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Figured I might leave this here as well...

Life gets tough sometimes, and sometimes its difficult to stay on top of everything, whether that reason be mental or physical health, the workload that has crowded your schedule to the point where you actually have to time-slot sleep, or something entirely different. Regardless of the situation, there are a couple of easy ways to keep yourself organized.

- Bullet Journals and Day-Timers: they don’t have to be pretty, they just have to tell you what you have going on, when, and when you have to do something that isn’t work/school/sleep. As long as they fulfill that function, you’re doing pretty okay. Now all you have to do is write down what actually needs to go inside of it. It sounds very fifth grade, I know, but it works (trust me). 

- Make a Chart: There’s one that divides things up by order of importance so that you can decide either how long it needs to take (or how much energy you’re going to have to spend) that I’ve found really helpful, especially when I have to balance university coursework with a job and having a life, and keeping my health in check. It looks sort of like this:

                                Yesterday           |         Tomorrow          |         Later

5 Minutes or less

Under an Hour

An Hour or More

A Day

Days - Week(s)

You can fill it out however you need in order to get everything done, and I’ve discovered that it’s less anxiety-inducing when you look at this rather than a massive list, simply because it’s broken down.

- Remember That Done Does Not Always Mean Done: just because there is a task on your to-do list does not mean that it needs to be actually complete in order to be checked off. Breaking things down into component parts is far more helpful than just saying “do laundry” or “get groceries.” Sometimes getting groceries means that you pick up three things and can put off other stuff until later in the week, or you “clean your room” by changing the sheets on your bed or tidy a surface. Doing things in stages allows you to still feel the sense of accomplishment from finishing a task, while also taking into account how much energy/time you may have.

Obviously this list is in no way complete, and I’m sure there are other ways to get or stay organized, but these are a couple of things I’ve noticed have helped me stay on top of things.

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I tried to put together a list of the ways you can create a realistic character, because characters should be as different as people are.

- Race: white isn’t the default. That isn’t to say that you can’t write white characters, but try to make it a realistic percentage of white people, rather than the “anything more than 10% of diversity is pushing out white people” thing that is a problem in media.

- Gender and Sexuality: don’t make your female characters the equivalent of “sexy lamps,” and make sure that women and LGBTQIA+ people are just as complex as straight men.

- Religion and Morality: not necessarily connected to one another, but they’re going to formulate your character’s/society’s/world’s ideas of what is right and wrong, either from a religious or personal perspective, according to the codes of ethics and morality that you give them.

- Disability: this should be self-explanatory, but seriously, disabled people (both physically and mentally) exist in the real world, and to avoid them or come up with ways to “cure” those disabilities is damaging and harmful, but you should in no way not include them, as their worldview is going to be shaped by how they interact with it just as much as by race or gender/sexuality.

- Habits and Hobbies: people have interests and hobbies, so should your characters.

This isn’t meant to say that you should be telling stories from these communities for the community, no, of course not. But what you should be doing is giving each character the option to be unique, and to expand your own horizons as a writer and as a person, and including these characters and learning about the communities in which they exist is a good way to do that.

Final tip: develop every character as well as mainstream writers develop straight white men, and you’re off to a good start.

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The Hobbit - Books and Movies

Has anyone else noticed how different the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings books actually are from the movies? I’ve seen all the films, many times, and now that I’ve read the Silmarillion I realized that I never actually completed the series itself.

All I have to say is wow. I mean, obviously they had to make changes in order to format them for a movie, but they added a heck of a lot just for drama.

Everything having to do with Azog the Defiler doesn’t happen in the books, and yet it’s added in the films in order to add not only a sense of urgency but also to impress upon the audience just how “wild” the wild lands are.

The wargs talk.

The company is constantly getting waylaid at safe houses and stays for a week at a time in these places, because apparently they have no sense of urgency to actually get to the mountain.

The wargs talk.

There is never actually a plan to get Smaug out of the mountain, and they never actually fight him - he just goes to Laketown because he thinks that the men there are responsible for the company making it that far.

The dwarves had different coloured cloaks, and they all had little tassels. Thorin’s cloak/hood was sky blue and it had silver tassels on it, which sounds adorable.

The wargs talk.

The barrels that the dwarves ride in outside of Mirkwood are actually sealed, and some of them are packed in with straw, and others spill out of their barrels half-alive when Bilbo finally gets them out.

The wargs talk. I can’t stress that enough, it’s the weirdest thing, especially after watching the movies. They have their own little language, but they’re sentient beings capable of a form of speech. I’m blown away.

Anyway, you can read my whole “mind=blown” rant here, and you’re free to reblog with other things that you found weird that didn’t get translated from the books to the movies.

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The Paradox Of Intolerant Tolerance

    At the launching of this blog, I was originally going to take the stance of keeping this page, more or less, politics free. I realize now that, because of my insistent conscience, I cannot stand by and say nothing, even if my voice is not heard. I will feel better having said it.

    We are all well aware of the global climate; it is tumultuous, fraught with vitriol and hatred on all fronts, beginning to remind us of, to our detriment, WWII America, and Nazi Germany. Though I have not yet been able to fact check for myself the truth behind the situation - whether the president is truly searching for "child traffickers" as he separates family after family at the border, or if his zero-tolerance policy is simply another way to keep non-white people out of the country - I am inclined to believe the worst, as this administration has done nothing but sew prejudice and bigotry of all sorts, and call upon those who have spent long hiding in their holes.

    As we have seen, it is clear that these things are not just happening in America: US foreign policy has spurred on leaders and representatives in other countries to do the same. Though this is very US-centric, I don't doubt that there will be points applicable to others as well, though I desperately wish it were different.

    There are two ways to fight the changing climate: one is civil revolution, and the other is reminiscent of Captain America comic issue number one, in that it involves punching Nazis (for that is what they are, and I will say it).

    Civil revolution, despite the name, is not very civil, but rather implies doing your duty as a citizen rather than actually causing a revolt. It means the following:

Contacting your representatives - whether that be emailing or calling or what have you - and making sure they know your stance, whether they are on the other side of the aisle or the one you support. Make sure your voice is heard. If they are on your side, they can bring the concerns of the people - your concerns - to the floor of government in which they preside, where a difference may be made. If they are against you, politely remind them when the next election for their seat is, and let them know that they can be voted out once you have voiced your concerns.

Attend or plan rallies, protests, sit-ins, and barricades. Make sure to do everything in your power to keep them peaceful, because even if you do not incite the violence, your side will be blamed. You may very well get arrested. That is okay, because there are funding pages for that, and "I got arrested protesting a human rights violation" looks pretty good on any application you may send.

Learn first aid, triage, and how to treat people who have been tear gassed. With the current climate, it is very possible that these peaceful rallies will turn violent, thought hopefully through no fault of the protesters. The police and ICE officers in America do not care about you. They do what they are told, whether they believe it is right or not, and that is to your detriment.

If you are able, but cannot be on the front lines, offer to watch children for your neighbours if they are going to a rally and they think it may be dangerous for them. There are some rallies and sit-ins where children are helpful, because it sends a very poignant message when there is violence against them, but some parents may be hesitant. Help them.

Learn your rights. Learn what you are legally allowed to do and what you are offered should you be arrested, and learn what the rights and freedoms really mean - freedom of speech, etc. They will be important later.

Vote. I cannot stress this one enough. Until this point it has been a civil right, and now it is the single most important act of rebellion that you can pursue. Make sure you are registered to vote, because a country that has gone this far will do anything in their power - and they are - to purge dissenters from the registries. If you have any reason to be unsure of your citizenship status, make sure it has not been taken away. But vote. Vote in every election (I mean, you should already be doing that to the best of your ability) at least until this nonsense is over, however you are able to do so. Not playing the game is still losing, you just aren't playing your turn and wondering why everyone else seems to be moving when you aren't.

    I only have one thing to say if you prefer to go the route of violence, if you prefer to literally swing a punch rather than a metaphorical one: do not throw the first swing. The people you are up against will use that against you, will try to say that they are "victimized" and that they "deserve a voice too" because they have a right to free speech. They do not. 

     That those who are intolerant do not have a right to free speech is the paradox of intolerant tolerance. Hate speech - speech that incites violence against a marginalized or disenfranchised group, through action or protest or otherwise - is not covered under free speech, it is incitement. Nazism is incitement. Yes, we must be tolerant to opinions that are different than our own; that is the only way the world can function. We must learn from one another. But calling for the official illegality of religions, of race, of rights to bodily autonomy and freedoms, the deeming of people as illegal, is not a difference of opinion. It is a difference of humanity. And as a people we cannot be tolerant to that. They will call us intolerant, they will say that we are the bigoted ones for not letting them speak, but they are wrong. They do not stand for human rights, they do not stand for the safety of humans, they stand for a country surrounded by an arbitrary border, the guarding of a line on a map that does not exist when you take your feet off the earth and look at it from the air. Their voice is the one who can end lives for no other reason than they have more melanin in their skin. That they do not speak fluent English. That they have an accent. That they exist.

First they came for the Jews,

And I did not speak out,

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists,

And I did not speak out,

Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists,

And I did not speak out,

Because I was not a Socialist or a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for me,

And there was no one left

To speak out for me.

    If you do not speak out against the injustice committed against groups that are not your own, they will eventually come for you. You cannot be complacent in the fight for human rights. Eventually, there will be no law to protect you, either because the law is an arbitrary protection made by those who can and will destroy you, or because there is a law that makes protecting you and your existence illegal. In the end, it will not matter what colour your skin is, your where your family originates from. They will find something.

    Stand up. Speak out. Be heard. But do not go gently.

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say.

Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.

This nation was founded on one principle above all else, no matter the odds or the consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world --

-- No, YOU move.

               ~ Steve Rogers, Captain America

    They will try to make you move.

    Their convictions are just as strong as yours.

    Do not let them win.

    Remember history.

    Do not let it happen again.

    Tell them that there is no longer a place for their opinions in a world that is still trying to heal.

    Most of all, love. Do not give in to despair, and love yourself and those around you. Support one another, and make sure you are unified. Now is not the time for division within the ranks. Now is the time to link arms with your neighbours, to put petty differences aside, and stand united against bigotry, against hatred, against those who would see you dead.

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Giving and Receiving Constructive Criticism

I wanted to do a piece on constructive criticism, since that tends to be really important in all aspects of creation, whatever medium you happen to be working in. So here goes (in bullet points):

The Difference Between Constructive Criticism and Regular Criticism:

If you want to give someone constructive feedback, make sure that what you’re going to say is actually going to be helpful in some way. That’s literally the whole point. You can’t just tell someone that they think they should make (sometimes severe) changes to their work without telling them what those specific changes could be. They have to have a reference point before they can grow, or else they won’t be able to make proper headway.

Regular criticism is obviously just the opposite: unhelpful, and gives the creator no way of navigating their strengths and weaknesses to that specific thing you think they should work on.

Tips for Giving Constructive Criticism:

Is what I'm going to say something I would appreciate hearing about my work, even if the person didn't like it?

Does my message properly communicate what I think could be changed or improved, if necessary?

Do I say something positive about the piece, whatever it may be?

Tips for Receiving Constructive Criticism

Say thank you; communicate further if needed/required.

Use your discretion.

Also: be nice about it. 

I stress it over and over again in this post on my other blog, but you need to be able to give feedback in a polite way if you want anyone to take you seriously. The rule here is “if you wouldn’t appreciate hearing it about your work, that you struggled with for an indeterminate amount of time and then bravely shared with anyone who has access to the internet, don’t say it to someone else.”

[h-pescod]

Humansville

Prompt: City Limit Sign: Humansville*

From: @writing-prompt-s

Word Count: 1,172

*I couldn’t find the actual sign that was in the post, sorry.

There was a flash of green as your car zipped past the sign, your father driving much too quickly for you to catch anything else but the word ‘Humansville.’ At sixteen, you weren’t pleased with having to uproot your entire life to move across the state, but your father had insisted, and there wasn’t really much you could do to object. Now, with your head thumping intermittently against the window of the beat-up ford pickup, you were ready for this drive to be over.

“Almost there, Alex,” your mother said, turning in her seat to look at you from the other side of the headrest. You grunted, wishing you had longer to sleep before having to help unload the trailer piled high with furniture. Great, you thought.

The pickup slowed to a crawl as you entered town, if it could really be considered that. From what you could see, the main road consisted of a four-way flashing light, suspended at four corners by street lamps, a post office, and a fire station along one side. On the other there was a grocers, a police station, and what seemed to be a one-stop shop for anything you could possibly need, faded signs in the window advertising sales on auto parts, fourth of July fireworks, and sprinklers. It didn’t seem to be open. Further up the road, past the heat curling off of the cracked asphalt, there was a restaurant.

“What a quaint little town!” Your father said, the heel of his hand tapping against the edge of the steering wheel. “It’s going to be perfect.” Perfect? More like a perfect place to die.

A second intersection led away from the main road, and the truck lurched as your father took the exit, a row of neat little houses extending in front of the truck, yellow subdivision signs marking exits and entrances. There was a rustling up front, and your mother produced a map from the glovebox.

“Now let’s see,” more rustling. “We need to get to Amethyst crescent and -” she paused, and you could almost hear her frown from the backseat. “Humansville doesn’t seem to be on this map, dear.” The truck slowed down to a crawl before your father answered.

“It’s fine, Jan. We’ll just ask one of the locals. I’m sure they know.” There was more rustling as the map was stowed back in the glovebox, and the two front windows came down in hopes of being able to talk to someone who happened to be outside.

Every street, it seemed, was empty. No cars were parked outside, windows were drawn, and everybody was inside. Identical sprinklers watered identical plots of lush, green grass that came as a shock after the miles of almost-desert and tumbleweeds.

“Don’t worry, Michael, I’m sure we’ll find someone.” But as it turned out, finding someone didn’t matter. There, at the end of the lane, was a little sign that read sold in blue letters, next to a house just like all the others on the street, except perhaps for the brass numbers that read ‘132,’ marking it as the last in numerical order.

“This is us.” Backing into the driveway, the three of you climbed out of the truck and stood in a line in front of the house. Next to you, your father bounced a small gold key off of his palm and placed a hand on your shoulder. “Well, Alex? Why don’t we go inside?”

With a flourish your father unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping into the small foyer that opened into a small room and a kitchen. There were stairs off to the right, which you assumed went up to the bedrooms. The three of you scattered, your mother drifting into the kitchen to inspect the cupboards and appliances, your father upstairs to look at the bedrooms. Putting the other headphone in your ear, you took the other set of stairs by the back door and went into the basement, clicking the flashlight app on your phone for some light.

It wasn’t much, and the stairs creaked a little as you went down them, despite the plush carpeting, but there was the familiar damp smell of a basement as your feet hit the cold concrete. Off in one corner there was a freezer unit, a rolled up rug, and not much else, besides the spiderwebs that laced the corners of the underground room.

When you turned around, your face went into your father’s chest, jolting you so hard that your phone clattered to the floor, ripping both headphones out of your ears unceremoniously.

“There you are, Alex. Why don’t you come outside? Meet some of the neighbours.” He shifted slightly, as if he were balancing on the balls of his feet. When you bent down to pick up your phone, you noticed that he was. “They’ve stopped by to say hello.”

Following him back up the stairs, you couldn’t seem to get rid of the musty smell from your nose. Passing it off as your mind playing tricks, you tried to forget it.

The house was quiet, your mother standing nervously in the kitchen as she waited for you two to join her. In the front room, the curtains had been pulled closed, obscuring the interior in a wall of carefully crafted lace. The rooms were still empty.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Michael?” Your mother wrung her hands together, eyes darting about the room before eventually landing on you.

“Of course it is. They’re our neighbours.” His hand slid to the middle of your back, guiding you forward. “It would be rude not to go out and say hello. Besides, we still have to get our things from outside.”

“Maybe one of them could help?” If they had come outside to greet your family, maybe there was a possibility of you not having to help unload heavy furniture.

“That’s the spirit, kiddo! Let’s go.”

All pep seemed to sag from your father as he opened the front door, trying desperately to appear nonchalant and welcoming. Outside on the sidewalk, past the truck, was a small line of people holding an array of baked goods and casseroles. Squinting against the light from the setting sun, you could see that they were in a perfect row, and even their smiles were the same. There were seven of them in total, all dressed like they had walked straight out of a nineteen-fifties motion picture.

“Welcome to Humansville,” the lady on the end nearest to you said, her eyes skipping over both of your parents and settling on your face. Her plastic smile and perfect hair was unnerving. “We’re so glad to have you here.”

“It’s good to be here,” your father replied, his hand resting on your shoulder again. The residents of Humansville who had come to greet them all nodded simultaneously, the ladies’ skirts swishing gently in the breeze.

“And even better,” her grin widened, sharpening just slightly at the corners. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

If you liked this, you can find me on Patreon.

[h-pescod]

Fanfiction writers get a lot of flack for, well, being fanfiction writers, and there has been a lot of rigorous unpacking done as to why. It could be because it isn't seen as "real" writing, or because the vast majority of creators are female, but at the end of the day it still boils down to the fact that, for whatever reason, the moment the word "fanfic" is brought up in a discussion about writing, the person who mentioned it is immediately assumed to be "not a real writer." And that's simply not true.

[h-pescod]

As part of my reading challenge I’ve been picking up book recs as well, this one from my nan. 

A quick summary of The Oath: a mid-late twentieth century mining town known as Hyde River bears witness to a string of mysterious deaths and disappearances, the townsfolk causing havoc in Dr Steve Benson’s ability to uncover the reason for his brother’s death.

It is Christian fiction, though I wouldn’t consider myself a Christian by any standards and I quite enjoyed it. Sort of fantasy, sort of cult mentality, definitely small-town superstition.

*If anyone wants to send me a rec (preferably one I can access online or could check out from the library) then be my guest!

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Writing Wednesdays topic: plotting and planning.

Pretty much exactly like it says on the tin; I’m trying to organize myself into something coherent, and on Wednesdays I’m going to talk about writer stuff - fiction and nonfiction, as it arises - and today’s post is the different ways you can try to organize a pre-writing plan and some tips on structuring the plot. It’s not super in-depth, obviously, as either part of the subject could (and has) spanned books, so I’ll probably give it a revisit in the future. But if you’d like to give it a read, or are looking for someplace to start, give that link a click!

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I’ve been meaning to go through my shel(ves) of unread books (I get side-tracked with uni, okay?) and do a little discussion on each one after I finish it - this one’s for the SIlmarilion by JRR Tolkien.

Feel free to reblog and add your own points, or fire me off a message! Reading is all about discussion, and I’d love to hear what other people think of it!

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As the title of the post might suggest, this is about being bad at things, and how I feel society treats the issue. You might think that this isn’t a really great place to post something like this, but I’ve seen first hand how tumblr culture treats people who aren’t immediately good at the things they enjoy.

Anyway, if you feel like giving it a read, by all means go ahead, and feel free to reblog it as well.

[h-pescod]

Why You Should Stop Screwing Around With Low-Energy People

* I should probably say that I'm going to curse occasionally, in this post or otherwise. I'm going to try my hardest to keep my language "professional," but at the end of the day I'm still going to get fired up about things - it happens, but I'll work on keeping it to a minimum.

*****

With all of the fads going on in society, whether it has to do with beauty or health or fashion, there is always someone telling you how to think, how to act, how to feel. And a lot of them are basic, helpful tips, like drinking water and keeping track of appointments by starting a daytimer (something often forced upon us in primary education when we need it the least, and pushed to the point where we hate it until we reach pseudo-adulthood, when we realize how useful they actually are).

Perhaps I won't sound all that different, judging by the title of this post, telling you to drop people from your life. You think to yourself, "why should I listen to you? I don't even know you." And you shouldn't - because you don't. But I will share a personal story, so you can judge for yourself how it works.

I am one of the most organized people I know, and I do everything from highlight to colour-code to run three different calendars to make sure I can keep track of everything. This type of thing is really helpful for when I have off days, when my brain decides all we're going to do is lay in bed, or binge watch the Lord of the Rings, instead of actually being productive and pounding out a term paper or another chapter of my book. I also value my sleep, so I try my absolute hardest to get to bed at a decent hour (as in, before midnight if I can), even if it means that I have to sacrifice finishing up the last couple of things on my to-do list because my eyes are almost literally being held open by toothpicks. What I will say as well is that last semester (full university course load, absolute hell, do not recommend if you can help it) I was also really struggling mentally due to a variety of external issues. All you really need to know is that I was tired all the time, but that I was still managing to get my assignments in on time and do decently well on them.

And I had this friend. She was nice enough, and a good person, and I enjoyed spending time with her. For sake of anonymity, we'll call her Amy. Amy and I had a class together, and while we didn't necessarily see each other all the time that was okay, because we were both busy. At the beginning of the semester, after having an argument, we were still seeing each other for an okay amount of time, going for coffee over break and then texting in the evenings. And that was all well and good.

Now, I struggled a lot over the summer, and even going into the beginning of the semester, but I was working on keeping a positive attitude even though I had a lot on my plate. But even if you're self contained, it's nice to have some sort of support system. The problem was she was a super crappy texter unless she really wanted to talk to you. And that was fine, because Amy also had a lot going on in her life, so I tried not to worry about it too much as far as day-to-day stuff. It really started to grate on my when I really needed her and she wouldn't even reply until several hours later, sometimes in the evening the next day, or two days, and her only excuse was "I was busy," even though I knew she was active on all her social media, and she had hung out with several other people during that time.

I won't go into too much more detail, but let's just say that this put Amy and I on the rocks, big time. Am I saying that I did everything right in the relationship? No, by no means was I perfect. There were plenty of other things I could have done to maybe impress upon her that despite being her so-called "best friend," Amy wasn't even treating me like she liked me very much. But as you can probably imagine, this whole ordeal was unnecessarily draining on me, and it wasn't something I needed on top of everything else going on in my life. I wasn't getting the support I needed from her, despite giving more than enough to her and constantly checking in to make sure she was taking care of herself (she had a bad habit of trying to lose weight by.... not eating... like at all... I'm talking full-blown Tony Stark diet, sans alcohol).

I don't want to bad-mouth her. Amy was a good friend, for the most part.

But she was also super low-energy. Like I'm talking 90% of what she did was complain about shit, even if it wasn't directly related to her; school, her cousin, how tired she was all the time, how busy she was even though almost all of her schedule was self-imposed and when she wasn't fucking around at yoga and taking pictures in coffee shops working she was doing absolutely fuck all until 22.30 when she actually started to study. Sorry, still a little bit salty about that. My point is that she was really negative, and our conversations started to revolve around a couple of select topics rather than a wide variety, if they occurred at all.

We managed to keep our friendship alive, in a Frankenstein's Monster "returned from the dead" sort of way, until December, when I had suffered through numerous depressive episodes that she couldn't care less about because she "didn't have time" even though she could do all sorts of other things, and cared about other people (when I say "didn't have time," I'm saying that she wouldn't even text me back when I wouldn't talk to her for days since I was spiraling and she knew it, no that she didn't necessarily care about me). So I dropped her, and we argued about it. Amy said she hadn't done anything wrong even though we had had no less than three conversations about her shitty attempt at superficial friendship in the span of four months, and things would change or about four days until she went right back to it.

And now - now, oh my gods. It took me a bit to be able to hear her name or think about her without hurting inside, because I cared about her and that wasn't reciprocated, but now I'm so over it that I see her in the hallway sometimes and if I didn't hear her name I wouldn't even have known she was there. I don't feel as tired, emotionally, as I did when I was struggling to keep a friendship together all by my damn self. I'm a happier person. I'm more focused on bettering myself rather than trying to please another person, and I've more or less adopted "equal effort or leave" as my motto. I've stopped fucking with people who are so internalized with their own problems that they couldn't give less of a shit about your feelings or what that's doing to a relationship.

I'm not saying that you should immediately drop someone who isn't giving their fair share in a relationship. "It be like that sometimes" is a good thing to keep in mind, because people go through things that they may not feel comfortable sharing and they may not be able to give 100% to you. Sometimes you have to pick up the slack. But you also have to remember that if you're consistently giving more to them than they're giving to you - like Amy was, taking my support but giving very little attention or support in return in the ways I told her numerous times that I needed it - then you may have to consider letting them quietly out of your life. If they aren't picking up the slack when you need them to and only support you when it's convenient for them, re-evaluate. Have the tough conversations about why what they're doing is hurting you. It isn't worth your mental health to try and keep beating a dead horse, especially if you've expressed your concerns and their behaviour hasn't changed.

Friendships, relationships, and human interaction are all wonderful things. You need them. They're important to social balance and making sure you don't get stuck in your own head all the time and you have people to take care of you. But at the end of the day, your mental health needs to come first. If you aren't happy with something, change it. If something is hurting you, figure out why and deal with it. People who aren't on the same wave-length as you, who are negative and only bring down your mood when you have a conversation with them, are not people who you want to be around long-term. At risk of sounding like all of those infomercials where they guarantee you things, I can guarantee, from personal experience, that if you evaluate every relationship that's causing you pain and let that person go if you have to, you will feel better. You'll be happier. It will be one less thing for you to worry about at the end of the day.

Because you do not depend on the attention other people give you - your health, your idea of yourself, is not dependent on the amount of time people spend on you, and if someone is wrapped up in themselves and cannot see you for your worth, then maybe they aren't as important in your life as you thought they were going to be.

Stagnation is a sign of low energy, and in order to take care of yourself you need to be aware of it. If something stagnates, ask yourself why. If it's a change you can make, then do it. If it's a change they can make, or need to make, talk to them about it. They may not realize they're doing it. But if it becomes a consistent problem, at the end of the day your life only deserves positive energy, and you may need to let them go. You are not responsible for taking care of people.

[h-pescod]

Don't come crying to me when his 'secret double life' comes back to bite you in the ass.

“Ties That Bind” (draft, Dec. 2017)

[h-pescod]

Every Writer’s Worst Nightmare

Not starting a new project, not submission, not the fear of rejection, not even the thought of hundreds upon hundreds of people (or even just one) reading what you’ve written.

Editing.

That’s it.

A daunting, ever present monster that lurks in the shadows of every project we undertake, waiting for its time to crawl out from whatever cave it happens to have slunk off into in order to tear our work (and occasionally our confidence in our abilities) to pieces.

Pretty much every single writer (it doesn’t matter what they write: poetry, prose fiction, journal articles, nonfiction essays, a school newspaper column) hates editing. Getting the words on the page is more or less the easy part - you just put your thoughts down on the page in a way that sort of makes sense and run with it. But at the end of the day it’s still a heaping pile of nonsense that probably isn’t the most structurally sound thing in the world. It’s like a sand castle made out of sand that isn’t quite wet enough to stick together, but not dry enough to fall apart. There are spelling mistakes, grammar errors, sentences that you think are solid but then you reread them and go “why in the fresh hell did I actually write this???” It’s unpolished.

But just because we don’t like having to do something doesn’t mean it isn’t important. Editing sucks rocks, yeah, but it’s a process meant to bring out the best in the lopsided sandcastle. It transforms whatever you’ve written into something less embarrassing suitable for people to read, brushing away typos and inconsistencies so that the writing flows and the progression is clear. It takes that crappy sandcastle and makes it into a work of art, something you can be proud of.

Everyone always tells you to face your fears - unless, of course, they’re a cynic, in which case they’ll just tell you the odds of failure - and editing is, I think, the biggest fear a writer has. Because we have to go back and critique our own work, something we thought at the beginning was already pretty great, and realize where it’s weak and then try to improve it as best we can.

So to any writer reading this: edit. It’s going to look daunting at first, staring at your document and going “oh my god, how am I going to do this?” Let it sit for a week, two weeks, however long you can reasonably give it to separate yourself from the work in order to look at it objectively, and then edit. Read it out loud if you have to; do whatever you need in order to hammer out the kinks and make sure the syntax and grammar makes sense. 

Nothing is perfect the first time, but you’ll get there.

Feb. 4/2018

[h-pescod]

20 Seconds of Courage

People often confuse success with the amount of hours you put into something. They’re not entirely wrong, of course. You wouldn’t get where you want to go without perseverance and an almost obscene amount of “blood, sweat, and tears,” as the saying goes. Hard work is important.

But it isn’t the only thing.

Behind every success story, every actor or actress, sports hero, Olympic athlete, musician, author, anyone who has ever had their talents recognized in their chosen field, has a moment of pure insanity. In that moment, that minute span of time in which anything could happen, they made a choice.

20 seconds - think about it. In that time you can send an email, post a video, write your name. It isn’t a long period of time. But in that time, you can do just about anything you want to do.

Writing, for me, is both easy and difficult at the same time. I can plan and outline and play god all to hell, but the moment I start writing the characters make me a prisoner of the premise I create; I can only do so much within the world I’ve started to put on paper, but at the same time the characters seem to direct their own narrative. It flows, but I have to work at it. There are days where no writing gets done because I simply don’t have the motivation (perhaps this is the wrong word, maybe energy is better. Life is taxing, and that’s okay), or I’m stuck on a certain scene and heaven forbid I write anything after that (I’ve never been one to write a disjointed narrative - I find that if I move on and then try to write a scene from earlier, I know too much about who my characters are to put them back in that moment). 

The actual writing itself is the easy part, more or less. The hard part, the moment when I need that 20 seconds of insane courage, is when I have to send that email to submit something to an anthology or a publisher. In that moment any confidence I have in my writing is nearly gone. I overthink about how I worded my email, I overthink about the plotline, I overthink about whether or not it’ll be what they’re looking for and if they’ll even read it. I hit send anyway. And that’s the most important part.

Anything that’s going to take you closer to your dreams is going to scare you. If it doesn’t, you aren’t dreaming big enough. And that’s where that courage comes in. You take all those thoughts about whether or not what you’ve done is enough, you listen to them scream and rave and drive you to the very edge, and then you hit send. You take the shot. You sign the contract. You pick up the phone.

Sometimes it doesn’t work - rejection is a part of life. It happens, but all that matters is that you get up and try again. Success isn’t actually measured in success itself, it’s measured in how many times you fail and get back up.

But sometimes, every so often there’s that golden moment where everything falls into place. When all that stands between you and everything you’ve ever wanted is one fifth of a minute. 20 seconds of absolute insanity.

Think about that.

Jan. 26/18

[h-pescod]

Self Care

Everyone always says that you have to give 110% of yourself 110% of the time in order to achieve your goals, and honestly this is sort of toxic when you think about it. Humans aren’t wired that way. It’s physically impossible for us to go full throttle at all times, because our systems can’t handle it and eventually our brain gets too tired. We make mistakes. We have off days. And when we have those off days, because society says that if you aren’t actively working towards your goal, then you’ve failed.

You only fail if you fail to try. Any step you take is a success.

Some days working towards your goal will mean spending three hours of hard core practice on the pitch/court/ice/etc, it might mean writing two chapters of a book, it might mean powering through a ton of your capstone project research. And that’s great. That’s progress.

But you know what else is progress? Taking a day off to recharge. Staying in bed until late-mid-morning curled up with a book or binge-watching your favourite show. Making yourself a cup of tea. Going for a walk. Petting a dog or a cat. Taking a shower and making sure you’ve been taking your medication or eating properly. Drinking water. Getting proper sleep.

Sometimes completely disengaging yourself from your fast-track is progress too, because it gives your brain something else to focus on. Eventually the words on the page of whatever project you’ve been bent over working on for the last six months start to blur together. At some point your going to push yourself one step too far, and you’re going to get hurt - physically or mentally.

Rest. Breathe. Recharge.

It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how often we live our lives going 0-100 from the moment we wake up until the moment our heads hit the pillow at night. You’re never going to get where you’re going if you don’t give your body time to recover.

I’m not going to preach this to you like I’ve got my whole life together and know exactly when/how to clear my head and fix my problems - taking care of myself first and foremost is something I’m still learning, and I took a crash course in balancing priorities when I started averaging three hours of sleep a night trying to manage school and work. I did that for years. I almost landed myself in the hospital because of it. So while I may not be telling you this as some self-help yogi who drinks berry infused tea and does pilates at sunrise, I am saying it from a position of experience.

Breathe.

Take care of yourself.

At the end of the day, you’re all you’ve got.

[h-pescod]

“The Way Things Are Usually Done;” or: The Advice of Others

The rest of this text is going to make the title seem a little bit hypocritical, be warned.

Whatever you choose to dedicate yourself to, whether it be writing, or art, or music, or your chosen sport, at some point along your journey you’re going to hear “but this isn’t the way things are usually done.” That’s no bearing on you as a person or as someone engaging in your chosen discipline, it’s just the tendency of people to stick their noses in other people’s business. They do have a point, to some extent: it’s 2018, humans are creatures of habit and as a result we’ve developed patterns.

The issue lies in that they expect you to listen to them.

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be able to take constructive criticism - you absolutely should take into account the opinions of others on your work. Sometimes, or, rather, much of the time, they can see things that you may not, and when they point it out to you it can provide you with opportunities to improve areas you didn’t recognize as necessary (this is why writers often use beta-readers - things that make sense to the author may not make sense for the reader, or there may be misses in editing, or certain scenes and subplots may not make sense in context). But when someone phrases their opinion on what you’ve done/made with “that’s not how it’s usually done...” what they’re actually doing is criticizing your choice to branch off from the norm, not necessarily the thing itself.

Anything outside of the normal tends to scare people a little bit. Its a societal fact, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. So while making myself sound horribly hypocritical, I want everyone reading this to read the next sentences very carefully, understand them, and absorb them: 

You do not always have to listen to these people. 

You do not always have to change the way you do things to suit them. 

You do not have to compromise who you are to please the masses.

Just because someone gives you their opinion or advice or criticizes your choice to think outside the norm, does not mean you have to listen to them. Even if you think it will hurt their feelings if you ignore them. Being true to yourself, your goals, dreams, and style is far more important than changing them all in order to be accepted. If you do, all that will be left is another monotone voice among the many. You have been given a gift; don’t squander it in a vain effort to fit in. You never will.

Jan. 21/2018