The sea’s a hoppin’

The fish (mullet?) are jumping in this stretch of the Seto Inland Sea, and the sea birds already seem satisfied.

A portrait oriented shot of a seagull on a slightly choppy sea. In the background, a large fish is jumping out of the water. — Behind you!

48 isn’t too late, right?

I am not an ambitious person, as it goes. I’ve always been of the opinion that above a certain baseline of “providing comfortably for my family” I’m content with whatever kind of work comes along. That’s partly because that I’ve always been lucky enough to achieve that doing stuff that wasn’t terrible, and often quite interesting. And now that I’m not only making it as a translator, but actually translating and working with stuff I genuinely enjoy, I really have no need to look for more.

But.

If you were to twist my arm, I have always had this tiny part of me that dreamed of being an author. (Yes, yes, I have a non-fiction book out, but that’s different. Don’t ask me how.) Ever since I was a kid. Sometimes it was fantasy, sometimes horror (even a short time when I toyed with noir crime fiction). Over the past couple of years, with the published translations I’ve got my name on, I’ve had a vicarious taste of what being that kind of author feels like. And I like it. I’m really proud of the work I’ve done on Strange Pictures and the other books, books that people really seem to like (By the way: Strange Buildings is coming in February 2026!). That has partially satiated the tiny little hungry writer part in my ego. Still, though, there is part of me that wonders if I couldn’t make my own stories that people enjoy.

And then the other day, literary agents Eric Hane and Laura Zats of the excellent Print Run publishing industry podcast announced their own take on the National Novel Writing month concept, with Zoom check ins and shared writing goals and… Well. It got me a bit hot and bothered. Because I’ve had ideas lately, and this seems like the time to poke them and see what comes out. Like a sign, if you will.

So. Here I am. Trying to write. An hour a weekday/five hours a week. More or less. I’m not good with tight structures. But I’m getting up momentum and soon inertia will keep me on it. I’m already a good 3,000 words in on my very first epistolary/fake documentary horror “novel” on top of a short story I wrote last month.

I also got my wife roped into a ghostly photo shoot TO GREAT EFFECT and that in itself inspired the shit out of me.

Jim the novelist, on his way. Hopefully I’ll finish this thing by the time I’m 50…

Beach Hubbub

My morning walk took me out by the beach (as usual) but this morning there was quite a commotion. I’m assuming some kind of small fish washed up en masse, because there were rival gangs of ravens and black tailed kites tussling over *something* out there. But, to be honest, they weren’t tussling that hard. So there must have been a lot of whatever it was.

A black tailed kit swoops low over a gray, smooth sea. — Swoop

A few large brown raptors and black ravens are on a sandy, grassy beach. Mostly they are hidden by downward slope. In the foreground, a raven appears to be fleeing a raptor, flying toward the camera. — Hubbub

Two ravens and a black tailed kite are standing on a beach littered with driftwood. The ravens are staring at the kite, which is staring back. — Standoff

I drove two hours

Just to take pictures of birds in a park way on the other side of Honshu.

A daurian redstart with orange belly and black head perched at the tip of a thin twig. It is fanning one wing out for balance. Another twig growing nearby has a cluster of yellow-green leaves. — Stay balanced challenge

A mottled brown and beige bird with a pointed crest on its head is perched on a twig. — Stay sharp challenge

Birders birding

I’ve been venturing out to the river on my bike on various morning and evening trips the past couple of weeks to see if I can spot any kingfishers, but mostly to no avail.

I decided to try the middle of the afternoon today for a change, and from a good 100 meters away I figured I had made the right choice. Can anyone guess how I knew?

A small crowd of five photographers with varying massive lenses pointed down over a river. — Hunters

Yes, all those people and all that camera gear could only mean one thing: there was a kingfisher lurking.

We all took… Jeez, probably a couple hundred pictures each (burst shot on a digital camera really burns through a memory card), but hey, what else is several thousand dollars worth of camera and lens for?

A common kingfisher perched on a reed and illuminated in a beam of sunlight. — Hunted

Once our prey disappeared into the reeds, we all scattered without so much as a “See you.” Ah, such is life. Nice afternoon, though.