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Posts Tagged ‘Writing’

April Who’s Day?

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , on April 1, 2013 | 1 Comment »

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” -Abraham Lincoln

So, I’m giving up on writing. What does it matter that I started to write in my head because I was bored (She wrote while staring at the wall because she has nothing to do). Or that I wrote to prove that I could despite having a learning disability and others said I couldn’t because of this fact (‘learning disability since when?’ one friend said).  Or even the fact that my overactive imagination won’t stop working ( ‘hmm, I wonder if a college student ever stood on the side of the road collecting money because they couldn’t find a job’  she said one day while looking for a part-time job and saw a broke man with a cardboard sign).

None of this matters because let’s face it, what having a blog ever done for me (expect, of course, boost my public speaking ability and my confidence in such event). So, I am giving up on writing because it has never benefited me (not even exploring my inner most thoughts and feeling and sharing it with others).

So, goodbye cruel writing world, I’ll never interact with you again.

Happy April Fool’s Day.

Expect another post next month.

2012-092 April Fool's Day

2012-092 April Fool’s Day (Photo credit: mrsdkrebs)

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The Strangely Written Tale of a Hesitant Speaker

Posted in Writing, tagged , , on January 24, 2013 | 1 Comment »

Have desk, will write

Have desk, will write (Photo credit: Bright Meadow)

“I write-down to speak-up.” ― M.K. Asante, Jr.

I hate speaking in front of a large group of people. It’s so bad my heart races when I’m waiting for my name in attendance. I mentally prepare myself for my name. I count the letters in previous names so I know how much longer I have till my name is called. And when it does… I speak softly. Then when it’s over, my body temperature cool downs and my heart rate slowly goes back to normal. This stage fright I have is inconvenient and annoying.

But when it is necessary, I speak. Even if it comes out awkward. Which is most of the time. I spend a ridiculous amount of time preparing what I’m going to say out loud and half the time I don’t even use my voice. I do so much better writing than speaking. Speak. And it’s out there forever. Write. And you edit.

Writing. Writing. Writing. The only way my thoughts can touch your mind is though ink. And not literal ink. Virtual ink. You know, through the internet. Because my handwriting is the worst. I literally (literal literally) had to have someone write for me, for a short period of time, in seventh grade. Even now, the coded text I call longhand is a decipher (One which even I have a hard time cracking.) Woe is to the classmate that needs my notes (Though by now, they know not to ask.)

Clickly click goes my keyboard. Well, it’s a slow clickly click. Never learned how to type. Well, that’s not entirely true. I tried to learn. Many times. Never stuck. So now, I’m stuck looking at my keyboard why I type and glance at the screen every few words to make sure that they’re spelled correctly (Last two words I had to retype (And that last word (Bangs head on desk)).)

Well that’s it for now, my followers (Laughs manically at the synonym for minions (Yes, yes, I’m in a weird mood (I blame the snowy and windy cold outside)).)

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The Road Taken

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Painter on His Way to Work

Painter on His Way to Work (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

“I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.” -Orson Welles

 

Artists often have been hated in their own time and yet become beloved eons later. Vincent Van Gogh was thought as a mad drunk who died in poverty. Johann Sebastian Bach was known as being only a competent organist in his time. Edgar Allan Poe struggled as a writer to make just a few dollars. And yet decades after their deaths they are quite known in their various fields of study. They were out of step with the rest of the world. They were scorned, under-appreciated  and mocked. And now they are loved, revered and awed.  They followed a path seen only by them. They did not deviate. They followed till the end, regardless what that end beheld.

 

We must do the same. We must listen to our innate guide to take us there. We must forgo the opinions of all others. Life has many distractions that will try to lead us down a detour. That detour will never lead back to the road for he is Loki, Mischief personified and a false help.
Turn off your ears and close your eyes. Feel your trail. Let none occupy your mind. Let your feet go and watch were you end up for it will be worth it.

 

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Without Ink

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , on September 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

 

ink falling

ink falling (Photo credit: Suicine)

 

 

“Every man’s memory is his private literature.” Aldous Huxley

 

A common question an author is asked is ‘when did you start writing?’, but that question can never be truly answered because a writer writes long before a word is written. A child makes up imagery worlds that never leave the confines of their own mind. Scenarios dance and give life to a few dolls or action figures.  They speak not to themselves but to invisible beings that only they acknowledge.  Every child is a writer. And some never stop.

 

‘Life is so much more interesting inside my head’, said a poster I saw the other day, and for me this is true. I am so easily bored by my surroundings that I often retreat to inside my mind. I stir up impossible dreams and situations, and then relive them. It could be something completely new or I extend pervious seen stories and take them in a different direction. I’m always thinking, always dreaming, always living, for the mind possesses no bounds.

 

There was never a time where I started to write, for my imagination never could be contained. I remember being a little child going on an expedition for buried treasure while being hunted by pirates and running though the bushes in my friend’s backyard. I remember reliving a situation that I just encounter to see what could change if I said something different. I remember making up a story on the spot for my younger brothers while our electricity was down from the hurricane. These were not written down, but that does not mean I was not writing. I was, am and always will be a writer.

 

 

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Bad, Thy Name is Book

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on August 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Book Drop: No Books, Please

Book Drop: No Books, Please (Photo credit: mtsofan)

“Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren’t distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.” - Randy K. Milholland

Have you ever read something so terribly written that it gave you a headache? Bad books are out there. Their grammar may be atrocious. Or the plot’s flawed. And it might not even follow a logical sequence of events. But just because it’s bad doesn’t mean that it’s useless. Stephen King once said that, “Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.” And the number one lesson that will be learned is how not to write.

Reading a poorly written book is like taking a vaccine. By infecting yourself with the virus you will become more resistant to future introductions with said virus. By knowing what’s atrocious you can prevent producing something that’s atrocious.

Now, I’m not going to list numerous works that would fit into the ‘Bad Book’ category. I’m not a professional critic, nor do I pretend to be so (though I do must admit there have been times I want to shake an author by their shoulders and yell what’s wrong with them. But I never go further than having an eyebrow twitch. Sigh). Every person has a tolerance level. Some are more…lower… than others when it comes to deciding what…trash… is but we shouldn’t let one person’s preference affect our own.  But we should remember grass grows greener with fertilizer. And we all know where that comes from.

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…And So It Begins…

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , on April 26, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital 6

Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital 6 (Photo credit: spokospoko.org)

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it. – Charles Caleb Cotton

Exhilaration. Euphoric. Excitement. Being published for the first time brings these feelings to the foremost of your mind. Even if your story makes no money and is in an online magazine that no one’s heard of it still brings joy to know that it was good enough. That you’re good enough.

My short story entitled, Cell Forty-Nine, was accepted by the online magazine, Necrology Shorts. This website is dedicated to the horror genre even though my story possesses more mystery than horror. My story is labeled under my full name, Ashley Shae Hall. Having such a common first and last name makes the middle name required. Annoying? Yes. Necessary? Without a doubt.

Cell Forty-Nine takes place in mental institution in the state of Washington. The main character, Peter, is a night guard who tries to help a patient, Ilsa, who proclaims her innocence and mental stability.

The story is just over 2,600 words so if you are interested it won’t take very long to read. And if you do read it, I would very much like to hear your comments, concerns or criticisms.

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The Procrastination Is Strong In This One

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on February 28, 2012 | 2 Comments »

procrastination preview

Photo credit: Charlotte Godfrey1

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” ~ Olin Miller

Have you ever done something so simple that it took two years to do? I started a short story my freshman year of college. I finished it last week. Two years after the fact. And it only took about 800 words to do it. I put it off because I thought it would take a tremendous amount of time to finish. I simply didn’t want to sit down and do it. So I did what I do best. Procrastinate.

I’m a huge procrastinator. I even put off things that I enjoy. I usually only get things done by setting a deadline for myself, otherwise it will take me an unforeseeable amount of time. Like my short story.

The short story, Cell Forty-Nine, I thought was going to stay unfinished. I dropped and picked it up again three different times. It’s amazing that such a tiny drop of words, 2675, could take so long. That’s only a few pages worth of words. Quite frankly, I don’t even know why it took me so long to write so few. I guess it was just another thing I could put off till tomorrow. And tomorrow stays tomorrow when tomorrow becomes today.

I’m currently doing that towards my book. Sigh. I rewrite what I have without adding new material. I really got to pick up the plotline again. So I’m setting my alarm to wake me up a couple of hours before my classes start to resume my work. Hopefully I won’t press the snooze button.

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Your Title Here

Posted in My books, Writing, tagged , , , , on February 19, 2012 | 4 Comments »

“A good title is the title of a successful book.”- Robert C. Gallagher

Children are often named before they are born; books rarely have such luxury. Sometimes a title can come before a single word is jotted down, but most often they aren’t. The title can come at any time. Beginning, middle or end. They can come as a whisper in the night. Or they arrive from hours of crossing out various combinations of words. For mine, I was lucky. It came while I was writing the first couple thousand words. The only thing I had to do was to describe the crime scene and BAM it slapped me upside the head.

“Bloodstained Strings,” that’s my working title. Titles can change in the editing process but I rather like mine. It sums up a common thread that is placed in my book; music and the violence that spoils it for a victim. If I do series–depends if I can find a publisher for my first book and they want to continue the storyline–I might just follow the trend and have all of my titles deal with the crime scene and/or the victim. Seems like a good idea. You can get a feel for what case the book will entail by it being blazed on the cover.

Titles are finicky and fickle. They can come and go in an instant. They can change themselves multiple times and they don’t care if you smack your head against your computer in exasperation. Hopefully mine is here to stay. But to make sure I stuck a pin in it and trapped it behind glass. It’s not going anywhere.

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The Cold, the Pity and the Paranoia

Posted in Life, Personal, tagged , , , on February 12, 2012 | 3 Comments »

036 - Cutest. Virus. Ever.
The Common Cold: Cutest. Virus. Ever.

“Being ill is one of the greatest pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work until one is better.” Samuel Butler

It’s that time of season. The temperature drops. The animals hide. And noses run. Having a cold and not being able to take time off ruins the whole point of being sick. Life doesn’t stop to catch a breather, so we can’t either. It’s annoying. But I did learn something from being sick this past week: people take pity on you. And not just from your friends, teachers and strangers as well. The pity I was given wasn’t annoying, it actually made my day a little better and a little weird. That’s a first.

I’m taking a required health class in college. On the day when we had to do a small exercise activity, I was allowed to skip it. I was so glad. With how my head was feeling, I didn’t think it was a good idea to climb steps at a rapid pace. After that we had to take a quiz. Couldn’t get out of that but I was sent home by the professor to rest once I was done. A health teacher sends home a sick student. That made me laugh, but laughing makes me cough, so I try not to. Too bad I really couldn’t go home to rest because I had to go to another class that day. We would be having a test later that week (at which I was still hacking up both lungs and a heart).

The day of my test: I still had to take it but something bizarre happened. A stranger gave me a chocolate. I saw her briefly before I took my Biology test. She was sitting across from me on the floor while I studying and waiting for the pervious class to exit. Afterwards, I went to an entire different building for Calculus. I saw her again. She walked up to me and asked if I wanted a chocolate bar. I said okay because I didn’t want to offend her. In a roundabout way I asked her why. She said it was because I looked sad. I told her I had a cold and she just walked on. To tell you the truth, I got a little paranoid. This was the second time I saw her that day. Was she following me? I did something that only a writer and forensic scientist who watched too many crime shows would do. I took a sheet of paper out that said if I died I was murdered, that they should check the wrapper for fingerprints and then I gave a brief description of her. I blame the cold medicine. When I didn’t die that night, I threw the wrapper and my note in the garbage. I’m sick; I can have a little leeway.

While I am still accumulating a trashcan full of snot-covered tissues, the end of my sickness is in sight. Hopefully this week won’t be as bewildering. But considering I am on college campus, it probably will be.

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The Unaccepted Starving Artist

Posted in Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on January 29, 2012 | 1 Comment »

The Poor Poet, by Carl Spitzweg, 1839. (Neue P...

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”- John Steinbeck

“Oh, you’re a writer; when are you going to get a real job?” Every person who has put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard has heard a variation of that statement. We, the word artist, are a forgotten breed. It is acceptable for a musician to be between concerts; or a painter to stand at the side of the street and sell his work to those who pass daily. A wordsmith can no longer be a starving artist. We can’t just play in our medium and dedicate our lives to it. We must do it as a hobby only because there is no way we can live by words alone. The world sees the word sculpture as an ill drawn dream. It’s impossible to reach the top percent of paid authors, so why try, they tell us. Because we–like every other artist–has a need, a drive, to form a composition that has never be heard before. It’s a compulsion. We must drain what is in our minds. We need to share our interpretation of the world around us. We believe that it will be the most important thing we will ever do. We hold unto this thought even if the world conspires against us. We must, or we feel unfulfilled and unnecessary. There’s no stopping it.

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