A Writer's Power

Hi readers, today I meant to write up an explanation for my lyric, Footprints, that I posted on Tuesday. I was in the middle of writing out how writing can be powerful when concise when a headline on Yahoo! news caught my eye. It was about the four men who had raped a woman on a bus in India and left her for dead on the street. I had heard about this event for awhile, but I had always discounted it and just shook my head in disgust. But upon reading the article that the four men accused of gang rape were sentenced to death, I felt awful for not having paid more attention. It is really easy for someone who lives in a country like the United States to be blissfully unaware of the brutalities and hardships that face others in less fortunate countries. So today, I wanted to talk about the power that everyone has: their voice.

Footprints

Hi all :) I know I'm getting lazy with updates, but page views are going down and demands of college are going up, I have two tests this week, so I'm going to keep this short. As a writer, don't be fooled into thinking that your writing has to be long for it to be good. Below, I've enclosed a lyric, called Footprints, which is only three lines, but I hope you find it illustrates my point about how sometimes writing short can be better than a long-winded composition. Today is the example and tomorrow is the explanation! Enjoy!

Repetition in Poetry

Hi guys, I know I've been lecturing for awhile on all sorts of things to include in your poetry and stories. But I realized an important component of teaching lies in demonstration. So I'll do my best to give you some examples of the ideas that I've been explaining. This is a short little poem that utilizes repetition, what do you think? Emphatic or monotonic?

Knowing When to Stop

Hi all! :) If you read my post on editing, you might have noticed that I made a big mistake. I talked about methods of self-editing, but I completely neglected one very important factor when it comes to editing. This important little element is a huge part of editing and if ignored, your writing will become an endless cycle of writing, editing, re-writing, editing and on and on. Guessed it? It's knowing when to stop. You can write and re-write all you want, your writing will never be perfectly perfect. You'll always want to change something, so here's a "Knowing When to Stop 101 class" :)

Research

Hi all :) I remember I was once reading a book and they talked about what a beautiful island Waikiki, Hawaii is. Now as a proud local islander (and no, not a Hawaiian), I can't quite express how blasphemous this statement is. For one, Waikiki is not an island, it's a tourist metropolis that is constantly clogged with an onrush of tourists from morning till night. Anyway, I feel like this egregious error could have been prevented with something we learned in college: research. All you had to do was pull up a google search box and type in Waikiki. Relatively simple and you would know very quickly that Waikiki is not one of Hawaii's eight islands. Anyway, I digress, research is something very important when you're writing a book.

Finding Time Part II

Hi all :) I know I kind of digressed yesterday in terms of what I normally write about on this blog, so I'm sorry for that! I just really liked the story about the philosophy professor. Anyway, back to other matters. Sometimes in our hectic world. it's hard to find time to do a lot of things that we want to. Sometimes a lot of important things fall through the cracks, so this post is about several tried and true methods of making time to find several little windows of opportunity to keep those creative juices flowing. So let's go :)

Finding Time

Hi guys! Are you one of those people who just cannot find enough time in one day to do everything that needs to be done? I was talking to a friend over dinner and she said "don't you wish you never had to sleep so you could do more things?" Now personally, I love sleeping much too much to ever wish that I didn't have to sleep, but her question piqued my mind a little. In our fast-paced world it is often difficult to find enough time to do everything that we want to. As Americans (maybe even humans) we like things fast: faster technology, fast-food, faster check out at stores and on and on. The reason a lot of people eat unhealthier and don't exercise is because they don't have time. This will be a two part post, so here's part one:

Taboos

Hey guys :) Have you ever read Lolita? Did you just cringe a little bit? Thought so, Lolita is infamous for its story line. To put this in a nutshell, Lolita involves pedophilia, shudder-inducing hungers and the whole shebang.This post is a little controversial, a little funky and a lot of fun. This post is about taboos in writing and the right way to use them. 

Editing

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been so lazy lately, moving into a new college room is not easy. Also, am I the only one who feels like everything I learned in the past two semesters (that I need to carry over to this semester's classes) mysteriously vanished out of my head? No? Bane of college students everywhere? Thought so :) Anyway, enough about me, today I wanted to talk about editing. Editing can be either delightful or tedious, depending on how you approach it, so let's dive into this :)

Plot Twists

Hi guys! Have you ever read a book and then suddenly, the very thing you weren't expecting to happen happens? And you're just like "What...just...happened...?" If you haven't then you need to read better books. Plot twists are so much fun to have in a book, and personally I'm torn between which I like more: writing plot twists or reading them. I certainly cannot give you tips on how to read plot twists (look at words? I don't know) but I certainly can give you a few handy tips and tricks that I use when writing plot twists. 

Brainstorming

Hey guys :) So I've been kind of in a funk about what to write about, I've been re-editing and going back and forth with my own writing and it made me think, I should write about brainstorming. I know a lot of people think of brainstorming as something you did in elementary school, but as a writer, it is a highly useful tool.

Experience

I find when writing, the very best tool that you have at your disposal is your personal experience. Experience is a powerful device to use in writing because it gives a sense of realism to your writing that no fantastical details could. When you write stories, poems, anecdotes, or whatever, the main goal of writing is to let your reader experience everything that you describe. One trick my English teacher taught me was to place your hand over your face, everything your hand touches are the senses that you want to let your reader experience: sight, smell, sound, touch and taste. The cool thing about experience is that when you write based on experience, it doesn't always have to be that specific experience. Confused? Let me explain:

Inspiration

In my previous post I talked about Writer's Block and inspiration (or lack thereof). If you're like me and ever feel completely at a loss for inspiration, I have a few tried and true methods of finding our elusive muse and getting ideas. My favorite sources of inspiration when I'm in a slump? People, music, nature and other writers are the best sources of inspiration for me. 

Writer's Block

Sorry I didn't post yesterday guys! My laptop decided to take a hiatus from working so while I'm getting that sorted out, I'm typing on an external keyboard  :P Anyway, enough with my troubles and onto a debatable topic in writing: Writer's Block. I once met someone who told me that Writer's Block was an excuse to be lazy and not write. Ignoring the fact that I almost lunged at said person, I thought about what they said. Writer's Block is basically a fancy way of saying "I have no inspiration whatsoever and I cannot write until I get my inspiration back." And lack of inspiration is not a hoax.

Repetition

Repetition. It's a powerful tool in poetry and prose and an annoying element in many rap songs. I feel like repetition in writing is like experimenting in cooking. It has to be done right or not at all. Repetition is usually used to hammer home a point to the audience. The act of constantly repeating a description of a character, a setting or a plot outline establishes a kind of base in the mind of the reader and they will unconsciously find themselves repeating the self same words that are so often repeated as a way to remember how a character acts, a setting looks or a plot runs. This is a little confusing, so I will elaborate with an example.

Details

Hey guys :) I thought I would move a little bit from the typical elements of a story and focus on one of the nitty gritty details of writing. Detail is something present in every story, its what helps a reader envision what is going on in the story. The very delicate thing about details is that you can easily go too much or not enough.

Interpretation of Genre

What I love about writing is the kind of freedom you have. It's not like math where your product is either right or wrong, you can do anything you want because writing is really just translating your thoughts into words. To a lot of people, the genre of a book is pretty much black and white. Fiction is fake, nonfiction is not fake, biographical is about someone and an autobiographical is about the writer. But really, there is a whole slew of details involved with choosing and interpreting a genre.

Plots

Hi guys :) So yesterday I talked about how a setting's flexibility was both a major liability and an asset. We're switching gears a bit today and I'm talking about plots today. With a plot, there is no right or wrong, but there is a preferable and a less-preferable. So, let's begin:

Settings

So in my previous post, I talked about the importance of having powerful and relatable characters in your story. To me, while this is the most important component of a good story, there are other factors to consider. My second rule of thumb is to not let the secondary components overwhelm you. To me, writing a good story is like operating a huge machine. There are many parts and gears in a story that touch and affect one another: plots create settings which set the stage for character development and on and on.

Characters

Hey guys :) I decided to change things up a bit today, and instead of posting samples of writing, I was going to give my schpiel on creating stories, poems and just writing in general. For me, when writing stories, you can have the best plot ever, but if your characters stink, your story won't be good. Characters that people can relate to, sympathize with and understand are the most valuable characters.