire.  I have no-thing to write.  To this voice I say nothing.  I pay it no heed, give it no power whatsoever as it has no power unless I empower it.

This is what we do.  This is who we are.  We are writers.  Ghostly images reflecting in a cafe window, the diminished opacity of our true selves seemingly negating our very existence… still… we write. – JLJ

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Posted in Art, Downtown / Midtown Sacramento, Photography, Writing

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Gallery

SuperMoon 2013

Posted on June 23, 2013

This gallery contains 6 photos.

When I learned of the Supermoon celestial event this year, I had to try to capture it. I decided to find something iconic for the foreground and took a short trip to the Rancho Secco Nuclear Plant in the nearby … Continue reading →

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Image

Live. Love. Write.

Live. Love. Write.

Ah, yes… finally, the twisting, turning road of my scholastic endeavors that I have been meandering down has at long last delivered me to a mile stone in life, a point from which I must map my next journey, navigating once again to new and exciting destinations.

Live.

Love.

Write.

This is my mantra. A saying first seen on a decal somewhere… out there. An adage that now adorns the lid of my circa 2010 laptop, displayed proudly for all to see each time the mood strikes me, lifting her top in one public space or another to caress her keys, breathing life into the minion that inhabit my fictional stories, my beloved characters, living breathing things with lives that I create in the theatrical productions of my mind.

Imaginary worlds with illusory lives born of a distorted observation made through a raindrop streaked café window nestled in a tiny mountain town somewhere… out there.

Story lines imagined from scenes casually witnessed strolling along downtown streets, thwarting the unvarying, yet humble requests “can you spare some change.”

Requests made from soiled, weathered faces… familiar faces that have regularly infiltrated my peripheral vision over the years, only diversity being the depth of their creases—lines etched of years of hopelessness and despair.

Each day I escape. I must. I have for years; a compulsory break, if you will, from the monotony of the gray fabric walls that desire to restrain me, to hold me captive eight hours a day—five days a week. My escape is not so much an escape from as it is an escape to. A quest for the solitude of my own creative mind and to, if only momentarily satisfy my insatiable desire to rendezvous, to quench my thirst for the very intimate relationship I have with my laptop, her keys worn shiny and smooth from our incessant love-making…

Ah, yes, The Writing Life… Infinitely solitary… Intimately gratifying… If I do nothing else on this earth, I will continue my pursuit of my passions and…

Live.

Love.

  Write.

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Posted on April 25, 2013 in Art, Downtown / Midtown Sacramento, Homeless in California, Photography, Writing

Image

Grandma’s Persimmon Tree

Going to see Grandma's Persimmon Tree

I sold a print of one of my photos the other day. The same one that I have sold a dozen times before, and is a piece that remains my best seller. It’s called Grandma’s Persimmon Tree. I sold it to a woman who worked in the same building as I had for the past several years. One day in passing our conversation fell upon photography and our mutual interest in the artistic medium, so I gave her my card. That in and of itself is not unique, but what sets this sale of one of my cherished photographic art prints apart from its predecessors, is the emotional impact it had on my customer. She called me a few days later and said that she fell in love with a black and white image on my Web site and she simply had to have it. When she took delivery of the print, she became emotional and a tear ran down her cheek. The image signified something in her life and until she saw the photo in person, held it in her hand, she didn’t realize the impact that it had on her.

A few days later, she called me again and said that she was so moved by the photograph of my grandmother’s persimmon tree that she wrote a poem about it and shared it with me. OK, I am no poet, nor do I “get” most poetry, but her words struck a chord with me. Her poem seemed to epitomize what that tree, a tree that has been standing in that same spot on my grandparents farm for as long as I can remember has always meant to me.

I was really quite moved by her poem and casually said to her on the phone that upon reading it I was compelled to jump in the car and go see it, and half-joking, I asked her if she wanted to go. She enthusiastically said yes, she would love to go see the tree that she was so moved by. So, not having been to the property that my great-grandfather built a home on and where my grandparents lived their entire lives before passing in 2002 and 2006, and not knowing if the beloved tree would even still be standing, we hopped in the car last Saturday and took a road trip… a quest to see Grandma’s persimmon Tree.

I am happy to report that while the house has fallen in disrepair with its screen door hanging by one hinge; the barn leaning precariously to one side, its Douglas fir walls bowing with age, Grandma’s Persimmon Tree is still standing tall. Her overripe November fruit that was out of reach for picking, dripping off of her branches like giant decaying blood drops, but the old girl is still there… She is still and will always be, Grandma’s Persimmon Tree. A&V Johnston Headstone_acidburn12<

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Posted on March 10, 2013 in Art, Photography, Writing

Video

Unmata, belly dance gone STRONG

When a friend of mine asked me if I would like to go check out some belly dancing in Midtown on Second Saturday, I thought to myself, sure that might be fun. I mean, I’ve seen belly dancing before and it was kind of cool, I guess. If nothing else, it would be nice to get out of the house on a warm summer night and see what’s happening in Midtown. She said that her daughter was one of the dancers performing and that I should meet her in front of their dance studio on 17th & K Street.

I jumped in my car and drove as close as I could get while still being able to find parking which is typically nonexistent on Second Saturday and even more elusive on a warm summer night as this was.

I wound up walking several blocks before reaching the studio where I expected to be mildly entertained with a traditional show as I had seen before. Rounding the corner, however, I was ill prepared for what I saw. This was no ordinary belly dancing troupe. There was fire, and swords, and tattoos, and hip-hop music, and flaming whips! I stood next to my friend in awe, mesmerized by the hypnotic motion and addictive energy of this beautiful spectacle of artistic originality.

Incorporating traditional belly dance with hula, hip-hop and other modern dance disciplines, Unmata lives up to their name and their own unique style which they appropriately describe as “belly dance gone STRONG.”

Take a look at this video and you’ll see what I mean.

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Posted on December 8, 2012 in Art, Downtown / Midtown Sacramento, Photography