My Mind Is Blank...

Hey all... Today is Tuesday, and I've got nothing. My mind is blank. I think it's okay to mention that I don't want to write about the Aurora shooting. We've discussed it in the comments on Craig's post, and I'm sure we've kept ourselves updated with all the constant coverage of the tragedy. In the end, I don't feel it's necessary to give this shooter the satisfaction of discussing it further. 

But with this opinion comes an overwhelming lack of things to write about. My life is quite boring... Waiting for the building for the thrift store my mom and I are going to run to be built means no job to keep me occupied. I've decided to take the Fall semester off in order to evaluate my transfer options, which means no hours spent picking courses to take.  My writing is at a total standstill... *sigh* I wish I could come up with a creative way to motivate myself to write, but I don't have any ideas. Any of you got ideas? Have you been writing regularly, or am I not alone in my writer's block? 

Along with the lack of eventfulness in my life, my fiance has been unable to get a phlebotomy job. No hospitals are hiring, and the company he externed with hasn't offered him a job (even though people are still asking to get appointments with him because he did such a good job and all the people he worked with want him to work there). If any of you could include my fiance's search for a job in your prayers, it'd be much appreciated. If you don't pray, send good vibes his way or something. :P I don't like seeing him discouraged, and he definitely deserves his dream job.

I really enjoyed seeing the music y'all listen to... It's interesting to see the differences and similarities between all of us when it comes to music genres.  

Well, I don't think there's much else to say...

See ya next Tuesday! 
DFTBA!

Shelby W.

Thoughts from Out-of-State

Good morning!

I'm actually in North Carolina as I write this, which is kind of a big deal to me. I'm from Missouri, and I had never: a, been out of the Midwest; b, flown in a plane (or any other flying device); or c, seen the ocean. Right now, I've got a and b covered, and as of Friday (I'm writing this on Tuesday because I'm not sure I'll have internet access Thursday-Saturday), I will never be able to say any of those things again because all three will have happened. And it's awesome!

At the moment, we're at this little college in a beautiful little town, and I'm loving the atmosphere. It's a math-related week (for the first four days)... Sort of. I'm a math researcher for the summer, which I've already said; as I have also said, I am not a biologist. Today was an eight hour work day, and somewhere between six to six-and-a-half hours were spent discussing biology I do not have the tools to understand with very, very little discussion of math application. Worse than that, the biology professors heading everything up expect the mathematics students to read and give opinions on abstracts that even some of the biology students don't entirely understand. It's a bit frustrating. (I'm all about working and learning, but I am in no way qualified to explain or give any opinion on whether mating e. coli is the best way to pass on certain traits when we're talking about bio-engineering.) So... That's a bit stressful. I am very ready for the math. (Coming from the now-Friday self, we didn't actually do math, but we read a lot about math, which isn't particularly satisfying, but it was definitely more interesting for me.)

But as it is, I'm learning to tune-out all of the biology mumbo jumbo (as my math adviser has said he does on occasion), and I'm enjoying my time. Right now, I should probably out doing something a bit more productive, like reading or studying or doing math or memorizing world capitals... But instead, I'm blogging and sitting on Facebook... I lack motivation.

Aha! See what I did there? (XD) Craig's question this week was about motivating yourself to write, which is something with which every writer struggles at some point in his/her journey. I don't know that I have an answer. Sometimes, I just don't write (which is not the right answer at all). But my advice and usual means of fighting through it is to write anyway, even if you're not feeling it. Even if I'm writing utter crap, in the long run, it is more beneficial to get something down than to produce nothing. Change stories. (If you're like me, you've got a plethora of unfinished manuscripts you can jump into when you're stuck on the one you'd like to be writing.) If you know what you want to write, make yourself do it, even if it's not turning out the way you want it to. Then, rewrite and edit. If you don't know what you want to write, you have two choices. One: Lay in bed at night, just trying to get some story to play out; when it does, write it down. When it doesn't, give yourself a new scenario because the one you were trying to force them isn't meant to be (yet). At least, that's my method. Please note, it does not always work because, like I said, I am procrastinating right now.

To any of you guys (mainly Rachel, based on her post), do you want to commit to, like, a chapter every week or two weeks and send each other our drafts to proofread on whatever day we commit to? That way we get some writing and some editing done on a schedule.

Also, changing courses slightly, Rachel asked what we're all reading. I'm kind of skimming right now and putting off actually dedicating massive amounts of time to the books (more on the procrastination theme, it seems. Sad day), but I've got a few different things I'm going to be jumping between because some of them are things I can't just sit down and read. The first I just got today; it's a research book I'm going to be exploring: Complexity and Real Computation. I spent, like, forty-five minutes to an hour-and-a-half working on it, and I'm only halfway through the introduction because some of its density (Again, note from Friday: I don't think I'm going to spend my summer reading about math because I want to be doing math, so I think this is on hold). But it's good! The second is another educational-type reading, but of a different nature: Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal, or Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Spanish. I'm attempting to learn the language for a trip to Honduras I'm planning, so it's my means of practicing while immersing myself in a story I love. The third is a reread that I immensely enjoyed the first time: Howl's Moving Castle. If you've seen the movie, check out the book; it's better. If you haven't seen the movie, read the book first.

But... Yeah. It's a little after midnight so morning comes in six-and-a-half hours. I'm thinking bedtime. Good night everyone. Have a happy weekend, and Craig, I will read you on Monday.

Sun Burnt Ramblings

Hello everyone! 

I hope those who celebrated the Memorial Day weekend had fun and did not get as sun burnt as I did. My fiance's father decided he wanted to take a random trip to our neighboring state, California, to spend the day at the beach. The trip was filled with Indian food, "that's what she said" jokes, a French woman not knowing that it's inappropriate to go topless on Cali beaches, sand and terrible hotel beds.  But since my fiance's family is full of tan people, only me and my fiance's brother-in-law got painful red burns. Today, my ankles are swollen from the massive burn, and it's horribly uncomfortable to walk... well, it's uncomfortable to do anything at this point.

Anyways, today will be written in parts. Part one was up there... an introduction and explanation of my Memorial Day trip (which was fun, until the burn set in).

Part Two: Blackwater FTW!

 As soon as I got home last night, I watched episode 9 of Game of Thrones, "Blackwater." This was the most anticipated episode of the whole season for two reasons: 1) George R. R. Martin wrote it himself and 2) All of their budget pretty much went into it (epic battle episodes = lots of money). Did it live up to the hype? YES! 

The part everyone was waiting for was the wildfire, and it exceeded my expectations in every regard. And, the flames were green like they were in the book, which was a plus. The dialogue exchanges were pretty much straight from the book... not so surprising since the author wrote the episode, but still. It was great to see recognizable dialogue and scenes from the book. And lets just say the the characters who stole the show were Sansa, Tyrion and The Hound! It was fantastic to see The Hound kicking ass and being the character I loved from the books. So really, this was definitely the best episode of the season, even if lots of characters were left out in order to focus on the happenings in King's Landing. But all of that will be settled in the finale on Sunday!

Part Three: Question Tuesday (anyone get the reference?)

 On Monday, Craig posed an interesting question to all of us:

• What do you think would help you most in terms of getting work done and motivate you to actually write? 

While I think this might be a difficult question to answer, I'll still try. 

 For me, the difficulty with writing comes from the ideas I have. They are complex, which makes me over-think how to proceed with them. The idea I am working on now is a dystopian story about a man and woman. I have those two characters figured out. I have the challenge they'll face figured out, but all the political and scientific aspects of the story have yet to be decided on, leaving me with a feeling that I shouldn't start writing yet. And it's this way with everything I write. I tend to be a perfectionist with my writing, and I worry about the quality of everything I've typed up. I feel that this story isn't the one to let be mediocre. I want it to be something special...


I don't know if there's a way to get me out of this rut... I guess the only way out is to write. But, like most young college students, there are many distractions. Also, I love procrastinating. I promise to make an effort to write over the summer, and all of my fellow bloggers should see if I'm actually trying. I'd appreciate being held accountable for what I've just said. Keeping a promise is always good motivation, especially when many people have seen/heard/read you make that promise.


Part Four: Conclusion
 Once again, I am so happy to be a part of An Abundance of Blogging. Having read everyone's posts, I can tell that I'm working with some awesome people nerdfighters that I'm sure to get along with. I hope my sun burnt ramblings weren't annoying...

DFTBA y'all! 





 

Hello, Nerdites! It is week two of An Abundance of Blogging!

 We do all seem to be writers looking to improve our self don't we? We all seem to be facing the same problem: We can't professionally procrastinate! But we need to be able to do both wright well and procrastinate. Therefore I present a question to my fellow bloggers for the week: What do you think would help you most in terms of getting work done and motivate you to actually write? Other than when you have a deadline. For me I am not quite sure myself. I once heard that you should take away all distractions. That's all well and good..... UNLESS YOU ARE LIKE ME! I need google to be able to spell a lot of words. This blog post right now for instance there have already been 5 words that where spelled incorrectly. And at one unfortunate time in my life I felt as if the only way I could write was when I was in an "altered state" (brownie points to anyone who recognizes that movie title). I know that is not true though. It is true that I would do more writing in an altered state but I wasn't GOOD at writing. In fact the level of horse crap I turned up while writing was astronomical.

  I would be amazed at my genius and pass out. And when I woke up I would see a paper and pen beside me and read....... Nothing. Because I couldn't write. There where far more lines connecting to each other than what should be aloud even if I had been writing in cursive. Thankfully I am out of that place in my life now but I am not sure how to get myself to type those words out that have been stewing in my head for a very long time. I will try to come up with an answer for my own question by next Monday.

With that said I pass the torch to you, Shelby.
Best wishes and DFTBA
Craig TLoM.