Jenn LeBlanc

Apologies, my brain is all over the place today, so this post might just follow.

I need to blog more often over here. My split personality is going to be the death of me. I though I had conjoined (yeah I said it) my two selves into one with my illustrated novel. But my photo side is still running full steam ahead without the wordsmith. I had rather hoped that I wouldn’t forever be trapped in two vastly differing communities and would be accepted, enfolded, welcomed and ensconced deeply in one. It hasn’t yet happened, though I do still hope. I am a country unto myself until then. Gosh and doesn’t that sound cocky. The truth is I feel cast adrift. I’ve no doubt my photojournalism people aren’t interested in the latest news romance writing, while the majority of my writing tweeps could care less about the pj side of my being. The closest they are to coming together, and quite happily I might add, is in the studio.

Last week was a difficult week in world of photojournalism, and the reality of how dangerous our jobs can be was none to prevalent after two if the most dedicated and talented photojournalists were killed during shelling in Misrata, Libya. The most beautiful elegy I have seen, and a very telling description of what it is to be a war photographer was a remembrance of Tim Hetherington written by colleague and friend, Sebastian Junger.

I always knew I could never be a war photographer. I am jumpy as all get out to begin with, standing amidst live fire and noise would send me into a complete state of panic, something that cannot happen when in that situation. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the men and women who follow that dragon. It was only a month ago that three other journalists were held hostage in Libya and treated…well, less than admirably. It is not an easy job to have. It takes a certain dedication that is so very hard to find, as well as a terribly thick skin. And their work is so transient, like their lives. There is, unfortunately, always another conflict, another photographer, another story.

The romance community also lost someone this past week, author Beverly Barton. Along those lines another author, Ashley March, wrote a beautiful remembrance of her mother, who passed away one year ago this week. So the week was spent in tears and sorrow for love and loss and remembrance of so many whose lives were so very different and beautiful in their own regard. One life is not worth more than another, and one death not more or less powerful. Barton has a novel set to be released in a couple days, and the work of both Hondros and Hetherington has been running since their cards made it from their cameras to a computer.

I’ve no idea where I meant to go with this. It brings into perspective those things closest to us.

While I have been working on this first novel, I have also been a working member of the media. I shot countless assignments for local papers, as well as covering the oil spill in the gulf last year. You get very little recognition outside your circle in this line of work. I did receive a first place award for my coverage of the gulf oil spill, but unlike the novel, that work is long gone. The story is over. The shelf life on that work was about one day and now it is old news. Anything coming out of there now requires fresh images to accompany it. This is perhaps why I am so drawn to the staying power of the novel. A work of art that doesn’t go away. Something that stays, and can be purchased and read far into the future with, perhaps, the same sort of relevance as when it was first written.

My point, what was my point. Need there be one? I’m not entirely sure. If anything can be garnered from this rambling mess of a blog post perhaps it is that life is fleeting, regardless of the path you choose to follow. You are supposed to come full circle in your writing. Start somewhere, diverge in the middle then bring it all home. Right? I very rarely follow the rules. I suppose the point was that stretched across two paths, two futures, two versions of me, I am finding more similarity in all of us.