I recently was introduced to the rural_ruin community by way of the urban_decay community, something I only found a few days ago. I've been flipping through them for the last twenty-four hours or so and felt myself becoming inspired.

So I went from watching rural_ruin to joining it as a posting member, and I took a look at the pictures I have in my gallery from July of 2003. I felt that the "Farm Ruins" sub-album might provide some interesting fodder. I sorted through it, selected the images that I liked the best and copied them into a special folder on my server. I worked for almost an hour and a half to write the entry, and am I ever glad that I switched to the Semagic LiveJournal client for Windows. I was able to save draft copies of the entry as I progressed, and when I finished I was able to preview it and make sure that everything was done to my satisfaction. But I digress.... I sorted out the best photographs and built a virtual "tour" of the property, putting in a narrative for almost every photograph. I'm very proud of what I wrote, and if you'd like to take a peek at it you can see my contribution to the community here.

This sort of "jump right in" attitude is a little out of character for me. Normally when I join a community (or a MU*, or an IRC network) I spend at least a week or two just lurking and watching the flow of how things go. Something inspired me tonight, however, (perhaps its the promise of a three-day vacation from work thanks to the extended weekend and late shift on Tuesday?) and I just had to do this. I'm glad I did, because the feedback that it's received so far has been wonderful (four absolutely glowing responses in the last ten minutes alone) and it's done a lot for my ego. I don't have urocyon's eye for ruin, but maybe I'm on the road to learning to develop an eye of my own.

You will soon get tired of killing In those Complicated Shadows

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Mike Oldfield - Part I - Finale