When Being A Writer Comes In Handy

We all know it's a great feeling to have the world know you're a writer through your top-selling novels... or, at least, we can imagine such a great feeling. But, other than the connection, inspiration, and (just a little) ego-stroking a best-selling novel would being, here are some often overlooked perks of being a writer: 

• When you feel like you finally have a reason to listen to your crazy relatives life histories or gossip in the office
• When it comes to writing holiday cards
• When it comes to making speeches
• When it comes to putting together a resume
• When you can look at jury time as inspiration
• When you can look at any disagreeable event as inspiration
• When you can impress friends by predicting the end of a TV show or movie 
• When you can read or watch TV and say it’s “research”
• When you have a perfectly reasonable explanation of eavesdropping 

I hope everyone was thankful for their writing on Thanksgiving :P Hope you had a happy one! 

When writing gets buried...

What do you do when what you want to write is buried under everything else? Does your list ever look like mine?

To do list:

1. 15 page paper for History of Psychology
2. 10 page paper for Psychology of Personality
3. 12 page Creative-Nonfiction piece 
4. 2 page creative writing homework assignment
5. Homework
6. Study 
7. Work on my novel(s)

Or maybe you have a job that requires writing, but it just seems so unpleasant compared to writing what you want to write. Or maybe you have a day where you really don't want to blog, but you feel like you should.

Sometimes, you just have to buckle down and get through the writing you don't want to do, in order to make time for the writing you want to. In such cases, here are a few things to remember that will (hopefully) make the work a little more fun:

• Look at it as research for your stories (if possible). (Here's where being a psychology student comes in handy, because psychology can be related to any story that has a character.) 
• Look at it as practice. Every sentence you write is bettering you as a writer.  
• Keep an eye out for things to steal from yourself. 
• Remember, you could be having to do Math instead :P

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Good luck with Nano!

Most Human Non-Humans

So, we all love reading/watching stories about aliens, vampires, werewolves and demons, right? These fantastical creatures have powers we can only dream of, often accompanied by responsibilities we’d crumbled under. But what is it that makes us so attracted to them (other than their great looks and “charming” personalities, of course)? Their humanity.

It’s strange how the most adored non-human characters are often the most human. Take a look at these three for example:

Dr Who

Wicked smart and extremely resourcefull, this Time Lord is anything but human. He saves planets on a daily basis, travels around in a blue police box, and has two hearts, but inside, he’s all human.

Spock
Emotion-free and extremely logically, he’s an often funny, entertaining character. But it’s the times he actually “slips-up” and shows emotion that make us love him.

Angel 

Before vampires were mainstream, Angel was the most human a vampire could get. Retaining the powers of a vampire and the need to drink blood, he dedicated his life (or well, living-death) to helping the hopeless, caring for people in a way only a human could.  

Who would you say is the most human non-human character you’ve come across?  

NaNoWriMo Cheers

So, it's November, and we all know what that means: hand cramps, murdered pens, overheated computers and lots and lots of writing!

I'm not sure if I'm doing NaNo this year or not... I'm extremely busy, and I'm much more quality over quantity when it comes to writing, BUT, I'm going to kick my writing into high gear and set my own personal goal at 30,000 words. (Which, if all goes well, may increase to the 50,000 required for Nano).

For those of you who are participating in NaNo, best wishes! Hope you're starting off strong.

Remember,

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world" (or write 50,000 words in a month!)
-Harriet Tubman

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has a fun safe night tonight! I'll be in class and studying for tests until the sunsets, and then I plan on dressing up and going down town with a few friends for an hour or two-nothing too exciting, but better than nothing.

Then I plan on coming home to finish reading a book of scary stories and maybe watch an episode or two of Buffy, and maybe prepare a bit more for Nano (National Novel Writing Month).

Any fun plans for the evening? Any cool costumes I should be jealous of?

Casting Call

I came across this blog hop co-hosted by Melodie, Lisa, and Carrie at So You're a Writer earlier today and it looked like so much fun, I had to sign up and participate. It's open until the 28th, so feel free to join in if you haven't already.



Vallanie (Val) Sharp

The spunky sixteen-year-old narrator of The Chronicles of Vallanie Sharp was genetically designed by her artist mother to embody the perfect balance of intelligence and creativity. She's about as tough to cast as she is to catch in her dystopian homeland, but after spending a good hour searching google images, I've narrowed it down to three strong contestants:

The first has the hair right, and the somewhat more innocent (yet possibly suspicious) gaze I'm sure Val mastered at a young age. I could see her as how Val starts out in the early chapters. 

The second is closest to what I imagined her to look like (her hair is dark, though she dies it blonde).

But if I had to cast one of these gorgeous young ladies as the heroine Val, I would cast the third-she looks almost exactly as I imagined Val to look in the end, and she has the attitude down. Just suit her up in some dark futuristic clothing and she's good to go!

So I finally got around to watching Twilight...

I'm going to start by saying I read the first book when I was in high school, and loved it. I read the second book, and hated it. Then someone told me to try the third, so I did, but I wasn't a fan. I made it half-way through the fourth and gave up. I'd seen part of the first movie before, but it didn't look great, so I never thought to rent it.

Over the weekend my roommate borrowed all three movies from a friend and had a mini-marathon. Twilight was OK, if not a little boring (I mean, half the movie is just Edward and Bella looking at each other). The book was appealing because of the whole sort of day-dreamy mood we got by being in Bella's head, but it just didn't translate to screen well. It was a book about emotions, which is hard to base a movie around.

I skipped New Moon because I disliked the book so much.

And then I tried eclipse because I'd heard it was much better and... it was much better! I was pleasantly surprised. It was neat to see more of the other Cullens and their backstories. Bella still annoyed me, but other than that, there wasn't much to complain about. It felt a little more balanced between the romance story-line and the supernatural plot, which I personally think made the romance part more valuable.

I'm curious to see what other people think. Any twilight fans? Twilight haters? I'd be curious to know what's so appealing about it, or what's so unappealing.