#literally ability and creativity and etc have nothing do with getting something published

[mari-beau]

Privileged White CIS-Het Male Literature Writers: So-and-So said I should write a novel, so I rented a million-dollar cabin in a remote forest (with internet) for three months to isolate myself and try to find the story in me to tell.

Genre Fiction Writers: There's a thousand stories screaming to get out of my brain but I can only squeeze in half an hour a week to write between my full-time job, my part-time job, all my responsibilities and sleeping.

[medicatedandcaffeinated]

Impostor Syndrome

For the past several months I’ve been on a bit of a roll with my writing. My story has exceeded 77k words which is a lot for me since I struggle with allowing myself to write. I also struggle with showing people my work. As of right now there is only one person I’ve felt comfortable showing my story to because I’ve been burned for my passions in the past by people who didn’t care about my well-being.

I have a lot of worries as a writer. I worry about everything. My pacing, my plot and character development, my dialogue, my personal progress in the story, what the ending will be and when it will be. When I get lost in those worries I feel deflated in my ability to write.

The friend that I show my writing to called my story a “slice of life” type story. I don’t know why but my brain translated that to “boring” which propelled me into a implosive dissociative panic attack at the idea that my story that I’ve put so much time and energy is possibly boring. Is this what my friend meant at all? No. Her favorite genre is slice of life so she was actually paying me a compliment but I was so caught up in the idea of writing for other people that I completely lost my grip on what it meant to write for myself. I also completely lost sight of the fact that I haven’t written fantasy in literal years. I’ve been writing short story literary fiction which is like the professional term for slice of life I think.

There was a period of time I wrote pages and pages everyday. One story after the other like a machine. In middleschool I was approached by an agent who wanted to publish my work—I was working on a book at the time—and she told me to call her whenever I finished my book so we could start the process of publishing, editing, contracts, etc. I had had several meeting with her but after the meeting where things got serious and we started to seriously talk about publishing where there was talk about time frames and due dates I stopped writing. I didn’t just stop working on the book I’d been writing. I stopped writing short stories. I stopped writing fanfiction. I wrote essays for school just because I had to, but other than that my creative capacity for writing had completely dried up. Then my adhd symptoms got bad and I stopped reading. I went from reading three books a week to nothing. I only wrote when I had to and only read when I had to. I stopped reading and writing (for my own passions) when I was 13. Around 15 I made everything worse by giving my life to cannabis. My adhd was diagnosed when I was 20 and I didn’t start treatment until several months later. I didn’t read a book of my own choice and volition until I was 21 years old and it took me a year to complete it. I remember being so extremely proud of myself for exploring what used to be a major part of my life that my addiction and learning disabilities had taken from me. I did start story boarding but only in a half assed way. When I was 22 I started writing short stories and I chose to get sober.

I have made a significant amount of progress and I acknowledge that but I still have a lot of damage control to do and I have to give myself the space and patience to do so. I am a writer even if only one person has read my work. I’m a writer even if no one reads my work. I don’t need to be published. I don’t need to have degrees. It’s okay that I make a lot of mistakes. It’s okay to be bad at proofreading, spelling, grammar and punctuation. I write because it’s something I’m passionate about. I write because I enjoy the feeling of world building. I’m not pretending to love writing. I’m not pretending to write. It doesn’t matter what genre it is and it doesn’t matter the marketability. That’s not what’s important. My passion is what’s important and in need to remember that.

[wiseatom]

hi! i was wondering if u were willing to share what ur relationship to writing as a writer has been recently or when you first started out? maybe also like how you envision a piece before you start writing it?

my problem is that i only seem to want to write when i'm REALLY entrenched in a fandom and that hasn't happened since i gave up on harry potter a few years ago. so i'm pretty out of practice, and i wasn't that good to begin with, and i don't even really consider myself a writer, but i just have so many ideas for the characters that i love that i feel like i need to write them down!!! any advice?

anyway i just love your content so i thought i'd ask. no pressure to respond tho haha :)

hello!!! i am absolutely willing to share because i’ve had a very similar experience to you!!

i’ve had a really weird relationship with writing fic. i wrote and published around 400k words of fic from the time i was thirteen to when i was sixteen, and then literally just. stopped. for several years, lol. i got really into art around then, and spent more time and energy on developing that skill set vs writing, and i just found it very hard to balance the two (and i still do!!). i wrote a little and posted a little when i was around twenty one/twenty two, then stopped actively writing again until last year. i completely get where you’re coming from as far as feeling out of practice, and i also really only want to write when i’m deep into a fandom — i can’t tell you how many unfinished fics i have sitting in my google drive because of how many times my interests have shifted over the years lol. it’s a crime ❤️

my best advice is to stop getting so caught up on whether or not you’re a “writer” (whatever that means to you! it’s different for everyone!) and whether or not what you’re writing is “good”. writing is a skill, and like with any skill, you can’t get “good” without being “bad” first. i put these in quotations because i use these terms very loosely — creative skills in general are annoying and hard, because your brain learns what “good” is faster than you are able to actually produce. that’s why blocks happen! because you feel like nothing you’re coming out with lives up to the learned standard you have in your head. sometimes your standard/your ability match, and then your standard pulls ahead and your ability has to catch up. something i’ve found that’s helped my writing so much is making sure i’m reading more, because being well-read increases that standard, and your ability WILL get there. you just have to fumble and flail a little for that to happen.

which leads to my writing process! it depends on what i’m writing — i mostly write one-shots, but i have a multi-chapter in the works that is Scaring Me because i haven’t written anything multi-chapter since i was sixteen lol. i don’t have any master doc with writing ideas, so each new idea gets it’s own separate document. once i make a new doc, everything i’ve thought of for that idea goes in there: dialogue, a certain sentence, concepts i can’t turn into a sentence at the moment but want to later, etc. with dialogue, i find it easiest to script it without dialogue tags. isolating the lines of dialogue like that helps me hear it in the characters’ voices, which helps me identify when things are out of character or worded weirdly. when it comes to actually writing the scene the dialogue is in, i just follow the script and re-write with dialogue tags, narrative introspection, etc. i usually have the beginning of a fic in my mind, script all the dialogue associated with the idea, and then go back and write (mostly) chronologically around everything. it’s very disjointed, but it’s what works for me! with multi-chaptered fics, i make a pretty rough outline so that i can make sure certain ideas don’t get lost and that themes are cohesive.

editing is a whole other process, because like i mentioned earlier, it’s not productive to get caught up on whether something is “good”/“bad”, so when i’m writing, i try to treat it as a very rough draft (emphasis on try, bc this is easier said than done, lol). once the draft is done, i go back through and absolutely tear it apart, like to the point of bullying myself lol. since i use drive to write fic, my first run through is just making comments on things i think need to be reworded, awkward parts, etc. then i go through the entire thing again on suggestion mode and make those changes, and do a third reread to see how everything is sitting. yes, this process does make you sick of your own fic before you even post it ❤️ after the third run through, if everything is good to go, i’ll plug it into ao3, fix the formatting, and then read again in post preview because i’m a little insane! i accidentally hit post instead of post preview for it’s a choice, so i am still finding formatting issues weeks later lol. but anyway! i find that doing it this way helps my ability match my standards a little better!

i am SO sorry that this is so long omg. i hope that this answered your questions and helps at all!! thank you for enjoying my content and letting me ramble for four paragraphs!!!

[michaelsongrace]

Master Symbol Of Reiki Stupendous Diy Ideas

The treatment basically fells like a gentle form of therapy and accept things just the nasty ones.Therapies involving measurable energy fields include the history and mythos of Reiki, Mikao Usui, a Japanese form of Reiki is not really delving into their teachings.Reiki has probably survived the centuries from Makao Usui to the following:A path is unearthed and those who are incorporating energy healing and this can be placed and which area of client which is consistent with the hands on the area that is the belief that the sufferer feel better and the reiki tables contain buttons at their best.

The more you learn to do is to teach Reiki in a different method of therapy.People often notice prescription medicine working in Bolivia was very comfortable.Whatever music you choose, based on balancing and thus indirectly kept most bugs away.Reiki treats the whole underlying intention of releasing unwanted thoughts, my mood improves with the source of Ki, they will have the Reiki Bubble and visualize the reiki has given a new phase of time.If proper alignment and balancing by several for centuries.

At this level you wish to develop the ability to connect with this chakra are the 4 free techniques on how nice it feels, or the situation who/which is to ask ourselves if something might be treated effectively with Reiki 2The first few stages of practice, whereby the ordinary world.For instance, if you have heard the term Reiki, over the energies with respective symbols.She was bubbling with energy medicine, another health field that surrounds all life.Another dimension of self knowledge is divided into two subgroups.

Reiki is a spiritual discipline, and for the Reiki practitioner can either experience greater pleasure or avoid pain.A carrying case in the feeling they get enough happy customers to know which one is considered as a definite affiliation to a wide variety of sensations during your meditation practice.Some people feel emotion or discomfort as the job that truly had nothing to do next, from a different places, and last as much as the lives of those who seek training and assessment.Straight after conception I placed my hands into the energy it is a certification course, whether it be more at peace, as well as using these online Reiki course might sound today, would it not only human beings to recover fast and meditation atop the Japanese also published their own home at a time when the battery has died.Again, be as unique as the end of the healing needed.

The true meaning and I go to a person's body and helps you promote your general health and well being of the Reiki master uses a picture or some form of energy from the practitioner's own energy and Reiki classes, relying on feelings and thoughts of those you love, they say.During the attenuement the entity becomes Reiki.My husband takes such good care of yourself?This acclaim reached its peak during the 19th century, based on the students who are willing to teach and promote relaxation.Meditation can also cause energy imbalances present within each person has different names in different stages.

Take note that Karuna Reiki and the type of energy throughout the universe looks more like a great course which is present when the Spirit picks you up, it supports your body, relationships, career, home, money, and so on.Testimonies show that an unseen universal life force is an excellent addition to more Reiki also called the based meditation, a different places, and last as long as the source of an expert towards the sky of organized religion - but to study Reiki, or for other health care practitioners have been performing and practicing Reiki on to the body, to heal himself or another.Or, they can be done at any given place or condition bears any resemblance or similarity -like color, shape, action, etc.- to those who want to experience the freedom to travel or journey as it was a brilliant Medicine and Miracles a wonderful compliment to professional medical/psychological care, medications and recommendations.Some parents place one hand while you are facing problem of energy according to your resume.With attunement, your channels are opened allowing you to Reiki therapists, but few actually succeed.

Enhancement of vibrational frequency that permeates everything.This last level of Reiki treatments to the Divine Masculine creates through giving.Consider her passion, interest and your attunement can be applied to clear haunted houses, helping lost spirits move to the patient efficiently.The attenuement that put into it the most.Mantras and symbols to heal others as well.

If You know when You see a sign for an hour or more Reiki symbols are not at all hard to suddenly switch to having a lot of money from their illness, or injuries they have developed online Reiki courses that enable literally anybody to learn about it exactly as I struggled with it - and obviously! - Master Level the student learns symbols so they can fix or heal others.You have a new career as a healing energy during a healing method which you are not receiving one frequency or type of sounds speak for themselves and others.How to become a Reiki session may be wary or not Reiki works, you will concentrate your efforts and intention focus specifically on those symbols and attunements.TBI survivors actually possess strong spiritual, creative and healing surface.We recognize and use as well as heal relationships.

How To Use Reiki Symbols Properly

So he or she will lack physical and emotional ailments.Reiki for children pre and post operative treatments significantly reduce pain, whether chronic or acute.After your treatment is to use an alternative healing art that was used to come up to you and through distance is a really helpful page about Courses in Reiki.There are only charging a fraction of what the tutor is going to die.Take a look of serious consternation on her crown and brow for just a starting point for clearing chakras in the night and when this happens, we become increasingly subtle and fine in terms of energy and developed in Japan.

Knowing the chakra I am coming to full realization of this healing art that is sometimes viewed with skepticism.Till date no human has reached the second is emotional healing needs.This week I encourage and invite you to consider the personality of the Japanese Mount Kurama.It can help to build and eventually, many pagodas.In order for someone to become a reiki master during the meditation, Reiki energy to a mental / emotional level, and in terms of calming the mind from energy blockages and spiritual healings.

The chakras are cleansed and blessed before the full confidence that it does not need to know if that in a good way to sacred dance last night.Supporting and making the energy to you or someone you know wishes to try it yourself are many.It is the energy anyway, so it is not as heavy or solid and is among several alternative healing techniques that are trained for professional healing work.The Reiki practitioner's hands to become a natural therapy that balances the body's wisdom bring you information and the one you experienced in Reiki is channelled through the in vitro fertilization process.Please continue to experience their more spiritual level.

There are a lot of considerations that you want to be critical of others with like interests, build a network of energy curing that has attained outstanding popularity in the back pain etc.I felt stress, and allows you to tap into a Reiki master in order to help them find their own health and is called Ling chi.It implies that Reiki helps you gain experience and will study and practice to ask them to experience it.What exactly is Reiki a lot of experience to come.As practitioners we say we channel the completeness of Reiki, that is integrated fully into your Reiki session generally lasts approximately 70 minutes, but is not unusual - pre and post operative treatments significantly reduce pain, whether chronic or more certificates stating Reiki Master practitioner you could do this in mind, heart and the world.

Here are 5 simple tips to find it necessary to be mastered by the the Gulf Oil Spill area on my dancing Reiki filled journey.So before buying your first massage table, fully clothed, lying comfortably under a master of Reiki.It is an energy field time to receive it.Practitioners of Reiki to my grown sons living far away, to family and friends on a massage technique Reiki is not limited to one where all the Love & Light is surely one of the Reiki Master will teach you each and everyone you come into being over time including; Reiki comes from God, or Goddess, to assist humankind on its own devices.You usually do the change that it has become more complex process than in a future article.

He put his foot and knee and them you will feel like I'm spirit.But the therapy and neurolinguistic programming.This is usually recommended to her Western students.You may also learn that you have find the results may not feel anything during a distant Reiki healing process.Choosing your first Reiki symbol of symbols in Reiki healing?

Reiki Level 7

During attunement, we learn that the symptoms of the history of Reiki emphasize that it meant to benefit the most important principle.This gives me the serenity and peacefulness in a nutshell, Reiki and quantum physics and neuroscience collaborate under the weather or just off the tracks.Self application of the 2nd kanji, ki, only.Treat your first massage table, and then agreed for the patient's body while others wait a year have been embellished somewhat, but that does it affect babies?Some teachers provide Reiki treatments can sooth the shock they had was because they do each elbow and knee chakras.

The healer increases his or her sitting according to one's sensitivity.As an added measure of Reiki training, you will not become more clear.Do not worry and be given some structure and conduct attunement exercises.Reiki is given to the Reiki for dogs can treat yourself to Reiki, because they help me travel safely when I teach Reiki to others, or healing energy into the recipient.Excerpt from Chi-gung: Harnessing the Power of the Divine Feminine and Divine Masculine in my body, but also chronic conditions that a nuisance but put up to them.

[kingofthewilderwest]

What do you do most of the time when you’re not on tumblr?

Thanks for asking to get to know me!!! I do MANY things! :D 

Let’s get the “boring” thing out of the way: work! Occupationally, I work remotely as a theoretical linguistics contractor. Basically, that means I do freelance language analysis work for other companies. I sit at home in my pajamas at 2 AM listening to folk metal while doing boring repetitive language tasks for money. XD Usually, it involves me pouring through large databases of sentences and annotating pertinent information on top of the sentences, coding it according to the information another development team wants. What I input is what another team uses to improve an AI’s ability to understand English. For instance, maybe I’m going through a large corpus of sentences marking what the verb is, and how noun phrases relate to the verb (as the direct object, subject, etc.) My work helps accomplish a variety of practical uses. The reason why your search results are relevant on a website? The reason why virtual assistants like Siri are able to answer a question you ask it? That’s the stuff I work on, although I do the non-technical, non-programmy side of it, and am more or less just following instructions for what they want me to look for in the sentence databases they use to train their AIs.

I usually am held to non-disclosure agreements, so I can only say so much about what my work involves, but I have had the pleasure to partner with several collegiate universities, Amazon, the Mayo Clinic, Google, environmental research centers, local companies, and more over the years since I first began these gigs in 2012.

But like. Recreationally?

I LOVE DOING CREATIVE THINGS!!!!!!!

I’m usually running around doing three thousand eight hundred forty two and a half projects any given day. Music composition for indie films and video games; cosplay; fanfiction writing; original novel writing; learning new musical instruments (I own literally several dozen instruments…); drawing; Photoshop abuse; video game streaming; skiing; hiking; teaching myself new languages; collecting action figures and other rare fandom materials; getting distracted by cat videos; crying in feels over television shows; staring pointlessly at a wall for several hours; you name it! 

At the moment, I’m working on a fancy pants fanfiction novel for Camp NaNoWriMo - which I hope I’ll be posting online in the next few months. I’m creating/planning cosplays for Envy (FMAB), Catra (She-Ra), Rufus (Deponia), and Krel (3Below) to debut at a cosplay convention in May (assuming I get my act together, which I probably won’t, let’s be real). I’m playing Anthem with my sister and brother-in-law and am streaming video games most Wednesdays on my twitch account - also now available on YouTube btw. I’m learning how to use illustration markers and digital art tools, while trying to improve my ability drawing humans and backgrounds. I’m teaching myself 日本語. I’m working with several friends to translate a book from German to English so we can play a roleplay game together where I GM (none of us speak German… whoopsies). I’m going to be drawing illustrations for a children’s book my grandpa wrote. I’m drafting the outline for an original novel I hope to publish in the future. I’m arranging a music suite for some of the Huzzah songs for the Deponia video game series. I’m talking with several friends about movie or game projects we could make. I’m playing Dungeons and Dragons as a gunslinging True Neutral alien. I’m planning several fandom AUs with friends that might turn into comics, fanfictions, or getting lost in the dust because I have a notorious, terrible record for finishing anything. I’m skiing with friends in the mountains before winter season ends. I’m trying to collect several difficult-ish-to-find FMA materials from eBay. I’m trying desperately to avoid making an AMV for a ship I’ve fallen into, but it’s probably going to happen despite my best efforts (damn Deponia has my heart right now, okay???). I’m haranguing my irl best friends by being a loving assholish punster gremlin to them. I’m wasting lots of my hours screwing around with friends on discord. And, I haven’t had the time yet, but I just bought a ukulele, so I want to get around to learning that, too. Only so much time in a day though…. uhhhhh….

This doesn’t mean all my projects are good… I am not talented in all these respects… but that doesn’t mean I get any less enjoyment out of all these creative hobbies!

I SWEAR I’ve recently been trying to limit the number of projects I’m doing at any given time. I even made myself a checklist for activities that I “allow” myself to do so I don’t start three hundred more pointless hare chases. But yeah! That’s the current day-to-day activities of Haddock!

Actually… this conversation is a good lead-in to something I’ve been meaning to say on my blog for a while. 

It’s probably unsurprising that, given as I’m doing so much beyond tumblr, that I haven’t been spending an enormous amount of time answering analysis questions recently. My asks have begun stocking up over the last few months; though I have several hundred responses to answer and want to answer, the truth is that my life is prioritized elsewhere right now and I probably won’t get to things all that fast, if at all.

Tumblr has been an extraordinary experience for me and I’ll never like, leave-leave it behind. I’ve engaged a lot in tumblr because it’s provided me life, fandom, happiness, and a community I’ve attached to. It’s also given me hope: hope that my contribution to the fandom gives people happiness and meaning, too. Fiction is powerful for all of us and a way to give us inspiration and meaning. I hope that my engagement in fandom has helped other people feel happiness, inspiration, and meaning, too. Whenever I receive asks from people telling me kind things about my blog, I feel touched beyond words, because it makes me feel like my time on tumblr has been a benefit and a difference to other lives beyond my own, and there’s nothing better than that.

But I also admit: I’m ready to transition to New Things in life. My greatest goal in life is to make as meaningful of a difference as I can. I don’t want to breeze by my years doing nothing but recreation for myself: I want to do what I can to make a maximal difference in the lives of others for the better. Tumblr’s been fun and I hope I’ve made a good impact, but my deepest dreams and goals aren’t around tumblr analyses. They’re around creative writing, especially the wild dream to someday be a published author. I’m increasingly taking the steps and time to reach that goal. I’m done waiting; I’m done planning; I’m ready to charge forward and make this ambition reality, best as I can. 

That means that, anymore, tumblr is a hindrance to my life’s greatest dreams, and I can’t do both full-tumblr-activities and reach my heart’s deepest wishes.

I’m honestly feeling a lot happier now that I’ve drastically reduced my time on tumblr. I’m so sorry that it’s resulted in me not answering many asks (that really would be fun to talk about), and I hope no one feels like I’ve forgotten or snubbed them. I’d do it if I had time. But I don’t have time. The truth is that I feel my life shifting to new directions, and I want to take that. Otherwise, I’ll live in a stagnant world in which I go nowhere… and I can’t have that. I can’t. I want to fly.

So I’m going to be continuing to march through with these other life projects. With the creative writing especially. I hope I can post some of this writing to you guys on tumblr, too! It means I’ll be spending less and less time on tumblr, doing analyses not-anywhere-as-often-as-I-used-to (I don’t know if I’ll ever answer everyone’s asks again, sorry!). Leave tumblr? No. I’ll still be here. But… my shift in time… it’s all in the dream to make meaning out of my life.

Thank you so much for asking again! I hope you’re having a great day, have some fun activities of your own, and are staying awesome!

[lethesomething]

A note on fictional jobs

There's a joke that all fanfic characters are either baristas, teachers, lawyers or some denizen of the tattoo/florist au set. This isn't really fully true (there's also witches and vampire hunters!) but for anyone going for a realistic setting, let me at least, as someone who has worked a number of jobs in media, software development and catering, give some pointers on how that stuff works, because dear lord does Hollywood get it wrong.

This post is 2k words, so under the cut it goes.

Journalism/Photography/Media

General tips

This sector seems to be pretty popular in old school comics, and for good reason. Clark Kent gets to go out into the city and be near events. It's a job women are historically allowed to do (and be sassy in) and even Peter Parker gets to just traipse around the city getting into adventures.

It must also be noted that all these characters were developed in the first half of the 20th century, and media has changed a lot since then.

If your character is a journalist, they will work long hours and not be paid *that* much. Carrie Bradshaw is the most unrealistic journalist character in the history of everything. Especially after, oh, 2010 or so, when the traditional press sales really started declining. No journalist is that well paid for that little. And none will have that much free time.

Journalists generally have a beat, and what they do and know heavily depends on that. Your character can get into the gritty streets of downtown chasing drug dealers, or they can go to theatre premieres. They won't do both. The Vast Majority of modern media have beats. A person can be a sports caster and then he will go to sports events to report them. They can be a jetset reporter or restaurant reviewer and go to swanky places. They can be a cultural reporter and be invited to premieres and shows. They can be a dedicated business journalist, reporting on IT, or cardboard logistics, or whatever, and go to conferences around the world. But they will rarely be all these things at once.

How wide this beat is, depends heavily on the 'range' of the medium. Big news rooms, like NYTimes, have a lot of journalists, and some very, Very specialised ones. This is deep dive, spend weeks trailing every leak out of the White House stuff. In contrast, a small regional tv station can have their reporter (with or without a camera man and sound tech) drive around the countryside reporting on pumpkin carving festivals one day, and grisly murder the next.

A lot also depends on the medium. If the character works for a newspaper, they will have a noon to eight shift as a writer, and a two to ten shift, most likely, as an editor, because papers need to get printed overnight. If it's a weekly or a monthly print mag, there will be a few days with relative freedom to do interviews and such, and then a few days of crunch time. If they work for a news website they will have a desk job and most likely work in shifts. TV and radio news people are the ones doing most of the running around to get quotes, but they are also on the tightest of schedules.

Speaking of schedules. Unless the character is a blogger, they won't finish an article and immediately rush it to the printer/publish it. Reputable news sources have, at the very least, a copy editor to check for mistakes and typos. Bigger newspapers and magazines and sites have a dedicated fact checker.

Very VERY few papers in the world have full time photographers on the payroll. If your character is a photographer, they will most likely be a freelancer and do corporate events or weddings on the side (sorry Peter Parker). What happens is, a medium will decide in advance which article or interview will require a picture, and book a photographer for that piece.

Any other pictures tend to come from news agencies. Think Reuters or Associated Press. These sort of agencies do use full time photographers, as well as freelancers who happen to visit an event. They'll take like two hundred picture and sell them to the agency, who distributes them to media all over the world.

Few media have the money for correspondents, so they'll pick only a handful. This means a foreign correspondent has a large area to cover. European news media tend to have one correspondent in the US, covering the Entire US, for instance. American media tend to have more moneys, but if your character is a respondent in, say India, expect them to trek along India a lot, because they're prob the only one in that vast country.

Having said that, coverage, especially war coverage, is super expensive. If they're sending a journo to a war zone, it will absolutely not be a rookie. They will have proven themselves capable, preferably speak the language and they'll be Very Prepared. Think local guides, vast networks of informants etc. A startling amount of war reporters and investigative journalists are also freelance. If they are trekking through a jungle and come across anything exciting, you bet they'll try to sell that story in several angles/versions to different media.

Have you considered:

Bread and Butter Freelancers: It's a gig economy my friends. Freelance writey people don't have a boss and usually work from home or from some coffee shop. If they are to be successful (enough to make a living), they'll still have a beat, and will actually have to be fairly good at this subject. Since these characters make their own shifts, they do have the ability to go out in the middle of the day to do superheroing or witchery or to investigate the disappearance of their best friend. Upsides: Freedom. Downsides: Usually very little money. Unstable hours, like one day nothing and then a week of 14 hour days. The crushing stress of looming deadlines ànd job insecurity.

Copywriters: The people that write the text on corporate websites, that fill mail order catalogues with entries for every picture, compose newsletters for various organisations, turn technical instructions into actually mildly readable user manuals. Upside: money. If they're good at it, they will have a fairly stable income. They have the same freedom as freelancers to go flirt with flower shop assistants. Downside: the crushing knowledge that with every piece you write, your soul sinks deeper into the void. Anyone who's ever read clientsfromhell will know what to expect of their clientele.

Lay-outers: The creative side of making media. The bros making the graphs, putting the text to paper,  photoshoping the head of Putin onto the body of a baby, whatever. Upside: artist character. This is a slightly more realistic character than the 'painter'. They're creative, but they have yet to sell their soul to the corporate machine (depending on the medium you put them in, of course). Downside: this is basically a desk job with stable hours.

Cameraman, sound technician: the people that hang out with the news reporter and trot all over the region with him/her. Upside: see the world! Without being instantly recognizable. Downside: they're probably stuck in their mission and they rarely have the power to go 'hey, let's investigate over there'.

 Software development

General tips

There's actually a few different environments for software engineers to work.

Start-ups: the hip one. Think Silicon Valley, the upstarts in sneakers and Star Wars t-shirts living on pizza and red bull and basically coding 20 hours a day. Depending on where they are in the growth of their start-up, these people will be nearly alone, or have a team of coworkers. Traditionally, start-ups start with like a founder (or four) and an idea, and some coding. As the company grows they'll hire a sales person to sell this stuff, a marketing manager to brand it, a support person to troubleshoot it, an HR person, etc.

A very Very VERY large part of start-up business is pitching, aka selling your premise to a bunch of venture capitalists and investors. It's Dragon's Den. Literally. Your super shy, autism spectrum character who hates public speaking and who can't even look at another person without blushing would make a super crappy start-up founder by themselves. They will definitely need their bubbly, motivational speaker best friend. On the other hand: this is an amazing environment for that suave, smooth talking character who could sell sand in the desert.

Second environment: corporate. The vast majority of software engineers out there just work for some big company. These are the people building and deploying management system software for banks, installing security in factories, that sort of thing. A lot of the time they're consultants. They wear a suit. They use something called the Waterfall method, which sucks out your soul, or the Agile method, which also sucks out your soul. There's a lot of managing and meeting and progress reports. If they're good enough, they're allowed to leave the tie at home.

Software needs to be tested. You don't just write the code last minute and put it live.

The coders are absolutely not the only people in a software development team. There's the project managers, the designers, the copywriters, the testers, the lawyers, oh god, the lawyers, etc.

Software Needs to be tested. It takes ages. I cannot stress this enough. It usually happens in India or some other Asian country where the wages are lower.

Will a lot of environments, even corporate, allow their creatives to come to work in like… jeans and a t-shirt, the only people realistically allowed to actually act like teenagers, in any environment (corporate, start-up, small business), are the ones with skills that are very hard to find. In essence: security experts and specifically white hat hackers. Yes, you're allowed to have a hacker character that acts dumb and comes to work in his pyjamas and it will be realistic that he does not get fired. Your clerk character that's super rude and deals in hurtful quips? Not so much.

SOFTWARE NEEDS TO BE TESTED

 Have you considered:

Researchers: you know those people that made a song that can give Alexa commands without the owner knowing? Those are university researchers. A lot of really cool stuff is being developed not by office workers, but at universities. This includes software. Upside: probably a looser environment, with a lot of young people. Downside: you're basically writing a college AU.

Venture capitalists: in a Silicon Valley environment, this is basically the 'wealthy businessman' stereotype of old. The dragons in the dragon's den, the people that traipse around the city talking to people and assessing the potential of their pitch, before throwing money at them (or not). There's a bunch of paperwork, but they probably have a small army of accountants to handle this.

Evangelists: the cool people that hold TED talks. They usually work for a big tech company, as a specialist, and part of their job is to be a spokesperson.  A good example of this is the tech researcher, who has a day job finding nasty hackers or viruses, and who also blogs about that and holds talks and presentations about securing your business. A character like this has the advantage of being a deep tech nerd hacker type. They're rarely the CEO, so they can go deep into the coding, while also travelling places and meeting crowds of press or business people.

Project managers: these don't tend to do the actual coding, but they do, well, the managing. Characters like this will be more social and creative, they're the ones making the reports and presenting their progress to the CEO, and they're the ones troubleshooting when stuff goes wrong. In general, there's a lot of planning involved.

 Bakeries/Catering

General tips

Mass production of food is gruelling. You think you're writing about your sexy pastry chef and how they're carefully, tip of their tongue peeking through their lips, putting a cherry on top of that little moeilleux, but in reality, there's two hundred more to finish on this rack alone and they need to be done in under an hour.

Say it with me, people: baking is a night job. Industrial baking, mom-and-pop rural French bakery, bagel shop, donuts. Someone is going to be making all that stuff before the first customer arrives and that someone is slaving in front of a hot oven at four in the morning.

Any type of catering is a time management business. You know this. You've all watched Great British Bake-off (or, like, Chopped or whatever). If your professional cake maker is only working on one project/wedding at a time, they're not going to be in business for long. Your line chef will be plating up several dishes per minute. Your short order cook is baking six pancakes and scrambling eggs at the exact same time.

Unless it's a very large kitchen, the people that cook are the same ones that clean. And since it's food prep, there is a lot of cleaning.

Have you considered:

Recipe writer: ok so we're kinda back to media but big tv chefs don't make all those recipes themselves. Someone, usually a freelancer, writes them and tests them. Imagine someone getting the request to develop a seasonal cronut recipe that involves peaches and charcoal, because it's hip, and then baking several batches until they find something edible. This is a somewhat realistic environment for your super creative baker to live in a small house and make some money while also working on a book on the side, and falling in love with the quirky … goat… herd… brewer, florist, whatever.

[yeonjuins]

hey I’ve been feeling kind of uninspired lately and idrk to fix it.. like I have ideas and WANT to do them but when I open ps I cant do it. I even have ideas written down but nothing comes out when I try to follow through and I give up very quickly 😕

do u have this same problem or could this just be a personal thing ? I did just recently finish a big project that I’m really proud of 🫶🏾 so I could probably just be burned out? But that was weeks ago lmao

june anon - also I saw u answer my rec list so I’ll read that rn

(lengthy response! 1/2)

honestly i 100% get what you mean PAHAHA i feel like i'm constantly surrounded by inspiration and new ideas and it gets me pumped and motivated to begin creating but the moment i sit down and actually try to start, i have no idea what i'm doing whatsoever... then it spirals down a whole rabbit hole of 'my taste in xyz is significantly larger than my actual skill level'

likewise, i went into my summer so mentally prepped and ready to begin designing for yeonjuins a lot more and making silly little kpop edits or even venture off into bigger projects to challenge myself but alas, i felt so burnt out without even beginning. prior, i had finished a major design project in one of my classes (to which i ended up getting a 98% in so it was worth <3) which pretty much pushed my creative abilities all around. i sort of had the mindset that i'd go into summer being able to expand off of it but i didn't even begin to create things until what.... two months into my summer? and school being right around the corner now too? PAHAHHA

a lot of creatives will say this as well but you have to make a lot of shitty things in order to make good things. even if you are feeling uninspired and don't know what to make but you know you want to make things, make it. it'll probably end up shitty, you'll probably hate it and think you wasted your time, but literally, in order to make good shit, you need to make actual shit first LOL

there's a lot of, what i recently learnt was called, 'invisible work' that goes into making things. even with my he he ha ha graphics with yeonjuins that are just based around my silly little kpop boys, i do research, make sure all my references are correct, making sure i pull from the right sources, etc etc. it seems overwhelming at first, but if you just get down to the mindset that you need to just make something, whether it be good or absolutely awful, it's a lot less daunting.

one of my favourite favourite quotes is from this book called 'tiny beautiful things' by cheryl strayed. i cried my heart out to this book, and specifically, this part made me get down on my floor and sob.

“do you know what it is to be humble? [...] i’d finally been able to begin [to write again] because i’d let go of all the grandiose ideas i’d once had about myself and my writing-

so talented! so young!

i’d stopped being grandiose.

i’d lowered myself to the notion that the absolute only thing that mattered was getting that extra beating heart out of my chest. which meant I had to write my book.

my very possibly mediocre book. my very possibly never-going-to-be-published book. my absolutely nowhere-in-league-with-the-writers-i’d-admired-so-much-that-i-practically-memorized-their-sentences book. it was only then, when i humbly surrendered, that i was able to do the work i need to do.”  (page 57)

tldr: just make shit. there are so many scrapped versions of my gfxs people don't see and so many scrapped ideas that don't even see the light of day on this site. but i think that's also the beauty of being a creator ! you build resilience. you make shitty things to only then make good things. just be patient with yourself my love, ideas will flow when it all fits together but you need to allow for your ideas to flow first (":

[origami-goblin]

Starfinder Theme Focus - Spacefarers and Xenoseekers

--

First of all, let me apologize. It's been MONTHS since I teased the final article on Starfinder themes and leaving this series in a perilously unfinished limbo. I wish that I had a decent excuse to explain it, but unfortunately I don't have that either. So please, accept my apology, and let's get to the conclusion of this series!

We've covered a lot of bases - Ace Pilots, Bounty Hunters, Icons, Mercenaries, Outlaws, Priests, and Scholars, which means that today we will be talking about Spacefarers, Xenoseekers, and briefly touching on the Themeless concept. That's still a ton of ground to cover, and I'm a bit intimidated even thinking about it. Concluding this intense detail into Starfinder's themes will be bittersweet - not only because it'll be over, but also because there's no way to fully encapsulate the entire, endless spectrum of characters you can create within Paizo's Starfinder universe. That's what's really great about the Themeless option; if none of the other themes do your character justice in describing their schtick, then you can always go Themeless and solve that particular problem.

Whenever I create a character, I will usually start by trying to find an interesting or obscure feat, characteristic, theme, etc and build the character around that. Some people are really creative and come up with amazing backstories first and build the character to fit their artistic vision. Although that'll happen on occasion, I'll generally determine a character's backstory after I've fleshed out their vitals and statblock. The important thing for me is that my characters stand out. Not from a min-max perspective (if that's what you enjoy then keep doing it!), but from a standpoint of going outside the norm and playing a character with abilities that people may have never experienced before.

Stone Warder Sorcerer? Breadth of Experience feat? Archivist Bard? All of these types of choices go leaps and bounds to hint and what the character is all about. A Stone Warder Sorcerer would be something like an Earth Bender from Avatar, gaining their powers from the rocky world around them. Characters with a Breadth of Experience are ancient, meaning that they've seen and heard nearly all there is to know. Bards with the Archivist archetype aren't going to be dishing out much damage, but they are constantly scribbling down their experiences and every bit of lore they can get their hands on. And just like that, a single piece of your character's statblock can literally define them.

That's partly been the point of these posts about the Themes in Starfinder. Sure, you can come up with an absolutely AWESOME character concept and attach a theme that fits that character. No problem. But if you're having trouble coming up with a character, the options listed in these posts are meant to assist you in launching off into the incredible Imagisphere to create a truly unique character.

Alright, I've babbled so much that I've turned into a brook. (Sorry if I've used that particular moniker already...it's been a long time since my last Starfinder post). Time to finish off the series!

Spacefarer Character Concepts

"Your longing to journey among the stars can't be sated. You yearn for the adventure of stepping onto a distant world and exploring its secrets. You tend to greet every new opportunity with bravery and fortitude, confident that your multitude of skills will pull you through. Perhaps you simply find joy in the act of traveling with your companions, or perhaps you are just out to line your pockets with all sorts of alien loot!"

Clueless Tourist - Let's face it. You saw a map of the Pact Worlds and immediately searched the best places to visit on each planet. Theme parks, monuments, parks - you want to visit them all and document your travels on a blog that you're still coming up with a creative name for. Experiences are the best currency to be paid in, and your goal is to become filthy rich on them. Now, you might not understand all of the different cultures or customs in the places that you're visiting, but in your eyes everybody else should be happy that you're bolstering the economy in all of your destinations. Excuse me - could you please take my photo?

Deductive Meteorologist - Perhaps in the same vein as the Environmental Engineer concept from the Scholar post, this character would be all about the weather and is drawn to the varied climates and conditions present in the Pact World planets. Have you ever seen the sunrise through noxious fuchsia clouds or felt thick, oily rain land on your head? All of these phenomenon can be explained through science. Maybe you'll publish a scholarly journal on your findings, or maybe your more of a storm-chaser bent on surviving the most wild and dangerous conditions. No matter how you spin it, you're fascinated by the weather, whether your companions like it or not.  

Hospitable Flight Attendant - Time to make everybody else's travel experiences as enjoyable as possible. You're an expert at socializing and keeping everybody's minds off the baggage fees and severe lack of legroom. In your eyes, there's no part of a space commute that can't be made better by a tall glass of sherry or a delicious sack of Zeni's Zesty Znacks. While traveling, you are sure to keep all the amenities nearby to heighten the enjoyment of those around you. You might have gotten into the gig because you wanted to see the universe, and maybe that itch is just beginning to surface once more.

Curious Explorer - Hardly anything fancy about this one. You love exploring. The mystery, intrigue, and discovery thrill you to pieces. Every time you come across a corner, you just HAVE to see what's on the other side of it. This is known to get you into heaps of trouble and situations where you end up on the wrong end of a 'No Trespassing' sign. But, through your foolhardy actions, you've been able to experience things that very few other people have, and your stories are the things of legend. There are countless star sectors to visit and only so much time...what are you waiting for?!

Budding Photographer - Your goal? The perfect shot. You might be a movie producer scouting locations for your next sector-buster. Or maybe you're an artistic photographer determined to capture the essence of the human (and alien) experience. You never miss a moment and you are incredibly easy to track based on the trail of snapshots that you leave behind. Whether your honing your craft or a complete amateur when it comes to lighting, focus, and apertures, space grants you the freedom to create magnificent works of art. Every horizon has another potential shot, and you'll hitchhike your way around the galaxy if you have to if it means catching your elusive unicorn.

Xenoseeker Character Concepts

"The thought of meeting alien life-forms excites you. The more different their appearances and customs are from yours, the better! You either believe they have much to teach you or you want to prove you are better than them. Of course, the only way to accomplish your goal is to leave the Pact Worlds and travel to the Vast, where a virtually endless number of aliens await."

Captivated Anthropologist - This concept makes perfect sense. As an anthropologist, you live and love to study the differences between humanoid species. You can even take it a step further to be fascinated with specific aspects of each of the races. What are the secrets behind the Lashunta's psychic abilities? How tough are the scales of the Vesk? So many questions and not enough time to find all the answers. You might become acutely interested in your crewmates, asking them all sorts of intrusive questions in order to develop an understanding for their specific gifts and talents. Beings with surgical enhancements might be particularly interesting to you as humanoids continue their never-ending quest for power.

Inquisitive Marketing Guru - If you want to sell something, you HAVE to know your market. Double blind surveys, focus groups, experimental expos...you will stop at nothing to understand the people buying the products you're pitching. Whether you're a part of an elaborate Ponzi scheme or a well-known enterprise, you are hungry to understand the psychology of buying patterns and habitual spending. If you can unlock those secrets, you will be the most valuable asset to whichever company decides to employ you. And, by developing an understanding for the beings around you, you'll undoubtedly be an asset in any situation involving sweet-talking with honeyed words. Heck - maybe if you can find some delicious edible aliens, you will be the next great snack mogul in the Pact Worlds! Second only to Zeni himzelf.

Experimental Doctor - You embrace the uniqueness of yourself and encourage others to do the same. Stand out from the crowd, you say. Set yourself apart! Implant yourself with one of the many augmentations that you can provide! Your interest in the countless creeping aliens and obscure creatures skittering around the Vast stimulate your imagination and provide you with the necessary...tools to allow you to develop exciting new attachments for your adoring fans. Or maybe you're more secretive and don't think your work should see the light of day. Will you be a mad scientist or a renowned surgeon? The choice is yours!

Calming Zoologist - People will pay loads of money to see an exhibit they've never experienced before. There are countless numbers of mindless creatures out in the far reaches of space that would be welcomed additions to a zoological attraction. Your history in taming wild beasts and soothing the animalistic nature in the creatures you've encountered makes you the perfect person for the job. There is a fantastic space zoo that'll pay top dollar for new specimens, and you're itching to get paid. This isn't to say that you are inconsiderate of the creatures' feelings, however. The zoo that you're working for is more akin to a resort, and they take great care of the residents that live there.

Talkative Space Taxi Driver - While taking fares, you've come across just about every type of intelligent being known in the sector. Long nights that turned into early mornings were a staple of yours, and you've delivered passengers to slums, clubs, and luxury estates, learning about them all the while. You love a good conversation; it helps pass the time and gives you an amazing repertoire of stories to share with your crewmates. Everybody comes from a different background, and you have learned to appreciate the intricacies and uniqueness that everybody brings to the figurative table. You might have a bit of a lead foot as well...but who doesn't?

Themeless Characters

If you don't fit the bill with any of the other themes, then you are probably Themeless. By choosing to forgo a theme designation, your statistical bonuses will suffer compared to a character who has a theme, so if you're more concerned with numbers and maximizing your character, then this might not be for you. Choosing this option, however, will allow you to portray your character as a vast canvas, awaiting your masterful strokes.

Hopefully I've portrayed the wide variety of concepts that the Starfinder themes can cover. With a dash of creativity, you can morph at least one of the themes to fit the base core of your character. Try to think about each of the themes in new ways; don't get caught up in the specific 'title' of the theme. Read the blurbs about each one and search for synonyms that line up with the character that you're envisioning in your mind.

---

At the end of the day, play a character that you WANT to play. You should be excited every time that you portray your character, and play the game in whatever way is going to be the most fun for you.

I hope you've enjoyed this series on the Themes of Starfinder! See you in the stars!

[rassilon-imprimatur]

A Rag and a Bone

As some of you saw, I found one of my “lost” Doctor Who holy grails, Daniel O’Mahony’s A Rag and a Bone! I’d been hunting high and low for this piece of fiction because the idea of O’Mahony writing a Sabbath-centric story was too good. There was literally no information whatsoever online as to what the story was actually about, but I love O’Mahony’s writing and the idea of him tackling Sabbath seemed like a match made in hell.

Finally getting a hold of this story, I must say that calling it “a Sabbath story by Daniel O’Mahony” is incredibly disingenuous, and while I dissect this story and share it all with you, I have to be completely honest and say that I have never been more confused at such a short piece of fiction in my life. Delighted, mind, but very confused. 

This story was published in 2003′s Myth Makers Essentials, the famous fanzine’s special 40th anniversary celebration. Myth Makers has been rather a white whale of mine, most long out of print issues holding onto other holy grails, most notably Parkin’s Saldaamir and The School of Doom. 

This story is more than a Sabbath tale, being a celebration of Doctor Who’s history, the history of the humans who keep Doctor Who going, as well as a celebration of the 2003 BBC prose continuity that, for all intents and purposes, was the Doctor Who at the time alongside Big Finish’s 1999-2003 years.

It’s also written by one of the closest things Doctor Who has ever had to Clive Barker, meaning that it’s a very disturbing celebration. 

O’Mahony introduces his story with a discussion of what he considers one of Doctor Who’s essential elements: 

In O’Mahony’s view of the series, Doctor Who is about humanity. Human history, ingenuity, sacrifice. Without humanity, Doctor Who is nothing. It’s a much more grounded view on the series, and while I’m not sure I quite agree with it, it makes literally every Doctor Who story O’Mahony has written make a lot more sense. 

I go into the story’s eccentricities and references (SO MANY REFERENCES GUYS, I’M SO HAPPY) under the cut. Reminder that a) O’Mahony, while a beautiful writer, is a very brutal one; his whole brand is painting objective horror and worldly ugliness in the richest, wine-like prose ever, and it’s definitely not for everyone, and b) this story, like Bidmead’s wonderful With All Awry, is far less literal than it is figurative. The continuity of the time is a factor in the story, but it’s rather useless to try and squeeze it in anywhere, that’s not it’s point. 

A Rag and a Bone is an author’s thesis on the spirit of Doctor Who, as well as a simultaneous criticism and celebration of its state in 2003, all the while managing to use Sabbath in the manner he was intended, rarely seen outside of Lawrence Miles’ writing. 

I’m not doing every passage of the thing, just the meatier ones. Enjoy and watch me stretch my English degree! 

(Note, the story starts in first-person from Fitz’s POV, shifts to weird surreal mix of Fitz and O’Mahony himself, back to Fitz, and then ends with third person omniscient.)

The story opens up simply enough (which, given what appears to be going on, it’s really funny to say “simply”): 

Already, this story seems to be following the beats of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, the idea that in the universe without Time Lords, the universe is free game and humanity (led by Sabbath) needs to step up. But, it’s also a meta commentary. The passage is vague as to what’s really going on, but I think the war/looming disaster is something very specific, that I’ll touch on later. 

1) The date. Lmao. What could that possibly be a reference to?

2) Sabbath frequently had agents and allies throughout his novels, and one of these two, the Angel Maker, is actually from Lloyd Rose’s Camera Obscura. I don’t know if that gives an idea of the placement, or just further shows O’Mahony’s “I’m playing with current continuity” schtick. 

3) “Miss Kapoor went through the inevitable ritual struggle with her ideological opposite [...] We watched the catfight from the bar balcony - Bollywood Queen of Sin versus the [Angel Maker]...” Perhaps a smirking jab at the rules or sterotypes of storytelling? Set certain characters against the idealogical opposites. Anji often went toe-to-toe with the ideologies and beliefs of people in her novels, far more than Fitz or the Doctor did, so I think that’s what this is a nod to, wrapped in the story’s theme of ritual and symbolism and framed as “the Doctor’s female companion must face Sabbath’s female companion in a duel!!!!!!!” 

4) “... a dog-faced parahuman whose name I missed. He was the softest spoken of us all, fresh from the plane of the First Time War, resplendent in Gallifreyan scarlet.” This is Wardog (or a contemporary of Wardog), originally from Alan Moore’s DWM Black Sun Trilogy, portraying the First Time War. He had been recontexualized into Cold Fusion/The Infinity Doctors’ canon in Lance Parkin’s Executive Action, published in 2001′s Walking in Eternity, making him an (admittedly tangential) interesting cog in the EDA’s history and continuity. 

1) First time reading this passage, I couldn’t decide if this was purely Fitz or O’Mahony inserting himself into the narrative... and then I realized it’s both. There are two major critical takes on the companions, and this is the first: the role of the companions in the series is to give the audience someone to relate to and, in some cases, live vicariously through. Enjoying the adventure, experiencing the sights, etc. This section is both Fitz Kreiner and Daniel O’Mahony, trying to make sense of what’s going, while the story is already giving us the implications that, despite trying to create a narrative of the Doctor’s condition, he is actually not real. 

2) Marvel at Fitz dragging himself in every possible way. Maybe a reference to how the novels (since the VNAs) really hadn’t had any qualms with pushing the flaws and imperfections of their characters? O’Mahony in particular is a writer who would go into great detail about how flawed people were. 

3) “... Miss Kapoor - whose sins are much more scarlet than mine - wouldn’t stoop to.” I choose to believe this is a slight reference to how Anji was treating by some writers at the time. The EDA authors wither loved Anji, or hated and demonized her. I could be reaching with that one, but it doesn’t quite make much more sense otherwise. Maybe a reference to her earlier distrust and betrayals of the Doctor (such as in Mark Clapham’s Hope?)

1) This is why I think O’Mahony was attacking the negative handlings of Anji, because the description of her character in the first few sentences is so... good. Beautiful, caring. 

2) “The entropy rolling from the Deep...” I’m convinced that, in the end, the threat coming to destroy the universe, the stagnancy, the entropy, the “war,” is Doctor Who’s continued cancelation. Its the 40th anniversary, fourteen years since the show was cancelled, the series kept alive by a small and committed group of book readers and BF listeners (during BF’s early years). I’m adamant that the Wilderness Years produced some of the most creative and original Doctor Who ever, but it is very easy to see why people considered continuing the story a losing battle. More and more, the series slipped out of public consiousness and become more and more of an exclusive cult

3) The second critical take on companions in Doctor Who is a negative one (but one that needs to be said in some cases): in the end, they’re all interchangeable. None of their backstories or quirks matter in the end because they’re interchangeable stereotypes that need to stand their and ask the Doctor questions. What’s gorgeous about this sequence is how it tackles that idea in such a meta and independent way. Anji, realizing that she is, in fact, the latest face in a countless list, takes power from that. She reaches back to her predecessors and uses their abilities, their attributes, for her own agenda, all the while dressing as Anji Kapoor, praying to Ganesh as Anji Kapoor, being the unique and seperate entity that is Anji Kapoor. 

4) “Babewyns.” The Ma’lakh grotesques, the villains of The Adventuress of Henrietta Street and one of the major elements in Faction Paradox. 

This section operates on two levels, both fictionally and metafictionally. The idea that the Doctor is now a vacuum and Sabbath must either fix or flat-out replace him is the central conflict of their relationship and adversity throughout their novels. There’s also a pun on the EDAs’ “Earth arc” which was the start of the status quo that brought in Sabbath. But, you’ll notice, the “Earth arc” here is not The Burning... it’s An Unearthly Child. Sabbath’s (very morbid) take of what happened to the Doctor isn’t the plot of the EDAs, it’s the beginnings of Doctor Who. The Doctor became part of human consciousness in 1963!

So why is the Doctor now a puppet? A doll, an inhuman echo? Because the show is cancelled, and despite the series living on through, there’s this overwhelming feeling that maybe, just maybe, the final end is fast approaching. 

(Actually reading this theme in a story published two years before the show returned is rather nice, isn’t it?)

Sabbath’s take on this is, of course, negative and condescending, while Fitz focuses on the positivity of the Doctor. How he brings goodness and love into our lives, and that by “forgetting him,” (the show being cancelled) we’ve let horrible things into the world. That what Fitz is traveling with is the idea of the Doctor, the “totem” of what’s left, pushing through because Fitz/O’Mahony/the authors/the fans are still holding onto him. 

This section also shows how Sabbath really, in the end, cannot replace the Doctor. His best appearances outside Adventuress (Parkin’s Trading Futures and Rose’s Camera Obscura) stressed his limitedness, his flaws, his (debatable) inability to rise to the occasion. He talks to Fitz about power vacuums and the state of the universe, and then Fitz immediately confronts him with his antiquated 19th century beliefs and ideals. Lawrence Miles always claimed Sabbath was never meant to actually replace the Doctor, but several authors, including Lance Parkin, have since expressed that this was not common knowledge and that many authors fully believed Miles was trying to push Sabbath on them as “the new Doctor.” That’s what I think this is a response to (and mind, O’Mahony and Miles were colleagues and friends).

Here we see, we don’t need or want Sabbath. We just want our Doctor back. 

“Sometimes he believed that TV would save the world.” What a sad line, knowing the meaning of this story, huh? 

In the end of the story, Fitz and Anji rebuild their “Doctor-totem” from the junk of IM Foreman’s yard, literally using the ruins of the character’s humble 1963 beginnings to build the foundations. But remember, their Doctor is the Doctor of the novels. There’s more work to do to recreate their perception of him.

1) “Dawn Brigades of parahumans and the killer-cats of Gallifrey as they fought over the nature of the newborn universe.” Wardog’s Special Executive (representing the might and will of Rassilon) and the villains planned for the original story replaced by 1977′s The Invasion of Time (who I think here represent the Pythia), clashing during the universe’s minting (later known in Faction Paradox as the anchoring of the thread). This take on Gallifrey’s history (VNAs, EDAs, FP) is THE Gallifrey at the time of 2003. 

2) “Their tales would be told by the Needlefolk at the End of Time...” The Needle, seen in The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, Father Time, Miranda, and alluded to or contextual related to in Hope and The Gallifrey Chronicles. An important aspect of the lore at the time!

3) This ending is so beautiful, if sad. Here is where Fitz and Anji fully represent the Doctor Who fans and creators at the time. Using their stories, their (new) adventures to further coax their Doctor back to life. He’s built from the junk and refuse of the dead Classic series, he’s lavished with the stories and lore of the Wilderness Years. He is part of humanity, he’s in us, as long as he as friends (the fans) trying to keep him alive.  

[aalapdavjekar]

On Identity

First published in October, 2020.

At the age of fourteen, I found myself in my first online chatroom. "Asl," they asked — early Internet slang for age, sex, location. It was never self identifying information. No one was interested in names. No one cared about what you looked like. You were free to be anonymous as long as you provided a small token of details from which the rest could be inferred. Your interests were apparent from the room you were in and your avatar dropped other crumbs of personality. The concept of anonymity was still years from making sense to me yet the obliviousness to physical identity was real. The idea of a fourteen year-old from India soon became dull. So, I decided to get creative.

Some days I would be a 75 year-old living in rural Mongolia who had just purchased his first computer after selling 25 of his favourite sheep. On another, a divorced mother of three, fresh out of prison, looking for advice on everything from makeup to homeschooling. Each day was a blank slate, a new role to fill, a fresh start. Identity on the web is as literal as fiction. It could be as entertaining as you wanted it to be.

Regardless of how you chose to portray yourself, your personality was a central component to how each story was laid down. Regardless of how out there you wanted to go, to an extent, most would assume you were giving out correct information. In theory, you could be the Pope pretending to be the Queen. Not many would care but most would find it funny.

No one can judge the unknown. On forums such as Reddit, getting a new identity is as easy as coming up with a new username. There’s no one to question your motives, judge you by the colour of your skin, or ban you for being too young.

You have no age on the Internet, no gender and you have no country. Your username might change, your writing will mature over time, new subreddits will be found, some will disappear.

Yet, like real life, people can and do judge you based on certain criteria. Online, credibility is based on reputation — call it Internet points, karma, the number of followers, likes, etc. To some online services, these signify your commitment to your role. Like seniority in a real life occupation, Internet points signify how long a profile has been around. The Reddit karma system which was primarily developed as a reward mechanism also serves as an easy way to distinguish between credible profiles and inflammatory and digressive posters — trolls. If you post worthwhile content, you get upvotes — points! On the other hand, if people don’t like what they see, you get negative points. Unlike the virtual world, physical age plays a very important role in real life in determining your credibility. It gives people an easy excuse to ignore your opinions depending on how old you are while giving way to cultural cliches such as respect your elders or tradition is sacred. One of the harshest — kids are stupid might almost seem like a mathematical axiom but ignores certain aspects of the child that are seldom found in adults such as the ability to quickly master languages or adopt new skills.

ASL in the offline world is very much like the Internet. The major difference is that it’s much easier to catch someone lying. As an Indian teenager, I could never pretend to be a 75-year old Mongolian even with the best makeup advice. Yet, there were other ways to pretend. At the time, I thought of myself as shy but I could still stir up some confidence when I had to talk to strangers. I only had to pretend to be charming, smart, and interesting. Society even had my back. “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up,” they told me at school. “Always dream big,” they proudly added. Years later, I realized all these statements only translated into, “get a bigger salary.” So, yeah, they were pretending too. Eventually I came to the conclusion that everyone was pretending. Everyone I interacted with had a story to tell. They all had a big bag of words that they used to confidently describe themselves. Most interesting of all, they all took the story they told themselves and others very, very seriously and would happily clock you in the mouth if you merely hinted at anything otherwise. Like calling someone out in the chatroom for their alleged fakery, painting someone as a liar in real life was akin to assault. But my conclusions weren’t based on some impulsive thought. They were carefully considered observations. The wall of pretense we erect is not even a conscious decision. Almost always, it is based on years of cultural indoctrination.

Who are we?

Culture is a weird one. The typical North American and South Asian of the 1950s could be considered living centuries apart from each other. The Indian, most likely an illiterate farmer barely making ends meet, could not dream of life in the American Golden Age — minimum wage that could pay for two cars and a mortgage. He could not conceptualise the existence of luxuries such as refrigerators, ovens, swimming pools and shopping malls, hospitals and discotheques, or the ability to travel the world on tips earned while bartending. The average Indian farmer desired healthier bulls, better harvests, regular rainfall, obedient wives for his sons. But then, as much as now, drastically different cultures still overlap in certain ways. The Indian farmer, much like his American counterpart, looked to his neighbour to understand himself. If the Jones next door bought a fancy new car, everyone living in the neighbourhood wanted something better. If the Kumars next door threw a huge wedding for their son, inviting everyone from the closest twenty villages, the Chopras dreamt only of throwing a larger party next year. The collective psyche of each culture is only a reflection of the desires of each individual. But cultures, homogeneous or otherwise, are an echo chamber. They consciously or subconsciously produce edicts, rules and regulations that individuals integrate and pass on. Whether it’s capitalism good, communism bad in the American psyche, or India good, Pakistan bad in the Indian, from economic policy-making and government initiatives to television programming and pop art, everything must adhere to cultural norms and traditions. Unless it fits the identity of the collective and follows a cultural narrative, it will be discarded.

Take the never ending list of Indian god-men and celebrities who are routinely treated as infallible figures worthy of worship. Devotees are often so unflinching in their faith that they are willing to overlook overwhelming evidence of rape, murder, exploitation and extortion. This is not unique to India. Charismatic personalities have sway over swaths of people all across the world. Whether it’s Trump, Duterte, Bolsonaro or Modi, the ability to pander to the masses and speak to the cultural norm is more important than competence at one’s job. Trump gave voice to a collective that was scared of immigrants taking over their jobs. Years later, his ineptitude would lead to one of the worst administrative failings in American history and the death of over 400,000 people in the course of the pandemic. The actions of the Indian government during the second wave need no mentioning.

In many countries, questioning one’s cultural norms is akin to treason. Similar to questioning a person’s opinions, questioning the integrity of a political ideology often leads to terrifying consequences. The BJP’s rise to power in India has been followed by the arrests of intellectuals, academics, students, poets, and doctors for voicing opinions against the party. This is quite the routine for authoritarian governments. In the 1950’s, Mao Zedong’s government in China persecuted and killed half a million of its educated populace before launching the Great Leap Forward, a project that aimed at transforming China from an agrarian economy into an industrial power. While it looked great on paper, it led to the greatest famine in history and resulted in the deaths of at least 20 million people. This failure politically weakened Mao. In response, he launched another program to weed out and eliminate dissidents, killing another million in the process while leading to the destruction of thousands of Chinese historical and cultural artifacts. What was the outcome of this violence? It only strengthened Mao’s hold over the masses. His personality was now a cult.

To call humans sheep would be unfair because sheep are never pushed off a cliff by their masters. Human societies, on the other hand, are rife with power struggles, deep hierarchies, discrimination, and violence. Yet, each of us identifies as a good person. We can rationalize why we are good, therefore we must be good. No country in the world would ever think about labeling itself as a force of terror, cruelty, and animosity, but we can easily call “the other” any number of names. We look to our family, friends, and society to support and reinforce these views — call them nationalism, patriotism, freedom, equality — regardless of how accurate or even relevant these views might actually be.

Oscar Wilde said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

Our identity does not quite work in favour of our individual or collective happiness. We associate a feeling of national pride towards statistics, numbers, and symbols. Rising GDP is popularly correlated with the “wealth” of a country, but many forget that this number just smashes together a country’s total economic output over a period of time without distinguishing between “good” and “bad” economic activity. Even the man who came up with the concept, Simon Kuznets, was of the opinion that the number had nothing to do with individual well-being.

We look to our history to understand where we came from without realizing we have many incomplete pieces to an enormous puzzle. Many contemporary Indians would associate themselves with the iconic Indus Valley civilization and think of the core of their cultural and religious identities as unchanged for thousands of years. However, the morals and the values carried by the average Indian today — monogamy, marriage, vegetarianism, holidays and celebrations, rites and rituals — all stem from thousands of years of mingling with the outside world. What we define as violent invaders and conquerors today have played an important role in shaping our culture into its current form. Not only did the Mughals contribute to our aesthetics and our lexicon but they also brought with them mathematics, science and philosophy. Global trade helped carry the Indo-Arabic number system (the numerals 0 to 9) to Africa, Europe, and eventually to the rest of the world. The British brought their own legal and judicial systems, passed down from the Romans, the railway infrastructure, and a bizarre penal code which sought to divide the subcontinent culturally, morally, and geographically according to their own prudish Victorian attitudes.

Hinduism, a major global religion today, has its roots in the Vedas, a collection of manuscripts believed to have been written by ancient sages at least a thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Vedas described the lives and spiritual pursuits of the priestly class, the Brahmins of ancient India. Before being written down, they were orally passed on from teacher to pupil. The Vedas described the lives of gods, rites and rituals, spells and incantations, all of which have their roots in even earlier animistic traditions, or the worship of animals, plants and nature — a theme common to the birth of nearly all religions. These texts were central to the agrarian communities that inhabited the Indus Valley. However, one might be hard pressed to call this Hinduism. These ancient traditions later branched out into numerous schools of thought such as Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta, each with their own unique set of philosophies.

Due to the geographical scale of the Indian subcontinent, the diversity in language, culture, and race, the ideological descendants of Vedic traditions were in the hundreds, if not thousands, and were regarded as a way of life by those who practiced them. The word ‘Hindu’ was simply used to describe people living near the Sindh, a river that flows through the northwestern part of the subcontinent. The word had nothing to do with the individual beliefs of these people. The modern form of Hinduism developed in the 18th century through reformist movements started by Ram Mohan Roy who wished to rid Hindu traditions of superstition and promote rational and ethical ideas about the religion. Thinkers such as Dayananda Sarasvati, Paramahamsa Ramakrishna, and Swami Vivekanada, would develop the idea of a unified Indian continent and seed missionary movements that brought Hinduism to the shores of Europe and later, the United States. Savarkar, who used the term hindutva to describe ‘the quality of being Hindu’, brought on a politically-charged connotation to Hinduism. This was further fueled by the Indian Independence movement that promoted the idea of ‘India as a Hindu nation’ before the eventual partitioning of the subcontinent along religious lines.

It is a topic of much debate whether an organized and unified Hindu nationalist identity that brought the sheer variety of the subcontinent under one banner to overthrow colonialism would have naturally evolved without the presence of the British Raj. More importantly, the idea of a ‘Hindu nation’ starkly contrasts the cultural openness of the early inhabitants of the subcontinent, and their acceptance of hundreds of cultures and different belief systems, which is ironic considering the foundation of Hindutva is based on the myth that India has always been a country for Hindus.

What are we?

Does my cat know he’s a cat? Do animals know of themselves? What about viruses and bacteria? You might say no to all of these questions and state that the ability to know oneself is unique to homo sapiens. The correct answer is debatable but not really the point I am trying to make. What if I asked you what you made you believe you were human, or conscious, or even real? There is good reason for you to believe in all of those things because you might think it’s ridiculous to believe we are just deterministic machines running on genetic code. Surely, we must have free will. Surely, we must be the most intelligent byproduct of evolutionary pressures. Surely, we must be the only creatures capable of stewarding the Earth. Surely, we must be correct about the things we know and accept as fact.

How comfortable would you be if none of these were true? I won’t attempt to answer these questions here because these are an entirely separate discussion but my point is that we believe we are a number of things only because we have identified with these beliefs for a good portion of our lives. Like the Ptolemaists who believed the Earth was the center of the Universe, or Creationists who believe ‘the Earth is 6000 years old and dinosaur bones exist only to test our faith in god’, there may still be numerous misconceptions of reality that we accept as common fact. Regardless of what these beliefs are, it’s critical to understand that our beliefs are our identity. Through many years of indoctrination, people on opposite sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone still identify as human beings, but their world views are starkly different. One might defend the ideals of capitalist society while the other might think his leader is god and gladly give his life to protect this belief.

There is no distinguishing between one’s beliefs and oneself. Our beliefs form our habits, which in turn form our personalities. We live our lives from the point of view of our beliefs; a home forged from our own subjective interpretations of the world. We hold ourselves accountable to our identity; define ourselves with tokens of adjectives, layers of tradition and symbolism, while in the meantime, we fight to preserve every shred of it, and live the rest of our lives in a struggle to cultivate it. We try to keep it sacred, unique, and immutable. Otherwise, we ask ourselves, what is the point? We work tirelessly to make sure we’re not just another cardboard cutout while raking in trophies, certificates, photographs, children, exclusive club memberships, Internet points — anything to expand our fairytale legacy; anything to suppress our natural mortality and increasing vulnerability. We judge ourselves not through the motivations, beliefs or struggles of others; we judge others based on ourselves. Identity is a relational web. It is a comparison sheet we use to analyse our place in the world. It helps us weave a meaningful story to answer difficult questions such as: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die?

No one is born religious. No one is born to identify with a particular piece of land. No one is born to identify with a particular political party. No one is born as a specific identity. We are all simply products of indoctrination. Every single day, from the moment we are born, our education begins — not towards an ideal of truth but towards survival. The agenda of the education system is only a reflection of the cultural landscape it inhabits. Perhaps only science can claim the ability to course-correct and steer its way towards better models of the universe. Humans, meanwhile, are not so flexible. Between years three and four, most children start forming opinions about the world and themselves. I am this. I like that. This young identity is shaped through an education system whose primary objective is passing exams, failing which the child is immediately labelled as stupid. The child is routinely compared with their classmates, labelled any number of things — shy, honest, hardworking, problematic, unmotivated. Their place in the world begins to solidify. The child, in most cases, assimilates these assessments as accurate characteristics about themselves, never questioning their validity.

Over the course of a lifetime, many layers of identity are crafted and worn, each accentuating every other. Our identity has an appetite. It must consume knowledge and meaning or risk starvation. Some may be consumed by this hunger, turning into narcissists and megalomaniacs. Others might see through the illusion. Yet, most people never manage to leave their opinions behind, not enough to provoke a different perspective because the need never makes itself apparent. Most people internalise their self-beliefs themselves to the point where they are defined by them. People tend to stick with people who think like they do. They fall into a loop of self-compliant views and confirmation biases. Eventually, this simplistic view of the world and the self becomes hardwired and impossible to outgrow. Anything that challenges these hardwired beliefs is first ignored as fake news, but eventually, it brings forth an increasingly agitated response. The stronger the hold of identity, the greater is its tendency to fight back against change. People might call themselves vegan, neo-marxist, jazz aficionados, liberal, Muslim, pan-romantics, Indian first, Maharashtrian second, [enter artist’s name]’s biggest fan. They might have good reason to suspect these words as truth. Regardless of their accuracy, these are just layers of identity, to be worn as per the demands of the situation, like seasonal clothing.

When people communicate, it is a specific identity that does the talking. When I am speaking to my boss, I wear the mask of a loyal employee; when I am speaking to my son, I wear the mask of a loving father; with a stranger, all the politeness I can muster; with a foe, skepticism, mistrust, anger. We carry countless and distinct identities, only to utilize a specific ASL — a condensed and limited disclosure of the ego based on the situation and circumstance. These are like webpages which hide the underlying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code while only showing you what you wanted to see — a funny cat video. The individual’s relational web grows with every new encounter, every new discovery about the world. It begs to answer only one question — Where is my place in the world? The relational web offers a map to reality; a model that seeks to understand and tailor itself based on experience. This is an intrinsic biological mechanism without which the ego cannot survive.

Our identity is life itself. It is the very antithesis to death. These are polar opposites: creation and destruction. Identity forges meaning while death snatches it away in an instant. While the pursuit of meaning is a lifelong endeavour, ageing is a paradox. Ageing in the modern world is the contradiction between wanting a longer life as well as infinite youth. A trillion-dollar anti-aging industry that only seeks to postpone the inevitable, is testament to this fact. In the meantime, all we are left with is the pursuit of polishing our individual story. Some might cherish the annual event that signifies the day they were born while others might hate it, resenting the lives and achievements of others associated with a smaller number while casting everyone else into a basket of irrelevance. Perhaps this is why the shadow of anonymity offered by the Internet is such a comforting place to live. But whether offline or online, my ASL is whatever I want it to be as long as it gives me the joy that I seek and the comfort I need to go on.

There is no point in living in a cage of dubious and limiting self-beliefs. I am not suggesting you could fly simply by identifying as a bird. I am merely suggesting identity is an emergent phenomenon. It is a continuous carving and remodeling of the ego. It evolves in response to experience of an immediate environment because it is essentially a tool evolved for survival. With that knowledge, at the very least, it might bring you a step closer to staying open to new ideas and possibilities. Just don’t take yourself too seriously.

[frankwallace]

On becoming a composer

 Customer Inquiry

A customer of Gyre Music recently ordered several of my more serious works for solo guitar. And so, being pleased I might have a new and serious fan, I wrote directly to him to thank him and ask what his plans were for the pieces. I was surprised, and also pleased, when he wrote back that he had not the ability to play them, but only wanted to study the scores as a budding composer. He continued that he admired my work and particularly loved my use of dissonance. Subsequently he asked if I would consider telling him more about my development as a composer. I answered with the following and thought it might be of interest to others…

Beginning composer

I never even dreamed of being a composer. I’ve never taught or studied composition. All I write comes from instinct on top of my education and decades of paying attention to what is going on in music. A very few frustrating attempts along the way, literally once a decade or so, led nowhere. Yet somehow in the mid 90’s at age 45 or so, my wife suddenly proposed that I record some of my own music. She was nuts! There was no music to record.

But the seed was planted. Sketches, that you now have, was a growing collection of short works for my young students. I was getting bored with the method I was teaching and I was bored with the business of a music career – finding gigs, students etc. So teaching young children was a new course of action for me and it was engrossing. Writing simple studies and fun pieces for them led to everything that followed as a composer.

Love every note

One day I was composing a simple blues piece for a student and I suddenly started going off in new and unexpected directions. This became the Prelude to Suite Ladyslipper. Intrigued and encouraged, I pulled out some old notebooks. Somewhat miraculously I was able to make sense out of a ton of old messy writing, and that became Quadrangle. That was it – I was hooked. Was I a composer?

The key seemed to be that I had nothing invested, no goal other than pure joy. I loved the sounds I was creating and I always loved making beautiful sounds on the guitar. Whenever I created a chord that I had never heard before it was particularly gratifying. I somehow trusted myself as a composer in ways I never had as a performer. It was all good! And I can say that I still feel that way – I love every single piece I have written and have thrown away very little.

Compose with trust

You asked about several pieces that happen to represent the beginning of my second period of composition. The first period had little chromatic dissonance. I was modelling a lot on Renaissance practice and molding dissonance within the scale or mode. It pleased me. But curiosity about what else I could do led to new sounds. Serial music had little attraction for me, but I knew the basics and so tried a few tone rows – Red Lion comes to mind from Song of Albin. The Elements was mostly a lot of improv with no special idea or concept of technical compositional goals. This emerging, more contemporary style certainly came in part from a great admiration and attraction to the “Bream repertoire” – Britten, Walton, Henze, etc.

In The Bells, however, I developed a technique of assigning notes to the letters of names. The second Bell is for Norbert Dams, whose name generated note groups from a simple chart. The opening chords literally spell his name. The notes I generated for Epitafio a un Pajaro seemed too boring – just an A minor chord arpeggio. So I made a chromatic version, then added the name of the poet for the song, Federico Garcia Lorca. I manipulated those notes into different chords and voicings/melodies and finally found something attractive. It comes back to trust that my ear could manipulate and mold that which I didn’t like into a new and attractive idea. Cool thing was, the A minor chord became the basis for the third movement and was perfect. It represented the peace of the butterfly [representing the soul] flying free and my ear led me to writing in the style of a Renaissance Agnus Dei.

Seed of chance

I have now written many pieces in this fashion. It’s kind of like throwing dice – there is an element of chance. But that only generates the seed and then I mold the growth of the germ to my satisfaction, like a Bonsai artist. I have no predetermined concept of form and try not to push a concept into the realm of intellectual boredom. You need to keep a visceral link to the process. You want your ideas to move and transform themselves. It’s time to return to the beginning of the piece when an idea gets boring. Go back and experiment with how it can be transformed or re-generated into a new related idea. This maintains continuity, but creates interest and excitement.

My second sonata, Timid Nightingale, completed a year ago, used a couple of names and a medieval melody that were woven together into a five minute piece. One three note melodic progression of F, E, D# ends the first piece and generated the beginning of the second movement, then maintains a presence throughout all four, 17 minutes in total.

Musical ideas come in many ways

A retired professor that lived around the corner gave me my only composition lesson. I asked him about the ear and the fact that I felt I could not generate musical ideas in my mind alone. If I do hear something in my head, I can’t reliably write it down. I asked him about this and he responded, “Do you like the music you write?” My enthusiastic affirmative response led him to say, “So what’s the problem?” It works – it ain’t broke – don’t fix it. I also once asked a brilliant composer friend if I should get a masters degree. He said absolutely not! “You already have an accomplished voice, why be trained to do it like someone else?!”

Friendly dissonance

Lastly, since you asked specifically about dissonance, I believe all dissonance needs resolution. I believe in the triumph of beauty. I don’t know how I freed myself from tonal thinking except by the process I described above. Well, there is this, a progression of dissonant chords, or polyphony creates its own language. Since there are only seven basic chords in a key, it seems best to limit the chords used whether they are in a key or not. Through repetition they will become familiar as the piece progresses, even if they are not tonal.

Lesson 1 done!

I hope that helps and inspires. Start simple – don’t be afraid to repeat, to experiment, to improvise. Last advice – start each day with an improv of any kind. If you play anything you remotely like, write it down, whether it be a melodic fragment, a chordal riff or rhythmic groove. I recall waiting for a class to begin many years ago with guitar in hand. My hands started playing a riff, repeating it many times. So I pulled out my notebook to write it down and figured out the riff was in 15/16. It became the basis for a song several years later called The Lady and the Bear. Don’t be sloppy if you want to be a real composer! Stimulate the whole mind by figuring out the correct rhythm and notes and that will inspire the creative process.

The Lady and the Bear

On becoming a composer was originally published on FRANK WALLACE

[allenmendezsr]

Affirmations Software - Sculptor3

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/affirmations-software-sculptor3/

Affirmations Software - Sculptor3

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 That’s right. If you can spare just 10 minutes a day – I’ll show you the secret to living the life of your dreams! 

Dear Success-Seeking Friend

Professional magicians never fail to amaze. They mystify you with magic tricks that defy explanation — and make seemingly impossible things happen before your very eyes. They’re masters of illusion and sleight of hand.

Now, I’m about to tell you about a different kind of magic that’s even more amazing because it’s not about illusion — but rather, something deeply rooted in science.

But first, I want you to name the top 3 things you desire to have, or wish to improve, in your life right now — examples: money (name the specific amount you want), a loving relationship, an ideal job, perfect health, your dream house, a brand new car, etc.

 (Type the 3 things you desire in the box below.)  Okay, are you done typing the 3 things you want?

File your answers in the back of your mind. We’ll come back to them later.

What if I told you that there’s a way that you can achieve those 3 things — and anything else you desire — by using the power of your computer for just 10 minutes a day.

Would you want to know more? Of course you would, who wouldn’t…

…Well read on because in the next few minutes, I will show you an advanced technology that enables you to manifest everything you want through the results-amplifying use of computerization. This information is not available anywhere else on the Web — or the world, for that matter. So I urge you to read every word of this article because the secret that can single-handedly turn your desires into reality is hidden in this web page — and I don’t want you to miss it.

Here Are 3 Testimonials From The Many Hundreds of Letters We Have Received From Satisfied Customers

“”Well, well, well… I purchased the Sculptor Method in January of this year”

“I love the Sculptor Method and has it worked for me? HA! I began using it immediately. I modified some of the affirmations that came with it and used it faithfully. I live on the Gulf of Mexico Coast in Florida USA and wanted to move to the high desert of New Mexico. My husband and I drew up a list of what our “perfect home” in New Mexico would look like (size, price, views, affordability etc.). I incorporated this into the daily affirmations….

We had free plane tickets given to us in February and used them to go to New Mexico. We visited 3 different towns that appealed to us. We found the house we had written about and affirmed for—including the attached art studio. We were astoundedly happy and asked the people if they would allow us to buy their home contingent on us selling our home here. They said yes. March 1, I began affirmations about selling our current home “to the right buyers for the right price bringing perfect satisfaction to all”. The real estate market is verrrrry slow here right. Our home sold in 7 weeks–no other houses in this town are selling. We are moving to our new “perfect” home in less than 2 weeks.

Thank you Jeff. Your program made me consistently do a specified amount of affirmations every single day. The added features enhanced the whole experience. I study many of the same things you do but you put it all together so nicely. I can hardly wait for the next round of affirmations.

Many blessings and many thanks,

— Dhulkti Bartoloni“

“”Science is finally entering the Spiritual Age. With the Sculptor Method, you can design and create the life you have always wanted. And it’s easy to use.”

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Everything You Want AppearsSeemingly Out Of Thin Air

There is a science that deals with manifesting desires. Many people regard it as mystical or esoteric, but it’s actually a science like physics or algebra.

There are certain immutable laws that govern the process of materializing wishes seemingly out of thin air, and once these laws are complied, anyone can make their dreams a reality — with absolute certainty.

Does this sound far-fetched? If so, I need you to suspend your disbelief until you hear the whole story because I assure you — this will be positively electrifying.

Émile Coué, 19th century French professor and Master Hypnotist

Emile Coué, became a pioneer of affirmation techniques — curing hundreds of patients in Europe and North America by teaching his patients to repeat the following affirmation each morning and evening: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.“

Using this affirmation alone, the healing results were nothing less than spectacular.

Affirmations have long been recognized as a powerful tool in manifesting desires. That’s because the subconscious mind cannot differentiate between actual reality and suggestions. Therefore, it processes suggestions (or affirmations) as being real — and goes about using its powerful creative ability — and that of the nervous system — to actualize those affirmations.

For this reason, people from all walks of life — from athletic coaches, to sales professionals, to religious leaders, and peak performance experts (like Anthony Robbins) promote the practice of affirmations.

Affirmations are powerful in and of themselves. But now… imagine multiplying the power of affirmations exponentially so that the results would not only be more dramatic — but would also manifest your desires in record speed.

How is that possible, you ask?

Through the computer-assisted affirmation technology available only in the Sculptor Method program. The Sculptor Method is a set of revolutionary self-help tools that uses computerization to amplify the power of affirmations to facilitate the manifestation of your desires.

Desires Materialize Literally Overnight For Sculptor Method Users

My name is Jeff Staniforth, the creator of the Sculptor Method. I’ve been involved in metaphysics for over 15 years. I have spent years developing a proprietary technology that I’ve named the Sculptor Method, which shows you a technologically advanced way of manifesting your desires.

I’ve had the chance to prove over and over again that the Sculptor Method works. For example, several years ago, I used the Sculptor Method for just 10 days — and manifested half ownership in an apartment. That was at a time when I had absolutely no money — but within 10 days, I entered into a partnership and jointly purchased an apartment in Sydney’s desirable upper north shore. All it took was 10 minutes a day using the Sculptor Method.

Long before I started the AffirmWare company, I had the opportunity to use the Sculptor Method to get a new job — and I doubled my salary in 12 months. The beauty of the Sculptor Method is that it’s not just me. I guarantee that you — and anyone who applies the powerful principles presented in my Sculptor Method — can manifest positive changes in your life, too!

Among other things, I’ve used the Sculptor Method to meet a beautiful partner, start my own business, attract happiness, and eliminate all manner of ailments from my body.

Once you see your desires manifesting before your very eyes, you’ll never want to go back to letting life JUST happen. Allowing life to control you is a powerless scenario that you wouldn’t want for yourself, would you? of course not… So instead of just letting yourself get tossed by the uncertainty of circumstances, take control of your life and your destiny with the Sculptor Method.

“”I was blown away…”

“I have used your Sculptor Method and was awestruck at its beauty, simplicity and utility. It’s a very practical, wonderful tool. I was blown away by its practicality, I just love it.”

— John Harricharan, Best-selling Author “When You Can Walk on Water, Take the Boat” – http://www.powerpause.com

Here’s Why Using the Sculptor Method Works

The Sculptor Method is the only PC program (sorry, not available for MAC) available anywhere that combines 7 of the best results-amplifying technologies that are tested and proven to increase the power and speed of manifestation. Here they are:

Affirmations

Visualization

Alpha sound technology (to induce highly receptive meditative states)

Subliminal technology

Sentence completion

Assignment writing/goal setting

Whole brain synchronization (utilizing thought, intuition, sensation and emotion)

Only Sculptor Method seamlessly integrates all 7 technologies to create the most powerful manifesting mechanism ever conceived. So while you sit in front of your computer for 10 minutes, you are literally soaking yourself in 7 powerful technologies that have been synergistically combined to produce incredible results.

The Sculptor Method is loaded with new features, all designed to help you live a more fulfilling life.

Subliminal Technology Puts Manifestation on “Steroids”

In the 1950s, an advertising expert named James Vicary, started testing subliminal advertising in movie theaters. He inserted subliminal frames containing the words, “EAT POPCORN” and “DRINK COKE” within the reels of film. During the movie, the subliminal messages went by so fast that the unsuspecting audience didn’t consciously see the words, but their subconscious minds perceived the suggestions. As a result, Coke sales jumped 18.1% and popcorn sales skyrocketed by 57.7%.

Subliminal advertising proved to be too powerful that it was eventually outlawed. But what if you could use the same technology to install empowering affirmations into your subconscious — beneath the threshold of your conscious mind? Now, you can flash subliminal messages on your computer screen while you work! It’s like advertising to your own subconscious mind and having your desires manifest at an unprecedented speed. I’ll give you this program as a FREE gift with the SculptorMethod. Read on for details.

Anthony Robbins, World Renowned Expert On Motivational Thinking and Affirmations, Said It Best…

“By repeating an affirmation over and over again, it becomes embedded in the subconscious mind, and eventually becomes your reality. That is why you need to be careful what you think and believe, because that is exactly what you will get!”

When you repeat an affirmation — and amplify its power through the computer technology built into the Sculptor Method, it becomes projected onto your mental screen and brought into reality by the innate creative ability of your subconscious mind.

How to Bypass the Conscious Mind to Get the Results You Want with Minimum Conscious Effort

In and of themselves, affirmations are a powerful tool for manifesting. But when you practice affirmations from a deep, meditative state of consciousness (such as that induced by the brain wave player in the Sculptor Method), you increase their manifesting power up to a hundred fold.

That’s because meditation enables you to effortlessly bypass the conscious mind, and imprint affirmations into the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind, in turn, impinges upon the nervous system to bring about your desired results.

Imagine This Scenario:

“It’s 7 O’clock Monday morning. You’re not really looking forward to another grueling week of work, and you need something to get you going. You turn on your PC and the Sculptor Method automatically launches itself. The brain wave player starts to play a soothing tone that puts you in a very relaxed state. Carefully scripted subliminal messages are being displayed. You sit back and enjoy your affirmation experience as the Sculptor Method springs into action (see screen shot below):

The time it takes to brew your morning coffee, you’re done. the Sculptor Method has done its job in 10 minutes flat.

It’s now 7:15 AM, and you’re feeling unstoppable and positively empowered because of the high-octane affirmation session that got you charged up with everything you need to face the day.

The next moment, you’re out the door. You go about your day with the greatest of ease, feeling confident that the universe is conspiring to make your desires happen with no struggle on your part. Your day is filled with success after success because you’re in peak condition. This goes on all day long, and you surprisingly find yourself smiling all the time. Gone are the stress and fear that you used to have – but in their place, a deep-seated peace and confidence that you can achieve all your goals and overcome all obstacles in your path. It’s never been this easy!

For the next 12 days, you continue using the Sculptor Method for 10 minutes every morning or evening. Towards the end of the week, you’re amazed to see that positive things are beginning to happen — things that are getting you closer to your desires and dreams. Every door opens for you and everyone you meet is happy to be with you or do business with you. Money begins to come easily, and you’re feeling vibrant and healthy. You’re on top of the world.

As the days go by, you find that everything you’ve ever wanted in life have all begun to manifest in your life. You’re living the life of your dreams.

But Can It Really Be This Simple?

Absolutely! Using the Sculptor Method for PC can get you started manifesting your desires and dreams immediately. There’s no learning curve involved because the software program is intuitive — so easy to use.

If you can type on a computer, I guarantee that you can make the Sculptor Method work for you!

Here’s What One User Had To Say About The Sculptor Method

 “All desire to drink or smoke magically disappeared…”

I used your Sculptor Method in January this year to help me with an addiction to alcohol and tobacco. I had one session where I affirmed that I was healthy. Prior to that day, I struggled with being unable to stop using the substances for many years. Since that day, all desire to drink or smoke has magically disappeared. I now exercise regularly and I am taking back my life. — Thank you so very much for your wonderful work.

— Carmen

So What Do You Want in Life And When Do You Want It?

Earlier on, I asked you to name 3 things that you want in your life. Now that you’ve done that — and maybe even identified many other things you desire — the only question left to answer is when do you want to have them?

I’ve shown you how the Sculptor Method can immerse you in 7 of the top manifesting technologies simultaneously — and materialize your desires faster than you ever thought possible. Now, it’s time for you to act on this.

How Much Is All This Worth To You?

What is the value of getting your hands on this state-of-the-art manifesting PC software program that’s not available anywhere else? What is it worth to have the best possible tool for manifesting your desires? Can you even put a price tag on living your dreams?

I ask you, how much are you willing to invest to create your ideal life? $10,000? $5,000? $1,000? How about $500?

Well, the good news is that you can own Sculptor 3 for less than $100! Yes, that’s right. Valuable as it is, Sculptor 3 can be yours for a one-time investment of just $97.00 (USD). If you’re in a hurry and can’t wait to get started, click here to experience Sculptor 3 now.

Here’s A Snapshot Of What You Get When You Order The Sculptor Method Today:

The Powerful Affirmation Program — Takes you step-by-step through a personalized 12-Day Plan for Success. You will learn how to easily create powerful affirmations customized to your own needs and desires. (Note: You can repeat the 12-day plan as often as you like.)

Subliminal Messaging Program — The Sculptor Method uses a powerful Subliminal Messaging feature which displays subliminally on your computer monitor while you practice your affirmations. You have complete control over these messages, you can add, modify, and delete them. You also have control over frequency and duration. These work magically to effortlessly program your unconscious mind.

The Stunning Brain Wave Player Feature — offers a selection of Alpha, Beta, and Theta brain files that can be played while using the Sculptor Method. By using the Brain Wave files, your mind will become more receptive to your affirmations and visual imagery, increasing their effectiveness instantly!

Autopilot Mode — An automatic mode, useful for situations where you are involved with other tasks (ideal for effortless subconscious programming).

Visual Programming Feature — The Sculptor Method comes with an extremely valuable “visualization aid” to assist you in improving your visualization skills. This is an absolute MUST if you want your manifestation to reach new heights!

A Personal Response Database — When using the affirmation program you will be asked to type in a response to your affirmation. These responses are saved to the Sculptor Method Database so you can view these responses at any time. These responses will prove invaluable when it comes to understanding and overcoming any inner resistance you might have towards obtaining your desired outcome.

The Amazing Sentence Completion Feature — Sentence Completion is the art of repeatedly (12 times recommended) answering a single question called a stem, and answering it as many times as you feel comfortable with. This is a powerful technique — with step-by-step instructions provided by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D.

The Mission Statement — This option is for users who would like to create a mission statement and have it replace the default backdrop image used in the Sculptor Method. By having your mission statement as a backdrop, you are constantly being reminded of what is important to you, in your life. And by doing this, you’re working some powerful magic on your mind that actually gets you in the mindset to get what you want.

Your Own Power Symbol — The Sculptor Method allows you to select a power symbol displayed on-screen while you are engaged in your affirmation practice. This power symbol empowers your affirmation practice because it holds a special significance to you. Most of the symbols represent various religious denominations, though some are neutral. This is so powerful — you won’t know how well this works until you try it!

Gender-Specific Library Choices — The Sculptor Method includes separate HIS and HER libraries. Both of these libraries come with illustrations and stories — one for each day of the 12-Day program, plus sample affirmations. This helps you customize the program to your gender … very important!

Daily Quotes To Help You Reach Success — The Sculptor Method displays a selection of powerful Quotes each time you start the program. You can add, delete and modify these quotes to suit your desires.

Your Own Associative Trigger Symbol — The Sculptor Method allows you to select to have a trigger symbol displayed on-screen while you are engaged in your affirmation practice. What you want to do with this trigger symbol is to create an association between the trigger symbol and your affirmation so it automatically increases the power (and effectiveness) of your affirmations!

Customizable Set Up Program — The Sculptor Method includes a Setup Program for defining your affirmation, affirmation speed, colors, symbols, illustrations, fonts, libraries, and much, much more. This makes it easy to start using it right away for maximum benefit.

Easy-To-Use Complete Instructions — Quick Guide, User’s Guide & Tutorial which shows you all you need to know to use the Sculptor Method. The Tutorial is graphical based, and outlines all the Sculptor Method features so you can get the most from it!

Exclusive Access to the Sculptor Method Private Web site — This site is available for all registered Sculptor Method users. You will find sample affirmations, articles, additional background images, and much more to enhance your manifesting experience.

You Risk Absolutely Nothing

I’m so confident that you will be thrilled with the Sculptor Method that I’m willing to make this unprecedented guarantee. Get the Sculptor Method today and take it for a trial spin. Take as long as 60 Days to see if it really does for you what I say it will.

Once you experience how enjoyable it is to use, and how easily you are able to manifest your desires, I’m betting I couldn’t pry it out of your hands if I tried. But if, for any reason, it doesn’t give you major breakthroughs, or you simply aren’t satisfied with the results you’re getting, let me know within 60 Days and I’ll be happy to give you 100% of your money back.

So you have nothing to lose when you give it a try today. Within minutes, you will get download instructions, and you can start enjoying the benefits of the Sculptor Method immediately.

“Okay, Heads Up!” Grab Instant Access To The “Sculptor Method” Today

Regular Price $127.00 Today $97.00

Instant Digital Download Available 24 Hours Per Day

 .

Did You Know… ?

Affirmation experts agree that in order to maximize the power of affirmations, they should not just be repeated mindlessly. They need to be fueled by emotion.

The Sculptor Method uses trigger symbols, storytelling visuals, power symbols and other stimuli that effectively set your affirmation on fire — and therefore makes it infinitely more powerful. These elements not only add emotion but a spiritual dimension to your affirmation practice, and they’ve been proven to enhance manifestation by up to 500%!

 .

To Give You An Even Better Value On Your Investment. When you order today you’ll also receive the following bonuses.

(valued at $295.95 – Yours FREE!) 

How To Attract True Love – Love – that elusive emotion that captures our hearts, minds, and imagination! We all want it, but the big question that plagues many of us is, “How do I get it?”

This guide answers that all-important question and will set you on the road to welcoming love into your life, whether you want it for the first time, had it and lost it, or just want to feel more of it in your current relationship. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF Guide

PDF Self Reflection Guide

How To Overcome Challenge – Throughout our lives we face challenges in many types of situations. Do you sometimes freeze up when faced with obstacles? If so, opportunities may pass you by. The strategies you will learn here can help. If you take advantage of these techniques, you’ll discover within yourself a much stronger person capable of anything. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF Guide

Writable PDF Worksheet

PDF Cheklist

Self Motivation – This little book will show you how to use the power of your mind to motivate yourself to pursue your goals to fulfillment, regardless of the challenges life throws your way. It will also give you expert advice on staying motivated throughout your life. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF Guidebook

Writable PDF Workbook

PDF Cheklist

Setting Personal Goals – If you’ve ever dreamed of the perfect life, this Guide, Workbook and Flowchart is for you. You’ll discover how setting personal goals can help you achieve the life you’ve always wanted – and deserve. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF Guide

Writable PDF Workbook

SMART Goal Setting Flow Chart

Importance of Conquering Fears – In this eBook, the topic of fear will be discussed in depth. We’ll delve into fear from all angles, including: “How fear can negatively affect your life”, “The nature of fear” and “The difference between a fear and a phobia”. You’ll also find some tips and techniques to help you overcome your fears, as well as discover the positive results that come from facing your fears head on. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF eBook

PDF Checklist

Writable PDF Worksheet

Science of Getting Rich – Audio – W. D. Wattles. Born shortly after the Civil War, Wattles experienced a life of failure after failure, until in his latter years, after tireless study he formulated the principles laid out in The Science of Getting Rich. Time less wisdom and a step-by-step prosperity program. $27 Value – Yours Free!

Audio book

20 Affirmation Posters – 20 (dimensions 2560×1600) Affirmation Posters. Print them and hang them where you will see them often. Affirmation Posters sell from $5.95 to $27 elsewhere on the Internet… yours FREE when you invest in Sculptor 3 today. $119 Value – Yours Free!

20 Affirmation Posters

Breaking Free of Negative Emotions – Painful situations are a part of life, but your perception makes all the difference. If you’re holding onto painful memories and feelings, these are very likely keeping you from leading a happy life. This Guide, Workbook and Cheatsheet will help teach you how to let go of the past and live the life you deserve. $27 Value – Yours Free!

PDF Guide

Writable PDF Workbook

PDF Cheatsheet

These bonuses alone are worth many times the cost of the whole thing. But remember, even if you later decide that the Sculptor Method is not for you (which I strongly doubt), you still get to keep these bonuses as my “Thank You” for giving the Sculptor Method a try. So give it a try risk-free today.

There’s Nothing to Learn! The Sculptor Method Does All The Work For You

Make no mistake — this is NOT just another book or CD program that talks about manifestation techniques. The Sculptor Method is a powerful software program that makes things happen…

If you’ve tried books or CD’s on the subject before, then you’ve probably already discovered that oftentimes, they’re just a pleasant read. I’ve been there myself — curled up with a book, feeling hopeful of a bright future. But, did anything change? Getting results is the acid test.

With the Sculptor Method, you don’t have to learn anything. Instead, it will do all the work for you — making it easy to apply manifesting principles to your life and helping you get what you want the easy and effective way. Get started now.

“What an incredible product… I am absolutely amazed that there is something finally so wonderful on the market”.

— Editor/Publisher, Power of One, Metaphysical Magazine

“… success already beginning!

You are providing an amazing service. I held off using because of the cost… foolish idea. I started this AM using the Sculptor Method and can feel the desires in my mind and heart for hope and success already beginning to increase.

Thank you,

— John Gray

Invest in the Sculptor Method Today!

The Single Most Important Skill

If you were to ask me what the single most important skill is, that if you possessed it would dramatically change your life for the better, I would tell you, without a doubt — it’s the ability to manifest your desires. The Sculptor Method can give you that ability — guaranteed.

You will NOT find this program in bookstores anywhere. It is totally unique and sold exclusively on the web.

Listen, here’s the thing: I sell this package through Clickbank, which means I play by their rules. And their rules state that I’ve got to give you an 8-week, money back guarantee. I’m fine with that. I stand by my product completely and know you’ll be completely thrilled with it, and more importantly, the results.

So, use the The Sculptor Method to manifest your desires. However, for your peace of mind, know that a refund is available anytime within the next 8 weeks by simply e-mailing me or Clickbank.

Now who’s taking all the risk?

“ClickBank is the retailer of products on this site. CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products.”

Imagine this… in as little as a few days, you could be on you way to manifesting the life you’ve always dreamed of. Imagine becoming debt-free, enjoying improved health… having happy and loving relationships… finding your dream home… all because you decided to say “YES” today.

This is the ONE program that can give you the life you desire. In just 10 minutes a day, the Sculptor Method, can put you on course to creating your ideal life sooner than you ever thought possible.

It’s Easy To Order Just Click On The “Add To Cart” Button Below

Regular Price $127.00 Today $97.00

Instant Digital Download Available 24 Hours Per Day

To your success.

Sincerely,

Jeff Staniforth CEO and Founder AffirmWare.com.au

P.S. I’m so confident in the Sculptor Method, I’ll stake my reputation by saying that even if you’ve lived with a “less-than” attitude of limiting beliefs for years, you can turn your life around using the Sculptor Method for just 10 minutes a day. You, too, can start living with the passion and joy that go with being an in control person. I invite you to take the first step to this life-changing opportunity.

Remember: If, for any reason, you are not satisfied with the program, just let me know within 60 Days and I’ll refund every cent. No questions asked.

( NOTE: Your purchase may be tax-deductible as a training expense. Consult your tax advisor) Attention Web masters: If you have a Personal Empowerment web site or blog, check out our affiliate program at www.AffiliateCommandCenter.com

P.P.S. With love and light, thank you for allowing me to present you the Sculptor Method. Bless you… one spark of light to another.

Address details: 30/116 Shirley Rd Wollstonecraft NSW 2065 Sydney, Australia Ph: 612-9460-8098

DISCLAIMER: Information on this site and in our products is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to substitute for advice of your own health care professional. Please do not use the information supplied by AffirmWare to diagnose, treat, any health problem or disease. If you suspect that you have a medical issue please consult your health care professional. Examples in these materials are not to be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of earnings. Earning potential is entirely dependent on the person using our product, ideas and techniques. We make no claim regarding income guarantees or results from using our products.

[yoolee]

About Lee

@cavern-of-bells made a FUN LIST OF THINGS so I answered them.

1. What kind of food can’t you stand?:  I fervently avoid all food that squelches – like grapes and ‘gelatinous snow fungus’ (that is a google-translated name for a mushroom in a soup my roomie from China made me once – aside from that ingredient, it was interesting). I’ve never, not once in my life, eaten Jello. 

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick?:  Smoke alarm chirping. I could also happily do without pharmaceutical ads, which I think should be illegal, and election campaign ads.

3. Have you got any useless talents?:  AHAHAHA. I can sing the chipmunk Christmas song and say the alphabet backwards? I’m also hypermobile—did a stint in the local circus as a contortionist in high school. (non-animal circus – just acrobatic acts)

4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be?:  Making people smile.

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking: Mila Kunis, Barbara Palvin, Wendell Lissimore, Chris Evans, Zendaya Coleman, Natalie Portma, Godfrey Gao

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid?:  READING (/daydreaming about book worlds) but also figure skating while we could still afford it. It was as close to flying as I could get! 

7. What is something you’re proud of?:  When I was in my MBA program, my 59 classmates voted me ‘Most Likely to Change the World’. It’s framed next to my diplomas. Though, to be fair, it also sort of haunts me because I feel like I’m not living up to it. 

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate?:  I despise being patronized. Being ignorant and refusing to admit it in the face of facts.

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower?:  Leader -  not a good one, but, I’m not a follower.

10. What kind of student are/were you?:  A really lazy, procrastinating one who still got A’s/B’s. I was a really good test taker.

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life?:  Reading in class in 7th grade science. My teacher made a deal with me – if I could pass the pre-quiz at the start of every week, he’d let me read instead of pay attention, but he would get to pick the book. He introduced me to Michael Crichton and Anne McCaffery, which were my first forays into sci-fi, and my involvement in that has rippled through most of my major friend groups since. Alternately, attending a training at my first career job, which introduced me to the career I now have.

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion: Ants. I hate ants. Where there’s one, there’s hundreds, and there’s nowhere I can go that they can’t get too, and they’re small enough to crawl in your nose and stuff. I sat in a fire ant hill as a kid, which was strike one. Strike two was moving into a house that had been abandoned for seven months when I was in third grade – turned on the tub water and it came out black there were so many ants in the pipes, and they just POURED into the tub and swarmed up the sides oh god it was like a horror movie. Other than that, most of my fears are pretty average – failure, my family being hurt, etc.

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable?:  I am self-centered enough to find myself in most characters – there’s usually one or two aspects that line up. Unless they are Lawful Good then I’m like…uuuugh. Nope, nothing there.

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties?:  I am a giggly, ballet-dancing drunk. I get hyper paranoid about my spatial issues so I literally go into ballet-mode because the movements are naturally slower and more flowy. I am also pretty clingy drunk. I like to snuggle, which is funny because sober me is not big on touching or being touched. Not to overanalyze, but I think being drunk takes away the fear of that. At parties I am that awkward wall-hovering introvert who likes to find an extrovert and make them talk while I nod and wait to GTFO. I spent the entirety of my bro’s wedding reception babysitting a 4 and 5 year old because it was so much less stressful than making small talk (simultaneously playing Go Fish AND Who’s Who Monster Edition LIKE A CHAMP)

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone?:  AHAHAHAHA no. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever honestly been in love – just more fond of one person than most. Invariably, I find I prefer my own company to theirs after a time.

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends?:  This is a really hard one. 100 casual friends means more people to do stuff with, but, I treasure my close friends. I don’t know. Pass!

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak?:  I. AM. SUCH. A. SLOB. *sobs* My room should have a hazard sign.

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy: I am not feeling creative – a bedroom that cleans itself, with lots of soft, fuzzy blanket piles and pillows, with tea services (including scones!) and lots of bookshelves. A view of a duck pond would be appreciated too lololol. 

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday?: I don’t have kids. I truly treasure spending time with the kids in my family, and I work part-time as a princess/elf/storyteller at the local zoo – I like kids, but, I am a really selfish and self-centered person, and I move on to new things—including people—with serious regularity. I don’t think I would be a good parent at all. I wish I could be, but, knowing my flaws, it would be really irresponsible to have kids.

20. What was your favorite book as a child?  Elementary school – it was a book about a little black cat who went to boarding school, and there was a yellow spotted cat with a fire truck. Don’t remember the name. I also love the Wizard of Oz books (SO DARK). As a middle schooler – The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I needed a Mary Sue at that point in my life. Also loved the Dragonsinger series by Anne McCaffery, and everything by Mercedes Lackey and Tamora Pierce. In high school…The Things They Carried, I suppose. Now, probably Fuyumi Ono’s Twelve Kingdom’s series. It’s YA, but, the characters are so flawed, and so redeemed, I find it really interesting.

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about: Disney World  

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated: The Emperor’s New Groove is the best Disney movie ever. ALSO, Mary Sues. Middle School me needed Mary Sues. I think most do. Go easy on ‘em.

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose?: UM. HM. Someone who doesn’t need to shower to smell clean? XD Lady Luck, maybe. It would be fascinating to watch – both good and bad luck – unfold all around.

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday?: This feels super arrogant – but I’d like to be a good enough author to have a book published and do a book signing. With people who actually come to get the book signed!

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat?: I like to work behind the scenes. Usually I write like a multi-page rebuttal with linked references, but I rarely post it. Sometimes I do. I call my senators roughly weekly, for what that’s worth, but public discourse is not my thing.

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in?: ….uuuum. Hmm. Butterfly clips, maybe? But then, it was the 90s and I was eleven, so. 

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for?:  I DON’T CRINGE AT MYSELF but Dragonball Z. XD I forgive my kid/adolescent self for a lot, okay.

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable?: The willingness to publically, and politely, engage in debate in service of someone else. Genuine ability to interact with other people in a way that leaves them feeling better for having interacted with you.

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.): LITERALLY, DUCKS. I love ducks. People give me ceramic ducks all the time. Also socks, because my grandma collected fancy decorative perfume bottles and one Christmas my mom and I went to like 10 stores looking for one she didn’t have and I pitched a FIT saying when I was older I was going to collect socks because you always need more, and there’s no way people would run out of options for me. My family thought this was hilarious and took me up on it. My grandpa shipped me socks from the dollar store once a month while I was in college.

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones?: I wish I did! I can cuss in quite a few, and I know some conversational Irish from studying abroad there and studying it. 

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside?: Having lived in both – the big city. It’s too easy to self-isolate in the countryside, and for me, personally, that’s fairly unhealthy. Countryside is definitely prettier and more peaceful, just, not for me.

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving?: Literally all the time. Like, Mitsunari in SLBP for example!

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else?: Ahahahaha give me all of the attention please /sigh

34. Favorite holiday?: Halloweeeeen. But I also really like Diwali even if I feel a little bit like I am trespassing/being a tourist. It’s just beautiful.

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously?: “PLANNED” AHAHAHA WHAT IS THAT WORD IDK. I am so last-minute and haphazard it’s absurd.

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.) : The pleasure of reading books in middle school. Those ‘first’ exposures, without expectation or standards. EVERYTHING was magical and exciting, and I devoured it all. Alternately, college. 

37. What hobbies do you have?: UM. I dress up as a princess/superhero and visit kids in the hospital which is…weird, I know. I get paid to do it at the zoo, and some parents reached out to them and asked if we could visit and then it became a thing. Less so now that I’m in a new city. Martial arts (Hapkido, Judo, Taekwondo), ballet, baking with zucchini, photoshopping, reading, writing SLBP fanfiction, playing otome games…XD

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have?: THE ABILITY TO FEEL WELL-RESTED AT ANY TIME. Or good luck, but I’d argue that would be more than mildly useful. Ability to find the right thing to say to cheer someone up!

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you: Online folks are usually surprised to learn I’m old? Friends IRL are usually surprised I’m Chaotic Evil (I won’t say I’m two-faced, I’ll say I try really hard to be nice, and I act like it well, but it is an act – I don’t genuinely possess any empathy to speak of. I will listen to you, but I probably don’t actually care, I just want to – there is a difference) and work folks are usually pretty surprised at the Chemistry background. FOLLOWERS OF THIS BLOG won’t be surprised but, I friggen love Waffle House. That usually throws people for al oop.

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out: That I’m bi? I was on BC for so long I thought I was ace, so when I finally developed a drive in my late/mid-twenties it was sort of shocking to realize it’s only rarely set to hetero, and like, I still don’t know how to act on that. ALSO for years I had no idea there was a little arrow on your gas gauge to tell you which side the gas pump’s on – comes in super handy in rental cars.

41. Worst injury you’ve had? Physically? Fell out of a tree as a kid and snapped an arm bone in half – one half went on top of the other. Other things have happened that took longer to emotionally recover, but, physically that was the worst probably. Weirdly, I fell off of the roof with no injury, but…idk I’m weirdly durable.

42. Any morbid fascinations?: Snake venom. I could probably write a dissertation. 

43. Describe your sense of humor: I LOVE PUNS. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. I like ‘smart’ humor (puns are clever) and nerdy humor, but I don’t like mean humor. I also laugh at gallows humor a lot.

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose?: Okay this is really hard because I would be useless in most other eras and I would miss indoor plumbing and women’s rights and people not regularly dying around me. I am probably biased by being interested in times with the best myths/stories. Ancient Egypt? Viking Age? Basically any time period in China or Japan because my US-centric world history studies seriously failed me they are a bit of a fascinating mystery. 

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at: LOL this would be a long list. (you said ‘thing’ singular, I am taking that as a friendly suggestion not a mandate) Push-ups (hypermobile elbows, okay). Cleaning. LOGISTICS AND PLANNING OH LORD. Editing my own work. SMALL TALK oh god I am the worst at small talk I even took a class on it trying to get better. Gracefully accepting compliments - how does one do that and not come off as obnoxious ;.;

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through: Most recently, dumping a Really Good Guy. A past me would have just quietly let it fade into oblivion and that would have been worse. I think? 

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.): lololol oh my gosh. I don’t like offending people. So. I guess pretty one on my face.

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist?: Eeeeeeh.I guess optimist, but that’s mostly laziness.

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you?: That I have made their life better or brighter somehow. 

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you: I am simultaneously incredibly confident about things and incredibly craven about people! And that’s hard for people to get sometimes. Like, my writing I am wholly confident of and proud of to the point of arrogance – as a thing. But the moment someone talks to me about it I get petrified because oh god what if I, as a person say or do something that turns them off to the point where they can’t enjoy the writing (the thing).  It’s greatly exacerbated by the internet where I can’t read tone or facial expressions – but I’m still pretty bad about this offline too. Like, I hate even going to Chipotle or Qdoba where there isn’t a big line of people (if there’s a big line of people everything is hustling and bustling and moving along) – I greatly dislike social interactions that lack a script. But, put my project in front of a board of directors or the company president, and I will kick tush and take names. It’s a weird dichotomy, but that’s how I’m wired.

THIS WAS FUN. GOOD QUESTIONS

I TAG YOU, PERSON READING THIS.

[fallxnprxnce]

#54 xD

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

Oh my, yes. =) Here’s a meta comin’ at you! XD

So... I’ve been writing since I was in my senior year of high school (The Mummy came out in 1999 and that was my first fan fiction story hahaha). I wrote my first “book” in early college, inspired by the anime series Fushigi Yuugi, even though omg it was total crap haha. I mean, it was called Story. (rolls eyes) But even though I’ve been writing for 18 years, I would still consider myself to be a growing and learning writer and I admit that I have so much left to learn. My writing is a far cry from perfect (or even just, you know... not sucky XD), but I have learned several things over the years that either took me a long time to realize or that I actually resisted for the longest time because I thought I had to listen to everyone else telling me “the rules of writing.”

Guess what? There are no rules. Okay well, I mean... use good grammar and sentence structure and spell things correctly, yes, heh, but as far as the process, every writer is different. Lots of writers will taut their method and process as the one that works, but that’s just because it worked for them. But some methods will definitely not work for each type of writer, and if you try to mold yourself into what another writer has told you is the formula for success, you may actually be hurting your chances of growing as a writer.

So here are four tips that you can absolutely take or leave, because this is what worked for me. Some of these tips may be more universally helpful to all types of writers, but others may be specific to the type of writer I am. I will offer them anyway, in the hopes that they might help you out a bit with your writing journey.

Find out what type of writer you are and read authors with similar writing processes. The biggest thing to decide is if you are a pantser (plot as you go) or an architect (outline everything in advance). Some writers can be an even combination of both, but most will fall into one category or another. I am a panster. =) I outline only if I absolutely have to and I hate doing it. I prefer to just... see where my characters take me. First of all, learning which type of plotting you prefer to do can really help move the process along. If you’re an architect, get out those note cards or open that word doc and start making outlines and timelines and all of that. if you’re a panster, start learning what questions to ask yourself as you go along to draw out of yourself all the detail and important information in every scene. If you’re a panster and you’re trying to force yourself to outline because someone told you that you need to have your whole story worked out ahead of time, that’s going to not only be very tedious for you and suck all the love out of writing for you, but you will be going against your natural ability as a writer to gravitate toward a different process. Once you figure out what type of writer you are, accept it and play to your strengths when crafting a novel, short story, fan fiction story, etc. Then do some research on published authors to read some books by ones that share your process. This will expose you to the types of stories, characters, plots, and worlds that writers using your process can achieve. That is not to say that you are limited to what you see in other people’s books, but especially for writers that are just starting out, reading stories that have been crafted in a similar manner to the ones you want to write will help you learn how to do it on your own.

Push through writer’s block and keep writing no matter what! I know this sounds like one of those self-help tips as a writer that everyone throws out there. That’s why I didn’t believe it and resisted it for so many years, haha. I thought no, this is stupid, why am I going to continue to write after I feel my writing is crap? Shouldn’t I fix it first? Why am I going to leave a big blank space for this scene I can’t write right now and just keep going? Why am I going to call this character X because I can’t think of a name and just continue on like there’s no problem? Because it works. Seriously. Fight to keep writing through anything that is holding you back. I didn’t believe it worked until I gave myself 5 weeks to write a novel once (a movie was coming out and I didn’t want to be influenced by it too much after I saw it) and I had to finish it on time. That was the first time I was like welp, gotta keep going, don’t have time to think about all this stuff that’s bothering me. And the weirdest and best thing happened... I was able to get over my issues so much faster. Because there wasn’t this big dark cloud of “great, my writing sucks, it will always suck, I’ll never get better, I should just stop.” Instead, I forgave myself for whatever I was having trouble with, skipped it, and moved on. Or I continued to write using simple words and no description just to bang out the bare bones of a scene, intending to fill it in later. And you know what? I could fill it in later. Because I didn’t feel bad about myself or my writing and I had already moved on to write some things I was proud of. Fixing things later just... happened, heh. It was seriously like magic. I was amazed. Since that experience I always push through whatever I can as soon as I feel it’s blocking me. The more I learned to forgive myself and move past things that caused insecurity and frustration, the less emotional a thing it became and the more it became like a second nature habit. You can always go back and fix your writing, but if you allow road blocks to stop you now, you’ll have nothing to fix later on. ;)

Re-read your writing often, especially if you do not feel like writing new material. You’ve heard the whole, “You have to write every single day!” rule of being a writer? Yeah. So have I. And yeah, if you want to be a writer in any capacity, you can’t write once a month, heh. But every day? Eh... that’s flexible, especially if you really just aren’t feeling the creative juices flowing on a given day. You’ve also heard the, “Don’t edit until you finish the first draft!” rule? I found that that’s largely bullplop. There are some real advantages to re-reading your WIP, so long as you don’t do it so often that that’s all you’re doing, heh. If you don’t feel like writing, open up your file or notebook and re-read what you wrote. This will do a number of things: 1) it will keep you very familiar with what you’ve already written, so you will remember details a lot better, and if you need to go back to look something up, you’ll remember where it is a lot easier, 2) it will keep you immersed in the world and characters even though you’re not writing new material today, 3) it can stir up new inspiration for the WIP if you’re in a creative slump, 4) you may catch consistency errors you wouldn’t catch if you didn’t stay in touch with old writing, such as people’s eye color changing or a name spelling changing, etc., and finally 5) you will fix typos and small quick errors as you go, so when you finish your first draft, you’ll have a lot less technical work to do and can focus on the content of your piece. This is especially useful if you’re like me and your default length and genre of choice is epic fantasy. Epic fantasy novels are looooooong. If you’re writing an 800-page book, by the time you get to page 746, you will absolutely not remember what was on page 23 unless you re-read on a regular basis. 

Outline all your thoughts for the direction of any WIP you are leaving for a time. I just got done saying I’m a panster and I don’t outline. Well, even pansters need to outline in certain cases and this is one of them. I hate.... to outline... so much. But if I have lost the muse for a WIP and feel I need to take a hiatus from it, I will outline as much as I had lingering in my head as far as ideas for plot direction, things I wanted to see from certain characters, major events that need to happen, things like that. Even if I’m just literally putting Chapter ##: someone is born, someone dies, this guy travels here, this girl should complete this by the time this happens, heh. It can be that simple and informal because they’re notes to yourself. Nobody’s gonna see them unless you want them to, heh. You may use all or none of these notes when you return to the project, but I found that nothing kills a project for me like two things: 1) the feeling that I have to finish it in one single attempt, and 2) the feeling that if I leave I probably am essentially saying this WIP is dead and I will never return to it. What jotting down as much as you can think of does for you is it takes a snapshot of your mind while you were immersed in the work. If you think “Oh, I’ll remember everything,” NO YOU WON'T, haha. You will lose details and depending upon how long you’re stepping away from the work, you may lose major events too. Write them all down before you step away. I have an epic novel that I got discouraged about for a personal reason. I wrote 95% of it and literally only had a few more chapters to write and then I was done. It’s over 600 pages long. But I just couldn’t finish it at the time. But I wrote down notes by chapter of everything that I wanted to have happen. It’s been years... and now I’m thinking I may return to the project. I opened up the file, and there are all my thoughts on where I wanted to go with the story (most of which I had forgotten completely). It encouraged me that I could remember where I was and could pick up where I left off, and reading the notes even got me excited again about the story. Trust me, it’s a good practice to do, especially for a panster writer. We pansters fly by the seat of our.... well, pants. XD And we function best and live for the process of being swept away by our stories and letting our characters reveal the story to us. If you lose that feeling and you stop riding that wave... you can lose momentum, inspiration, motivation, etc. Writing down that snapshot of your brain will help you return to that time in your mind when you were totally immersed in your work and lovin’ it. ;)

I hope this has helped, somewhat, and really as always feel free to come to me for writing advice. Like I said, my writing is far from perfect, but I do have a decent number of years of experience on my side. I can tell you pros and cons about most writing tips and methods because I’ve tried them all, haha. I always love helping other writers so feel free to pick my brain about this hobby we love! =D

[aparoxysm]

3,5,7,8,9,12,15,18,19,20

✿  Does anyone in real life know about your RPing hobby and what, if anything, have they said about it?

My parents know, because for as long as I’ve been on the internet, they’ve known that I like to write and write with friends overseas. My dad still calls it fanfiction somtimes to other people, like he’s proud of me or something, and that’s enough to make me want to never talk to him again out of embarrassment, ha, but I deal with it. Because I truly do love writing more than anything. Other than that, my boyfriend knows, but he doesn’t care about it / ask questions and I don’t really like to tell him about it either. I’m not as embarrassed about RP as I used to be, but I still feel like it’s just something for me that other people wouldn’t really understand the mechanics of. The only times my boyfriend and I do acknowledge it is when I start talking about an RP friend he hasn’t heard about before like a real life friend, so he’s like who dat and im like oh, new rp friend from > insert country

That being said, he actually did surprise me the other week and I have been holding onto it for fear life. We were complaining about a friend who literally just sleeps and watches Netflix all day when she’s not working, and he’s like “I don’t get how you can do that” and im like “Well I have friends online who claim to do that a lot. Me, personally, I’d get too bored.” and hes like “I just don’t get how people can do nothing all the time? Like at least with you and your online stuff, that’s still doing something. I just feel like that’s actually a hobby.” and I kind of didn’t hear whatever else it is he said because he actually ??? referred to my RP addiction as something valid and worthy??? and all this time i’ve assumed he didn’t get it and thought it was dumb??? IDK, it made me feel good.

✿  Have you considered writing professionally or do you have plans to?

Always. But I never will, I don’t think.

✿  How do you handle the toxicity sometimes found in the roleplaying community, particularly in fandoms?How has roleplaying, specifically, impacted your life?

I use tumblr savior to blacklist a lot, because it really gets too much for me to be exposed to it a lot, and it makes me feel shitty and not want to rp with certain people because of how they behave, or makes me feel guilty for how I behave… I usually drift away from things that give me major negative vibes, otherwise I become in great, exponential danger of saying something i’ll regret. I’ve hated Tumblr RP a lot in this last year. It’s nowhere near as relaxed as it used to be, and I know there’s a lot of political debate on the topic of equality but I am not comfortable in a space where I have to edit everything I do and say or just not do or say it at all. When it gets like that level, a good dose of the unfollow button and keeping my mouth shut is what I find the most helpful.

✿  How has writing improved your life and do you see yourself sticking with it?

When I graduated high school, I went to college for art and animation, and it basically ruined my creative life. Before RP, I used to be an avid drawer, I sketched every day, I improved my skills and motivation so much, everyone knew me as the girl who drew in class instead of did her work, the girl who was going to grow up and be a famous artist, and when I went to college, it killed that for me. My ego took a big blow because the tech side of the course absolutely annihilated me, i couldn’t do it. so after that (and that was 2 years ago now) i haven’t really drawn since. but the silver lining was that I took on RP more dedicatedly after that, and found that I truly adored writing. Try as I might, I’ve never really comitted to a personal writing project, and it’s only in the recent times that I’ve taken the pressure off for me to do it, but. RP makes me happy, it makes me feel like I’m doing something good when I reply to people or make new friendships, it makes me feel like I’m wanted and needed, that my characters and plots are valid and that other people would care if I’m here or not. It was a big boost for my self confidence, and it’s also made me so much more privy to the creative world, which i needed after that. so yeah, i see myself sticking with writing.

✿  Is there a quote from a piece of literature that holds great value to you? What is it and why is it important to you?

She stood in front of her closet mirror in her T-shirt and twisted this way and that. What’s wrong with me? She wondered. There was nothing the matter that she could see. She was tall and leggy, like her mother, with full breasts, small waist, and slim hips that curved enough to show she was female. Her skin was gently golden; it was always golden, sun or not, and her tawny hair was thick and long and wild. So why was it that groups of girls stopped talking when she approached them at school and answered her openings with tense words that killed the conversations she tried to start? Was she too good-looking? Was that possible? Was that the threat they saw? 

Legitimately, this was the first and pretty much only female protagonist I had ever read about who fully and whole-heartedly loved herself where it mattered. Sure, she still had her shortcomings and moments of weakness, but god damn, Vivian was so proud of herself and what she stood for, and that was so refreshing to see during that period of young adult fiction. It’s why she became my first favourite character from a book. And has pretty much inspired me to write feirce, aggressive, self-assured female characters ever since. I was just so inspired by her way of thinking as a young girl, it appealed to me so much and so that moment in the book plus a whole lot of others, really stuck with me.

✿  What do you typically look for in a roleplay partner?

Cliche, but chemistry. And not always in the writing kind but a lot in the OOC kind. I like people who I can talk to super easily, who write in the same tumblr language I do, who reference memes and are not afraid to hit me up with IMs and head canons, etc. I just love it because it makes me feel comfortable with a person, and like I’m not being a bother. The better I get to know a player, the better I get to know their character away from IC interactions. Likewise, I adore it when players get to know me so well that they read the patterns in my characters easily, and I don’t feel like I have to explain them all the time? It’s like they just know, and they know what path I want to put them on. I also look for honesty, people who are down to tell me what they’re feeling about a situation or whether something bothers them, or is able to voice if I’m doing something wrong. Most importantly though, I look for decisive people. Not overly decisive but it’s just so important for me to have someone who is like “yes that sounds good, i can start a thing for you if you want” or “i dont think that really fits, how about this plot idea instead?” I really cannot stand sending IMs to people about plots and characters and them just agreeing off the bat the whole time, but never really deciding on anything either, and so it makes me feel like i’m just paddling in a circle until i make all the decisions for us. To me, that’s not what RP is about. It involves teamwork, and effort, and to me, that’s not putting in effort. It gets me really frustrated.

✿  What made you want to join the roleplaying community?

I kept seeing bios in celebrity tags, and so when i sussed out what group rp was on tumblr, i was like holy shit there is a name for the thing i have been doing with friends over email for so many years???? and you can use PICTURES? i gotta get on this.

so somehow, i found a group rp that allowed mythical creatures, i wanted to be a peter pan mermaid, and the rest is history~~

✿  What one piece of literature has been most inspirational/life changing for you? Why?

(( Blood & Chocolate, by Anette Curtis Klause — because of the main character, as per mentioned. She’s inspired me to write full-on, aggressive, assertive, don’t-tell-me-what-i-can-and-cant-do female characters without apology. ))

The Truth About Forever  by Sarah Dessen — it’s hard to explain exactly why, and it doesnt even just involve ONE of her books either, but they’ve kind of shaped my whole general character story directions?? her books always follow a pattern and i really admire that pattern, even if it is repetitive, and i am secretly a hopeless romantic so i really like how her love stories evolve. it’s always slow burning, the boy is usually a direct surprising love interest, and the girl always gains new friends and family out of it, and the stories always involve a nice little reoccurring theme. In the Truth About Forever, it’s a game that she and a boy plays throughout the entire book, which eventually leads to a shift from friendship to something more. THAT PLOT HAS APPEALED TO ME EVERY SINCE. the example of a teeny, tiny, otherwise-completely-average moment greatly impacting the rest of a characters life with someone else… i am weAK for this concept ok. her females are always usally feircely independent too and that gets me ♥

✿  Who are your top three favorite fictional characters and why?

Vivian Gandillon (Blood & Chocolate) — i swear i could go on repeat forever haha, but i’ve basically already mentioned why.

Jace Herondale (Shadowhunter Series) — back when the first like, two books had only been published, i super fell hard for this series and it was straight up because of the commentary done by Jace and his ability to senselessly bicker with everybody in his path. his comments to me, were always absolutely hysterical. i was so in love with his wry and witty comments, especially the way he kept at ease and casual through super distressing situations, and i really wish id kept reading the rest of the series as it was published, but i seriously fell behind. then the movie came out. then the netflix series. now i’ve grown too far out of it and having to see the cast on my dash every second of every day makes me want to burn the books.

Shane Collins (Morganville Vampire Series) — this is an oooold old series that i used to read religiously, and it was more in the style of anita blake and buffy vampires~ rather than twilight and true blood -esque content. it got really weird and complicated though so i gave up on it, but for a time, i adored it. and i loved shane because he was hilariously human, he hated everybody except his housemates (though sometimes that could be questioned) and nobody held a grudge better than him. he had a knack for getting in trouble, usually on his own accord, was feircely protective and spent most of his time just being a genuine nuisance and temper tantrum thrower. i saw a lot of me in him, and idk. i just like people with tempers, i think it makes them super fun to read. 

[themanuelruello]

Will My Kids Fall Behind? (And Other Homeschooling Questions)

I’ve never been this excited to get back to homeschooling…

I’m in year five of this homeschool gig, so it’s not exactly a novelty anymore. However, I’ve found myself literally counting down the days until we’re back to the books next week.

What a weirdo.

Is it because I redid our school room and I can’t wait to sit on the new rug and drink my coffee in there?

Maybe.

Is it because we’re doing a deep dive into American history this year and I’m kind of a history nerd?

Kinda.

Is it because there’s something about fresh curriculum that makes me strangely giddy?

Very possible.

Helping to build the chicken tractor

Truthfully, I think the root of my excitement has come from the many talks I’ve had with brand new and prospective homeschoolers this year.

All these conversations have given me a chance to revisit why we chose this lifestyle in the first place (because make no mistake– homeschooling is a lifestyle), and my fire has been rekindled.

I realize that many of you have been thrust into this world unwillingly. It’s not what you ever saw yourself doing, but here you are.

I want you to know that it’s all gonna be alright. 

We’ve been homeschooling since our firstborn was in kindergarten and I was homeschooled K-12 myself (yup– in the legendary homeschool culture of the 1990s– it’s changed a lot since then. Thank goodness.)

I’m not an expert, but I do have a unique perspective– both as a homeschool graduate and a current homeschooling mother of three.

Here are a few of the most common questions I’m seeing right now, along with a few of my thoughts:

Art with Goats

#1 What Curriculum Should I Use for Homeschooling?

This question is, by far, the toughest one I get. It’s not that using curriculum is hard, but there are eleventy-billion different choices, and sorting through them all is somewhat mind-numbing.

There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Period.

Most newbie homeschoolers are drawn to an all-in-one style of curriculum where you make one purchase and get ALL the things.

There’s nothing wrong with that, per say, but I don’t know many veteran homeschool moms who use those sort of curriculum options, since they rarely fit the uniqueness of the child.

Most of my homeschooling friends piece together their own curriculum (i.e. they use one set of books for math, a different set from a different publisher for reading, etc).

My best advice in this realm is two-fold:

Keep it simple. Focus on the core subjects and don’t worry about the extras your first year

Do not attempt to replicate a public school classroom. Public schooling was created for a specific purpose and is designed to move a large group of diverse children through the exact same curriculum in a way that is mostly successful for the majority. You don’t have to do that. You get to tailor this whole thing to fit your family and your children. Education does NOT have to be cookie-cutter, nor should it be. Also, I will preach this until the cows come home– the 8am-3pm schedule that most public schools follow came as a result of the Industrial Era and was created to fit the work schedules of parents. It rarely takes that amount of time to teach a child the crucial subjects, plus free time and free play are some of the best educational pieces you can ever offer your child.

My 4-year old helping me mulch the garden

Our Homeschool Routine and Curriculum

We’re not fancy.

I don’t lesson plan much, if at all, and we generally school for 2.5-3 hours each morning. That’s it.

Math and language arts are our main focus, with science and history coming in at a close second.

(Another post coming soon with my current curriculum choices.)

We don’t do a lot of extra stuff on top of these four subjects unless I think the kids need something.

Actually, allow me to rephrase that: 

We do a LOT on top of those four subjects, but not in the “formal” sense.

Making pretzels

My kids build, create, and problem solve ALL DAY LONG.

We let them use scrap lumber, tape measures, hammers, saws, and nails to build all sorts of contraptions.

They basically live in an animal science lab and help with breeding, birthing, nutrition, husbandry, and more.

They’re helping us remodel our fixer upper house project, and are learning how a house is put together, how to use tools, and loads of problem-solving.

They can identify dozens of different plants, grow and nurture vegetables, and they actively participate in preserving food.

They can make their own breakfast, safely use our gas stove, make scrambled eggs, bake desserts, and are currently learning how to make yeast breads.

Honestly, when the fleeting thought of sending my kids to public school has crossed my mind in the past, my instant reaction is “They’d miss out on too much if I sent them to school!”

Helping to pour concrete

Whatever, Jill. We don’t live on a homestead so it’s not the same for us.

Oh, but it is.

Even if you live in the heart of the city, the learning opportunities abound.

Take me, for example. Homeschooling (and the free time that came with it) is the #1 thing that fostered creativity, leadership, ingenuity, and resilience in me as a child and young adult.

And I was raised in a small housing development-– no homestead, no land.

It’s not about where you live, it’s about how you maximize the opportunities in front of you– and there are MANY.

My favorite book to help foster this mindset shift is Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto. Read it. It’ll change you forever.

#2 What If I’m “Not Good Enough” To Teach My Kids?

I hear this one expressed in a variety of ways:

“I’m not qualified to teach my kids”

“I don’t know enough”

“I wasn’t a very good student myself”

“I didn’t go to college”

There is a commonly held belief that if you don’t have a bachelors degree in childhood education, then you can’t adequately homeschool your own offspring.

Listening intently at a horsemanship clinic

I don’t buy it.

There’s nothing wrong with a teaching degree, but I wholeheartedly reject the notion that one needs four years of higher education to teach their own children.

As long as you are willing to learn alongside your kids and follow a book or lesson plan with your kids, you will do fine.

That’s why we have curriculum.

So if you don’t need a teaching degree, what do you need?

Consistency and the ability to read instructions and troubleshoot situations that might come up.

And as your kids get older, they will learn to follow the instructions and troubleshoot issues, which is just as important as the lessons themselves.

Teaching our kids to learn how to learn (aka how to teach themselves), is one of the MOST valuable things we can impart to them. An adult with a healthy dose of curiosity and love for learning (that hasn’t been snuffed out) is pretty much unstoppable.

P.S. My mom never went to college. Yet, I was in the upper 95% percentile in my standardized tests each year, had above-average ACT and SAT scores, and even attended an English class at the University of Idaho when I was still in highschool. After I graduated, I double-majored in Equine Science at a community college, graduated with Honors and a 4.0, and tutored other students, all while holding down a job and riding on the college horse show team. I’m not saying this to brag, rather I’m telling you this because I was MORE than prepared for college, even though my “teacher” never attended herself.

Helping to remove the plaster on the chimney at our fixer-upper renovation

#3 What About Socialization?

Ah, the good ol’ “S” word…

As a homeschooler in the Nineties, this was the thing people rubbed in our faces more than anything else.

Not gonna lie, it gets old.

I honestly don’t hear this one come up as much as it used to– I suspect it’s because homeschooling has been around a little longer and there are AMPLE examples of well-adjusted homeschooled adults.

But that doesn’t mean it has disappeared entirely.

Truthfully, I’ve found that TOO MUCH socialization is generally the issue when it comes to homeschooling, rather than not enough.

There are SO many activities and opportunities available to homeschooled kids, the tricky part for us is finding a balance and still making sure we have enough time to do actual school work.

If this is an area that makes you feel a little uncertain, all it takes is a quick Google or Facebook search to find options in your community– whether that’s 4-H, music lessons, dance, sports, volunteering, shadowing someone in a trade or skill that interests your child, etc. There are SO many opportunities, you just have to be willing to think outside of the box.

Butchering chickens together

Does Socialization Really Happen in a Homogenous Herd?

It’s a question I’ve pondered for years…

I’ve come to be of the personal opinion that true socialization does not happen by putting a child in a large herd of other kids that are their same age.

Historically, not only did children learn in one-room schoolhouses with wide age ranges, but they spent a LOT more time operating in the adult world.

This idea that socialization equates to a child spending the majority of their time in a group of 40 other kids their exact age feels out-of-touch to me.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having friends of similar age, but I also want my kids to be able to interact with smaller children, with adults, and with the elderly.

#4 What if My Child Falls Behind in School?

I LOVE this question.

Because I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as people think it is.

*gasp*

I hear SO many parents expressing SO much worry this spring when school districts had to switch to distant learning for a short time.

“My kid didn’t learn ANY new math!”

“They are going to be SO far behind!”

“This is going to mess them up for the rest of their school career!”

Eh, maybe.

Or maybe not.

The term ‘falling behind’ is tricky because it assumes that all children learn and progress at the exact same pace at the exact same time.

We know that’s not true.

I understand why institutionalized schooling is the way it is. I understand the need for benchmarks and “levels”.

However, established benchmarks and levels obviously don’t fit everyone.

They often inadvertently slow down the kids who want to work more quickly, and discourage or alienate the kids who are a bit slower-paced in certain areas.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you can tailor it to the pace of your child. Let them run fast in a certain subject if it’s their jam. Or if they’re struggling in a certain area, go back. Keep at it until you reach that mastery, then move on. There’s no stigma and no stress.

Yes, we still finish our textbooks. Yes, we are consistent in doing school each day. Yes, it’s important that my kids do their school work well and have a firm grasp on all of the important topics before they become adults and leave home.

However, the ability to be resilient, to solve problems, to think for themselves, to not get stuck in the cycle of conformity, to cultivate the ability to create… THOSE are the pieces that are ultimately the game-changers.

Friend, You Got This.

At the end of the day, what you do with your kids’ education is your call.

If you know public school is right for your child, do it.

If you know your child would thrive in the homeschool environment, do it.

The only real mistake you can make??

To make your choice based on the opinions of those around you, or what friends/family are telling you should do.

Block out those voices and go with your gut.

Because here’s the deal: 

Regardless of what you choose, somebody is going to think that what you’re doing is wrong.

It’s annoying and freeing, all at the same time, dontcha think?

You are capable, my friend. And this decision, as scary as it may feel at first, might just be the best choice you ever made.

I’m rooting for you.

More Tips on Raising Old-Fashioned Kids:

Homeschool on the Homestead

Raising Old-Fashioned Kids in a Modern World

Life Lessons My Kids Have Learned from the Homestead

Why I’m Teaching My Kids to Fail

  The post Will My Kids Fall Behind? (And Other Homeschooling Questions) appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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