Day: October 11, 2019

Three Weeks until NaNoWriMo!

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nanowrimo.jpeg

If you haven’t heard of National Novel Writing Month, it’s a wonderful time of year when writers from all over the world come together to write a novel in a month. Or, more accurately, 50,000 words in 30 days. If you’re a writer and you’ve never participated, you should check it out. It’s great fun and an amazing community.

Unfortunately, they spruced up the website and it’s a bit slow and wonky. Frankly, I find it unusable, but I hope things are smoothed out by November 1st and they are just working out the kinks. Regardless, I will be writing a new novel and posting updates here. I’ll also be launching some new site features later in the month. If you haven’t already, be sure to follow this blog for regular updates.

I Like Your LEICA

Sandy DavisLeave a comment
The Leica I, introduced at the 1925 Leipzig Spring Fair

The Germans have invented several things I love, including the printing press, the hamburger, denim jeans, and contact lenses. But my favorite of these is the Leica, a camera I love so much it features prominently in my novel.

Of course, I’ve never owned one.

They were invented to make photography portable and cheap for German mountain climbers. My favorite part about the creation story of the Leica is that the internal name for the product, within the Leica company and in the patent application, is the Rollfilmkamera. That’s right, the ROLLFILMKAMERA. I’m going to start referring to all cameras this way from now on.

Because of the high quality of its lenses and it’s portability and durability, the Leica became the favorite camera of photojournalists, including Robert Capa, a Hungarian born photographer who witnessed the rise of Hitler and became an iconic figure during the Vietnam War. I’ll tell his story in my next post about the the history of photography.