Avoiding Anger; AKA, Why I Write

The world is stupid, everybody. But then again, I think we all knew that.

The last few days have been totally bat-shit weird. I know I haven't been very active on this blog due to university taking a giant poop on me, but here are some of the events that I know people will be able to relate to:

• Sleeping past my alarm one day after the other, and having to rush to class with nothing more than a muffin/granola bar.
• Finding my dorm room incredibly cold, when my roommate doesn't even flinch.
• Having to get a form filled out by my doctor, only to learn that it was going to cost me MONEY (how the hell . . .?)
• Getting a "fuck you" from my body this morning, which, to keep it from TMI, I can only explain as being the reason for why the past few days have been my body's worst nightmare.

It sucks.

BUT LET'S IGNORE THAT AND DO A MEME ANYWAYS!

Super-Fabulous-Me has been following Gala Darling for the longest time, just so I can be even more super-fabulous. But, as she will tell you, it's not easy being super-fabulous all the time. So she blogs a TON about how to stay your super-fabulous self! Anyways, she did the Why I Write meme-thing that's been going around (apparently . . . I don't always keep up!), and I decided that it was the perfect meme for me, and I needed to do it. And hey, at the end, she tagged everybody who was reading. What a coincidence!

. . . okay, so I needed an excuse to do this. But screw it. Girls just wanna have fun!

WHAT AM I WORKING ON?

Right now, my consistent project is a fanfiction called Moments of Polarity, which is about my OC Alexei. Alexei is a polyandrous and genderfluid shinobi, who has to deal with issues like war, acceptance, death, and forgiveness. I'll let you guys guess at what it's based off of (Hint: It recently ended in controversy).

Besides that, I have some backburner projects in my head - I want to do a revamp of my Project: Chant, and I want to start working on an anthology examining different sexualities and gender identities. Oh, and in and amongst this, I'm working on Pathfinder backstories. Someday, I will be a GM . . .!

HOW DOES MY WRITING DIFFER FROM OTHERS IN ITS GENRE?

I am, for the most part, a fantasy writer. I have a heavy focus on religion and diversity, which may not be surprising until you realize that I work within the contexts of the religions that already exist - Project: Chant involves the main character attempting to distance herself from a religion that she doesn't fully believe in, Christianity, as well as acknowledging the internal flux and violence within a religion of my own making, Tamesism. Project: Faith is clearly based off of Christian ties, though it will also need a reworking once I begin to learn more about Christianity; it also works off of the main character being a lesbian, which is explored in a great part of the book because - by the way - there's a side romance involving another woman who happens to return her feelings.

Besides that, I think my writing tends to delve into the poetic more than other fantasy writers? Although I'm not going to claim that too quickly . . .

WHY DO I WRITE?

Mostly because I can't help it. I have a mind that likes to run a thousand miles a minute, and I'm so often coming up with insightful and serious phrases that I have no choice but to record somewhere. Right now, my shelf has ideas and quotes scribbled onto Post-It notes hanging off the hardwood, and I have a small booklet that I'm writing in to record my ideas. Most recent thoughts: some interesting facts about color that I discovered.

Again, though, I think lots of writers write because they have no god-be-damned choice in the matter. It's either that, or lets the ideas float around in your head. After a while, it starts getting cramped up there.

(You could also make an argument several years ago that I wrote, especially during this month, so I could try and push my thoughts away from the nastiness that began in my past at the beginning of November, in seventh grade. But that's another story for another time.)

HOW DO I WRITE?

I open my laptop, boot up whatever word processor I feel most comfortable with at the moment, and I start clacking away. Right now, Moments of Polarity is being written in Word, but many of my projects have started off in Scrivener, one of the best writing programs I've found. Sadly, it is an expensive program, but my method was to use the trial for a month of NaNo, win, and buy it with the 50% discount offered. It's worked for me before.

I almost always write with music on my headphones, and I often write at nighttime, when my brain is less focused on the events of the day and more focused on whatever the hell I want to do next.

HOW DO I GET PAST WRITER’S BLOCK?

Great question! I've been trying to answer that myself for the last several years. I no longer remember how long ago it was, but I dropped into a bin with writer's block and could only make real progress if I was writing a novel-long piece. Thankfully, I seem to be escaping that hole now that I'm at university and able to bat around different ideas, but regardless, that's been the longest and most painful period of writer's block I've ever had.

How to deal with it on a daily basis, though? I do a couple of different things, but it mostly boils down to either avoiding the work for a little bit until I get an idea, or forcing myself to sit down and write my way through it. Both techniques work depending on what the problem is, but they vary beyond that simple formula.

I PASS THE BATON TO…

I really want to tag Austin Kleon for this, but unfortunately, I can't find a way to reach out to him without feeling like I'm being a bother. Of course, though, whoever is reading this can go ahead and do it as well - I'm curious!

Hugs and kisses all around, as well as some hot cocoa and blankets. It's COLD out there!

Titled: Title - Part 1

Yes, I really am that bad at titles.

On my hops through the internet, I've managed to find lots of juicy goodness for all kinds of people. Artists, linguists, creative types . . . really, if you're a human being, you'll probably find interest in something I've scoured up (or so I hope). I mean, I make no promises, but let's be positive for a little bit, right?

This being noted, I do think that it's my responsibility, when I find cool stuff, to share it and let others discover some new stuff too. After all, the only way I found some of this stuff was via others recommending the stuff to me, too! The Internet leaves us in a unique position to share stuff with other people, including with those we don't even know. But the only way to really make it big on the Internet these days is to get people to talk about your stuff, so if you find something new, you've gotta share it - it's the easiest way to get that person noticed and to do them a favor! That's yet another gem I found reading Austin Kleon's books . . .

Moving on! Here's what I've found over the last few weeks that I've wanted to share with y'all. Hopefully you'll find some of your own gems in here, too!

• Charahub. This is perfect for writer types (like me) who need a place to keep track of all of their characters. I generally have 2 ways of remembering my characters' details: writing down on scrap pieces of paper, or using a template I found on deviantArt to list the important stuff. There are pluses and minuses to each, of course, but Charahub has quickly become my third method for logging stuff about my characters. You start off by entering the name of the character, and from there you go into their bio, links to other characters, and answers to selected questions by Charahub. You can even get rid of a question if you don't want to answer it for all of your characters! There are some downsides, i.e. I think they repeat questions sometimes, but it's a pretty good tool for keeping track of your characters, and hey, it's free. Found this on tumblr via a friend's link, although I've since lost that link. D'oh!
• Seibei's post about the 50 Tee Challenge. This is just one form of a pretty awesome idea that seems to be running around the creative community. At the risk of butchering his explanation entirely, I'll just simplify it like this: Seibei makes T-shirts, so in order to make some decent designs, he forces himself to draw 50 shirts and decorate them all, without overthinking, overworking, or overjudging any design. He's recently expanded this idea to encompass 1,000 t-shirts, which is an awesome idea. I got this gem from Austin Kleon (linked above) yet again, and it's been making the gears in my head turn ever since. Think of the versatility of this! You could expand this idea to drawing 50 characters in a week, making pneumatic devices for 50 foreign language words in a day, or even writing 50,000 words in a month! . . . wait a second . . .
• Duolingo. Having officially graduated from high school (Booyah!), I've been super excited to go to college for arts, languages, and all of that jazz. Here's the problem, though - the school I'm going to doesn't offer much in terms of Spanish, which is my second language. Pooh! However, I discovered Duolingo due to an imgur post and decided I would just derp around with the Spanish course before delving into French, thinking it would be a series of lessons I could finish like that *snap*. I was so wrong! Along with lessons, Duolingo provides discussions and immersion, which I've already hopped into by offering some translations for an article about Chambao (more on that later). While I've only had a few hours to explore it, I'm pretty pleased with its range of activities. It even allows you to take a placement test that will helpfully get you past some of the lessons you might already know! There are lots of options to go with it, and I'm excited to continue with the lessons!
• Chambao. Oh, hey, it's later! While translating an article on Duolingo about this band, I decided to do myself a favor and listen to some of the music while I worked. This sort of music isn't usually my thing, but it's pretty chilled out, and I can get behind that! It's Spanish, of course, but it's great if you just need some background music to work with. Of course, they say that music with lyrics hampers work, but I don't believe that . . . anyways! If you need something new to listen to and don't mind some Spanish, check them out! I linked to a Youtube playlist above.

I have some more I can add to this list, of course, but I think I'll hold onto them for a little while longer - gives me some excess material to make another post about! Have fun with these sites, and don't forget - the Internet is a lot more fun when you're sharing your stuff with everybody else.