Tall Drink of Nerd: Focusing on the Moon

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a blogumn by Amy Robinson

I have too many things running about in my cranium.  I know you guys have this problem too; So many ideas, some good, some that seem really good until they get out of your head and into the daylight.  It takes serious effort to focus on one thing at a time.

Brilliant ideas pop up, all shiny and new, seducing me for a few hours, days or weeks.  Then another idea rings the doorbell and distracts me from the scheme that’s already been cooking.  I fall for the whole seduction again, setting aside the previous genius thought to tend to the new one.  Swear to god, I don’t have ADD. Focus has taken hold of me in the past, so I know it’s possible, it just requires some discipline.  Outside of hiring a really good organizational therapist, the best helper for someone who is easily distracted is (hold on I have to read an article about building a better writing practice…Okay, what were we talking about? Oh yeah…) a deadline.

Having a deadline helps me get my FaN column in every other week.  It’s helped me produce kick-ass plays in a timely manner and, most recently, helped get one of my more persistent ideas off the ground.  A unique project has been jumping around the ole cabeza over the past 3+ years.  I call it Moons Over Monuments.

The idea was to head out with my husband, or one or two very close friends, to take pictures of scenic landscapes or those plentiful historical markers that dot the highways around America, while I would be mooning the camera.  The shots would be PG and tastefully done, as tasteful as mooning history and nature could be. In addition, I would write a travelogue and have fun adventures with my conspirators. The ultimate goal was to make it into a glossy/glamorous coffee table book…  Ya know, something Mom could be proud of.

Since late 2006 that butt of an idea has been waving at me from background of all the other projects I want to work on (2/3 finished novel about my Grandma, publish poetry, create online literary journal.) Seriously, I’ve been thinking about photographing my hiney for almost 4 years.  It recently occurred to me that I could start this as a blog.  There were a few occasions where we gathered guidebooks for state historical markers, planned our travel and discussed a shoot for ‘next weekend’.  Something always came up that seemed more important or interesting, so next weekend got pushed back.

(Check out FaN exclusive preview of the shoot after the jump.)

Then, two weeks ago, I took a blog class with about 10 other people, who laughed (in a good way) when I told them my idea.  The workshop leader gave us 2 weeks to get our blogs up and running and then she promised to promote them to her student body/mailing list.  Between that motivation, and knowing I could share the project with y’all here at FaN, I finally focused on getting off my keister and began photographing it!

It was a much more detailed project than I thought it would be.  We planned the direction of the shoot, found the location, got up at dawn and shot for a few hours.  The rewards of finally working on something that had been sitting in my idea queue for so long are pretty cool.  Not only do I have the blog up (along with Facebook and Twitter pages) but I learned a lot more about building a site from the technical end. I’m having fun with it and I had a great time with Seen.  Mother Nature herself rewarded our early morning jaunt into silliness with sightings of bunnies, pelicans, dolphins, a seal and a whale.  Seems I’ve made one Mother proud already.

A full moon rises over the Pacific.