I suppose I'm risking my readers by blogging about the same thing, but since I've had no ideas *cough cough* then this is what was on my mind. So, deal with it.
Thursday August 1st. I got my driver's permit, and that very afternoon went to parking lots and drove for two hours. next day, about fifteen minutes. Next day (that would be today) I went on the road twice, even on a big, busy, and rather terrifying intersection.
This week, seemingly unrelated, I had strings camp. Two to three hours every day of really technically difficult music (I play viola, which is AWESOME, people! Best. Section. Ever.).
The two events are actually a lot of the same thing: Taking risks, and pushing yourself. I played some of the most difficult music i've ever played, in insane things like tenth position. (That's really high and really hard). I had to put timke into it and work hard to make the music sound (somewhat) good. I had to push myself.
In driving, it's something totally new. No experience. Zilch. It was really quite scary, and when I say scary, don't take that lightly. Unlike my sister who jumps if she sees a chair in an unusual spot, I rarely am scared of anything except failure and spiders. I was scared that i would hit something, that something would hit me, or that I'd fail. I didn't, I did fine, but that's not the point. the point is that I threw myself out there in a situation I had to work hard at. To push myself.
That's a lot like writing. Sometimes you just have to work hard and keep trying, because it's something totally new. Or because you're trying something a little more difficult. Writing, driving, playing an instrument, it all takes time, and not a little courage.
I'd just like to say, keep trying. It's all worth the risk, that pit of fear bubbling in your midsection, the exhaustion, the frenzy of having a million other things to do and places to be. There's nothing like the triumph of a concert well played, or driving yourself to school, or writing a story that really impresses everyone around you. So don't give up. Because that little bit of fear can't be allowed to beat you when there's so much to gain. And so what if you did fail. You would feel terrible, yes, and you probably should let that emotion help you remember what matters to you, if you're spending your life the way you want to. But don't let it depress you, let it be a loose stepping stone, and your feet just got a little wet. With a bit of work and a bit of a risk, you can step out of the river onto another opportunity, until you reach the shore of success. It;s worth it.
~Mimi Gordon.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
Role-Playing Annoyances
Remember to vote on the polls to the right of the blog posts! I try to put things that will be interesting to reply to, and useful for me! Also, please drop me some comments. I love knowing you read it.
Also, I wanted to announce that I'm doing something interesting this week. Starting today, you guys have the opportunity to go to the "Ask Mimi" page, and comment with a writing topic, life topic, or utterly random topic for me to write about. That way I know I'm writing something that will interest my readers. You can comment anything from llamas to suicide, and although I may not choose your topic, it will be considered fairly.
And now [insert drumroll here] today's topic is Role-Playing Annoyances!
Sometimes you got nothing. That's true for any type of writing. But it's my opinion that when you don't have ideas, you do not just go write an RP talking about how you're sitting at the lake and you have a conversation with someone like "How are you?" "Great." "Cool, me too." "Let's swim." "Yeah!" *Splash. Splash.* BOR-ING. If you feel yourself becoming dull in your replies, make some excuse and leave for a bit. Go play a random game online, or listen to musoc, or kill time on YouTube. Don't waste your time and someone else's on an RP that kills braincells!
In addition to that, don't be too powerful. Don't go out there and be all-powerful, never hurt, never angry or bothered. It's not realistic, and it's not fun. It's not even fun for you, beacause chances are it's going to make people mad. Make sure that you have weaknesses, and that sometimes you lose fights. If you're the best there isn't anything to challenge you, and therefore nothing to write about.
Another annoyance is manipulation. Have you had that one person who comes and stabs your character or electrifies them or punches them, and then when you do the same then they dodge it? That's probably my #1 on my list of annoying things. Don't manipulate other people's characters! Say things like "I aimed my fist at her head" instead of "My fist crashed into his head, knocking him out cold." Leaving it open-ended keeps it fair and fun. Make sure to sometimes let your opponent land a blow, too.
Well that's all I can think of at the moment. What annoys you when you're RPing? Don't forget to take the polls and give me topics!
Best of American luck,
~Mimi Gordon
Also, I wanted to announce that I'm doing something interesting this week. Starting today, you guys have the opportunity to go to the "Ask Mimi" page, and comment with a writing topic, life topic, or utterly random topic for me to write about. That way I know I'm writing something that will interest my readers. You can comment anything from llamas to suicide, and although I may not choose your topic, it will be considered fairly.
And now [insert drumroll here] today's topic is Role-Playing Annoyances!
Sometimes you got nothing. That's true for any type of writing. But it's my opinion that when you don't have ideas, you do not just go write an RP talking about how you're sitting at the lake and you have a conversation with someone like "How are you?" "Great." "Cool, me too." "Let's swim." "Yeah!" *Splash. Splash.* BOR-ING. If you feel yourself becoming dull in your replies, make some excuse and leave for a bit. Go play a random game online, or listen to musoc, or kill time on YouTube. Don't waste your time and someone else's on an RP that kills braincells!
In addition to that, don't be too powerful. Don't go out there and be all-powerful, never hurt, never angry or bothered. It's not realistic, and it's not fun. It's not even fun for you, beacause chances are it's going to make people mad. Make sure that you have weaknesses, and that sometimes you lose fights. If you're the best there isn't anything to challenge you, and therefore nothing to write about.
Another annoyance is manipulation. Have you had that one person who comes and stabs your character or electrifies them or punches them, and then when you do the same then they dodge it? That's probably my #1 on my list of annoying things. Don't manipulate other people's characters! Say things like "I aimed my fist at her head" instead of "My fist crashed into his head, knocking him out cold." Leaving it open-ended keeps it fair and fun. Make sure to sometimes let your opponent land a blow, too.
Well that's all I can think of at the moment. What annoys you when you're RPing? Don't forget to take the polls and give me topics!
Best of American luck,
~Mimi Gordon
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Out on a Limb
I am terrible with making titles for these things.
Anyway!
I did start Mulan's story, in first person POV, and although my first part is rather short, I've gotten some great reviews from my friends. If you'd like to read it, go to the tab "My Stories" and there's a link. Also, the "What's New" tab is like a little mini diary for me, so if you ever want to see that, just click and enjoy.
Okay, housekeeping aside, I'm going to talk to you about my insecurity in writing. You know that feeling, while you're sitting there, that big, empty, blank page staring you in the face, that page that has the magical ability to wipe your mind of any confidence you felt, to make you second-guess your plot, or your character, or anything, really. What a lot of people don't realize is that it takes a lot of courage to write. You sometimes have to go out on a limb, a fragile limb, and just pick a plot point and run with it. If it works, great! You succeeded. If it doesn't work, if it's stupid, or jerky, or unrealistic, then that's okay too. Backspace and start over. It takes a lot of courage sometimes to admit that you didn't succeed, that you either need a fresh start or some help from a fellow author friend.
That makes me think a lot about life. Sometimes, you have to take the risk of failure. And that's one of the things that is most difficult for me. Sometimes it's hard to make friends, or try something new, or just strike up a conversation, because that fear of utterly crashing and burning is always present. Sometimes that risk pays off, sometimes it's just stupid, jerky, and uncomfortable.
Writing relates a lot to life in general. Last night with my family, we watched a movie called Her Alibi. It's about a man who writes mystery novels, and bases the detective, the main character, on himself. In the movie, he's experiencing writer's block, so he goes to the court room to get realistic ideas, when a murder case comes up. The accused is a beautiful woman that he falls in love with at first sight. Throughout the whole movie, he's trapped between thinking that she's an innocent woman and that she wants to murder him to seal her alibi, the alibi he gave her. Throughout the movie, he's working on a new novel. The plot of his book correlates to the events and feelings of his own experience with the woman he's provided with an alibi. The book ends up being a best seller, but while he's writing it, he has to keep missing deadlines, insisting that he doesn't know how it ends yet, because he doesn't know how his own story ends.
Sometimes it makes me consider how my story ends, because I don't know the plan for my life, I don't know the ending. Sometimes I wish that I did know, that my life is like the books I (attempt to) write, and that I know, if not every detail, at least the basic plot points in my life. But I don't. I just have to take what life throws at me.
That all goes back to that blank page staring you in the face. You have to take what your characters throw at you. Sometimes you don't need to plan, what you need is to really listen to those characters that live inside you. Sometimes you have to really consider what would the character do in the situation, and not what the character should do or what the character needs to do to make the ending like you want it. Sometimes you have to take the risk of changing the game plan.
Well, that's what I've got. Hope you enjoyed it, drop me a comment or two, and while you're add it share my blog to your circles, hmm?
Good luck with your metaphorical tree limbs,
~Mimi Gordon
Anyway!
I did start Mulan's story, in first person POV, and although my first part is rather short, I've gotten some great reviews from my friends. If you'd like to read it, go to the tab "My Stories" and there's a link. Also, the "What's New" tab is like a little mini diary for me, so if you ever want to see that, just click and enjoy.
Okay, housekeeping aside, I'm going to talk to you about my insecurity in writing. You know that feeling, while you're sitting there, that big, empty, blank page staring you in the face, that page that has the magical ability to wipe your mind of any confidence you felt, to make you second-guess your plot, or your character, or anything, really. What a lot of people don't realize is that it takes a lot of courage to write. You sometimes have to go out on a limb, a fragile limb, and just pick a plot point and run with it. If it works, great! You succeeded. If it doesn't work, if it's stupid, or jerky, or unrealistic, then that's okay too. Backspace and start over. It takes a lot of courage sometimes to admit that you didn't succeed, that you either need a fresh start or some help from a fellow author friend.
That makes me think a lot about life. Sometimes, you have to take the risk of failure. And that's one of the things that is most difficult for me. Sometimes it's hard to make friends, or try something new, or just strike up a conversation, because that fear of utterly crashing and burning is always present. Sometimes that risk pays off, sometimes it's just stupid, jerky, and uncomfortable.
Writing relates a lot to life in general. Last night with my family, we watched a movie called Her Alibi. It's about a man who writes mystery novels, and bases the detective, the main character, on himself. In the movie, he's experiencing writer's block, so he goes to the court room to get realistic ideas, when a murder case comes up. The accused is a beautiful woman that he falls in love with at first sight. Throughout the whole movie, he's trapped between thinking that she's an innocent woman and that she wants to murder him to seal her alibi, the alibi he gave her. Throughout the movie, he's working on a new novel. The plot of his book correlates to the events and feelings of his own experience with the woman he's provided with an alibi. The book ends up being a best seller, but while he's writing it, he has to keep missing deadlines, insisting that he doesn't know how it ends yet, because he doesn't know how his own story ends.
Sometimes it makes me consider how my story ends, because I don't know the plan for my life, I don't know the ending. Sometimes I wish that I did know, that my life is like the books I (attempt to) write, and that I know, if not every detail, at least the basic plot points in my life. But I don't. I just have to take what life throws at me.
That all goes back to that blank page staring you in the face. You have to take what your characters throw at you. Sometimes you don't need to plan, what you need is to really listen to those characters that live inside you. Sometimes you have to really consider what would the character do in the situation, and not what the character should do or what the character needs to do to make the ending like you want it. Sometimes you have to take the risk of changing the game plan.
Well, that's what I've got. Hope you enjoyed it, drop me a comment or two, and while you're add it share my blog to your circles, hmm?
Good luck with your metaphorical tree limbs,
~Mimi Gordon
Friday, July 26, 2013
Writer's Block
Seeing as this is writing, I obviously don't have a 'block'. It's more like a curtain. I can't really tell what comes next, and I'm scared to push through the curtain for fear I'll tear it. (Look at me, all metaphorical...) The point is, I'm stuck. I don't know what to write. I have the lovely draw to get very few plot epiphanies in my entire lifetime and true to that, they aren't really coming through now. I think I've actually only gotten one plot epiphany.
The only plot epiphany I remember getting is about an original character I made in the world of Greek mythology in a community called Fantasy Garden. Isaura is the child of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, a Greek goddess of great beauty and great power in fire and metal manipulation. She's also blessed with an unusually hot temper, and I needed her past to be terrible, I needed her to have done something absolutely horrifying in her anger that would cause her pain for the rest of her immortal life. Then, all of a sudden, I was RPing, like any other day, and it just... hit me. Out of absolutely nowhere. I wasn't thinking about it, I wasn't planning for her, just out of somewhere it hit me that Isaura caused 9/11, not planes. And that's what i wrote, and it worked better than any plot I could have brainstormed myself.
After that moment, I've been dreaming of another blessing like that one, for an idea to just hit me in the head and settle there. But it's gotten much worse recently. Yes, I've been busy, but it's like my mind is just... empty. Like someone went oyt and stole my creativity. Don't get me wrong, I can do short things all day, whip out little short stories like I did with Kizerna (See a few posts ago). Those are simple and quick, just throw in a load of descriptive words and you're done. But long stories, big plots, things that have a plan, those are getting really difficult for me to do. I just can't think of any good plot twists, no matter who I share it with. My ideas end up being at best overused, at worst cliche.
So, I'm in need of your help. How do you solve writer's block? Do you think it's possible to cure writer's block? When have you had a good plot epiphany? I'd love to hear from you, for goodness sake, there's 700+ of you! It really means a lot to comment with a simple sentence or even just a 'I read it'. It makes me feel so happy inside that you spend time with me, even for a moment.
Yours hopefully,
~Mimi Gordon
The only plot epiphany I remember getting is about an original character I made in the world of Greek mythology in a community called Fantasy Garden. Isaura is the child of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, a Greek goddess of great beauty and great power in fire and metal manipulation. She's also blessed with an unusually hot temper, and I needed her past to be terrible, I needed her to have done something absolutely horrifying in her anger that would cause her pain for the rest of her immortal life. Then, all of a sudden, I was RPing, like any other day, and it just... hit me. Out of absolutely nowhere. I wasn't thinking about it, I wasn't planning for her, just out of somewhere it hit me that Isaura caused 9/11, not planes. And that's what i wrote, and it worked better than any plot I could have brainstormed myself.
After that moment, I've been dreaming of another blessing like that one, for an idea to just hit me in the head and settle there. But it's gotten much worse recently. Yes, I've been busy, but it's like my mind is just... empty. Like someone went oyt and stole my creativity. Don't get me wrong, I can do short things all day, whip out little short stories like I did with Kizerna (See a few posts ago). Those are simple and quick, just throw in a load of descriptive words and you're done. But long stories, big plots, things that have a plan, those are getting really difficult for me to do. I just can't think of any good plot twists, no matter who I share it with. My ideas end up being at best overused, at worst cliche.
So, I'm in need of your help. How do you solve writer's block? Do you think it's possible to cure writer's block? When have you had a good plot epiphany? I'd love to hear from you, for goodness sake, there's 700+ of you! It really means a lot to comment with a simple sentence or even just a 'I read it'. It makes me feel so happy inside that you spend time with me, even for a moment.
Yours hopefully,
~Mimi Gordon
Saturday, July 20, 2013
First Post!
Hey, what's up guys? SO I failed at Twitter, but maybe I could try this, just for something new and exciting... or something like that. Just so we're clear, anything on this site IS copyrighted, and it is a criminal offense to use it for ANY purpose without my permission.
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