What I listen to as I Write

  Howdy all!

  I've mentioned on here before how music influences our writing. So, I'd thought I'd share with you guys my basic playlist for the book I am currently editing Manipulated. They each pertain to my book in a certain way, whether it's the meaning, or I just thought the tune fit.

1.   Snow Patrol- "Set Fire To The Third Bar"

 I find the map and draw a straight line
Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My finger in creases of distant dark places

2.   Superchick- "Stand In The Rain"

She never slows down.
She doesn't know why but she knows that when she's all alone, feels like its all coming down
She won't turn around
The shadows are long and she fears if she cries that first tear, the tears will not stop raining down

3.   Athlete- "Rubik's Cube"

The world is too heavy,
Too big for my shoulders,
Come take the weight off me, now.

Thousands of answers,
To one simple question,
Come take the weight off me, now.

4.   Florence and the Machine- "Breath of Life"  

 I was looking for a breath of life
For a little touch of heavenly light
But all the choirs in my head say, no oh oh

5.   Florence and the Machine- "Cosmic Love"

A falling star fell from you heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore though them and now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out
You left me in the dark
No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight
In the shadow of your heart

6.   Marianas Trench- "Beside You"

When your tears are spent on your last pretense 

And your tired eyes refuse to close and sleep in you defense.

When it's in your spine like you've walked for miles 

And the only thing you want it just to be still for a while.

7.   Lights- "Pretend"

Once in awhile I act like a child to feel like a kid again
It gets like a prison in the body I'm living in
Cause everyone's watching and quick to start talking, I'm losing my innocence
Wish I were a little girl without the weight of the world

8.   Aqualung and Lucy Schwartz- "Cold"

God and His priests and His kings
All were waiting
All will wait
As they go over

9.   Paramore- "We Are Broken"

I am outside
And I've been waiting for the sun
And with my wide eyes
I've seen worlds that don't belong
My mouth is dry with words I cannot verbalize
Tell me why we live like this

10. Paramore- "Ignorance"

You treat me just like

Another stranger
Well it's nice to meet you sir
I guess I'll go
I best be on my way out

11. Fireflight- "Unbreakable"

Where are the people that accused me?
The ones who beat me down and bruised me
They hide just out of sight
Can't face me in the light
They'll return but I'll be stronger

12. Plumb- "I Can't Do This" 

I'm standing still
I'm oh, so peaceful
I cant pretend, that I'm fine
I get so ill, crazy, agitated
When I've not really died

13. Taylor Swift - "Haunted"

You and I walk a fragile line
I have known it all this time
But, I never thought I'd live to see it break

14. The Civil Wars- "Falling"

Haven't you seen me sleepwalking 'cause I've been holding your hand
Haven't you noticed me drifting

Oh, let me tell you I am

15. Once-"Falling Slowly"

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You've made it now

  *Whew* These are all great songs, I love them to death. Well, that would be my playlist for the book I'm writing right now. Any specific songs you guys love to listen to while writing?

Reasoning for the New Layout and Ttile

  Hey guys!

  Well, as you can tell the blog has taken a new format. It's always kind of changing but now there is a reason for this new design, and I intend to keep it that way.

  I was scrolling through some of the photos that blogger has to offer and found this lovely photo of a city. *Gestures hands towards background.* It is more than lovely actually, it is mesmerizing. This photo is a tapestry of shaded green lights, glistening jeweled water, things that catch the eye, that all glow under a beautiful  sky decorated in a green haze. And that, is exactly what I try to capture when I write. Mesmerizing details and descriptions, beautiful scenery that leaves you feeling like you've just been there. Truly mesmerizing books. That's what I want.

  I always try to hint in little details about my writerly life when I blog. Where I am at the moment, and how everything is going. Editing is where I am at this exact moment, and through editing I've come to realize that goal that I want. Mesmerizing writing.

  And so, I properly changed the title of this blog, to demonstrate what it really is about, what the goal is. Along with this change I will trying to update more often, at least a couple of times a week.

  So, followers, perusers of blogs, any one interested in writing. I hope that this blog can shape that goal in your minds and make you want to mesmerize your readers, just as much as I want to.

  Besides, what is life without those truly mesmerizing moments?

Laziness

 Hmmm, well I was going to write some extremely mind provoking post about writing that leaves you tantalized with thoughts about your new work in progress... 

  But then I got lazy. 

  Sooo, this post is about being lazy. 

  I've mentioned the disease author-itise here before, and now I'm going to mention it again. As I have said I have an extreme case. No, I mean like extreme. All I do is sit on my butt all day, write, get writer's block (the kind where you have no motivation for anything), attempt to get up and do something productive, then settle for having an all out Avatar the Last Airbender marathon with some Korra on the side.

  If you did not know this about me, I am an absolute Avaterd. The obsessive geeky kind who makes cosplay costumes.

  But, back on track! 

  This is an unhealthy cycle, (taken frome experience) and because of this, in the time I could have writen 2,000 words, I've only written 1,000. 

  Ugh. 

  That is the perfect word to describe my writing rut. 

  Ugh. 

  Great, now my vocabulary has turned to the inferior means of communication that was once utilized by prehistoric men. 

  Anywhooo....

  Some things that have helped me escape the writing trap are little tricks. 

  First and foremost!!!

  Always, and I mean always have a tab open for your current WIP. That little space at the bottom of your browser will appear in your mind and send you on a guilt trip if you do not have it open. 

 Second!!!

 Turn off your internet, if possible. If you can turn your internet off, do it now! (Well, not right now, because your reading this blog post, but I mean when you need to write.) No internet, no hours wasted! 

  Third!!!

  Get your own motivation. Sometimes the motivation we need won't just come to us, we need to force ourselves to write, and even if we write crap, that's all right (this is what editing is for.) Don't peruse the internet in hopes of finding some random motivation in all those facebook news feeds. If worse comes to worse and you simply cannot write, get up, do stuff! 

  In my world, having an Avatar marathon is considered stuff, so I am safe from this post...... (smiles weakly) 

 I'm joking. But, I have taken this advice seriously before and it does help. As soon as this blog post is done I will be on my book, forcing myself to edit. Just keep at it, the laziness will subside soon enough when your story keeps growing. 

Summer and Portals to Other Worlds

  Summer! My favorite time of the year. Where days can be wasted away spent on writing and books galore await for your amusement. 

  Yesterday was my birthday, and I am happy to say I racked up (is that how you spell it?) when it comes to books! Five new ones!! (And I got an ipod!!!) 

   Anyways, back on track. 

  One of my favorite things to do is go to Barnes and Noble to write. I don't know, Barnes and Noble just gets you in the mood. The library doesn't, but something about that bookstore tickles the inner author in me. Maybe it's the millions of books stuffed through out the store, or when you go to the YA section you pick out a spot for where your book is going to be placed when it gets published (mine was in between The Hunger Games and Divergent) A girl can dream! 

  One of my birthday presents was an all day trip to Barnes and Noble where I wrote... and wrote.... and wrote.............and wrote. And boy, was it a blast!

  There's something motivating about sitting at a Cafe drinking hot chocolate and writing, rather than lying in your bed with a cup of water, writing.

  This is what I like to call the book portal! (Another made up term of mine) The book portal is the part of your mind that shifts you in to another world that the book is setting up, either a book you are writing or reading. The book portal is thicker when things distract you i.e internet, homework, and it's also thicker when your environment isn't very relaxing i.e my room. 

  The book portal, however, is extremely thin at Barnes and Noble. I can get transported instantly to my book. I rarely get there that quickly and then I don't usually stay there very long, but today was a special occasion.

  Ok... well my book portal metaphor is a kind of flawed, but I think you get my point. 

  Environment impacts writing a lot. Anytime I go to somewhere like Barnes and Noble I get sucked in and I want to write. Then there are days when I map out my writing and tell myself I will write, but then I just... don't.

Good areas in the world for me where the portal is thin are:

  -Barnes and Noble (or any good bookstore) 

  -Near water, like a lake or shore. 

  -In Nature 

                                                                                  

                                                                                            

  Where are some places you like to write?

Donut Pirates and Repetive Words

  At this very moment I am procrastinating editing Manipulated. The reason I stopped was this... 

  Repetitive words and actions. 

  How many freaking times do I have to say that Kya gulped, or that her eyes are blue green, or that she shakes her head a lot, or that she sighed.

  Blah, just BLAH!

  These are the very things that get on my nerves in books, and I am a hypocrite because I do the same thing. But seriously, what am I thinking when I type out the words, My blue green eyes peered around the corner. 

  Sheesh! I already know that your eyes are blue green, Kya! Don't tell me again! 

  See! This is what happens when I get frustrated, I yell at the characters in my head, even though it's not their faults I make them think those words, I was the one who wrote them down.

  So, as you can tell this blog post is about refraining from using repetitive descriptions/ words.

  We must face the truth. First drafts are messy, they always will be (unless you edited while crazy when you were writing, which I don't suggest because that is another story for another day.) In those first drafts there will be crap, and then you write the second draft which I dedicate to plot and character structure, (which I just finished by the way) And, maybe by then you can start doing the third draft which I call the magical-turn-crap-writing-into-beautiful-sparkly-like-Edward, draft.

  But alas, the third draft is usually working on things like the above, repetitive words and descriptions. In some parts of the book my MC is tired, or sad, or happy. But, I don't have to write about the physical reactions she has every single moment because she's feeling those emotions. 

  "I gulped and let out a sigh, seating myself on the bed. My blue green eyes traced the side of of Jet's hands, cold and unmoving." - Excerpt from first draft. 

   I hope you can all see that this line is not going to make the cut. Do I care that she sighed, do I care that she gulped, do I give a crap that her eyes are blue green (I cannot stress that enough, I don't care!) 

  One of the things that is extremely important it to make sure the reader will care about what the sentence has to say. As an example I am going to post a Julian Smith video (and if you don't know who Julian Smith is, shame on you!) It's mostly just an excuse to post a hilarious video, but it does help. A lot of the video doesn't really have anything to do with writing, but feel free to laugh anyways, I'll explain the significance when your done watching.  
 

  Oh so hilarious! Anyways...

  Near the end of the video the little boy screams out "I do-nut care!" (yes he said donut.) Readers will feel like this, when we write repetitive words and phrases down. Nobody cares that your MC has raven hair if you've already made it clear, nobody cares that she sighs every single time they sit down, nobody cares how hot the summer sun was if you've already mentioned it fifty-bagillion times. And just like Jeffrey, you will be dumped in to the sea and eaten by the sarks (yes sarks) if you don't learn to stop it!

  How do we resist these types of words/ phrases, though?

  In the first draft... we don't. At least I don't. Usually in my first draft I just let myself write what I write, whatever comes out. It's the editing that this comes in to play. 

  Take a look at your writing. Make sure everything you've written the reader will care about, or needs to know. Take the example from above. I can edit that to say "I seated myself on the bed while my eyes traced the side of Jet's hands, cold and unmoving. " In that sentence, we only know what we need to know. That Kya is eyeing Jet's hand and that she's sitting on the bed. 

  That doesn't mean though that you can't mention if your character did something that may seem useless. If your character is sad, it's all right to mention that she/he sighed, or if their aggravated they rolled their eyes. Just don't mention it repeatedly, once you've already set up something there's no need to say it over and over again. Use things like that in moderation. Like desserts!

  So, even if you feel the need to mention how your character ran his/her fingers through their hair ten million times in a single chapter, resist the urge! Because then your readers will not care, and for lack of anything better to do, they will gorge on donuts made by pirates on a house boat, and the pirates will then turn on them and throw them in to the sea to be eaten by sharks. And it's all your fault that all of your readers died a horrible and tragic death!

Show, Don't Tell, like icarly and Harry Potter!

  Showing and not telling. 

 This, is something extremely vital that most first time writers don't get until their halfway done through a novel thinking to themselves, this is so good, I'm amazing at writing. Not that I'm... you know... guilty of this or anything *laughs shakily*

  But, what exactly is showing and not telling? 

  Well, we can learn what it is from the show icarly. "It's like T.V in your head!"-Sam Pucket. 

  In that one episode Sam was reading a book, and if you don't watch the show, she is not the type to read. She comments on how new reading is to her and how it's like a T.V in your head.

  You know what made her say that? Showing and not telling. 

  Here's a good explanation to what I'm trying to say. I assume we all have seen all of the Harry Potter movies. If you haven't... then you've been missing out on pure life for the past like, 13 year is it? Something like that. Anyways... In the Chamber of Secrets, there's a part where Voldemort's younger version of himself, Tom Riddle, writes to Harry through his magical journal. He decides that instead of just telling Harry about the Chamber of Secrets, he can show him through dragging him in to memory, and reliving it with Harry watching. Wouldn't it have been boring if in the end Tom Riddle decided to write this lengthy paragraph just telling us about how moaning myrtle had been killed and blah blah blah, *flips pages* talking to Dumbledore... something about Hagrid and a spider... Snore! You would lose readers.

  As writers, our goal is to make the reader feel like their there with you. That their in the moment of the scene. You want them to have a movie playing in their head. When you read a book, you don't want to have to exert any effort. Reading should be effortless, just like watching T.V, and you make it effortless by capturing their attention and making them feel like their actually there. 

  The basic concept of showing is describing how something feels, or how something happened, without really saying exactly what happened. 

  Ex: Telling;I was sad, so I cried.

        Showing: My hands shook and I could feel my eyes brimming with tears.

  Which sounds more appealing?

   Here's a great example of the terrors of telling instead of showing. In our English class we had to read a book that I will not name here, because I don't want to seem offensive, but let's just say this book was extremely guilty of showing and not telling. I'm not joking when I say one of the lines was, "I fell, it hurt real bad." 

  Um... no. That's just not how it works. When you fall, yeah it hurts, but the things running through your mind aren't I hurt. You feel the pain. A scrape in your shoulder that stings. A pounding in your head. A shout of pain ringing from your throat.

  Remember, you want your readers to see themselves falling, hitting the ground, sucking in a breath of pain , thumping their head against a rock, or catching their foot on a tree branch and tumbling to the ground. Instead of saying, "I fell," saying something along the lines of "The air was rushed past me and I could suddenly feel the dirt smearing on to my skin and the sharp pains etching their way on to my body," would sound better.

 

   Don't just feed your readers words. It makes them look bad, like their not smart enough to figure out that someone just fell and it hurt when they can clearly see that dirt smeared them, and pain was involved. 

  Show don't tell. 

 Be like Tom Riddle, dragging Harry in to his past and showing him instead of just telling him about the Chamber of Secrets. That's where things that start getting interesting.

Cinnamon Rolls and Discourage

  I haven't blogged in forever... 

  But that changes today! 

  So, as you may see from the title above, this update is about Cinnamon Rolls!... and discourage *sigh* Cinnamon rolls bring me a lot of joy, actually there are some in the oven right now, but there is a reason why I am making cinnamon rolls. 

  I was discouraged. 

  As a writer, it is healthy to be discouraged from time to time. We are human, it's just in our nature. There are days I'm left staring at the screen with a blank look on my face thinking, I am such a terrible writer, why am I even doing this? Who'll read this junk anyway? It's these days that I get discouraged. When I can pin point everything that's flawed in my writing, and then get overwhelmed by the immense amount of work there's really left to do.

  In order to not obsess over the work, the only healthy thing to do is take a break. 

  Walk around, go running, drink some water, don't just sit there and start developing author-itise (a disease I made up in which authors spend too much time on their work, or too little and say their working but really going on facebook)

  And so that is why cinnamon rolls are in my oven. I took a break, something we all need to do if things get overwhelming. 

  Breath in and out, close your laptop, and take a break, because I can assure you, in a few minutes, hours, or days, you'll be itching to get back to work, and as a plus, you can reward yourself with some delicious cinnamon rolls!