Soon, very very soon it
will be my favourite month again. It wasn't anything spectacular until the year
2011, but since then I can't help but be excited for it. I even remember that
the year before November was especially rough as I had to go through a lot of
personal struggles (including a broken heart, hard times at school and health
issues). Luckily those are now all over and as I said, November turned out to
be my favourite month despite the cold weather. I have already told you pieces
of it, but today I hope you get the whole picture of the adventure called
NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo stands for
national novel writing month, but in fact it should be called
"international" by now, as there are people all over the world
participating in it. When I first heard of it during summer 2011, I had no idea
about the journey that it would take me on. I thought the idea was plain crazy,
but I've never been very opposed to such things. I decided to make an account
immediately. The goal of NaNo is to get people to write. We all know that first
drafts are very rough; the plot holes might be as deep as Marianas Trench and
the character are as flat as a lake on a day without wind. Whilst we are aware
of that, we also know that without producing anything you cannot improve. If
you do not write, how are you supposed to get the stories out of your head?
That's quite hard. So during the thirty days of November a participant is
obligated to write 50,000 words, which are approximately 1666 words a
day.
You can't win anything,
except for the words you write and the knowledge that you did it. To be fair
that is pretty amazing and it feels brilliant. On the other hand it is hard
work. It means scheduling, maybe lack of sleep and less time with your friends.
Writing has to be on your list of priorities along with school and those
things. I usually cut down on facebook and the general not writing related
internet then. During my first year I was a senior, participated in a musical
and as I said I wrote a novel of 85,000. It was intense but so so good. I may
have already told you, but before this experience I considered myself neither
creative nor a writer. Nowadays those things are very important features to me
so yeah, I'm glad I figured that out.
Looking back there was a
huge chance of me just not attempting it the first year, even after signing up,
but the forums kept my spirit up. In October I joined the purple elephants, a
group initially formed to help out one guy with his girl problems that brought
together a bunch of cool people from different places. I think they are in
their fourth year by now and they are some of the rare threads that stay active
all year round. Basically all of them are very dear to me and were there for me
in times where I couldn't talk with anyone in real life and they are open
minded and supportive and I really really love them. Without them the noveling
experience would be half as enjoyable and as I said, they keep you motivated
with their excitement.
Now I want to tell you more
about the two stories I wrote and the one I'll be writing this year. NaNo '11
was a very important for me. I wrote the story called "truth is stranger
than fiction" which basically was a novel consisting of stories that
happened to me and my friends, in addition of a lot of fiction. Through this I
was able to get past some things that were bothering me for years and I learned
just how good of a therapy writing is. To this day it's the only story that
found an end, even though I have not managed to do any editing yet. I'm not
sure if I ever could do something with it because it's so personal.
Last year I did something entirely
different. Based on a nightmare I once had I created a dystopian world in which
there was a thing called "the ritual" in which kids become adults.
That story was called "Toward the light - Dem Licht entgegen" The
whole thing was supposed to be very psychological, the world building killed me
though and that's the reason why I stopped right after November. I'm still very
fond of the novel but right now it's just to time and energy consuming.
This year I'm back to my
used field, I want to write another young adult /teen’s novel. The basic idea
is stolen from a guy I know. He wants to do a volunteer year and before he
leaves he wants to sell his phone and delete his facebook account. That
somewhat made me think. I'm pretty often on facebook and even the idea of not
having a phone feels pretty uncomfortable for me. All in all that plan
inspired and fascinated me a lot and I decided to use it, even though I felt
very awkward at first. I always do when I use things that happen around me for
a story, but I work best when I have at least a rough idea of what I'm talking
about. I have to stress the fact that except for the very basic idea, the rest
is pure fiction. I always fear that people might get me wrong when I write romantically
stuff that is roughly based on someone I know. I am a writer and creativity
knows no boundaries.
Of course the general idea
is not that spectacular, so I had to add a pinch of drama, some romance and
several unexpected happenings. I also wanted to challenge my writing skills
somehow, so I gave the story a twist. I have two main character. There is Elis,
the guy who leaves for South America, and there is Chloë, a girl who is still
in school. They used to be friends but drifted apart somehow. Now she writes
him a letter because she is angry about what he did. She does not expect him to
answer, but he does. The whole story is supposed to be narrated through those
letters. Nothing else, no more descriptions, just a whole bunch of letters.
It will be quite hard, as
there are only that much you can include into a letter about for example how
they look like and about the very obvious things that they've known for ages, but
I will try my best to figure out a way. I'm so looking forward to where this
story may lead me.
So I'm sorry if I bored you
to death, but bare with me during this time. Or just leave if you don't care :P
Cheerio.
P.S. This post is scheduled
as I'm in Germany right now, just thought I'd tell you.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Deadline? More like Lifeline!
Two things I see as given
in my life, firstly I try to be as punctual as possible, secondly I'm terribly
chaotic. So when you mix both of these together you get a person with an
absolute need for pressure in order to finish something. If there is no due
date then I'll probably procrastinate until either I run out of more irrelevant
things to do or when pigs actually start to fly.
Here, have an example. I told you about this presentation I had in my last post. I actually wrote it the night before, making the PowerPoint presentation the very same day I had to stand in front of my class and talk about it. I tried to start earlier, but couldn't squeeze one mildly intelligent word out of my brains. Besides, you know what? The lecturer told me actually that I was rather good. Of course it wasn't perfect, but I never expected it to be anyway.
Another situation on which I realized that not everyone can actually withstand the tension* of last minute entries was when I wrote this big paper during my final year of school. I had all the information gathered but I was only able to write on it about four weeks before I had to hand it in, which considering the amount of time we had, was very little. Even my teacher made a remark on it saying he was slightly worried and admitting that he had no reason to. That also was the moment my mum could finally accept that I work in my own pace.
They even talk about this whole issue in the bible, I mean hello? What I'm talking about is written in Ecclesiastes and to be honest, that's part of the reason why this book is my favourite. Just read the verse and you might understand me. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." [Eccl. 3:1; KJV]. I just feel like this sentence gets my way of thinking. It's not about pushing it off mindlessly, it's about doing it when you are ready, when the idea is ripe to become real.
That's also the reason why I try my hardest to keep a weekly schedule up, even when weekly isn't determined with a certain day. When I loosen up too much then I might quit, which is the last thing I want to do right now.
Finally this whole schedule thing gets more and more important as NaNo approaches fast. I think next week you'll hear more about it, as I want to introduce this fabulous project to all of you. The fact that you just have to get the right amount of words during November is the best push I can get. I don't want to see myself loosing, especially since I have won the past two years, of which the first my schedule was about to burst due to all the things I was involved. I'm pumped for it and almost set to go. On the other hand I need to have my time organized well or I might end up neglecting either school, writing or my social life, which I want to prevent from happening!
To sum this up, schedules
and deadlines keep me motivated and help me organise, even though what I'm
doing might look like a mess to orderly people. I simply flourish
under pressure. They also provide me with good
products instead of just some lightly planed bits and bobs, as last minute
execution leaves way more time and room for good planning beforehand. It's probably best
that everyone has their own way of dealing with their own time.
Cheerio.
* I am sorry, insider alert ;)
Here, have an example. I told you about this presentation I had in my last post. I actually wrote it the night before, making the PowerPoint presentation the very same day I had to stand in front of my class and talk about it. I tried to start earlier, but couldn't squeeze one mildly intelligent word out of my brains. Besides, you know what? The lecturer told me actually that I was rather good. Of course it wasn't perfect, but I never expected it to be anyway.
Another situation on which I realized that not everyone can actually withstand the tension* of last minute entries was when I wrote this big paper during my final year of school. I had all the information gathered but I was only able to write on it about four weeks before I had to hand it in, which considering the amount of time we had, was very little. Even my teacher made a remark on it saying he was slightly worried and admitting that he had no reason to. That also was the moment my mum could finally accept that I work in my own pace.
They even talk about this whole issue in the bible, I mean hello? What I'm talking about is written in Ecclesiastes and to be honest, that's part of the reason why this book is my favourite. Just read the verse and you might understand me. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." [Eccl. 3:1; KJV]. I just feel like this sentence gets my way of thinking. It's not about pushing it off mindlessly, it's about doing it when you are ready, when the idea is ripe to become real.
That's also the reason why I try my hardest to keep a weekly schedule up, even when weekly isn't determined with a certain day. When I loosen up too much then I might quit, which is the last thing I want to do right now.
Finally this whole schedule thing gets more and more important as NaNo approaches fast. I think next week you'll hear more about it, as I want to introduce this fabulous project to all of you. The fact that you just have to get the right amount of words during November is the best push I can get. I don't want to see myself loosing, especially since I have won the past two years, of which the first my schedule was about to burst due to all the things I was involved. I'm pumped for it and almost set to go. On the other hand I need to have my time organized well or I might end up neglecting either school, writing or my social life, which I want to prevent from happening!
Cheerio.
* I am sorry, insider alert ;)
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Home sweet Home
As you all probably know
and have heard too many times, I moved out. Well technically I'm only staying
at my new plays 4 days a week, but you know, it somehow still counts. I'm
halfway through my fifth week of doing this and very slowly but surely I
adapted to this new phase and I feel more and more comfortable with my
situation. Let me tell you a bit more about the whole first impressions I got.
So when I spent my first night at this scary new place I've only been there twice before. As I had some busy weeks right before I started uni it kind of happened that I only properly moved in the day prior to the actual first day. Of course my stuff was already there but it's not your place until you at least spent several hours there/slept there. I felt very anxious that day. I had not yet bought any food and I almost didn't dare to go out of my room as it was intimidating and somewhat overwhelming. My dinner that day was leftover celebration my Mum bought when we unpacked my things the week before.
I didn't sleep well that night, again due to the strangeness of the whole situation, but at least I expected that. Now I'm not going to tell you how the university stuff worked out, I might want to tell that in another post, I just want to talk about the shared flat I live in. It was strange sharing a place with people I didn't know at all. I did not even see my third flatmate until the day after I moved in, which seemed very odd to me.
I live with two guys who speak French as their mother tongue and a fellow female that is Swissgerman. She is in her first year just like me, whereas the older guy is in his third and the younger does some kind of school (of which basically none of us understood what it's all about). I assumed that me and my FFM (female flat mate :D) would be going along well because she is easy to be with, but I was not sure about the guys, especially given the fact that I'm not confident at all of my French. At first the language barrier was huge, but it's not as bad anymore. (I can always use an English word if my French fails me).
The first week was very though and I missed home already on my second evening there. It was the sum of everything happening around me, the fast changes that caused this feeling, but still it was very hard on me. When I knew I was going home on Thursday evening I danced around in my room, happily packing my bags. I think I've never felt as homesick as the moment my train arrived at my hometown. I could've literally cried. I would've never thought that you could feel this way after just four days, but I couldn't help it anyway.
So the next Sunday I really didn't want to leave. Don't get me wrong, I didn’t have any really negative experiences, it was just too much to cope with, too many changes for me. I missed to have my friends close, I missed talking to my brother about things he doesn't care about but he still listens and I felt very lonely in general, which is weird given the fact I was surrounded by people a lot. Again I managed to get through that week, having only very small conversations with my flatmates.
During the third week we managed to be in one room all at once, which to be honest was quite the achievement. Since then it has increased rapidly though.
The situation now is pretty good I'd say. After some struggles with convincing the boys to stick to the cleaning schedule of us girls we have the older one on our side. The younger one starts to be annoying due to him lying to us about cleaning and not trying to understand what we say. Also he doesn't slow down while speaking to use which is kind of rude as we are trying our best to converse in French. Probably we should just blame it on his age, but c'mon, that's just not ok.
My FFM and the older MFM have started a prank war with each other, including fake arguments. It is hilarious to watch and listen to. I have declared my neutrality, but I'm secretly helping her a lot. I mean I've been pranked so much that it's kind of dull just watching, on the other hand it's in fact really nice not to be targeted all the time.
Yesterday the three of us stayed up till 1 am, even though we had class at eight, just to talk about music and movies and stuff. I realize how I start to actually enjoy this place, and once the word "home" even got into my mind while thinking about it, which made me smile.
I don't know how this will work out, as there is still a lot of time left here, but to be honest I feel quite confident that it might end up alright.
Cheerio.
Oh and before I leave, I should be writing on a presentation that is due tomorrow but I'm busy procrastinating .... The FFM proposed to drink Grappa to get over writers block....oh college life xD
So when I spent my first night at this scary new place I've only been there twice before. As I had some busy weeks right before I started uni it kind of happened that I only properly moved in the day prior to the actual first day. Of course my stuff was already there but it's not your place until you at least spent several hours there/slept there. I felt very anxious that day. I had not yet bought any food and I almost didn't dare to go out of my room as it was intimidating and somewhat overwhelming. My dinner that day was leftover celebration my Mum bought when we unpacked my things the week before.
I didn't sleep well that night, again due to the strangeness of the whole situation, but at least I expected that. Now I'm not going to tell you how the university stuff worked out, I might want to tell that in another post, I just want to talk about the shared flat I live in. It was strange sharing a place with people I didn't know at all. I did not even see my third flatmate until the day after I moved in, which seemed very odd to me.
I live with two guys who speak French as their mother tongue and a fellow female that is Swissgerman. She is in her first year just like me, whereas the older guy is in his third and the younger does some kind of school (of which basically none of us understood what it's all about). I assumed that me and my FFM (female flat mate :D) would be going along well because she is easy to be with, but I was not sure about the guys, especially given the fact that I'm not confident at all of my French. At first the language barrier was huge, but it's not as bad anymore. (I can always use an English word if my French fails me).
The first week was very though and I missed home already on my second evening there. It was the sum of everything happening around me, the fast changes that caused this feeling, but still it was very hard on me. When I knew I was going home on Thursday evening I danced around in my room, happily packing my bags. I think I've never felt as homesick as the moment my train arrived at my hometown. I could've literally cried. I would've never thought that you could feel this way after just four days, but I couldn't help it anyway.
So the next Sunday I really didn't want to leave. Don't get me wrong, I didn’t have any really negative experiences, it was just too much to cope with, too many changes for me. I missed to have my friends close, I missed talking to my brother about things he doesn't care about but he still listens and I felt very lonely in general, which is weird given the fact I was surrounded by people a lot. Again I managed to get through that week, having only very small conversations with my flatmates.
During the third week we managed to be in one room all at once, which to be honest was quite the achievement. Since then it has increased rapidly though.
The situation now is pretty good I'd say. After some struggles with convincing the boys to stick to the cleaning schedule of us girls we have the older one on our side. The younger one starts to be annoying due to him lying to us about cleaning and not trying to understand what we say. Also he doesn't slow down while speaking to use which is kind of rude as we are trying our best to converse in French. Probably we should just blame it on his age, but c'mon, that's just not ok.
My FFM and the older MFM have started a prank war with each other, including fake arguments. It is hilarious to watch and listen to. I have declared my neutrality, but I'm secretly helping her a lot. I mean I've been pranked so much that it's kind of dull just watching, on the other hand it's in fact really nice not to be targeted all the time.
Yesterday the three of us stayed up till 1 am, even though we had class at eight, just to talk about music and movies and stuff. I realize how I start to actually enjoy this place, and once the word "home" even got into my mind while thinking about it, which made me smile.
I don't know how this will work out, as there is still a lot of time left here, but to be honest I feel quite confident that it might end up alright.
Cheerio.
Oh and before I leave, I should be writing on a presentation that is due tomorrow but I'm busy procrastinating .... The FFM proposed to drink Grappa to get over writers block....oh college life xD
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Hello Goodbye
Over the past couple of
years I have accomplished to life with the fact that sometimes I get extremely
awkward. I don't consider that as something special, because I know that a lot
of people get to know that feeling at one point or another. One thing that
usually makes me quite uncomfortable is in fact a very small detail, but I've
always been very good at over analyzing so enjoy reading along. Let me
introduce you to the difficulty of saying "Hello" & "Goodbye".
I don't mean the general shouts in a crowded room, no I mean actual face to face welcome style "Hellos". Basically in my life there are five general kinds of how to get that done around. The most common is "the handshake" It's appropriate when you meet someone for the first time, if you want to reduce intimacy of any kind and you might even express a little discomfort towards a person through this medium. It's also important for less close relationships like business related things. In case of insecurity always go for a handshake and you can do almost nothing wrong, at least in western civilisation.
In certain situation it might feel uncomfortable though. When I meet a person around my age I consider a handshake to be too formal. Also when I'm meeting friends and I don't want to really interrupt them I need something different to get their attention. There "the wave" is great. People can decide to acknowledge your move and welcome you properly or they can just look past it. It's also very useful to make a general statement instead of having to walk up to each person individually. To be honest I guess "the wave" is my go to move as it's very nonchalant to use.
A third thing is "the clap'n shake". I know that one mostly from the guys at our church. It's less formal than a handshake, a little friendlier and more personal. It means first you clap your hand together and with a smooth movement you switch into a short handshake. Troubles included in that one is a bad clap and confusion by the person not knowing that you initially wanted to do that move. It's pretty handy though and I fully understand why the guys use it a lot.
My former enemy and now best friend is "the hug" though. I used to seriously hate hugging certain people as I didn't like getting touched in general. Over the time I learned that some of my friends are veery good huggers though and I also understood the general meaning of a hug. You can put in a lot of warmth, sincerity and care into that move and it shows a lot of positive feelings. I am a hugger but I'll never forget that I wasn't always so I can respect other people's boundaries when they feel not comfortable with that one.
And last (but also least) is the freaking awkward 2-3 kisses on the cheek thing. Yes I have a biased opinion on it and you might've guessed that it's not positive. I do not understand it; usually it's just rubbing your cheek against another and making kissing sounds. Why is that even a thing? It doesn't mean anything and it feels odd. Actually that is the reason why I write this post. At my Uni we have this bible study group and for some reason they've used this method to greet each other. So far I've managed to escape it by using "the wave" and settle things as soon as I enter but not today. So I awkwardly held out my hand and totally confused this one guy, which internally made me laugh a lot. I mean those cheek kisses with a girl is doable, with a guy I dislike and with a bearded guy I hate, I am sorry.
Oh and on the subject of seriously awkward, did it ever happen to you that you wanted to hug someone whereas they aimed for a handshake? Or maybe the other way around, who knows. And please do not let me get started on the troubles one can get across while hugging, like stroking alongside someone’s face and hitting someone while stretching out to give a proper hug, really terrible stories, believe me. Oh and let's not forget when you accidentally missed to bid someone welcome the right way and that person got disappointed or sad? Which reminds me of that one person who seems to do that a lot towards me lately, how rude ;)
So you see, I am completely nuts, but what do you except of a sleepless person at quarter past three in the morning. Maybe I should get more sleep instead of thinking so much about lavalieres.
Cheerio.
I don't mean the general shouts in a crowded room, no I mean actual face to face welcome style "Hellos". Basically in my life there are five general kinds of how to get that done around. The most common is "the handshake" It's appropriate when you meet someone for the first time, if you want to reduce intimacy of any kind and you might even express a little discomfort towards a person through this medium. It's also important for less close relationships like business related things. In case of insecurity always go for a handshake and you can do almost nothing wrong, at least in western civilisation.
In certain situation it might feel uncomfortable though. When I meet a person around my age I consider a handshake to be too formal. Also when I'm meeting friends and I don't want to really interrupt them I need something different to get their attention. There "the wave" is great. People can decide to acknowledge your move and welcome you properly or they can just look past it. It's also very useful to make a general statement instead of having to walk up to each person individually. To be honest I guess "the wave" is my go to move as it's very nonchalant to use.
A third thing is "the clap'n shake". I know that one mostly from the guys at our church. It's less formal than a handshake, a little friendlier and more personal. It means first you clap your hand together and with a smooth movement you switch into a short handshake. Troubles included in that one is a bad clap and confusion by the person not knowing that you initially wanted to do that move. It's pretty handy though and I fully understand why the guys use it a lot.
My former enemy and now best friend is "the hug" though. I used to seriously hate hugging certain people as I didn't like getting touched in general. Over the time I learned that some of my friends are veery good huggers though and I also understood the general meaning of a hug. You can put in a lot of warmth, sincerity and care into that move and it shows a lot of positive feelings. I am a hugger but I'll never forget that I wasn't always so I can respect other people's boundaries when they feel not comfortable with that one.
And last (but also least) is the freaking awkward 2-3 kisses on the cheek thing. Yes I have a biased opinion on it and you might've guessed that it's not positive. I do not understand it; usually it's just rubbing your cheek against another and making kissing sounds. Why is that even a thing? It doesn't mean anything and it feels odd. Actually that is the reason why I write this post. At my Uni we have this bible study group and for some reason they've used this method to greet each other. So far I've managed to escape it by using "the wave" and settle things as soon as I enter but not today. So I awkwardly held out my hand and totally confused this one guy, which internally made me laugh a lot. I mean those cheek kisses with a girl is doable, with a guy I dislike and with a bearded guy I hate, I am sorry.
Oh and on the subject of seriously awkward, did it ever happen to you that you wanted to hug someone whereas they aimed for a handshake? Or maybe the other way around, who knows. And please do not let me get started on the troubles one can get across while hugging, like stroking alongside someone’s face and hitting someone while stretching out to give a proper hug, really terrible stories, believe me. Oh and let's not forget when you accidentally missed to bid someone welcome the right way and that person got disappointed or sad? Which reminds me of that one person who seems to do that a lot towards me lately, how rude ;)
So you see, I am completely nuts, but what do you except of a sleepless person at quarter past three in the morning. Maybe I should get more sleep instead of thinking so much about lavalieres.
Cheerio.
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