College Learnings

Hey all!  Welcome back!

Taking a pause from my story uploading for today, I'm going to be following up on an old post that I wrote in August about College.  Basically, in the post, I was ranting about various academic writing challenges, specifically college applications, speech essays, and lab reports.  Since then, I've made progress in all three areas to some degree and thought it'd be a good time for an update, along with a few helpful hints, tips, and tricks.

Ready?  Let's go.  :D

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COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAYS
Contrary to what I was told, writing in an informal and distinctly personal voice is a big no-no in college application essays.  Think of your essay as a pop hit for the masses.  In order for a song to hit the pop radio, it has to have a certain amount of predictability, simply because that's what people expect and that's what they want.  Rather than bringing about appreciation for true creativity, deviations tend to cause negative hesitations.  Of course, within the boundaries of predictability, there will be pop songs that make top 40 and pop songs that are on the radio for just a few months before they're taken off and forgotten forever.  It is quite possible to be predictable and memorable as well as predictable and bad, so don't slack off just because you suddenly don't have to stress selling your personality.

Extra note:
If you score 50%+ Turbulent on the MBTI like me, this whole process becomes infinitely harder because of debilitating self-doubt, but stick with it.  Surround yourself with support and make sure you are very content with your work before you open it up to be edited so you don't prematurely nip your inspiration and creativity in the bud.

SPEECH ESSAYS
A few months ago, I got a notice from my audio-speech essay post administrator that I had passed post-level for my speech essay and am moving onto regionals, which will be judged sometime in February.  Yay!  :D  I guess my ludicrous screaming into a microphone wasn't a complete loss...  (At the time of my recording, I was burdened by an expander, which is basically a big hunk of metal that orthodontists shove on the top of patients' mouths like permanent, torturous peanut butter...  So you can imagine how that went.  :P)

Extra note:
If you're a high-schooler or know any high-schoolers who would be interested, I would highly recommend the Voice of Democracy audio-essay contest.  It's fun, it's very casual, and there are often generous cash prizes at all levels, especially if you live in a sparsely populated town.  According to my administrator, each year, a handful of kids are the only ones who submit at their post, so they are automatically moved to regionals.  Never hurts to give it a shot!  :)

LAB REPORTS
Here, there are three specific rules you MUST follow if you want to survive the dark, creativity-devoid cave that is bland scientific writing:
1.) No personal pronouns.  Ever.  It is not "I" who stirred the pot of boiling gook, but the "scientist".  Or, even better, use the passive voice, e.g. "The pot of boiling gook was stirred."
2.) Each professor will be different.  Stick to their instructions like you're brown and twiggy.
3.) Make sure that you include...
   a.) every detail in the lab process
   b.) numbers that make sense or an explanation as to why the numbers didn't make sense
   and c.) evidence that relates directly to your hypothesis
If you follow those three rules, hopefully, you will make it out alive with minimal scarring.  ;)

Extra tip:
For obvious reasons, science professors don't typically write what you did wrong in your lab report, unlike the way English teachers do.  Talk to your teacher and make sure you know exactly why you were marked off.  Sometimes, I forgot a period or didn't fully correlate my hypothesis with my lab, but, other times, my teacher had no clue why they drew a red X on my lab any more than I did and consequently corrected my grade.

~ ~ ~

I hope this helps!

Write on!

Clove

Where The Broken Things Are - Chapter 2

Random ramblings:

1. As an ENTJ, a consistent theme in my writing is the importance of emotions, trust, and other seemingly-irrational elements in mental rationality.  In The Immortals, I sort of dabbled in that theme, but I didn't fully explore it, explain it, or exemplify it as I hope to do in Where The Broken Things Are.  That said, prepare for an intricate combination of philosophy and tragedy with a departure from my previous style, which emphasized action and witty dialogue.  I'm taking a much darker and more intellectual twist on this novel than I ever would have dreamed.  :)

2. As of right now, this story does not end happily in the conventional sense.  I leave some problems unsolved and leave a sense of wanting for closure because, in many cases, such is life.  Unfortunately, many difficulties must be escaped, not confronted, and I hope to digress on the mental courage and personal stability that is required to run away from difficulties in a satisfactory manner.

3. Quite a flip-flip from the original DWBSN when everything was written from Silvia's (formerly: Deidre's) perspective, I've decided to write Where The Broken Things Are entirely from Skain's perspective because I still know too little about IXFPs as a whole to write in their voice.  Still, my goal in this entire story is to make Silvia as likable as possible, so bear with me.  She still gets her spotlight.

~ ~ ~

Chapter 2

- HE MET HER -

Noises and voices.

  Wake up.

I exist again.  In a lot of pain.

Shaking spreads the aching through my body, pushing against the darkness and nudging my numb senses with feeling.  The warm, autumn sun.  Dried blood on my skin.  Every bruise and laceration.  As the rough jolting continues and the pain mounts, I let out a weak noise of protest, unable to find strength to fight against the hands that hold me.

“Mom, careful!  You’re hurting him!”

“Then—”  Unladylike swearing and grunting.  “—here, help me.  Take this arm.”

These voices…

I don’t recognize them.

As I’m hoisted by my armpits off the ground, the aching penetrates through my mental fog.  Every rattle of my heels against the cracked ground sends sharp shivers through my brain.  Moaning loudly, I reach to press down the headache with my hands, but a stronger force stops me.

“Don’t move.  We’re almost to the car.”

“Y-you’re going to the hospital.  It’s going to be all right.  Just hold on; we’re almost there.”

Suddenly, the hands on my shoulders let me down, and, helpless, I hit the pavement with the back of my head, forcing down a reflexive gasp.  That last jar sends the remnants of haze back into the recesses of my mind, and I open my eyes, blinded momentarily by the whitish sky above me.  It’s still early afternoon, so I wasn’t out for very long.

  Above me is a woman who looks like she could be my mother.  Her features are drawn in concerned and stressed lines, and she’s fishing in her pockets for car keys.  Brushing a hand over her eyes, a teenage girl drops to her knees in front of me, saying, “Are you all right?  We’re going to take you to a hospital, okay?  It’ll be all right; I promise you’ll be okay.  Can you stand?”

Considering I can hardly keep my eyes open?

Probably not.

  Pain quakes in my head, and I wince, gritting my teeth as the darkness lines my vision.

  Who are these people?

  Do I…know them?

Why are they helping me?

Suddenly wary of a trap, I struggle up to my elbows, looking around for others who might be around, but there’s no one.

  It’s just her.

  It’s only her.

  She leans forward.  Are her eyes green?  They’re grossly red, swollen, and flooded with tears, though I don’t know why she’s crying at a time like this; it just seems so absurd.  Carefully, she reaches forward and strokes my hair away from my face, and I realize she’s combing out my blood as brownish flakes fall past my line of vision.

  Her hands are shaking.

Her lips are trembling.

She must be very weak.

  And yet, ironically, she’s the one saving me.

  The car beeps as it unlocks.  The older woman opens the backseat door, and, with a lot of pushing and pulling, they somehow manage to get me in.  Dizzy at the exertion and sudden movement, I close my eyes as “Mom” ducks into the driver’s seat and “Daughter” sits next to me, keeping steady vigil over me while quietly apologizing to her mom for her breakdown.

  We start off.

  The darkness is close again.

I’m about to not exist again.

The road and the headache both rattle me from the inside out.  Leaning my head back and swallowing, I curl my hands into fists and try not to think: about the pain, about these two and where I’m going, about Jaiden and her gang, and about the hospital drugs and Dad and his disappointment.  But what else can I do but think and breathe?  I’m trapped again in the world of existence, waiting to vanish again, waiting for escape.

  It all comes so quickly.

  The sluggishness, the gray edges.  Then, soon, I’ll slump unconscious with this as my last memory: the sun on my right side, the cool air-conditioning blowing against my knees, and a rich, relaxing scent that I can’t identify wafting through the car.

Just as I’m about to fade out, a small, quivering hand wraps softly around my left fist.

  Is she scared?  Anxious?  Shocked?

  “Whatever,” I mumble to myself, “She’s weak, and that’s all that matters here.”

~ ~ ~

Write on!

Clove

Where The Broken Things Are - Chapter 1

Catch-up update:
What happened to my November novel?  Sickness.  Lots and lots of sickness.  For the first week, I wrote a few pages of fun stuff, but then I spent the next three weeks in survival mode with the flu that was followed immediately by what we guessed is strep (they ran out of strep tests at the doctor's office) followed by an antibiotic that didn't work followed by an antibiotic that did work but made me painfully lethargic.  Thanksgiving break was school catch-up, and then it was the finals crunch right after that into December.

Life never ends, does it?
Let's all agree to forget I ever attempted such a silly writing stunt.  :P

Regardless, I still come bearing good news.  I was recently up at 2 AM one night (morning?) talking to my genius ESTJ older brother about the stories that we keep saying we're going to write but never really do, and that conversation gave me an epiphany about Where The Broken Things Are (which is my new name for my DWBSN rework) so that I have now been marching forward with happy ease.  Yay for no more complications!  :D
Also, more good news.  This rad Cali chick also advised me to focus more on production and leave editing for later and for others, which means that I'm going to be flinging all of my raw junk up here as I produce it.  As always, edits are quite welcome, but please remember that this is my prematurely-delivered firstborn and its mother is far less confident than she acts on a regular basis.  ;)

Without further ado...

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Chapter 1

- ON THE BRINK OF TARTARUS -

Suffocating…

If I say that I was born suffocating, then I have never known air for the nineteen years I have existed in my mind.  But, if I have never had breath, then how do I know that this is actually suffocating?

Maybe everyone else is just that much better at hiding their suffocation than I am.

  Or maybe I have always been afloat.

Maybe being afloat is just this miserable.

Maybe everyone goes through life like this: struggling, writhing, begging for it to all be over.

But when I compare myself to them, I feel like there is no way we could all be suffocating.  They  seem to always find the time to inhale and exhale in their ups and downs.  They ride life, floating atop it and occasionally collapsing beneath the foam, but always surfacing again.  I can tell what I look like to them.  Their eyes spark; they laugh; they get together and celebrate life, even amidst the busyness.  To them, I must be a vague unknown with permanent marks of darkness under my eyes and more depth in my shadow.

  “Why does he always look tired?”

“I heard he works in the Rawks…”

“That’s so gross.  Look at how pale his skin is.”

I’ve heard them.

And I can’t blame them.

  How would they know what’s going on in my life if I hadn’t told them?

  How would I know what’s going on in their lives unless if they told me?

But, at my core, I’m scared to ask, I guess.  If I plucked up the courage to question if they drown the same way I do - what if they so no?  What if this is just me?  What if I am alone in this muffled ocean?  How could I bear to go on then, knowing that I have been entirely defeated and that I am distanced from everyone else?

I can’t ask.

That would be suicide.

  Inhaling slowly, my eyes open as my mind staggers from the black.  I still haven’t been moved; they haven’t moved either.  Like always, they leave blows that I’ll feel later so I can remember that it’s not over merely when I fade out.

They keep telling me that: I don’t exist only when my mind is awake.

I keep refusing to believe it.

  Jaiden’s booted feet are before me, gliding atop shards of sparkling granite set into asphalt.  The same fragments that hold her up leave cold imprints in the side of my face, and I watch, fitted and snug with the ground, as Jaiden slowly pulls her foot up, revealing the blood on her heel.  Instinctively, my eyes close again, and my nails dig into my palms.  There’s a ringing in my ears, like the rush of a waterfall and a clear, high bell.

  Then I feel the impact against my head, and the philosophical musing of today is over.

  I exist no longer.

~ ~ ~

Write on!

Clove

November Novel Update #1

Sometimes, your author takes flight on the wings of her words.

...

Other times, your author gets blindsided and pinned down for too long by a sickness that seems to include every symptom known to man: coughing, high fevers, exhaustion, stomach pain, discolored skin, loss of appetite, and digestive table-flipping (if you catch my meaning).

In other words, maybe my novel will not be finished by November.  x)  Currently, I am three pages in, and this sickness does not necessarily permit creativity...or even the ability to focus on a computer screen or notebook for any longer than an hour.  :\

Either way, the writing shall continue.  Eventually.  Unless if I die.

Eurgh.

Write on!
Clove

National Novel Writing Month!

Guys, it's November!  You know what that means?

It's National Novel Writing Month!  :D

NaNoWriMo is a challenge to authors everywhere to start and finish a novel within the month of November.  (Yeah, I know,  it's terrifying, right?)  Apparently, hardcore authors go to the actual NaNoWriMo site, sign up, and get accountability to finish their book, but - you guys know me - I might finish in November of 2016 if I'm lucky...so I'm just doing this as a personal challenge for myself.  :P  Heaven knows if anything will actually come of it.  x)

Anyway, even if you've already lost four days, I highly suggest that you start on this journey with me, if anything, just for the experience.  :)  From my perspective, NaNoWriMo will be both fun and educational, and I look forward to seeing what comes out of it.

Let me know in the comment section below if you're going to take the challenge with me.  :D

Write on!
Clove

Current Writing Playlist

--- to remedy the apathy ---

--- to aid the apathy ---

--- subterfuge during the sophisticated dinner party ---

--- for introducing the antagonist ---

--- pure grief  ---

--- when you're the only one who is not changing ---

--- for the romantic betrayal ---

--- final words ---

--- for all the technical writing ---

--- when you need to condescend life ---

--- naughty self ---

--- when coffee shop musing ---

Write on!

Clove

A word from David Foster Wallace

"Utilize" - this is a puff-word.  Since it does nothing that good old use doesn't do, its extra letters and syllables don't make a writer seem smarter.  I tell my students that using utilize makes you seem either pompous or so insecure that you'll use pointlessly big words in an attempt to look smart.  The same is true for the noun utilization, and for vehicle as used for car, for residence as used for home, for indicate as used for say, for presently, at present, at this time, and at the present time as used for now, and so on.  What's worth remembering about puff-words is something that good writing teachers spend a lot of time drumming into undergrads: 'Formal writing' does not mean gratuitously fancy writing; it means clean, clear, maximally considerate writing. 

-- David Foster Wallace

Excellent point, Mr. Wallace.  Please explain to me why, then, do we have a word minimum for essays in high school?  Hrngph.  Welcome to one of the countless double-standards in life.

Write on!

Clove

Dealing with writing failures

College Application: What have you done with your sixteen years of life thus far?  Specifically explain where you have worked, what you've done over the summer, and how you've participated in academic clubs, athletics, and extracurricular activities.  Please list specific examples of leadership and benefits, recognitions and awards, and growth and acquired skills.

Once you are done with that, we will need to know if you are allergic to kryptonite, your preference for peanuts, and why your dog is special to you.  (If you don't have a dog, then please explain to us your weirdest dream using only kennings and Homeric similes.)  We would also like to know whether you are Team Edward or Team Jacob, your favorite summer experience, and how you like your eggs and potatoes: scrambled, fried, poached, raw, sunny-side-up, sunny-side-down, and/or boiled and mashed, fried, baked, roasted, herbed, and/or boiled respectively.

Oh.  Also.  Explain all of the above in no more than ten words.

Me: *internal screaming*

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Anyway, welcome back, kids.

I'm here today to procrastinate submitting one of my college applications discuss a rather unpopular topic, namely How to Deal With Writing Failures.  Most authors could give you plenty of tips and tricks on how to write well, but I've found via experience that no one wants to explain what to do when your writing has hit rock bottom.

First of all, let me explain what I mean when I say "writing failure."  I'm talking about when you pour your life blood and soul and emotion into a document, polish it until it's positively shining with rigorous editing, and then hand it over to another person.  Then, that person begins to obliterate your writing by pointing out all the errors and inconsistencies in your work.  Suddenly, you realize that you're not as fantastic of an author as you originally thought you were, and, perhaps, actually, you should give up writing altogether.  So what do you do?

STEP 1.) Don't try to fix your failure document!
The whole time you attempt to edit your failure, you'll be confronting inspiration-draining criticisms with a high-expectation mindset, e.g. "This time, I have to make it perfect!"  With that thinking, you yourself will become a stronger critic than your editors, and nothing you put down will make the cut, leading to a cycle of frustrated despair.

STEP 2.) Even though you shouldn't try to fix your failure, take a step back for a little while to assess the problem with it.
Why did you fail?  What went wrong?  What is different between this particular failure and your other successful documents?  If you were writing an academic paper, you might notice that you're approaching your topic from an angle that you dislike, that you're trying to stuff too much emotion into an analytical paper, or that you couldn't organize your ideas coherently.  If you were writing a fictional novel, you might find that you didn't have an end in mind, that your characters' motivation had not been clear, or that you're attempting to draw too many plot arcs together at one time.

STEP 3.) Outline specifically what you want to write about when you try again.
Brainstorm (which means: create and write down ideas without hampering or deleting "bad" ideas), make a mental map, and craft a simple framework.  Yes, this often cuts your ego a little.  ("I don't need a stupid outline!  Those are for novices!")  However, in my experience, using an outline as a crutch is typically the only way I have ever been able to get out of a writing rut.

With these three steps and a boatload of chocolate, hopefully, you will have more success getting back at it.  :)  Good luck!

Write on!
Clove

More Than Just A Character

When I wrote Eriana in The Chronicles, I wasn't writing as the queen of an ancient kingdom, fending off evil forces.  I was writing as an inexperienced, twelve-year-old ENTJ, learning how to deal with the natural leadership capabilities I realized I had been given.  I was struggling to leave my childhood behind, to act with the dignity and diplomacy of a queen, to live in the interest of those who were influenced by my words and deeds.

When I wrote Mariel in The Tragedy, I wasn't writing as the moonlight girl with memory loss and a ghostly suitor.  I was writing, terrified, because I felt so fragile and useless too.  The bullying that Mariel endured was the bullying that I endured: being dragged powerless by both hands through a church and, even younger, feeling my fingers thrust into a flame.  When I wrote, I was trying to reconcile my own experiences.  I was scared, and I was begging for my own Toshiro to always protect me, to always stay by my side, no matter what happened.

When I wrote Kayzen in The Rebellion, I wasn't writing a rational-minded assassin set out to train her young student to control his wild, uncontrollable Rager abilities.  I was teaching myself patience and restraint, remembering when, in Korea, he threw me down against the floor again and again until I controlled myself.  I was making a written choice to always have self-control, even if I tore myself apart in the process.  At thirteen, I wouldn't let anything master me.

When I wrote Jewel in The Immortals, I wasn't writing an emotionless antihero who was trying to reconcile what was morally right in her world.  I was me, learning why I shouldn't stifle or cage my heart.  I was me, retraining myself to view emotions as mandatory for interdependence.  I was me, scared to open up my heart to another human and show vulnerability and show weakness.

Now, I'm writing Skain in my DWBSN rework, and I'm not writing an emotionally-exploited male who is threatened with his sister's death.  I'm writing me and the past year and a half of war.  I'm writing about the depression that I went through, the cutting, the empty pain that broke me, screaming until I lost my voice and crying until my chest hurt.  I'm writing about the emotional abuse in December: bowing my head in the empty nursery room and subjugating my will to save peace with those in authority over me.  I'm exactly piecing together the details of my quiet dream: to run away from this old, too-familiar town and to make myself better with time and distance and to come back with only a desperate hope of being forgiven for what I never apologized for earlier.  I'm not writing Skain.  I'm writing myself.  The only difference is: I know he gets a happy ending; how I end is up to Fate and my own skill.

~ ~ ~

So, what's the point?
Guys, look.  You can edit peoples' stories: grammar, plot, flow.  But don't you dare critique the motivation behind an author's writing.  Because there's more.  There are nightmares that you've never seen; there's crap that haunts me still that I've never publicized; there's a whole load of denial and expression and fear involved in writing.

It's not just a hero and a villain.

There's always more than just a character.

Write on!
Clove

Writing Pictures

Guys, I got to one of the most exciting scenes of my story, and yet, agonizingly, I haven't been able to write it because, when I'm not studying for exams or handling normal homework, I'm training in the art of resume-writing and am finishing up my slough of college application essays.  I haven't picked up my violin in weeks, aside from when I have to for orchestra; I haven't contacted many of my long-distance friends in months; I basically only emerge from the office for food and sleep.

Yes, yes, I know, it's a matter of priority over time, bla bla bla...

BUT THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH TIME THESE TOP PRIORITIES TAKE.

Microeconomics, ladies and gentlemen

Anyway, since I haven't been able to write any but have still wanted to keep up this blog, here are some of my favorite writing pictures of all time:

This one is for Jace.  :3

Hehe, anyway...

On a more serious note, though, if you're also having a hard time coping with the future like I am, I've learned that it's helpful to keep three things in mind:
     1.) Don't ever feel like you have to conform to the world's standards of time.  If you want to wait until you're an adult to go to college, then do that.  Better yet, if you feel like your skill sets don't require you to go to college to learn stuff that you could learn faster and more easily by reading the right books, then don't go to college.  If, deep inside, you really only want to attend two years of college so you can devote more time to starting a viable business and creating music and touring the world to eat all the delicious foods and acquire all the fantastic fashions, then...well...then you're probably me.
     You know what?  Never mind.
     2.) Be proactive.  Coping with the future means that you don't wait around for someone else to tell you what to do with your life.  Think about what makes you happiest and go do that.  Even in cases where you have no control, like with scores and grades and whatnot, you can still control your own anxiety.  Start there.
     3.) If all else fails, playing this song on repeat and stress running and stress eating gingersnaps and home-made applesauce always help.

Write on!
Clove

Overused Plots Part 2

Sooo...I recently talked with le incredibly genius, ESTJ, older brother, and he had some comments about "Overused Plots", which I thought I should publish for the sake of propagating quality and accuracy.

Last post, I said that we authors should never use the overused plots that I had listed.  However, my brother remarked that "it isn't necessarily a bad thing to write a journey/amnesia/rebellion/dead-family story."  After all, when the authors of popular stories (Rowling, Collins, Riordan, etc.) wrote their stories, they weren't using "tried and true but cheap and lazy plot starters."  They were using good, fresh, and imaginative plot starters.

However, now that those plots starters have been used, widely-dispersed, and mimicked, they are overused, even though they are still creative and flexible plot starters.

"So, the key isn't to bash ideas based on those plot starters, [even] though, coming up with new, less-used plots is interesting.  [The key is] ... to call for the need to identify what about your cliché-plot-started story is unique and special and memorable."

Write on!

Clove

Overused Plots

Clove's life is:

• chai-tea with think, frothy coconut milk, cinnamon, and honey
• making National Merit Scholarship semifinals!  :D
• but having to study harder to make finals...  o.O
• too much master-minding for and with old friends
• and, of course, slow but steady writing

Anyway, microeconomics class was cancelled this morning, which means that, instead of supply-and-demand graphs, I get to discuss another terrible reality: overused plots and why you should never use them.  Before we get started, I want to dedicate half of this post to my older brother, whose dominant-Te function is basically in hyper-drive compared to mine.  Without his incredible critical powers, this post would not have come to be.

~ ~ ~

OVERUSED PLOT #1 - THE JOURNEY
Notable Examples: The Hobbit, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, several Rick Riordan books, etc.

Author: You're going on a journey, Main Character.
MC: I am?
Author: Yes.
MC: Why?
Author: Because.
MC: But--
Author: On this journey, you will encounter many terrible monsters, trials, booby-traps, character-developing crises, new friends, and basically anything that I can imagine that I want to include to make an interesting story.
MC: But what...if I don't want to go?
Author: YOU DON'T GET TO MAKE THAT DECISION LOSER HAHAHAHAHAH.

OVERUSED PLOT #2 - AMNESIA
Notable Examples: Blindspot, Jason Bourne, The Maze Runner, lots and lots of video games, etc.

Author: *whacks Main Character violently on the head*
MC: Ow.
Author: Wake up.
MC: ...w-who are you?
Author: Your master.
MC: Then, who am I?  How old am I?  If I can't remember anything, isn't it likely that I'm a crippled, old person suffering from dementia?
Author: Nah, dude, you're a kick-butt anti-hero with powers you didn't know you had in the prime of your fit youth.  Congratulations!
MC: Oh...so, like, I can do karate and stuff?
Author: Yeah, but you won't know it until a bad guy suddenly tries to kill you.
MC: Ahhh.  Okay.  Very good.
Author: The best part is that I can make you remember a new aspect of your old life whenever the plot slows down.  For example, did you know you killed your parents?
MC: *violent, convulsing flashbacks*
Author: HAHAHAHAHAHAH.

OVERUSED PLOT #3 - REBELLION
Notable Examples: The Hunger Games series, the Divergent series, Every-Aspiring-Teenage-Girl's-First-Dozen-Self-Written-Books, etc.

Author: Main Character, it is important that you must be a female.
MC: *starts fixing hair and putting on make-up*
Author: A tomboyish female.
MC: *slowly lowers mascara*  O-oh...okay.
Author: You live in a cruel world ruled by a tyrannical government.
MC: So...grrr...?
Author: And have anger issues.
MC: GRRR?
Author: And have secret weapon skills that the government doesn't know about.
MC: *cocks gun*/*loads bow*/*readies whale harpoon*
Author: And have a handsome suitor.
MC: Nice.
Author: Multiple handsome suitors.
MC: Ooo-la-la.
Author: One of whom encourages you to revolt against the government and gets tortured/maimed/wounded for being your other significant other at which point you realize that you only loved him and cannot live without him.
MC: Wait, what?
Author: Now go, doggy.  Fight!  Win!  Show them who's the feminazi boss, you single individual who manages to gain allies, start a political fire, and overthrow an entire, stabilized government!  YOU ARE INVINCIBLEEE!

OVERUSED PLOT #4 - DEAD PARENTS
Notable Examples: The Star Wars series, the Harry Potter series, the Series of Unfortunate Events series, etc.

Author: *kills Main Character's parents*
MC: Aw, dude, that stinks.
Author: Yeah.  You know what else stinks?
MC: Wait.  Let me guess.  I'm in either the world's cruddiest orphanage or the world's most unchecked foster home.
Author: Bingo!
MC: I hate you.
Author: BUT WAIT.  There's more!  Aside from you, your parents also left behind a.) a string of painful memories about your parents' death that you must overcome, b.) an antagonist who hated your parents and now hates you, c.) secrets that you must unravel, or d.) ALL OF THE ABOVE!  HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

~ ~ ~

Yeah.  People, you know these plots all too well.
Now use your creative powers and please, for the love of Gandalf the Gray, pick a different plot arc.

Write on!
Clove

College

Hello one, hello all,

How have you all been?  Have you been able to keep up with writing as school starts?

Me, I'm doing fairly well, considering I have a 7:45 A.M. college class two days out of the week this semester.  (Thankfully, it's probably the easiest class that exists at the college I'm attending.  I feel like the college took all the dual-enrolling students and stuffed them into the same class along with a teacher professor [ugh, title differences] who was a former elementary school teacher.  Needless to say, it's looking like a high school class so far, i.e. cake.  ^.^)

Anyway, I know I normally blog about fictional stories, and I know I've mentioned school and writing before.  However, because I've solely been writing college application essays, an audio-essay competition submission, and some lab reports, I've come to realize how utterly vital it is that authors learn, not only how to write professionally, but how to write professionally in various voices.

Here's what I mean:

In my college applications, I was instructed to write with a strong personality and with extreme conciseness.  While this may not seem apparent, those two conditions are strict opposites.  .-.  I can't be terse, because that's rude, but I also can't be expressive, because that's not brief.  Then, they tell you that it's also good to throw in some subtle and intelligent humor, but to still be earnest and humble at the same time.  I mean, this is legitimately my college application essay life:

I'm not kidding, folks.

Then, in speech essays, especially if your speech is more of a toast than a debate, you've got to learn to write professionally with a full, rich vocabulary and strong sentence variations while still writing flowery, as if you were writing poetry or description.  You've got to use grand allusions and expanded anecdotes, but you have to tie everything back to a main thesis.  It's like...writing a research paper using story-writing technique with elements of both all jammed together.  I mean, come onnn.  We're not all Aragorn:

Bla bla, whatever, show off.

As a polar opposite to speech essays, lab reports demand that you never use the active voice or try to be creative in the slightest.  Every sentence must be "the temperature of the mixture was taken" and never "I took the temperature of the mixture".  In fact, everything that you learned in English class is defenestrated by Lab class.  You never vary your sentence openers, and all of your creative juices are channeled into you, figuring out how to write as briefly as is humanly possible.

Ah, anyway, as you can see, right now, the challenge of professional writing voices is still a conundrum to me.  When (or...if, hehe) I get through this semester and submit all of my papers, I'll do my best to write a follow-up post on what I found specifically helpful.  In the meanwhile, if you have any advice, the comment box will thirstily drink up aid.  And, as always...

Write on - hopefully not on tedious, paradoxical projects like me!
Clove

Herky-Jerky Mood Flow

Hey all,

I know it's been a long time since I've discussed the actual mechanics of writing, but I'm back now with a pet (pet? more like a wild bear...) peeve: terrible mood flow.  I'm talking about those characters who feel about as many emotions as a preteen girl going through puberty in the span of, like, two paragraphs.

"Woo!  I'm happy!  Lol, jk, I'm sad.  Nah, man, I'm teed at you now.  Oh, wait, you were justified all along?  Dude, I'm sad again."  WHY SO MANY FEEEEELS?!

Yeah, that sort of thing.

(Disclaimer: Just because I'm using a picture from Inside Out in a negative light does not necessarily mean that I dislike that movie.  On the contrary, Inside Out is an exemplar of extremely smooth mood flow, and everyone should watch it.  Period.  Go support Disney, y'all.)

Now, I know, being an ENTJ, I'm more distanced for emotions than the average human, so I probably find mood flow easier due to personality, but too many emotions still seems to be the number one problem with writers universally.  In every story I read (yes, yes, including mine too), there's always at least one scene that is too rushed and emotionally herky-jerky (and, most of the time, the entire story is just an emotionally-lurching wreck).
After having dealt with this problem when editing individual stories time after time, I am now here to write this blog post as a reference to all the authors who seriously need some mood flow help.

So, listen up, EVERYONE.

Here are FIVE TIPS TO DECREASING HERKY-JERKY MOOD FLOW:

1.) If your character is in trouble, don't make him or her feel exhaustion until AFTER the trouble is over.
Bilbo's going with the dwarves on a sudden adventure.  Well, he's certainly not going to stop after the first night, winded and complaining about all the sore muscles he's got.  That exhaustion waits until later to aid the climax.
Similarly, let's suppose your character, Captain America Junior, is in a street fight.  Captain Junior definitely will NOT be adrenaline-hyped during the fight and then tired as he's running away from his foes; he will feel the effects of exhaustion after he's locked the front door to his house and has safely gotten away because this is how adrenaline works.
Got it?
The exception to this, of course, is a battle, in which case second-winds and third-winds and seventeenth-winds are all acceptable, depending on how frustrated you want your reader to be with you.

2.) Write your story like a movie.
Your protagonist's lover, Anne, has just received the news that she's fatally ill.  The grief-stricken mood of the following scene should stay long enough for a full, seven-minute, James Horner soundtrack song to be played.  Naturally, this means that, not only do you have to generate a sorrowful feeling in yourself, but you also have to generate a sorrowful feeling in your readers.
How do you do that?  Give your characters something to do to demonstrate their sadness during the movie-equivalent of at least seven-minutes in your book.  Make Anne cry; make her argue with her lover about how they won't be able to afford treatment unless if he takes on an additional job as a plumber; make her take a meditative walk in the rain, considering how the feeling of the raindrops will someday just disappear in the face of death.
When you've written enough for your characters to start feeling the grief too, THEN you can move on to the next feeling of panic and confusion or whatever have you.  But, don't forget: it takes longer than you might first think for your reader to get on board with an emotion change.

3.) Treat grave situations with proper gravity.
Guys, this is common sense.
Someone close to your protagonist dies?  You'll want to write at least a page of emotionally-sorrowful eulogy for said someone.  Don't just skip over this death to happy, angry, or condescending emotions, because death is grave and must be treated by your protagonist with gravity.
But what if someone gets a cut because your protagonist couldn't help in time?  Authors, please don't give me another tome on how useless and dejected your protagonist feels.  It was just a cut; said someone will live.  Since the situation is less grave, your protagonist should treat the situation with less gravity.

4.) Don't merge character moods in interaction.
When Sam is feeling very cheerful and Sue is feeling very irritable, it's easy to forget how Sam feels and to just make him come right across the bat as sounding irritable too.  However, conflicting character moods must clash and interact.
Haven't you ever been in a situation where you were feeling kind of down and all of your friends were up on cloud nine?  Considering you legitimately were miserable, you didn't just naturally drift up to join them, did you?  Instead, you probably got angry at them for joking and teasing and laughing like idiots who couldn't understand the seriousness of your feelings.  The same should be true for your characters.

5.) Above all else, have an over-arching, skeletal, plot-driven feeling to rely upon.
Personal example: in my story, my over-arching, skeletal, plot-driven feeling for Skain is a feeling of powerlessness.  Because the plot demands that he is consciously emotionally abused and manipulated for the main of the story, he feels out of control, exhausted, and frustrated.  This is his default.
Naturally, his emotions will swing different ways.  When he first falls in love with Silvia, he feels ecstatic and free.  When his puppeteers start targeting his sister as a way to get to him, he feels inconsolably angry and wild.  However, throughout all of this, the main feeling of vulnerability stays as a solid theme for the reader to grasp at and rely upon.
Likewise, your characters should not be emotionally drifting along with the events of the plot.  Up until the climax (and maybe even then), they should have a default, constant feeling.  In the Matrix, Neo felt confused.  In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo felt burdened.  In Up, Carl felt bitter.  These feelings reside and seep into the reader, providing a deep sea of mood stability.
Lastly, subpoint inside point five: whatever over-arching, skeletal, plot-driven feeling you choose for your character, you've got to feel it immensely yourself.  One of the main reasons why writing Skain is easier for me than writing Silvia is because I've undergone intense emotional abuse myself with authorities forcing me to behave certain ways and apologize for what I didn't do.  I know the feeling of powerlessness intimately.  Whereas, with Silvia, her backbone feeling is one of compassion, heroism, and hatred towards the injustices in the world.  While I do feel some of those feelings, I naturally drift towards a default of helplessness, which means that I'm constantly having to double-check that kindness and courage shine through in Silvia's chapters.  If you want to portray it, you've got to feel it yourself; I cannot stress this enough.

So, there are my five starter points.  I'm sure that, when I continue my editing, I'll think of more and maybe do a part two or something.  In the meanwhile, I hope what I wrote is helpful and applicable to your everyday writing.  :)

Also, as a side update, school has officially begun for me.  I'm a senior, and my classes seem to be fairly easy thus far.  However, with the continued testing and college application/scholarship essays that I've got to write, my blogging might be sporadic.  Just so you know.  :)

Write on!
Clove

Some DWBSN Numbers

Number of times I have to re-write Skain's chapters: anywhere from 0 to 1, but normally 0.

Number of times I have to re-write Silvia's chapters: anywhere from 3 to 178,394,392,586, but normally 178,394,392,586.

Number of Healer episodes I have to watch to start feeling enough feels to properly write Silvia: generally, 2, which is about an eighth of my waking day.

Number of times I come back to re-read Silvia's chapters and crumple inside at the illogical and disillusioned absurdity in said chapter: yes.

Numbers of pins I find that relate to Silvia on an average day: 8 to 9.

Number of pins I find that relate to Skain on an average week: maybe 1, if I'm lucky.  (Despite this, Skain's board is still twenty-nine pins larger than Silvia's board.  Maybe I'm wrong...or just self-interested.  Whatever.)

Number of tidbits I'm willing to give out right now: 1, and it's one that makes me happy because it's the first time Skain realizes that Silvia's something not like anyone else and it's the first time Silvia realizes that Skain's got a lot more under his aloof highliness that he doesn't discuss.

Can't you tell how cute they are already?  Gah, I love these two so much.

Write on!

Clove

The Immortals - Published!

Ladies and gentlemen, a wonderful thing happened last night: I officially became a published author!  :D  After writing the actual document, enduring the editing process (I need a t-shirt that says, "I let an ESTJ edit my story - and survived"), and designing my own cover design, I am happy to announce that, right now, you can buy The Immortals for the Kindle for $2.99!

If you weren't able to read it before when I had it up on my blog for free for a few months, The Immortals is a short, adventure-romance story about a female assassin who possesses the ability to self-regenerate but who has entirely lost the ability to feel emotions.  When she learns some secrets about those who gave her her abilities, she comes to discover much about the worth of emotions and the sacrifices that are involved with feelings.

I put a lot of work into this publishing, so I hope you all can give it lots of love!  :)

Write on!
Clove

I DID IT.

Hey, guys, guess what?

TO BE CONTINUED (when the links and stuff are working)...

Write on!

Clove

P.S. AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

"Brief" Update

Life update: Surgery recovery has gone very well.  It has now been ten days since surgery, and I'm officially eating food that isn't mush the color of molded mud.  (Though, to be honest, while I've been on this liquid detox diet, I've had a seriously terrible craving for two crunchy, unhealthy things: Wendy's popcorn chicken with barbecue sauce and strawberry wafer cookies...like, the ones that taste like a cheap ice-cream cone on the outside until you bite into them and let all the delicious, sugary, artificial filling melt around your tongue.  Cravings, people, cravings.)


Writing update: I've been writing like a maniac recently.  I think I've averaged a chapter a day, which, if you know me, you know is a crazy amount of writing.  Unfortunately, because I've been pumping out so much unedited junk, I have a lot of chapters, but I have a lot of terribly flawed chapters.

What this means for you is: fun stuffs is coming up in the near future.  Hold onto your seats, kiddos.


Rant section: As I was writing, I thought to myself, erroneously, if Silvia just met Skain, they would fall in love, which is what I need for the story to progress.  He's intelligent, he's rich, and he's about as attractive as guys get.  What is there not to like?  So I pushed towards them meeting as fast as I could.

And then, today, on the blessed day when they finally bumped into each other, they started bloody FIGHTING.  That's when I remembered that Skain is an ENTJ and Silvia is an INFP and they're both as obnoxious as that little flap of skin that starts peeling at the side of your nail into your flesh and bone.  He's bossy; she's arrogant.  He's frivolous; she's melodramatic.  He's chatty; she's a female human hermit crab who has moved to the most abandoned corner of Antarctica to be alone.

Whyyy did I ever try to be creative?  "ENTJ x INFP," I said, "No one has ever done something like this before!"  Hahaha, yeah, and there's a reason for it, Clove.

Grrr.


Publishing update: GUYS.  WE'RE SO CLOSE TO PUBLISHING THE IMMORTALS.  Finally, I got the tax and bank account issues figured out, and so, now, I just have to make some final touches to the book cover and figure out how to best categorize my book so as to get it sold.  Expect a very excited post that says, "I'M AN AUTHOR!" sometime in the very near future, i.e. in the next twenty-four hours.  Yaaay!  :D


Write on!
Clove

I did things

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to announce that I have started doing terrible, time-wasting things for my story.

You're welcome.

Write on!
Clove

'k, what's with Sil?

Notes after wisdom teeth removal and SARPE:

1. Anesthesia is super not cool.  All ENTJs, including yours truly, find basically nothing more psychologically terrifying than being conscious and yet out of control of ourselves, and that's basically what anesthesia did to me for, like, an hour or so.  Very, very not cool, dudes.

2. Fun fact: the day I got back from surgery, my wonderful little sister made home-baked chocolate-covered biscotti.  Y'ALL BE THANKFUL FOR HARD FOOD, OKAY?

3. I hate recovery.  Hate, hate, haaate recovery.  My body moves way too slow for my mind, like, come on, can you pick up the slack a little?  We have things to do.

Skain has that problem too.

But, anyway, we're not talking about him today.  We're talking about Silvia.  Or, I mean, I'm talking about Silvia.  Or, at least, I'm going to try.  I've had the inability to focus on any one thing for longer than, say, thirty minutes.  And I'm not taking any prescribed medicines, just homeopathic stuff, so you can imagine that the pain is pretty high.  And the fever.  And this blueberry yogurt is commanding a lot of my attention right now.

You know what?
This is a terrible idea.

~ ~ ~

Anywaaay, the question I wanted to answer today is: why Silvia?  Why am I writing an INFP?  I've always said that writing is a method of conveying feeling, but INFPs (actually, NFs as a whole) live on a totally different emotional planet than NTs.  So how can I convey what I don't feel?

Short answer: I can't.

Long answer: I can't, but I'm going to try - and fail and try again and fail again because, goodness gracious, INFPs are strange, sarcastic, needy princesses indeed.  But I will persevere.  Aaand here's why:

1.) SKAIN NEEDS SILVIA
ENTJs are masterminds, but we're not omniscient.  And, many times, on our quest for world domination or what-have-you, we overlook seemingly-insignificant details, including the state of our  physical well-being.  If we don't partner up with someone who knows before we know that we need help, we're in for a load of trouble.

Silvia is that "someone."

Now, I have to point out that this INFP x ENTJ pairing is an exception.  In real life, I almost always ship ENTJs with ISTPs or ESTPs because, in real life without many crises, all three types tend to rally around their Se function: living on the edge, bantering, enjoying thrills, etc.  ENTJs (and their bloated income, hehe) are able to effortlessly provide their XSTP partners with the next new adventure, and the XSTPs teach ENTJs not to take themselves so gosh-dang seriously all the time.
However, in my story, Skain is really just trying to survive from day to day, using his more grave-natured dominant and auxiliary functions to outwit the manipulative INFJ antagonist.  Thus, he doesn't have much time for living it up.  That's why I'm choosing to pair him with the supportive, insightful INFP, rather than the spontaneous, brush-it-off XSTP.

2.) PERSONAL GROWTH
Now that I'm in my latter teenage years, my own inferior Fi function (which is an INFP's dominant function) is starting to show up, an appearance that I find fascinating and yet obnoxious.  While most people with Fi in their dominant or auxiliary stack positions have the ability to empathize well with people, all that my Fi is doing for me right now is making me enjoy tear-jerker movies and showing me how unstable I am inwardly.

Just for the sake of seeing how an INFP might properly use her Fi function, I've decided to write Silvia.  Simulate and learn.

3.) PRACTICE
Duh.  Every author should try to step outside their normal boundaries (or, you know, onto another, emotional planet) for the sake of growing versatility.  I'm not saying that I'll ever write another INFP main character after this, but I might diversify my side characters with the practice I'm getting through Silvia.

~ ~ ~

All right, dudes, my blueberry yogurt is gone, and my fever is back up.  I think now is a good time to take a hot shower and crawl under my covers while meticulously planning what I will do when I'm done recovering, wahaha...

Write on!

Clove

Pricing

Apparently, there's way more to self-publishing than I first imagined.

It figures, though.  I'm a blog author.  I type stuff out, glance over it for glaring punctuation and grammatical errors, hit "publish", and - WHAM - my post is out in the world for everyone to read.  On a day when I suffer from writer's block, it takes me an hour per post.

Unfortunately, with actual books (even if said books are fictional novelettes), publishing takes a little bit (hehe, a lottle bit) more time and effort for formatting, font choices, and - ugh ugh ugh - cover design.  One of the biggest issues that I've been musing over is book pricing and the differences between 99 cent books, 98 cent books, and 97 cent books.

I know, I know, one cent differences.
Think it's absurd?
Hold your laughter.

As I've been reading through "Kindle Publishing Gold: How to Make Money Online Self-Publishing" by R.L. Adams, I've realized that there are huge psychological aspects behind these three prices.  Summarized from Adams' book, here's my best interpretation of these three prices' deeper meaning.

~ ~ ~

99 CENTS:
Most people know this little secret.  Price your books at 99 cents and people will buy because they automatically tend to ignore the stuff after the decimal point.  (You know, like that one time that you bought that pint of ice cream for $4.99 and thought you were getting a steal - fifty cents per half cup of ice cream! - only to realize that you actually bought a pint of a vanilla-flavored brain freeze for five whopping bucks.)
However, even though people know this secret, no one really seems to be objecting to it.  According to studies presented in Adams' book, 60.7% people will still prefer to buy products that end with the number 9.

98 CENTS:
Ooo, we just got one cent cheaper!  Now we're hitting the real discounts!
Heheh.
Actually, since people ignore the stuff after the decimal point, they're still ignoring the one extra cent markdown.  That is, unless if your target audience is extraordinarily price-sensitive, like Wal-Mart's customers are.

97 CENTS:
Strangely enough, people do tend to notice the three cent discount (97) even if they don't notice the two cent discount (98), simply because 97 cents is a clear break-away from the traditional 99 cents and the less-traditional-but-still-frequent 98 cents.
However, this attention isn't necessarily good.  97 cents implies that the author is cunningly calculating and that the book price is a little too exact.  Some people might be turned away by that sort of forethought, feeling as if they're walking into a pricing trap.

~ ~ ~

Intriguing, isn't it?

Anyway, with all of this help, I've decided that the price for The Immortals is to be CHEAP dollars and INEXPENSIVE cents...which, in more or less words...is to say I haven't decided yet.  (No more than two dollars, anyway.  :P)

Last note: R.L. Adams' book is a fantastic, practical read for amateur authors like me.  If you've got a finished work and want to throw it into the internet world just to see how it does, I would highly advise that you buy his novel (which is free on the Kindle, I believe).

And, as always--

Write on!
Clove

Skain's Playlist - Let Me Know (BTS)

Ever have one of those days where you start writing a blog post, but you can't seem to stop journaling your feels into your blog post even when you know that no one reading your writing blog cares to read about how you feel ("Gosh, Clove, make a personal blog if you want to talk about yourself."), so you delete your entire post and start over a half bajillion times?

Yeah, having one of those days today.  >.<

Anyway, I'll get to the point: recently, I've been compiling a list of songs that would fit my characters, as I normally do.  (Music and writing?  What could be better?)  One of my favorite "Skain" songs is Let Me Know by Bangtan Boys.
I'd imagine it'd play at the end of the story, when Skain has been "unfaithful" to Silvia, has literally stabbed her in the back, and has disappeared off the face of the earth - all for the sake of saving her from himself.  (To the people who read my first draft, yes, things have gotten much more drastic, hehe.)

In the epilogue, Skain comes back to her eventually and wants to know how she feels after all that he did.

And thus:

On top of this ending tune,

I am standing here alone.

Now tell me that it’s over.

Let me know.

Suddenly, in my eyes, rain wells up.

You well up.

I see you even when I breathe.

Love blooms like cherry blossoms

but burns and becomes ashes.

Hey, girl, I know

the conclusion you made by yourself,

your hand, your body, your body heat

that was hotter than the equator.

I’m still here on repeat on top of the disappeared tune.

I’m turning by myself on top of this music that has ended.

On top of this ending tune,

I am standing here alone.

Now tell me that it’s over.

Let me know.

Girl, let me know.

Girl, let me know.

Although I already know everything is over,

although you’re over me,

girl, let me know.

Girl, let me know.

Girl, let me know.

Tell me something.

I just wanna know, know, know.

I just wanna know, know, know.

My lingering feelings are trying to withstand the end,

so please tell me something.

Girl, let me know.

The promises we made disappeared

with the time we spent together.

The dominos have fallen with our breakup

like Juliet and Romeo.

Did I like you too much?

The heat between me and you won’t cool down.

Now I look back at the film with you,

too early to do anything by thinking of you.

You took away my stars at night,

my sun at day,

only leaving me with the darkness

of a single cold cloud.

If there are hellos,

then there’s bound to be goodbyes?

Never ever.

I don’t care about that,

I don’t want to stick to that,

I’ll turn away, hypnotizing myself.

Maybe we’re all just a bunch of fools.

Everyone lives with a love that has come to an end.

It’s not that I still have feelings for you.

I know we can’t work out,

but why does it feel like I’m having indigestion?

As if my insides will explode...

Cries come up my throat,

making me throw up.

In my imagination, I fight with you,

make up with you, and understand you.

Your hand gestures, your eyes:

they are faded but not gone.

Why won’t it go away?

Why won’t it go away?

Why won’t it go away?

~ ~ ~

Moral of the story?  ENTJs (that'd be Skain and me) have some of the highest marital satisfaction of all types, not because we just love everyone so much but because we're stubborn as diamonnnds.

Wahaha, I'm so psyched for this story, guys!  :D

Write on!

Clove