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scriptstructure:

jazzy-mcdurf:

bhreblog:

scriptstructure:

From Neill Cameron’s Twitter:

  • I was working recently with a bunch of kids who kept tearing up their own drawings in frustration, so I did something I’ve not done before.
  • I talked honestly to a classroom full of children about how much I hate my own drawing.
  • Okay, not the full extent. These kids ain’t ready to hear that. But that I do.
  • They were kind of appalled, and horrified and fascinated, but anyway, they stopped tearing up their drawings.
  • As I attempted to explain it — and many of you reading this will know already — when you make a drawing, there are two versions of it.
  • There’s the version that exists in your head, and then there’s the version that ends up on paper.
  • And because you can see both versions, you can’t help but compare them, and feel frustrated by the difference.
  • But here’s the thing, and I think it’s easy to forget this: no-one else can see that first version.
  • They can’t judge against it. They can only see, and judge, the version that exists on paper.
  • And you know what, this sounds crazy, but they might actually like it for what it is. They might think it’s cool that you made it.
  • I mean, holy god, if you guys could see the version of Mega Robo Bros that exists in my head.
  • Your eyeballs would melt and your heart be burned away by sheer divine fire of amazingness.
  • But the differences between that version and what’s on the page are only visible to me, and shouldn’t — can’t — matter to anyone else.
  • If a draing goes a bit wrong, ah well. Look at it, learn, try and make the next one better.
  • Or, possibly even better: abandon false objective notions of quality altogether and just enjoy the process, the activity, of making a thing.
  • Not quite how I phrased it to the Year5s, but hopefully you get the idea.
  • IN SUMMARY: be kinder to your drawings, and yourselves. I know, it’s hard. But try.

(Though this was written by a visual artist, the advice is applicable across creative disciplines – be kind to yourselves and to your stories!)

You know, I think I needed to read this.

But what if I don’t want to waist a really good idea while my art skills are still in development? Like I don’t want some pictures to be experimental or practice pieces, and I have to wait to use those good ideas until I’m able to create it right?

This is actually an incredibly common thing that I’ve heard people say about their creative works, and I have three things I want to point out!

1. No creation is a waste. You’ve made the thing, that’s a win! You may never get to the point where you think you’re ‘good enough’ to attempt your idea, isn’t it better to have it real and in front of you than to spend your whole life waiting for some hypothetical ‘when I’m good enough’ moment to arrive? The way we think, as you get better you become more critical and you’re always going to have more to learn, as you get better, your threshold of ‘good enough’ is going to skip ahead of you like the horizon.

2. Sometimes you have to do the thing to become skilled enough to do the thing. They call it art practice because that’s what you have to do, right! If you take on a task that is beyond your current skill set, then your skill set will have to expand to be able to reach the goal you’ve set! If you don’t challenge yourself then you will keep doing stuff you already know you can do, which is fine, of course, but it won’t get you closer to your creative goals.

3. You can have a do-over when your skills are greater. Seriously. You can’t waste an idea because the idea doesn’t die once you express it. Do that drawing, write that story. Don’t like it? Try again in a year. Keep working on it. Like part of it, but want to improve the rest? Keep working on those skills and make the thing better as you learn.

You can do it! Be kind to yourself! Be kind to your art!

Source: scriptstructure

Tips for Successful Arguing

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onlinecounsellingcollege:

1. Pay attention to time and place. It’s better to deal with things privately, and when neither person is stressed, or pushed for time.

2. Be respectful – and give thought to the words that you are using. Don’t attack, blame or shame or use profane, abusive language. (Often “it’s not what you say; it’s the way that you say it.”)

3. Don’t just pile on the negatives, or list all your grievances, hurts and complaints. Make sure you mention things you are grateful for, and things that are good, and are not going wrong.  

4. Try to keep to the topic or your point will lose its focus. It’s easier to deal with one thing at a time.

5.  Related to this, try to be specific – and not vague and general. Also, name the emotions you are feeling at the time. I

6. Keep control of your emotions, and try to stay calm. Very little will be gained if you start to lose your cool.

7. It’s not about winning and being seen as being right. The goal should be “improving your relationship”

8. Finally, remember that anger often masks and covers hurt – and is actually a sign that the person’s seeking love. So work on building empathy and deepening your love.

couple-a-hundred-of-em:

As a college student, currently really hungry with nothing to eat, I understand how hard it can be to get food. Sometimes you really just don’t have the money to eat and when you do, you waste it all on fast food instead of stocking up on cheap things because you’re so tired of Ramen Noodes and canned food you could barf. So, I’ve composed a list of recipes and resources that will fit a college kid’s budget and appetite. Don’t go hungry! ❤

Ramen Noodle Recipes:

Mug Meals:

Microwave Recipes:

Recipe Generators

Other Resources

Source: dumplinghead-usagi
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Writing Tips #179: Seven Methods to Revise Your Writing

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bookgeekconfessions:

It’s been weeks since NaNoWriMo and I think it’s time that we get to work on draft 2 of our manuscripts. Here are seven methods from seven different writers (myself included). A lot of the advice is the same, but you may find something new or the advice may be written in a way that is easier for you to understand. So, here are seven different methods for revising your manuscript!

Method 1: Naomi
Tips from: Confessions of an Opinionated Book Geek

1. Read your story.
Print it out. Read.  Just read it and reacquaint yourself with your story.

2. Plot out your entire story.  
This is where you figure out whether or not your story makes sense.
I plot out my story by categories:

A. Main Storyline- Where is your character at the start, the middle and the end.
B. Subplots- What else is going on?
C. Dramatic Structure- Once your entire story is plotted out, figure out your climax, resolution, conflict, rising action, call to action, etc.

3. Reread Your Story.
That’s right. If you have any illusions that once you write your story you never have to read it again…wrong. You will be reading and rereading until you can recite every line and things that were serious become inside jokes to yourself.

This read is different from that first read to reacquaint yourself. This read is for analysis.  You should have a pen and perhaps even a book for notes. As you are reading cross out things that doesn’t make sense. Ask your self questions about character motivations and whether or not it’s possible for someone to actually jump from the sixth floor and land without injuries.

How many times does this character appear? Are they needed if it’s only once? Why does your main character speak exactly like your villain?

4. A loose outline.

After I have read my story twice, I usually have an idea of what’s wrong. This outline is where I try and figure out how to make it right. I often just write bullet points of scenes and what the purpose of the scenes are.

5. Write.
Now it’s time to write again. I often like to have my original manuscript printed out, or on my nook HD tablet,  or my back up laptop. So that the computer I use to write on is just a full screen of my new draft.

I like to do research on other screens as well.

TIP: Never edit your original document. You never know when you want to bring back that erased scene. I usually duplicate my original file, name it draft 2 and edit on that new document entirely. No reason to lose what you have already written.

Method 2: Jamie Scott Bell
Tips from Writer’s Digest

Method 3: Fiction Writer’s Connection
Tips from FictionWriters.com

Method #4: Wise Ink
Tips from their blog Wiseinkblog.com

Method #5: Maxine Thompson
Tips from her blog Maxinethompsonbooks.com

Method #6: Emma Darwin
Tips from emmadarwin.typepad.com

Method #7: UNC College
Tips from The Writing Center

Method #8: Ali Hale
Tips from Daily Writing Tips

Anxiey Attacks

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onlinecounsellingcollege:

Anxiety attacks, also known as panic attacks, are episodes of intense panic or fear. Anxiety attacks usually occur suddenly and without warning. Sometimes there’s an obvious trigger— getting stuck in an elevator, for example, or thinking about the big speech you have to give—but in other cases, the attacks come out of the blue.

Anxiety attacks usually peak within ten minutes, and they rarely last more than thirty minutes. But during that short time, the terror can be so severe that you feel as if you’re about to die or totally lose control. The physical symptoms of anxiety attacks are themselves so frightening that many people believe they’re having a heart attack.

Symptoms of anxiety attacks include:

  • Surge of overwhelming panic
  • Feeling of losing control or going crazy
  • Heart palpitations or chest pain
  • Feeling like you’re going to pass out
  • Trouble breathing or choking sensation
  • Hyperventilation
  • Hot flashes or chills
  • Trembling or shaking
  • Nausea or stomach cramps
  • Feeling detached or unreal

Self-help for anxiety attacks and anxiety disorders #1: Challenge negative thoughts

  • Write down your worries. Keep a pad and pencil on you, or type on a laptop, smartphone, or tablet. When you experience anxiety, write down your worries. Writing down is harder work than simply thinking them, so your negative thoughts are likely to disappear sooner.
  • Create an anxiety worry period. Choose one or two 10 minute “worry periods” each day, time you can devote to anxiety. During your worry period, focus only on negative, anxious thoughts without trying to correct them. The rest of the day, however, is to be designated free of anxiety. When anxious thoughts come into your head during the day, write them down and “postpone” them to your worry period.
  • Accept uncertainty. Unfortunately, worrying about all the things that could go wrong doesn’t make life any more predictable—it only keeps you from enjoying the good things happening in the present. Learn to accept uncertainty and not require immediate solutions to life’s problems.

Self-help for anxiety attacks and anxiety disorders #2: Take care of yourself

  • Practice relaxation techniques. When practiced regularly, relaxation techniques such as mindfulness meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and deep breathing can reduce anxiety symptoms and increase feelings of relaxation and emotional well-being.
  • Adopt healthy eating habits. Start the day right with breakfast, and continue with frequent small meals throughout the day. Going too long without eating leads to low blood sugar, which can make you feel more anxious.
  • Reduce alcohol and nicotine. They lead to more anxiety, not less.
  • Exercise regularly. Exercise is a natural stress buster and anxiety reliever. To achieve the maximum benefit, aim for at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise on most days.
  • Get enough sleep. A lack of sleep can exacerbate anxious thoughts and feelings, so try to get 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep a night.

Source: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/anxiety_types_symptoms_treatment.htm

thewritingcafe:

Part I: Creating a Religion

Part II: Religious Hierarchies

Part III: Pantheons, Deities, Mythologies, etc.

BONUS: Ceremonies (birth, death, naming, sacrificing, rites of passage)

This is similar to Part III, but more specific on a single deity.

BASICS

What is a deity?

A deity is a divine or supernatural being that meets one or more of the following:

  • Is worshiped by a population
  • Is given attributes and associations
  • Is recognized as a divine being

They are often referred to as gods and goddesses.

Your religion does not need deities.

TYPE OF DEITY

You can have different groups of deities within a pantheon of deities. These groups can be separated however you want. Perhaps one group is for all the water deities (rain, storms, fresh water, salt water, waterfalls, snow, ice, etc.) or maybe the deities are separated by hierarchy.

What you do with these groups is up to you. Deities within one group might share similarities in their appearance or behavior, or each group might have a different following of worshipers, or each group might represent something as a whole (an animal or a season, for example).

Read More

Source: nimblesnotebook
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Em Dashes

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thecharactercomma:

A lot of people use semi-colons wrong because they know there’s supposed to be a pause in their sentence that they know isn’t quite a comma, so they think it must be that mysterious semi-colon. Usually, it’s actually supposed to be an em dash (—), which in some ways is more mysterious!

The em dash is the longest of the three dashes and most often used for interruptions. Interruptions in speech, in action, in thought. It’s also a great syntax addition for fight scenes, since it makes the narrative seem quick and unexpected and jolting from side to side like a fight scene should be. Read your em dash sentences out loud until you get a feel for how its pause compares to the pause of a comma. It’s a heartbeat longer. If a comma is one beat of pause, then I see an em dash as two beats of pause.

In this first example, the em dash is used to give an aside to the reader. It’s like a btw sort of moment, which can sometimes be replaced with commas or parenthesis. I think the em dashes are most suitable when your aside is decently long.

Her neighbor, Frank, is always blasting music.

Her neighbor—the one who always blasts the music—is named Frank.

My mischievous neighbor, Vince, seemed to have a knack for graveyard cavorting.

Vince—more often called (in a raised and angry voice) Vincent Price Ramsey—seemed to have a knack for graveyard cavorting.

Next up, here’s the em dash as a replacement for the semi-colon. Kinda like a slang or shortened sentence. Semi-colons have to connect two independent clauses—meaning each side of the semi-colon could stand alone as its own complete sentence. If you don’t want to do that, try an em dash:

I thought hanging out would be great—a chance to finally see the city, just like Aunt Lillian wanted.

I thought hanging out would be great; it would be a chance to finally see the city, just like Aunt Lillian wanted.

There was a headstone hardly a foot from where I’d emerged—dark grey stone a few inches thick and maybe as high as my knee.

There was a headstone hardly a foot from where I’d emerged; it was made of dark grey stone a few inches thick and maybe as high as my knee.

Sometimes, you can use an em dash to have a speaker correct themselves, or interrupt themselves to amend their sentence.

I could see the blur of the graveyard behind him—through him—

Similar to the last example, it can be used to interrupt a sentence in order to add additional information about the sentence. Often you can use a comma in this situation, too, so try to think of syntax and how that additional beat of pause changes things. In this case, Alice has just seen a ghost for the first time, so her mind is a bit too shocked for the normal pause of a comma. Read both. Doesn’t the one with the em dash sound more shocked or surprised, while the comma makes it sound like a simple observation?

He was glowing pale—almost tinged in cold blue.

He was glowing pale, almost tinged in cold blue.

Of course, it could be an interruption. It could be someone interrupting another in speech, one action interrupting another, or a character’s thoughts interrupting themselves. Here I’ll include the sentence with the em dash and the sentence following, so you can see the thing interrupted and the interruption.

You can have an action interrupt a character’s thoughts. For the first one, Alice is in a creepy situation and completely focused on something else, so when something touches her elbow, she’s shocked out of her thoughts. For the second one, Tristan is listening for an enemy when the enemy makes a move and startles him into action.

As far as I could tell it was some kind of berry—

An icy contact on my elbow broke my resolve, and I screamed until an equally cold hand clamped over my mouth.

The night was still, and yet—

Something whistled through the air. Tristan jerked backwards, narrowly avoiding an incoming dagger.

Here we have one character interrupting another in dialogue. Pretty self-explanatory.

“I’m not going to—”

Mom’s voice in the receiver cut me off. “At least consider it.”

“After all, you’re only a—”

“If you even say girl,” I interrupted, “I’ll stab you, I swear.”

The next one is part of a fight scene, so Alice’s thoughts are interrupting themselves as soon as she thinks them. She throws up an idea, “iron,” but interrupts herself from further exploring that idea, and instead casts it out. In a fight, you don’t have time to think out long, eloquent ideas. Your thoughts should come in fragments. Stab. Punch. Dodge. Swing. Would this work? No. How about this? Maybe. The em dash can help get across this uneven jolting of thoughts.

Iron—no use. I’d dropped the knife when her damn vines ensnared me, and the nails were in my pockets and out of reach. Blood—there were possibilities there.

Continuing in fight scenes, em dashes can have action interrupt action. Don’t just throw them in willy nilly, but if you have a chance for an em dash, jump on it. Instead of a word like “suddenly,” it makes it feel suddenly. Ups the tension. Em dashes are about interruption, and what is a fight scene but two people interrupting each other’s attempts to kill the other? This is especially useful for the last line in a paragraph during a fighting scene, because it’s a nice place to have one action interrupt another.

I snatched it—slit across my hand—

And stabbed her through the heart.

His swords whistled through the air—

A clean “X” appeared on the imp’s back, severing its body into four neat chunks.

So yeah, I’m basically obsessed with em dashes and I use more of them than the majority of writers. (At 72k words, my current project has 22 semi-colons and 344 em dashes. So. Yeah. Not to mention the length of this post…) Em dashes are way cool and can add a lot to your writing even though they’re just another form of punctuation. Syntax helps your reader into the mindset you’re going for, and em dashes can be a great, powerful part of that syntax!

—E

Any tips on roleplaying someone smarter than yourself. I’m trying to roleplay a scholar, this scholar is in their mid sixties(and the universe of which I Rp allows women to be an equal part if society) I’ve been a bit stumped and would like some advice on this subject.

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rphelper:

Hope that helps!

Overcoming Social Phobia

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onlinecounsellingcollege:

1. Start off small. Force yourself to take one tiny step and be around people who appear to be relaxed, confident and at ease with themselves. Limit the amount of time you spend with them at first so it doesn’t feel too threatening or overwhelming.

2. Realise that most people are not judging you. Most people are concerned about themselves, and the kind of impression they are making.

3. Find people who share your interests – perhaps think about joining a team, group or club. That tends to make conversation easier as you start off sharing some common ground.

4. Motivate and push yourself. Tell yourself that “you can do it”, then visualise yourself succeeding and having fun.

5. Understand that social phobia is something we can overcome with practice and a positive attitude. Feeling at ease around others is a learned skill. The more we do it, the easier it becomes, and the more confident we feel.

6. When making conversation, talk about things that other people are interested in. Often it’s easiest to begin with safe topics like music, movies, sports, school, fashion …. Once you know the people better you can talk about topics they mention frequently.

7. If you’re in a large group, just hang back and relax. Notice what others are saying and doing, and what tends to “work” with those particular people – then slowly try saying and doing the same kinds of things.

8. Don’t worry if conversation is hard for you, just focus on being someone who is warm and kind.