Roger Hyttinen | Author

YA Paranormal Author

Blog

Learning to Draw

by Leave a Comment

When I was in high school, I had an art teacher who, after having taken a look at my drawing, told me:

“Whatever you do, Roger, don’t quit your day job.”

Now anyone else would have had their feelings hurt or their self-esteem shattered by such a statement, especially by a teacher. But not me.

Because I knew I couldn’t draw.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I can draw stick figures and even then, not very well.

So I went through my entire life assuming I absolutely, positively could not draw. “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body,” I’ve told myself more than once.

Then last year, a strange thing happened. One day I watched a YouTube video where the creator had learned to draw in his 50’s, after believing for his entire life that he had no artistic talent. Because he’d always thought he couldn’t draw, he never picked up a pencil and tried. Not once. Until now…and to his surprise, he ended up being quite talented.

So that got the old wheels ‘a turning, and I started wondering whether I could learn to draw…whether such a thing could even be possible. They say you never know until you try.

So I’ve decided to try.

Just for shits and grins, I purchased a drawing video course at the beginning of this year, and I’ve decided to go through it and see what happens. Worst case scenario, I’m no worse off than I am right now.

Best case scenario, I’ll be posting my drawings to this blog.

So this was another thing that I should have added to my “19 Things….in 2019” list. But then that would’ve made 20 so it wouldn’t have worked. So I’ll just keep it here.

Stay tuned for drawing drama in the coming weeks.

19 Things I Hope To Accomplish in 2019

by Leave a Comment

I was updating my 2019 bullet journal and was working on my “19 Things I Hope to Accomplish in 2019” page. This is where I create a list of goals for the coming year that match the two-digit year. I started this last year actually with “18 Things I Hope to Accomplish in 2018.”

Looking back, I didn’t do too badly last year – there were only a couple of things I didn’t accomplish, but I’m merely going to move them to this year’s list. So without further ado:

19 Things I Hope to Accomplish in 2019

.

1. Finish my Ghost Oracle series.

This is my young adult urban fantasy series featuring a tarot-slinging high school boy named Nick who can see ghosts. I am working on the fifth book right now and will be outlining the sixth one in the coming weeks. Would be nice to wrap the series up this year.

2. Increase my BookTube videos to 3 per week.

I just started my BookTube channel last year and put out an average of 2 videos a week. This year, I want to increase that amount and be more consistent with posting. So I’m aiming for 3 per week, every week. Which brings me to number 3.

3. Create a video review for every book I read.

I did a few video reviews on my BookTube channel last year but this year, I’m going to try and post a mini review video for every book I read.

4. Travel to Québec

Thinking of taking a train trip to Québec this year, a city that I’ve always wanted visit. Still unsure about whether I’ll be driving or taking the train. The train would no doubt be quite an adventure.

5. Publish my Gay Ghost Story collection by Halloween

I started a collection of gay ghost stories awhile back but never got around to publishing them. Once the idea for my Ghost Oracle series popped into my head, I’ve put a lot of my energy into that and the story collection got pushed aside. So I’m going to try and resurrect it and would like to publish it by Halloween.

6. Read 110 books.

Last year I set my Goodreads reading goal to 100 books and I ended up reading 147, the highest number ever. I typically read between 80 and 100 so I dod extra good in 2018. This year, I’m upping that goal to 110 books, that’s a little better than 2 books a week. Should be able to handle that.

7. Return to knitting

I know, this is a strange one. But when I was a kid, the neighbor lady taught me how to knit….not purl or anything list, just the plain old knit stitch. I actually knitted a ton of scarves back then. This year, I want to get back to knitting (figure it’d be a good thing to do whilst watching YouTube videos) but learn how to make other things like hats, mittens, fingerless gloves…hell, even sweaters. So I picked up some needles, got me some yarn so I’m ready to get crackin’!

8. Get back on the bicycle

In my youth, I was a huge bicyclist and put on a couple thousand miles each season. That, however, came to a screeching halt a few years back after I purchased a maxi-scooter. Since then, any free time during my summers has been spent on the scooter. I was thinking a while back about how much I missed bicycling and how much better shape I was in when I would put in 100+ miles every week on the bicycle. So I’m going to pump up those tires this spring and get back on the saddle, as it were.

9. Record video courses

Okay, this is kind of work thing. I write computer courseware and have done so for nearly 20 years now. I decided toward the end of last year to increase my offerings to include video courses. I’ve already started working on my first one and thus far, it’s going swimmingly. I hope to get at least 3 or 4 of them done this year. We’ll see.

10. Take more long weekends.

This year, we decided that rather than taking one long 3-week vacation like we’ve done in the past, that we would instead take more long weekends, like 3, 4 or 5-day trips. It’d be nice to have a lot more traveling to look forward to in the coming year. Several long weekend trips sounds like a lot of fun.

11. Pare down possessions

I want to do a bit more decluttering this year. The goal at some point is to move to a condo in a warmer climate so I want to start by doing some paring down this year. I have a few things that I used to collect that I plan on getting rid of, as well as a lot of my books.

12. Get back into photography

Last year was a super busy year for me, and I ended up putting my photography on the back burner, and it’s something that I really miss doing. This year, I’m going to get back into it so I plan on taking more photo walks and weekend photo safaris.

13. Watch more photography classes

I purchased a few photography technique classes quite a while ago that I never finished and ended up forgetting about them. This year, I put “photography learning” in my weekly calendar so I hope to finish off the videos this year….and hopefully get a lot more real-world practice.

14. Live a Calendar-Based Lifestyle

I wrote about this earlier this year…or was it last year? Anyway, I plan on scheduling anything I want to get done on my Google calendar which hopefully, will give me a more realistic look at what I can actually accomplish during the day. Going to give this a go for at least a year to see if it’ll work for me.

15. Start a new book series

This is dependent on whether I can wrap up my Ghost Oracle series this year. I’ve been rattling around a couple of ideas for a new book series and would like to turn those ideas into action this year.

16. Write at least one standalone

I’ve also outlined a few standalone novel ideas that I wouldn’t mind getting started on. At the very least, I hope to publish at least one Christmas story this year (this is carried over from 2018).

17. Stick to my writing goals

For a while now, I’ve been writing a minimum of 1,100 words a day, rain or shine. I remember last year I started out strong but then other things pushed my writing aside and I fell behind on my projects. This year, want to make sure that I stick with my current streak. I think that calendar-based project planning has really helped with that.

18. Expand my Book Blog

Last year, I started my book blog “Roger’s Reads” where I post a review for every book I read. This year, I hope to expand the blog and add other content such as book tags, book lists, information on literary prizes and other bookish items of interest. I’m really enjoying the book blog and would like to grow it a lot more. Of course, I must be careful not to neglect this blog in the process.

19. Have more fun!

This was on last year’s list and it’s debatable whether I kept this one up or not. I do have a tendency to be a workaholic, so I’ve scheduled time right in my calendar for relaxation. The long weekend trips and photography safaris should help me accomplish this goal as well.

That’s it! These aren’t resolutions, mind you. I don’t do resolutions. They’re not necessarily goals either. Rather, these are simply some things I’d like to accomplish in the coming year, some things to aim for.

How about you? What do you hope to accomplish in the coming year?

Mary Poppins Anyone?

by Leave a Comment

There’s been a lot of Mary Poppins in my life recently.

A friend and cinema-buddy of mine is a huge…and I mean HUGE…fan of Disney movies. This meant that he would no doubt drag me to see the new Mary Poppins movie, Mary Poppins Returns.

Now I don’t mind Disney films. In fact, I quite enjoy them. There was only one problem with me going to see the new Mary Poppins film. Only one. And that is….I had never seen the original Mary Poppins movie (GASP!). Yes, it’s true.

I was a Mary Poppins virgin.

So when I informed my friend about this little-known tidbit, he immediately suggested we rent the original (1964) movie and watch it together. So we did.

And I absolutely loved it! Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke were both phenomenal and it was quite a magnificent movie for its time. The acting was excellent, the songs were catchy and it was a visually enjoyable movie. If you, by some chance, haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It is quite an impressive film.

So now that I had an original Mary Poppins under my belt, I was ready to witness her return on the big screen. So we went to see the new movie starring Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins and while it was good, it wasn’t quite the same. That initial magic just wasn’t quite there. I thought that Blunt was a lot more serious, more no-nonsense and a lot sterner than Julie Andrews’s vision of Poppins. She felt a tad distant and unapproachable to me – almost cold, actually.

Now don’t get me wrong. I did enjoy the movie and would give it a solid B. I found it interesting how the plot paralleled the first film. That being said, I enjoyed the storyline and the cinematography. The songs were okay though they weren’t as catchy and memorable as those in the first film. After we had rented the first film, I had those damn songs stuck in my head for days (especially “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”).

So do I think the movie is worth seeing? Yes, as long as you don’t expect it to be as good as the first one. But of course, that is my own opinion. Perhaps I was biased given that I saw the first film only a week before this one and it was still fresh in my mind.

But regardless, Mary Poppins Returns is a solid, entertaining film that I’m glad I saw.

Have you seen it? What did you think?

My Bookish Academy Awards video

by Leave a Comment

I’ve been busy the past few days working on videos for my BookTube channel. For those of you not familiar with BookTube, its basically a YouTube channel where one talks about books: reviews, books acquired, books read, favorites and the like.

Yesterday, I recorded a video entitled “My Bookish Academy Awards” which is a tag video in which I applied all of the same academy award categories to books. So in essence, it’s kind of a “best of” video about the books that I read in 2018. This is actually an original tag by Bookadoodles (link to original video).

I put the video below if it’s something you might be interested in viewing. If you like this sort of thing, please consider subscribing to my BookTube channel as well.

Quote for the New Year

by Leave a Comment

Quote for the New Year:

New Year’s Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach