Empty, useless brain!

Okay, I'm not exactly blocked, but I made this today and I wanted to post it.

Fun writing exercise: (you'd think since I was a writer, I would know how to spell that, but it took me maybe five tries before I broke down and used spell-check)

Next time you're watching a movie,  either one you want to watch or don't, it doesn't matter, keep a notebook by your chair and focus specifically on the structure of the movie. Foreshadowing, plot development, character arcs, symbolism, anything and write it down.

For example, I was watching Larry Boy and the Bad Apple with Liam the other day and here are some of the things I noted:

   * Symbolism - they are celebrating the 300 year anniversary of their town. The number 3 has significance in Christian movies because of it's representation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
   * Increasing stakes - the villain (Temptation) increases the tension as the movie goes on, first entrapping the mayor, then the people's only way to the outside world, Petunia Rubarb, the news reporter, and finally, their savior, LarryBoy.

Another example, from Charlie and Lola, the episode I've Won, No I've Won, No I've won:
   * Charlie (the narrator) always gives you a short description of each character and their relationship to him or his little sister, Lola. ex. This is Soren Lorensen. He's Lola's imaginary friend and no one can see him but Lola.
   * Charlie has a huge dilemma at the end, where he has to decide whether to save Lola from the top of the enormous slide or win the race. 

One more, from Mr. Peabody and Sherman:
   * Foreshadowing - Sherman bites Penny in the beginning and Mr. Peabody reprimands him for it. Later *SPOILER* Mr. Peabody bites Mrs. Grunyun to protect Sherman. *END OF SPOILER*
   * Flaws - Sherman's main flaw is the fact that he's so naive (and for the life of me, I can't figure out how to spell that...) and impressionable. He listens to everything anyone tells him and that is much of the reason for the conflict in the story

  I've got to go, because I've got to go eat dinner, but try it! It helps improve your writing!

Lost in Translation

If you're stuck (doesn't always work), or you want to write a unique poem, or you want something fun to do, I've found this, quite-possibly-nerdily-fun activity. So, here's what you do. You can copy and paste your favorite lyrics, a poem of your own or even your synopsis into Google Translate. Now, translate it to different languages, not turning it back to English, for maybe eight languages. Example: I began with translating it from English to Latin to Spanish to Hebrew to Arabic to French to German to Greek to Norwegian to Swedish and then back to English. Then I just started doing random languages.

Here's an example of what happens from the first stanza of my poem Tasting Stars:

Original Poem:

Where silence has a sound
Where you can feel the world spinning
Where darkness has a heavy touch
There's nothing in the universe but me
And I'm tasting stars

Lost in Translation Poem:

When silence is a sound

Where can you find the world has known

Handling heavy dark

I have, and I

Try stars

Sometimes it's not as cool as that (from my poem Whole Again):

Original Poem:

Please come
Someone come
And make me
Whole again

Lost in Translation Poem:

fiber

human

USA

egg

Don't even ask how it got to that point.

I even tried my synopsis. If you haven't read it, click here. It's the second paragraph where I talk about Ray's problems:

In fact, the beam, the sins of his brother, Chris aura service is free. The success is not possible. It is important to get rid of this disease is, it was not murder. They begin to deal with this problem, and suicide is a sin, I do not think so.

There is some gibberish in here, but somethings are kind of inspiring.

Try it! It's a great exercise for when you're bored, stuck or just want some fun. Sometimes it can inspire whole poems. And if you like the descriptive language of some songs (especially Owl City songs) see what comes out and you could possibly use it for your own song. 

BLOCKED!!!

So, hey! What's new? I'm blocked. No. New. Ideas. Useless. Brain. In the chapter I wrote this morning, the 59^th chapter to be exact, a character remarked that something was lame and I just about banged my head about the computer and screamed, “THIS WHOLE CHAPTER IS LAME!” Does anyone have a tip on what to do when you're blocked? I keep stubbornly pushing forward, churning out forced dialogue, no description, wallowing-in-self-pity characters. I've literally written 177 words in the past weekish. How miserably pathetic is that?! Not knowing what to write is depressing. :`( I guess I know what to write. Maybe I'm just afraid to write the romance in fear that it will be cheesy, stupid and embarrassing. There's also a fight coming up between Aura and Adam and I'm not sure what to do to make it believable. He's not the kind of person to 1. fight, 2. not forgive someone after the fight and 3. hold a grudge enough to not talk to them for a couple of days.

So, basically, what's supposed to happen is earlier Adam tells Aura that Chris commissioned him to look after her. So, every nice thing he does for her, she questions whether he's doing it because Chris told him to, or because he actually cares about her. Something that he's supposed to say in the near future is going to set her off and she gets mad at him for that very insecurity. How do I do it? Actually writing this out has solidified it in my mind and I feel more capable of writing it not. Thanks!:) 

And this one, I just thought was funny....

Pain and Suffering

I've found that I can discover key things about my characters through the way they handle pain. Now this may seem completely obvious, but I'm going to give you an example anyway, between my main character, Aura, and her younger brother Ray.
When the story starts, Aura's boyfriend, Chris, dies in a car crash. Ray was driving the car at the time it crashed, so he feels responsibility. So each of them have sufficient suffering that I put them through. *evil writer cackle* They each handled their pain in different ways.

Aura yelled at God, got another job, refused to think about Chris and basically shunned anything that reminded her of her pain.
Ray started doing drugs and did anything in his power to make his pain go away and got angry and defensive when anyone told him he shouldn't be doing what he is.

So, here's what I learned through observing these things:
Aura: 

1. She's a person who believes on just pushing through.
2. She's a person who wants to blame someone for her pain.
3. She believes that forgetting and ignoring what hurts her is the solution to her problem 

Ray: 

1. He's a problem solver.
2. He doesn't like being told what to do.
3. He believes that he doesn't need help and that he can do everything on his own. 

I just thought this was interesting. I figured this out after I'd written half the story and it helps shape their character. Try it!

And, one more thing: I'm ecstatic! I found a song that perfectly sums up the lie Ray believes. It does have a lot of screaming in it, so if you don't like that, don't listen to it. It's called Damage by Red.

Now the damage is done. I can't escape, can't run, can't undo what I've done. All I do is damage...It's destroying me...I'm sick of the misery...I am human debris....I'm a catastrophe. Take this away. It was just a mistake. Save me.

Dawn

So I thought I'd take a second to give you an overview of this book so you know what's happening when I begin to rant about my characters. So here's the synopsis:



        Chris always told Aura about God and she just accepted it, but never felt the connection. When he dies in a car crash, she doesn't know what to believe anymore. Where is his faithful God? Unknowingly, she shuts everyone out, trying to get rid of the pain. 


       Aura's brother, Ray, is convinced Chris's death is his fault. After all, he was the one driving when he wasn't supposed to be. Maybe if he hadn't insisted, he would have died instead and saved everyone the pain. Plagued by guilt, he begins to get into trouble and starts contemplating suicide. 

I'm currently blocked at 42,700 words and 161 pages. It's aggravating. This story is kicking my butt. The current title is Dawn. If you want to suggest a better name for it based on my synopsis, feel free to, because this title is by all means not permanent. 

Hey! Wanna know some things about me? Here you go!
I'm a(n)...
1. ...girl named Hannah
2. ...avid writer
3. ...hopeless romantic
4. ...big sister, oldest of five
5. ...Christian
6. ...slight schizophrenic
7. ...16 year old
8. ...homeschooler
9. ...enthusiastic reader
10. ...piano player
11. ...introvert
12. ...grammar freak (and what do you know, I spelled grammar wrong...I corrected it though, if you're looking at it and wondering if I'm delusional)
13. ...delusional person
14. ...nerd and proud of  it
15. ...OCD-ish person (See how I did 15 things...? ....And I'm 15? And 15 is divisible by 5? I love numbers divisible by 5! And now it doesn't work because I'm 16. Darn!)

Welcome to my author site. Here I'm going to provide updates on my book that I'm currently writing on and if I'm stuck, I'll rant. (Feel free to skip those posts:) I attended a writer's workshop and they were talking about creating a brand and an author's website. My other blog (onceuponafantasy.weebly.com) is more whatever pops into my brain and I feel like blogging about. And though, I don't think people will read this, it's purely for my visual side of me and to keep me accountable. Maybe it'll force me to keep moving forward in stupid stories that tempt me to slap delete and go curl in a corner and cry and eat chocolate. So, here goes. Let's see how this turns out...