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Showing versus Telling

I struggle a lot with "showing and not telling." Here's some exercises and techniques I've tried to practice this from researching different methods that I just conjured up together (please take with a grain of salt, everyone is different, lol.):

Object Observation: Choose an object in your immediate vicinity and describe it without naming what it is. Include details about its texture, color, size, shape, and any other distinctive features. Basically: have someone else to identify it based on your description.

Character Emotions: Write a list of emotions and for each one, write a short scene that shows a character experiencing that emotion without directly stating what the emotion is. i.e., Instead of saying, "Alistair was angry", you could say... "Alistair's fists clenched, his jaw tightened; his face turned red as he stared at the broken amulet on the floor."

Active Verbs: Challenge yourself to rewrite sentences using more active, specific verbs. i.e., "She walked into the room" (telling) could become, "She strutted into the room, her boot heels clicking against the marble floor" (showing).

Sensory Details: Choose a setting, real or fictional, and describe it using all five senses. What can a character see, smell, hear, taste, and touch in this environment, or moment?

Dialogue: Use dialogue to reveal information about your characters and the plot. Instead of telling the reader that a character is upset, show it through what the character says and how they say it.

In-Depth Character Description: Take a character from your story and describe them in detail. Show their personality through their actions, speech, and appearance, rather than direct statements.

Rewrite Telling Sentences: Take a piece of your own writing or a passage from a book and identify the "telling" sentences. Rewrite them in a way that "shows" instead.

Hope this helps! ✍(◔◡◔)

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Sirena

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Bata life

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writers will be like "here's my current wip! can't wait to share more :)" and then you never hear about it again

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Sometimes I just want to be normal.

praying to god to give me a normal brain cuz it's taking forever to figure out what the fuck it is I'm here to do so please make me normal so I can just be happy with a normie life and not have these greater-than-life desires and dreams.

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Human relationships are not transactional but they are reciprocal, which I think many of you with your ‘i don’t owe anyone anything’ shtick are too happy to forget

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THE RETREAT PART 1 OF 3

By the time I got back  from my hike police had already surrounded the place with yellow tape. A drenched man with a jacket that read “coroner” in big bold yellow letters was at the last end of a body bag zipper. I saw a face being zipped up, in slow motion like in the movies.

“Why would someone do this?” I heard Michael’s trembling voice, rhetorically ask. Still in slow motion and faint, almost like a whisper even though I knew it was coming from right behind me.

It was the first morning of our 5th annual creatives retreat in los angeles california.A week long trip where me, Juni,Michael,Sasha, and Armando connect with each other and ourselves without any outside interruptions.

We were all just passionate about being creative and needed space to explore,express, and collaborate outside of our 9-5 jobs.

We met at the phone retail store we used to all work at. Armando was the manager when i first started. Armando’s position was surprising because he didn’t really know what to do when he was “training” me. He was an amazing salesman though. Being 6’4, having long Puerto Rican hair, and the trademark colombian gift of gab, Armando could sell ice in Alaska.

Michael and Juni were already there too.

Michael was so short and quiet you’d almost forget he was around, I guess that’s why drawing was one of his many talents. He would spend the whole week in his room drawing.

“Aaayy Porfin una chica! Dimelo como te llamas?” as I was opening my mouth, to take a  breath and answer, Juni screeched “I like your earrings so cute!, but yeah como te llamas?”  

We both laughed uncontrollably for what felt like five minutes. Juni was laughing so hard she was bent over,one hand between her legs and one on the counter as if holding on for dear life in this rollercoaster of laughter. I clap when I laugh so just picture a redbone seal. After that, we were inseparable.

Sasha joined the phone store team later. She was the only one that was a part time employee. I only saw her a few times a week but we’d been friends for years before we started working together. Her thing was dancing, she used the week of the retreat to come up with new choreography for the children’s entertainment company she’d been building since we were teens.She had the body for ballet, at 4’9 and weighing only 100 pounds, but her heart belonged to Hip Hop.

I ran and jumped at the body only to be caught in mid air.  “Armando! Please tell me it’s not Juni please!” I yelled between sobs, holding him as tight as a koala bear clings to eucalyptus.  He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious.

Juni was dead.

And we were all suspects.

[skyarticles]

THE RETREAT PART 1 OF 3

By the time I got back  from my hike police had already surrounded the place with yellow tape. A drenched man with a jacket that read “coroner” in big bold yellow letters was at the last end of a body bag zipper. I saw a face being zipped up, in slow motion like in the movies.

“Why would someone do this?” I heard Michael’s trembling voice, rhetorically ask. Still in slow motion and faint, almost like a whisper even though I knew it was coming from right behind me.

It was the first morning of our 5th annual creatives retreat in los angeles california.A week long trip where me, Juni,Michael,Sasha, and Armando connect with each other and ourselves without any outside interruptions.

We were all just passionate about being creative and needed space to explore,express, and collaborate outside of our 9-5 jobs.

We met at the phone retail store we used to all work at. Armando was the manager when i first started. Armando’s position was surprising because he didn’t really know what to do when he was “training” me. He was an amazing salesman though. Being 6’4, having long Puerto Rican hair, and the trademark colombian gift of gab, Armando could sell ice in Alaska.

Michael and Juni were already there too.

Michael was so short and quiet you’d almost forget he was around, I guess that’s why drawing was one of his many talents. He would spend the whole week in his room drawing.

“Aaayy Porfin una chica! Dimelo como te llamas?” as I was opening my mouth, to take a  breath and answer, Juni screeched “I like your earrings so cute!, but yeah como te llamas?”  

We both laughed uncontrollably for what felt like five minutes. Juni was laughing so hard she was bent over,one hand between her legs and one on the counter as if holding on for dear life in this rollercoaster of laughter. I clap when I laugh so just picture a redbone seal. After that, we were inseparable.

Sasha joined the phone store team later. She was the only one that was a part time employee. I only saw her a few times a week but we’d been friends for years before we started working together. Her thing was dancing, she used the week of the retreat to come up with new choreography for the children’s entertainment company she’d been building since we were teens.She had the body for ballet, at 4’9 and weighing only 100 pounds, but her heart belonged to Hip Hop.

I ran and jumped at the body only to be caught in mid air.  “Armando! Please tell me it’s not Juni please!” I yelled between sobs, holding him as tight as a koala bear clings to eucalyptus.  He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious.

Juni was dead.

And we were all suspects.

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Watch:  Chicago woman had some great responses to a white man’s disturbing racist attacks.

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The truth about Los Angeles/What I wish I knew.

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The $2 Manicure NON-Tutorial

This is what I do to be able to go to boxing and still look cute while spending very little money. Beauty is not a luxury.

This is not a tutorial. Just passing on a little life hack for when you need your nails to look fresh for just a day or two or when you didn’t get to make it to the nail salon.

I use for meetings,interviews, and dates then take off for workouts.

The very best nail glue is the Sassy+Chic from The Dollar Tree. Nails by the same company and for the same prize.

In my experience they stay put for about 3 days. Sometimes because of zippers the thumbs will fall off on day 2. Good thing reapplying is only a brush stroke away!

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I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody’s head.

John Updike, Hugging the Shore (via quotespile)

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The Umbrella Academy|Review

What can I say? Netflix did it again! The Umbrella Academy (so far) is definitely a game changer. Based on the  comic book series “Dark Horse” which premiered the trailer in December is finally available to stream in its entirety. 

Let’s unpack the clusterfuck of weirdness that is the first episode.  It opens to a swimming class featuring all types of bodies while slow orchestra music plays. A girl jumps in the pool and comes out pregnant. She gives birth right then and there. Narrator explains that this spontaneous pregnancy and delivery happened to 43 women at the same time around the world. 

A billionaire adopted 7 of them.We learn that they all have some kind of special ability, and used to fight crime as kids, but not in hidden Clark Kent type of way. The kids at The Umbrella Academy were out of the closet crime stoppers. Trained by the father, someone that couldn’t even give them names so instead he named them from 1-7.

The umbrella academy is visually pleasing and the diversity is giving me major Sense 8 vibes. Sigh. Number 4 Klaus kind of reminds me of Lito.Damn I miss that show. The themes that weave through out the most in this series is mostly family and inclusion which is great for the audience since everyone will feel represented.

Klaus’s special ability is talking to the dead.There’s one specific dead guy with him all the time. He’s also a junkie and a thief. This character is ok a little over the top for me.

Making her big debut with a recurring role is Mary J.Blige. She  plays an assassin, and I’m not really fully convinced. I think she’s doing a good job but I just can’t see her as a torturer of innocent people. In one scene they show some of the people that she’s killed and it just didn’t fit. Blige’s character wears a mask in most of the fight scenes so its difficult to know at this point if she’s doing her own stunts.She looks super fierce though and I have faith that Real Love singer’s character as an assassin will grow on me. 

Number 1 and Number 2′s relationship is a super explosive sibling rivalry. One is super strong like an exaggerated version of John Cena and Number 2 is a Gambit of sorts. Everything he throws will land on the target. This pair gives us some of the best fight scenes in Netflix originals history.

Oh and there’s an Ape. He is like their version of Jeffrey from The Fresh Prince, I still don’t know how that came to be.

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This year was stressful and frustrating and I thought I wasn’t going to make it sometimes but a lot more good happened. I made a lot of more good happen with the support of friends and family aka LOVE we can get through anything.

Here’s my 2018 recap!

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This interview with Bad Bunny is so perfectly executed. Fun, intimate, informative.

“Aveces cuando estoy mamando toto , se me olvida agarrar una teta”- Bad Bunny

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In a media environment saturated with fake news, “synthetic media” technology has disturbing implications. 

Last fall, an anonymous Redditor with the username Deepfakes released a software tool kit that allows anyone to make synthetic videos in which a neural network substitutes one person’s face for another’s, while keeping their expressions consistent. Around the same time, “Synthesizing Obama,” a paper published by a research group at the University of Washington, showed that a neural network could create believable videos in which the former President appeared to be saying words that were really spoken by someone else. In a video voiced by Jordan Peele, Obama seems to say that “President Trump is a total and complete dipshit,” and warns that “how we move forward in the age of information” will determine “whether we become some kind of fucked-up dystopia.”

Matt Turek, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, predicts that, when it comes to images and video, we will arrive at a new, lower “trust point.” “I’ve heard people talk about how we might land at a ‘zero trust’ model, where by default you believe nothing. That could be a difficult thing to recover from,” he says. 

Read the full story, “In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?” here.