Hi! It's time for my second (third?) new experience post. To recap, my New Year's Resolution was to have a new experience every week this year and to blog about them on Saturdays. This week's new experience was slightly more exciting than last week's (which was watching new movies). I decided to have a Shabbat dinner in my apartment here at school.
For those of you who don't know, Shabbat is the Jewish day of rest. It goes from Friday night through Saturday night. My family celebrates Shabbat by having a nice dinner together on Friday night. We also light candles, drink wine, and eat challah (a specific type of bread). It's a nice way to end the week. But I haven't had any Shabbat dinners here at college (besides a couple hosted by Hillel, the Jewish group on my campus) so I decided that this Friday, I would arrange my own.
A couple of elements were not so easy to put together. Candles are banned in my apartment under the fire code. Wine is banned on my floor because we're substance free (and I'm under 21, and I don't really like wine anyway). And challah is difficult to find (unless I were to actually venture off campus- scary!) So I improvised.
Friday morning, I headed out to the pub. The pub is not a bar, it is the name of a small dining location on my campus that sells baked goods, junk food, salads, sandwiches, grill stuff, etc. I have no idea why it's called the pub. But anyway. I went to the pub and I bought one of their croissants (which I love) and a bottle of cranberry juice. Then I had lunch there and headed back to the apartment, where I probably wasted some time watching Pushing Daisies or something.
Around 6 pm, I started preparing dinner. Last semester, I had used up the last of my meal plan on buying various expensive foods, so I had some fancy pasta in my kitchen. I went to the convenience store on my campus and bought some vodka sauce (which essentially means creamy tomato sauce; I am beginning to realize that I have to clarify my lack of alcohol consumption way too much). Then I set some water to boil.
While I waited for the water to boil for my pasta, I set the table. I couldn't use candles, so I unplugged the little desk lamp in my bedroom and brought it to the kitchen table. (My roommates had ordered pizza, which they were eating in their bedroom, so they were fine with me using the kitchen). I poured some of the cranberry juice into a glass and put the croissant on a separate small plate.
The water boiled, so I poured in a little less than half the bag of pasta. Then I waited for it to finish cooking, tested it, drained it, and mixed in the vodka sauce and some extra virgin olive oil. I put some pasta on a plate and turned off the lights so that the table was lit by just the desk lamp. And then I ate my dinner, while reading The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland. (Which I really recommend. It's so good, ugh. Read the first book in the series first, though.)
Anyway, in the process of writing this I realized this sounds incredibly pathetic. Just so any readers know, I know it's not a big deal to make dinner for yourself. But it was fun and I decided to count it as my new experience for the week, so too bad if you think I'm sad for writing a blog post about it.
In other news: on Thursday night I hosted a video chat for Ch1Con, the young writers' conference I help run ("help run" is a very generous term for my job). The link is here. It was a talk about diversity in YA books. It's two and a half hours long, so I don't recommend watching it until one of us bothers to go in and put the little Google+ buttons for where the important parts are.
So, that's that. See you on Wednesday when there'll be a regular blog post!
-Ariel
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Five Mistakes Beginning Writers Often Make
Hi! Today, I've decided to write a blog post about mistakes that beginning writers often make. You might think, "on what authority are you lecturing to beginning writers?" because I'm only eighteen and I haven't been published. But I've been seriously writing fiction since I was seven and I have interacted a lot with fancy published writers. Plus, I used to spend a lot of time on several different websites for young writers, where I got to read lots of truly terrible stories and painfully remember how my own stories used to be just as bad, if not ten times worse.
With those stories in mind (the ones I've read by others, and the ones I wrote myself), I came up with a list of five mistakes that beginning writers can fall prey to. I really have young writers in mind, like eight to thirteen years old, because that's the age I started and that's when a lot of writers start. But older writers who are just starting out have a lot of these problems too (only they've probably read all sorts of writing manuals giving them advice, so the problems will manifest in more "writerly" ways).
Keep in mind this is just my opinion. The best writing advice for anyone is to write as much as you can and to read as much as you can, because you'll naturally get better that way. Still, it doesn't hurt to realize that some of the things you do in your writing are super annoying. Such as these:
1. No paragraph breaks
Oh. My. God. If I can think of one thing that stands out to me when I look at amateur writing, it's the lack of paragraph breaks. No one, absolutely no one, wants to read a story that is one giant uninterrupted block of words. It looks intimidating and there's no flow. Compare (and I'm stealing these (and paraphrasing also) from the first Harry Potter):
A good way to remember when to indent for new paragraphs is by remembering TiPToP. You start a new line every time there's a change in Time, Place, Topic, or Person speaking.
2. Everyone is the same character
A lot of more experienced writers (read: me, because I suck at writing) struggle with this problem as well. The problem is this: you know that everyone in the world is a unique person, who has had a unique childhood, a unique life story, and unique ideas in their unique head. Then why do all your characters react the same way to everything? Think about it. If you were to take four of your major characters, throw them into a bank that's being robbed, and they all did the exact same thing in that scenario (instead of one hiding, one standing up to the robber, one yelling for help, etc.), then those aren't four different characters- that's one character who has four different names.
This might not be so obvious when you think about your story. You might think, "uh, obviously my characters are different! One of them is girly and blonde, one of them is an exciting superhero- they're totally different!" But those are surface differences, not deep differences. Your characters need to each be complicated and deep in unique and different ways, and you need to show these differences. They can't all talk the same way, think the same way, express their emotions the same way, have the same interests, have the same opinions about stuff in the plot, react the same way to stuff ("they all gasped"). Otherwise why do you even have different characters?
Usually, the root behind this problem is that you haven't come across too many types of people in your life, or if you have, you haven't really looked too deeply into their lives. The fact is that there are so many different types of people in the world. And that's a good thing! It makes your story richer. That's why you need more than one character- so that they all work together to create your story. If they're all thinking the same way, then they can't work together to solve problems- they might as well just work alone.
The way to fix this is to first understand your characters in a complex way. There are plenty of character questionnaires online to help with that. Give them all different life stories, different motives, and different ways of behaving. Second, you need to make all these differences obvious in the plot. When you write a conversation, it needs to be obvious who is speaking, even if you don't write their name- that's how differently they all speak. Some of them will react emotionally to something that another one doesn't care about at all. Some will never go over to the dark side; some will be tempted by the dark side- and when that character goes over to the dark side, the reader needs to feel a little bit, "I knew it!" Because their character gave off the impression, the whole book, of being kind of dark-side-y. It's a difficult thing to do, without outright saying stuff like, "KRISTY IS THE POPULAR ONE. LACY WILL BECOME EVIL." But the more you practice, the better you'll get.
3. Villains of Pure Evil
You wouldn't start an army to kill babies, would you? No, you'd never even think of it. And neither would almost anyone you know. That's why, when you imagine the head of the baby-killing army, you imagine a Villain of Pure Evil. No regular human would do such evil things- no, only an Evil Villain would do such a thing. Someone who struts about his office twirling his evil mustache, plotting more terrible deeds.
The thing is, Villains of Pure Evil are really boring to read. And very unrealistic, especially if they're humans. If there's no reason behind their actions besides "they're just evil," then the hero has nothing they can manipulate to get them to stop. The villain is also a dull character, since they have no background, no interests, no emotions. And it's pretty hard to believe the story, since nobody in the history of ever has done bad things "because they're evil." They've done it for power, for revenge, because they truly believed they were right, for love, out of fear. Those motives are realistic and are much more interesting.
Also, a common thing I see in stories about middle and high school is the bully who picks on the main character for no good reason. She's just a mean girl who specifically targets your main character with no explanation. You can't have your villain hate on the main character just because you need the audience to feel sorry for the main character. There has to be a reason behind it, otherwise it feels unrealistic.
4. Way Too Much Description
Let's say I told you to imagine a beautiful, wintry forest. You can picture it, right? In all its detail- the glittering icicles, the pure white snow, the bare black branches, the bright blue sky. But I didn't need to say all that stuff about the icicles and snow, they were already in your head. In the same way, your readers will be able to picture the things in your book, without you needing to go on for too long to describe them.
Too much description weighs down your writing, and takes away from the action. Readers want to read a story, not a beautiful image, no matter how beautiful that image is. Describing scenery (or a character's appearance, or whatever) is a way to make the readers put down your book and walk away, which you never want them to do.
Generally, a quick one- or two-sentence description will suffice for just about anything. The times when you need more are:
-when you describe something unusual that the reader could not picture on their own (for example, you say it's a beautiful wintry forest, but turns out that forest has purple trees)
-when you need to include a detail that will be important later (that forest has a couple of red cardinals in the trees- who are actually magical spies)
-when it's something major in the book that will feature a lot (your main character, a major setting). Be careful with these, though- you don't want to put too much information in one spot.
Times you should definitely NOT use heavy description would be any action scenes or important plot moments, and the beginning, when you need to grab the reader's attention.
Don't get me wrong- beautiful description has its place. I'm reading a book that has a scene with two pages of pure description, and it works. But it's because the scene is a magical party scene that is very important to the plot. The book talks a lot about how great these magic parties are, and once we get to it, the description is important to suck us in and make us feel as though we ourselves are attending this party. In addition, it never lingers too long on any one detail of the party- it moves quickly from one to the next. If you must describe, try to do that.
5. Info-dumping
I get it. You need to explain a huge amount of information in a short time. Whether it's how your character came to be a spy, or what exactly this dragon-hunting school is all about. And if your reader doesn't know it, they're going to be confused. But as I said in the last section, readers read a book for the story, and if the story isn't moving along, they get bored and stop reading. So if they come across a big chunk of information, it's going to bore them.
But you still need to get this information across! How can you do that? Well, there are a couple of ways, and there are probably tons of blogs on the Internet that have better ideas than I do, but here are a few:
Also, I apologize if this came off as condescending. I just want to give some tips and advice I've learned while writing, not suggest that everyone else is a bad writer or anything like that.
Thanks for reading! Come back on Saturday for my second new-experience post!
-Ariel
With those stories in mind (the ones I've read by others, and the ones I wrote myself), I came up with a list of five mistakes that beginning writers can fall prey to. I really have young writers in mind, like eight to thirteen years old, because that's the age I started and that's when a lot of writers start. But older writers who are just starting out have a lot of these problems too (only they've probably read all sorts of writing manuals giving them advice, so the problems will manifest in more "writerly" ways).
Keep in mind this is just my opinion. The best writing advice for anyone is to write as much as you can and to read as much as you can, because you'll naturally get better that way. Still, it doesn't hurt to realize that some of the things you do in your writing are super annoying. Such as these:
1. No paragraph breaks
Oh. My. God. If I can think of one thing that stands out to me when I look at amateur writing, it's the lack of paragraph breaks. No one, absolutely no one, wants to read a story that is one giant uninterrupted block of words. It looks intimidating and there's no flow. Compare (and I'm stealing these (and paraphrasing also) from the first Harry Potter):
There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have much of a head start. Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall. "What have we got today?" Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar onto his porridge. "Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them." "Wish McGonagall favored us," said Harry. Professor McGonagall...UGH that is annoying to read. Versus:
There was so much to learn that even people like Ron didn't have that much of a head start.
Friday was an important day for Harry and Ron. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.
"What have we got today?" Harry asked Ron as he poured sugar onto his porridge.
"Double Potions with the Slytherins," said Ron. "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them."
"Wish McGonagall favored us," said Harry.Wow. That is much better. You know when a new idea, or something exciting, is coming up, because there's a new line for it, instead of it getting lost in a muddle of words. You can follow the flow of a conversation, because each time a new character speaks, they get a new line. If you go to the first example, Harry's and Ron's lines flow into each other so you can't keep track of who's saying what. That isn't so much of a problem in the second example.
A good way to remember when to indent for new paragraphs is by remembering TiPToP. You start a new line every time there's a change in Time, Place, Topic, or Person speaking.
2. Everyone is the same character
A lot of more experienced writers (read: me, because I suck at writing) struggle with this problem as well. The problem is this: you know that everyone in the world is a unique person, who has had a unique childhood, a unique life story, and unique ideas in their unique head. Then why do all your characters react the same way to everything? Think about it. If you were to take four of your major characters, throw them into a bank that's being robbed, and they all did the exact same thing in that scenario (instead of one hiding, one standing up to the robber, one yelling for help, etc.), then those aren't four different characters- that's one character who has four different names.
This might not be so obvious when you think about your story. You might think, "uh, obviously my characters are different! One of them is girly and blonde, one of them is an exciting superhero- they're totally different!" But those are surface differences, not deep differences. Your characters need to each be complicated and deep in unique and different ways, and you need to show these differences. They can't all talk the same way, think the same way, express their emotions the same way, have the same interests, have the same opinions about stuff in the plot, react the same way to stuff ("they all gasped"). Otherwise why do you even have different characters?
Usually, the root behind this problem is that you haven't come across too many types of people in your life, or if you have, you haven't really looked too deeply into their lives. The fact is that there are so many different types of people in the world. And that's a good thing! It makes your story richer. That's why you need more than one character- so that they all work together to create your story. If they're all thinking the same way, then they can't work together to solve problems- they might as well just work alone.
The way to fix this is to first understand your characters in a complex way. There are plenty of character questionnaires online to help with that. Give them all different life stories, different motives, and different ways of behaving. Second, you need to make all these differences obvious in the plot. When you write a conversation, it needs to be obvious who is speaking, even if you don't write their name- that's how differently they all speak. Some of them will react emotionally to something that another one doesn't care about at all. Some will never go over to the dark side; some will be tempted by the dark side- and when that character goes over to the dark side, the reader needs to feel a little bit, "I knew it!" Because their character gave off the impression, the whole book, of being kind of dark-side-y. It's a difficult thing to do, without outright saying stuff like, "KRISTY IS THE POPULAR ONE. LACY WILL BECOME EVIL." But the more you practice, the better you'll get.
3. Villains of Pure Evil
You wouldn't start an army to kill babies, would you? No, you'd never even think of it. And neither would almost anyone you know. That's why, when you imagine the head of the baby-killing army, you imagine a Villain of Pure Evil. No regular human would do such evil things- no, only an Evil Villain would do such a thing. Someone who struts about his office twirling his evil mustache, plotting more terrible deeds.
The thing is, Villains of Pure Evil are really boring to read. And very unrealistic, especially if they're humans. If there's no reason behind their actions besides "they're just evil," then the hero has nothing they can manipulate to get them to stop. The villain is also a dull character, since they have no background, no interests, no emotions. And it's pretty hard to believe the story, since nobody in the history of ever has done bad things "because they're evil." They've done it for power, for revenge, because they truly believed they were right, for love, out of fear. Those motives are realistic and are much more interesting.
Also, a common thing I see in stories about middle and high school is the bully who picks on the main character for no good reason. She's just a mean girl who specifically targets your main character with no explanation. You can't have your villain hate on the main character just because you need the audience to feel sorry for the main character. There has to be a reason behind it, otherwise it feels unrealistic.
4. Way Too Much Description
Let's say I told you to imagine a beautiful, wintry forest. You can picture it, right? In all its detail- the glittering icicles, the pure white snow, the bare black branches, the bright blue sky. But I didn't need to say all that stuff about the icicles and snow, they were already in your head. In the same way, your readers will be able to picture the things in your book, without you needing to go on for too long to describe them.
Too much description weighs down your writing, and takes away from the action. Readers want to read a story, not a beautiful image, no matter how beautiful that image is. Describing scenery (or a character's appearance, or whatever) is a way to make the readers put down your book and walk away, which you never want them to do.
Generally, a quick one- or two-sentence description will suffice for just about anything. The times when you need more are:
-when you describe something unusual that the reader could not picture on their own (for example, you say it's a beautiful wintry forest, but turns out that forest has purple trees)
-when you need to include a detail that will be important later (that forest has a couple of red cardinals in the trees- who are actually magical spies)
-when it's something major in the book that will feature a lot (your main character, a major setting). Be careful with these, though- you don't want to put too much information in one spot.
Times you should definitely NOT use heavy description would be any action scenes or important plot moments, and the beginning, when you need to grab the reader's attention.
Don't get me wrong- beautiful description has its place. I'm reading a book that has a scene with two pages of pure description, and it works. But it's because the scene is a magical party scene that is very important to the plot. The book talks a lot about how great these magic parties are, and once we get to it, the description is important to suck us in and make us feel as though we ourselves are attending this party. In addition, it never lingers too long on any one detail of the party- it moves quickly from one to the next. If you must describe, try to do that.
5. Info-dumping
I get it. You need to explain a huge amount of information in a short time. Whether it's how your character came to be a spy, or what exactly this dragon-hunting school is all about. And if your reader doesn't know it, they're going to be confused. But as I said in the last section, readers read a book for the story, and if the story isn't moving along, they get bored and stop reading. So if they come across a big chunk of information, it's going to bore them.
But you still need to get this information across! How can you do that? Well, there are a couple of ways, and there are probably tons of blogs on the Internet that have better ideas than I do, but here are a few:
- Drop the information over the course of the first few scenes. The main character comes across their dragon-hunting teacher, who gives them a reminder about their homework. They see a sign at the front of the school and spend two or three sentences thinking about the history of it, giving your reader vital information. Their friend makes a comment about the war. This handful of clues will be enough. Your readers are smart, they can piece together the clues to figure out what's going on.
- Dialogue! If your main character doesn't even know what's going on yet, they'll probably find out by someone telling them. A great example of this is when Hagrid tells Harry he's a wizard. A conversation is a way to keep the story moving while giving the reader (and your character) important information. But you have to be careful- they can't just be sitting there, one person talking and the other person listening. The conversation has to go back and forth- questions, emotions, opinions, arguments. Stuff has to happen- maybe they're walking through the woods or through a city during this, or doing some important work. Keep the story moving.
- Make it a story within a story. If the information you need to portray can be portrayed in a fun storytelling form, do it that way. Have the character write a diary entry where they remember the story of how they got to Fairyland. Start the story off with a mini-story about the history of the magical wars before you get into the real story. This sort of thing is generally discouraged in the publishing world, but if you can pull it off, it's a good way to get information across without boring your reader.
Also, I apologize if this came off as condescending. I just want to give some tips and advice I've learned while writing, not suggest that everyone else is a bad writer or anything like that.
Thanks for reading! Come back on Saturday for my second new-experience post!
-Ariel
Saturday, January 17, 2015
First Exciting Experience Post! Just Kidding. (Boring Movie Reviews)
Remember in my post exactly one week ago where I promised I was going to have one new experience every week this year and blog about it on Saturdays? Well, that will probably be starting next week. I'm still at home for winter break- I'm headed back on Monday. And it's kind of difficult to have grand adventures of any sort in tiny New Jersey suburbs of hell. All I did this week was: shopping for various items with my mom, doctor's appointments, and a sleepover with my best friend. I watched some new movies, if that counts. Well, since I have literally zero (0) readers, I say it does count. I'll review all the new movies I watched this week. THIS WAS MY NEW EXPERIENCE.
When Harry Met Sally (1989)- My best friend made me watch this movie because according to her, it's "the greatest love story ever told." Well, I'm not a fantastic judge for that, but it was a pretty great movie. I kind of hate romantic comedies because they rely on tired tropes and stuff, (and they're often kind of absurdly sexist), but I guess Nora Ephron knew what she was doing. It's a very funny movie. Every time I mention it to someone they go, "OH MY GOD THE RESTAURANT SCENE" and like, that wasn't the funniest scene in the movie, even. There's a lot of pretty great jokes.
But besides the humor. I liked that it took two genuinely flawed characters and made us see all their ugly sides and crappy emotions. I liked that it acknowledged some of the ridiculous things that men apparently think about love and sex. And I liked that even though it was predictable, it wasn't so predictable that my mind fell asleep. There were some unexpected moments, which is good in a movie.
I do wish they had resolved the issue of "can men and women ever be friends?" Harry and Sally argue about that in the start of the movie, which makes the viewer feel like the movie's going to explore that question. Sure enough, the man and the woman who have the argument become friends. And then, naturally, they do end up romantically together. Which is totally fine; friends can fall in love. But that story structure makes it seem like their relationship was answering the question, and the answer was, "men and women can't be just friends." Which is wrong because they can. And I know what you're thinking- "Ariel, just because one couple got together in this movie doesn't mean the movie was saying that!" I know. But it implies it, and people who produce popular media have a responsibility for what their work implies.
Anyway. Good movie, though. And the other movie I saw this week (well, besides movies I've already seen- I saw Mulan with my family and I forgot how good it was, geez):
The Art of the Steal (2013)- I watched this today because my dad liked it and because I like art history. (Read: I took an art history class in ninth grade and did super well, I still like the subject but everyone thinks I'm some sort of art history god when to be honest I couldn't identify the difference between a Rembrandt and a Caravaggio most likely). Anyway, so this is an action-y heist movie. It's pretty fun to watch, not super serious, despite starting out with a Dark Gritty Voice-Over Flashback. But it's basically about a bunch of geek criminals who want to pull off the coolest art theft they can think of. It's also about two brothers backstabbing each other several times over. I liked it- the intricacies of the theft were pretty fun, and there were a lot of genuinely funny moments. The characters are all pretty cool, if not 100% fleshed-out, but whatever, it's an action movie. Not a whole lot of art stuff, but it's dashed in there, which gives it a little more color than your average heist movie.
The one main problem I had with it is that there were like a hundred layers to the plot, and there were several twists. At first the twists were like "aha! pretty cool!" and then it got to the point of, "are you kidding me." Despite that, it's fun to watch it unfold.
So, yeah. I'm sure I'll have something a little more exciting next week. It might be something incredibly mundane, like "I've never gone grocery shopping on my own before!" or "I've never eaten this particular kind of sandwich before!" but there will be something.
In the meantime, I'm going to try and gather some real live readers.
See you on Wednesday,
Ariel
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
How to Calm Down From An Anxiety Attack (and other similar horrible mind attacks)
Let me preface this blog post by saying I'm not an expert on anything here. I'm not a psychologist; I haven't even ever taken a psychology class. But I have suffered from anxiety and depression, and I've had to come up with various ways to deal with them. One of the annoying things about anxiety (and other similar mental disorders) is that occasionally your mind turns into a giant squid of craziness, making any sort of, you know, regular human activity impossible. This takes a bunch of different possible forms (panicking about disasters, hating yourself, crying profusely, etc.) but it takes a toll on you physically and emotionally. And whenever it's done, you're left with a bit of a headache and a really crappy feeling, in addition to potentially having work to do that you neglected. (The work could even have been the cause of anxiety, which makes it about a hundred times worse. I'm looking at you, juniors in high school.)
So over the years of dealing with these attacks, I've accumulated a mental list of techniques for calming down. It's not completely exhaustive, and it won't work for everyone in every situation, but it's just some ideas. I'll also link some Tumblr posts and other websites that provide some more ideas, in case none of mine work. This is fairly long, so I suggest you just read the section that pertains to you instead of the entire thing.
AN UNOFFICIAL LIST OF TIPS TO CALM DOWN FROM YOUR MIND BECOMING A GIANT SQUID OF TERRIBLE
1. Make playlists! I like making way too many playlists for every possible mood. Figure out what kind of mood you need now: a calm mood, a don't-give-me-a-headache mood, a happy mood, a feel-good-about-yourself mood, etc. Making a playlist can be a calming activity in itself, or alternately you can make the playlists at a different time so they're ready in the event of an attack.
2. Listen to calming sounds. RainyMood.com creates the nice sound of rain in the background. Even better, this website has a whole lot of noise generators: rain sounds, coffee shop sounds, white noise, jungle sounds, cool spacey sounds, and more. And you can play around with knobs to make it sound exactly how you want it. The website is essentially made for people who want calming noise, so it's great.
3. Eat chocolate! Chocolate helps after a dementor attack and it helps Muggles too. If you can't have chocolate, eat a food that's easy to prepare and that is calming: tea, soup, your favorite granola bar, whatever. Don't eat a whole ton of food because then you'll feel over-full, but just a little.
4. Get crayons or markers and doodle something calming. I like to take a box of crayons and an index card and draw a little heart with each color crayon until the index card is covered in hearts. You can also write favorite song lyrics, poems, or quotes. It helps in general to let your mind focus on one simple thing, rather than the scatter-y feeling you get when you scroll through social media and you're like "Harry Potter gif! Buzzfeed quiz! Article about celebrity!"
5. On the note of letting your mind focus on one thing, this website makes you sit there and not touch your computer for 2 minutes while you look at a beach scene and listen to waves. Just breathing in and out for two minutes can make your mind stop jumping around.
6. Write inspirational song lyrics/poem excerpts/quotes on your arms. You need to focus a lot for this. It's also a good alternative to self-harm if you have problems with that.
7. Drink water. Or, alternately, pour yourself a small glass of a fizzy drink like ginger ale. It'll feel like a small treat in the middle of the day. (I always get ginger ale on airplanes to calm myself from the hatred of airplanes, so it reminds me of calming myself down in general).
8. If you have a Tumblr or something similar, tag every calming thing you see with "calming" and then browse your own tag when you need to calm down. For example, this video and this list of pictures and this beautiful poem are stuff I tagged as "calming." This is my entire tag if you want to browse it, but I'd suggest you make your own. If you don't have a Tumblr account, keep a folder of bookmarked links from every time you come across something calming online.
9. Read a chapter (or a scene) from your favorite book. Preferably the part where the characters are all hanging out being goofballs and eating delicious food, not the part where Voldemort returns.
10. Especially if you're freaking out because "you did nothing today:" make a list of every good thing that happened today or this week, or everything you achieved. You'll find you did more than you thought you did. Another good thing to list is things to be happy about or things you're grateful for. If you keep all these lists in one notebook, you can read the old ones as well for reminders. I make lists like this when I'm bored or when I have a few minutes of free time before my class starts, so that they're already ready when I start feeling bad.
WHAT IF I HAVE WORK I NEED TO GET DONE? WHAT IF I NEED TO GO TO SLEEP? GAH! THERE IS NO TIME FOR THESE THINGS!
First of all, there is time. Most of the things above take only a few minutes. You always have time for a few minutes, especially when a few minutes of calming yourself down saves another hour of freaking out. You don't need to do everything on the list. If you feel overburdened by even choosing one activity, and reading this list is already taking so much time, just pick the one that sounds like it takes the least effort and preparation: for example, number 5. Two minutes of breathing will help you a lot if you need to get back to work. But seriously, do not spend those whole two minutes thinking, "what if I don't calm down? I need to work! I can't waste this time!" because then it actually will be a waste of time. You can afford two minutes to think about nothing.
As for the work: I would recommend putting on a calming, non-distracting playlist or one of the noise generators in the background while you work, to keep yourself in a calm mood. Work in a clean environment or whatever sort of environment is most comforting to you. Put on a cozy sweater or wrap yourself in a blanket. Allow yourself some food or a warm drink to have while you work. Everything to make the work seem less stressful.
If the work is what caused the attack in the first place (e.g. "I have to read this entire chapter by tomorrow! I'll never do it! I will fail and die!") then try turning the work from an evil, invincible villain back into a regular activity. Think about how it's just a normal thing and you wouldn't have been assigned to do it if you couldn't handle it. Think about the fact that even if the worst-case scenario happens (aka you don't do the work), the worst that'll happen is a very temporary consequence- AND you are going to do the work, so that's not even going to happen anyway. Think about it as one step after another- one chapter is just three sections, which is just three sets of ten pages, which is just ten sets of one page. Or think about it in a way that makes it seem cool, like imagining that you're in a movie montage about homework.
And especially remember: once you start working, it will get easier, because you'll get into a flow of work. You'll realize as you work that it actually ISN'T that bad. So if nothing else works, just take a deep breath, start working, and just focus on doing the work.
If you need to go to sleep soon: remind yourself that thinking about stuff over and over before bed will not change anything, but getting some sleep will. Every time you think, "but [cause of anxiety]! I can't sleep until I think about it!" remind yourself, "Thinking about it now is ineffective. The best thing I can do right now is sleep."
To help calm yourself into a sleepy mood, make yourself comfortable. Change into comfy pajamas, listen to lullaby type music (this is one of my favorites), put on nice-smelling lotion, take a warm shower, and read a little bit of a calming book. Try and avoid doing stuff on the Internet because it keeps you awake generally.
NONE OF THIS WORKED; I'M STILL UPSET
If none of this worked, there's a chance you're fixating on the idea of calming down and getting anxious about that instead. Try tricking your brain into forgetting about it by focusing yourself on completing an easy activity (wash the dishes, organize your notebooks, clean your desk) so that your attention goes to that instead.
If you are still upset, it helps to talk to another person. Talking to another person helps you to verbalize what's bothering you, to share it so it's not all bottled up in your head, and to gain some perspective on how it isn't so bad. If you have someone you trust in real life or readily available through the Internet, you can talk to them, but if not, this website allows you to chat (by typing) with a qualified stranger who is there to help and will seriously not be bothered by you, because they signed up specifically to help others. They will also probably have more ideas on what to do to calm down.
If all else fails, you can go to sleep if it's nighttime. Sometimes it just helps to wait until morning. If it's not nighttime, you can just try forcing yourself back into normal activities and see if your brain is eventually tricked into falling back into a regular way of thinking.
I hope this post helped a little. Remember, sometimes you're just a breath away from feeling better. (which is a thing Amy Poehler said once and now I stole it). If you need any help or clarification, comment on this article or stalk me and creepily contact me. If you comment on this article, chances are I will find out right away, because I am online like 90% of the time and I check my email about once an hour. But if I don't respond, don't worry- it's not your fault, it's probably because I'm asleep or eating or something.
And here are some links for a bunch more posts like this, in case nothing I suggested is really up your alley, or you just want some more ideas:
Advice for People Who Are Not Having a Good Day
Self-Injury Recovery Masterpost
Recover From a Rough Day
Discouragement from Self-Harm/Suicide
Breathing Gif
Reminder that a Not-Great Day Can Become a Good Day
How to Cope With Anxiety
Calming and Fun Websites
Sunday Evening Reminder
(You may notice these are all from Tumblr, because I have a problem.)
I apologize for how long this post turned out to be. I just want to make it clear how many options there are and how there is never a situation that is hopeless.
Hope you liked this post! See you on Saturday when I will post my first genuine "experience blog" post!
-Ariel
So over the years of dealing with these attacks, I've accumulated a mental list of techniques for calming down. It's not completely exhaustive, and it won't work for everyone in every situation, but it's just some ideas. I'll also link some Tumblr posts and other websites that provide some more ideas, in case none of mine work. This is fairly long, so I suggest you just read the section that pertains to you instead of the entire thing.
AN UNOFFICIAL LIST OF TIPS TO CALM DOWN FROM YOUR MIND BECOMING A GIANT SQUID OF TERRIBLE
1. Make playlists! I like making way too many playlists for every possible mood. Figure out what kind of mood you need now: a calm mood, a don't-give-me-a-headache mood, a happy mood, a feel-good-about-yourself mood, etc. Making a playlist can be a calming activity in itself, or alternately you can make the playlists at a different time so they're ready in the event of an attack.
2. Listen to calming sounds. RainyMood.com creates the nice sound of rain in the background. Even better, this website has a whole lot of noise generators: rain sounds, coffee shop sounds, white noise, jungle sounds, cool spacey sounds, and more. And you can play around with knobs to make it sound exactly how you want it. The website is essentially made for people who want calming noise, so it's great.
3. Eat chocolate! Chocolate helps after a dementor attack and it helps Muggles too. If you can't have chocolate, eat a food that's easy to prepare and that is calming: tea, soup, your favorite granola bar, whatever. Don't eat a whole ton of food because then you'll feel over-full, but just a little.
4. Get crayons or markers and doodle something calming. I like to take a box of crayons and an index card and draw a little heart with each color crayon until the index card is covered in hearts. You can also write favorite song lyrics, poems, or quotes. It helps in general to let your mind focus on one simple thing, rather than the scatter-y feeling you get when you scroll through social media and you're like "Harry Potter gif! Buzzfeed quiz! Article about celebrity!"
5. On the note of letting your mind focus on one thing, this website makes you sit there and not touch your computer for 2 minutes while you look at a beach scene and listen to waves. Just breathing in and out for two minutes can make your mind stop jumping around.
6. Write inspirational song lyrics/poem excerpts/quotes on your arms. You need to focus a lot for this. It's also a good alternative to self-harm if you have problems with that.
7. Drink water. Or, alternately, pour yourself a small glass of a fizzy drink like ginger ale. It'll feel like a small treat in the middle of the day. (I always get ginger ale on airplanes to calm myself from the hatred of airplanes, so it reminds me of calming myself down in general).
8. If you have a Tumblr or something similar, tag every calming thing you see with "calming" and then browse your own tag when you need to calm down. For example, this video and this list of pictures and this beautiful poem are stuff I tagged as "calming." This is my entire tag if you want to browse it, but I'd suggest you make your own. If you don't have a Tumblr account, keep a folder of bookmarked links from every time you come across something calming online.
9. Read a chapter (or a scene) from your favorite book. Preferably the part where the characters are all hanging out being goofballs and eating delicious food, not the part where Voldemort returns.
10. Especially if you're freaking out because "you did nothing today:" make a list of every good thing that happened today or this week, or everything you achieved. You'll find you did more than you thought you did. Another good thing to list is things to be happy about or things you're grateful for. If you keep all these lists in one notebook, you can read the old ones as well for reminders. I make lists like this when I'm bored or when I have a few minutes of free time before my class starts, so that they're already ready when I start feeling bad.
WHAT IF I HAVE WORK I NEED TO GET DONE? WHAT IF I NEED TO GO TO SLEEP? GAH! THERE IS NO TIME FOR THESE THINGS!
First of all, there is time. Most of the things above take only a few minutes. You always have time for a few minutes, especially when a few minutes of calming yourself down saves another hour of freaking out. You don't need to do everything on the list. If you feel overburdened by even choosing one activity, and reading this list is already taking so much time, just pick the one that sounds like it takes the least effort and preparation: for example, number 5. Two minutes of breathing will help you a lot if you need to get back to work. But seriously, do not spend those whole two minutes thinking, "what if I don't calm down? I need to work! I can't waste this time!" because then it actually will be a waste of time. You can afford two minutes to think about nothing.
As for the work: I would recommend putting on a calming, non-distracting playlist or one of the noise generators in the background while you work, to keep yourself in a calm mood. Work in a clean environment or whatever sort of environment is most comforting to you. Put on a cozy sweater or wrap yourself in a blanket. Allow yourself some food or a warm drink to have while you work. Everything to make the work seem less stressful.
If the work is what caused the attack in the first place (e.g. "I have to read this entire chapter by tomorrow! I'll never do it! I will fail and die!") then try turning the work from an evil, invincible villain back into a regular activity. Think about how it's just a normal thing and you wouldn't have been assigned to do it if you couldn't handle it. Think about the fact that even if the worst-case scenario happens (aka you don't do the work), the worst that'll happen is a very temporary consequence- AND you are going to do the work, so that's not even going to happen anyway. Think about it as one step after another- one chapter is just three sections, which is just three sets of ten pages, which is just ten sets of one page. Or think about it in a way that makes it seem cool, like imagining that you're in a movie montage about homework.
And especially remember: once you start working, it will get easier, because you'll get into a flow of work. You'll realize as you work that it actually ISN'T that bad. So if nothing else works, just take a deep breath, start working, and just focus on doing the work.
If you need to go to sleep soon: remind yourself that thinking about stuff over and over before bed will not change anything, but getting some sleep will. Every time you think, "but [cause of anxiety]! I can't sleep until I think about it!" remind yourself, "Thinking about it now is ineffective. The best thing I can do right now is sleep."
To help calm yourself into a sleepy mood, make yourself comfortable. Change into comfy pajamas, listen to lullaby type music (this is one of my favorites), put on nice-smelling lotion, take a warm shower, and read a little bit of a calming book. Try and avoid doing stuff on the Internet because it keeps you awake generally.
NONE OF THIS WORKED; I'M STILL UPSET
If none of this worked, there's a chance you're fixating on the idea of calming down and getting anxious about that instead. Try tricking your brain into forgetting about it by focusing yourself on completing an easy activity (wash the dishes, organize your notebooks, clean your desk) so that your attention goes to that instead.
If you are still upset, it helps to talk to another person. Talking to another person helps you to verbalize what's bothering you, to share it so it's not all bottled up in your head, and to gain some perspective on how it isn't so bad. If you have someone you trust in real life or readily available through the Internet, you can talk to them, but if not, this website allows you to chat (by typing) with a qualified stranger who is there to help and will seriously not be bothered by you, because they signed up specifically to help others. They will also probably have more ideas on what to do to calm down.
If all else fails, you can go to sleep if it's nighttime. Sometimes it just helps to wait until morning. If it's not nighttime, you can just try forcing yourself back into normal activities and see if your brain is eventually tricked into falling back into a regular way of thinking.
I hope this post helped a little. Remember, sometimes you're just a breath away from feeling better. (which is a thing Amy Poehler said once and now I stole it). If you need any help or clarification, comment on this article or stalk me and creepily contact me. If you comment on this article, chances are I will find out right away, because I am online like 90% of the time and I check my email about once an hour. But if I don't respond, don't worry- it's not your fault, it's probably because I'm asleep or eating or something.
And here are some links for a bunch more posts like this, in case nothing I suggested is really up your alley, or you just want some more ideas:
Advice for People Who Are Not Having a Good Day
Self-Injury Recovery Masterpost
Recover From a Rough Day
Discouragement from Self-Harm/Suicide
Breathing Gif
Reminder that a Not-Great Day Can Become a Good Day
How to Cope With Anxiety
Calming and Fun Websites
Sunday Evening Reminder
(You may notice these are all from Tumblr, because I have a problem.)
I apologize for how long this post turned out to be. I just want to make it clear how many options there are and how there is never a situation that is hopeless.
Hope you liked this post! See you on Saturday when I will post my first genuine "experience blog" post!
-Ariel
Saturday, January 10, 2015
New Year's Resolutions
Hey, as-yet-nonexistent readers!
So, you might notice that there are already two posts on this blog. You might also notice they're from October 2013, and this post is being written in January 2015. So, yeah. That's definitely proof of how incredibly lazy I am.
You might ask, then, "why are you writing a blog post now? Wouldn't it make more sense to start a new blog, and let the humiliation of not posting for over a year be forgotten?" But look at the header of the blog! It's so pretty! I worked for like an hour last year to make it look like that. I'm not just going to let that go. Plus, I already snagged the URL "arielkalati" for this. I can't give that up.
"Why now?" you might ask. Wow, so many questions for a figment of my imagination, reader. Well, if you check out the calendar, we're only ten days into 2015, which means we're still in the reasonable zone for starting on New Year's resolutions. One of my resolutions this year was to create a better online writing presence. (Hi, agents and publishers! Please love me!)
So I've decided to start working on this blog again, finally. AND I came up with some snazzy ideas for how to make it exciting and fun for both me and you. Get ready. I'm planning to post two times a week, once on Saturday and once on Wednesday. Wednesdays will be a "regular" blog post, where I'll essentially post short informal essays (or possibly lists of gifs/links) about stuff I care about/possibly writing excerpts. "Stuff I care about" includes:
-Creative writing, the writing industry, YA writers (I'm the creative consultant for a young writers' conference called Chapter One Con), and more
-Books! I love YA and sci fi/fantasy in particular.
-Fandoms. Especially Harry Potter, but also Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus, the Hunger Games, the nerdfighter fandom (if that's a fandom, I don't know), and a lot more. I also like criticizing fandoms, e.g. questioning why Cho Chang is so vilified in the HP fandom.
-Poetry, both the kind you read and the kind you hear someone perform.
-Nature and the seasons. I'm doing a research project this year about the effect of the change of seasons on a particular forest on my campus, so you might get a post called something like "GUYS DID YOU HEAR ABOUT SQUIRRELS." Might. I'm not promising anything.
-Social justice/feminism.
-Educational reform (if you're a high school student who hates the SAT, please keep up with the blog just for this, because I hate the SAT more).
-Other stuff I'm thinking about.
I hope that's not too all-over-the-place for people. If anybody who reads the blog is like, "uh, stop talking about Harry Potter, I want to read more posts about feminism," I am very willing to oblige because guess what? I will do anything to make people like me! Ha ha, oh me.
Anyway. And Saturdays will be extra special blogging days, because I'm planning to do what I am arbitrarily calling "experience blogging" on Saturdays. Which sounds like a New Age Postmodern Hipster sort of thing, but it's just because I'm bad at naming things. What it means is that each week I am going to make myself have a new experience, and then blog about it. That could mean I read a new book or watch a new movie, eat a new food, or go out into the city and check out an art gallery, go to a protest, watch a play (my college is about half theatre kids so that should be easy), go to a meeting of a new club, etc. It just has to be something I haven't done before, or at least something I don't do every freaking week (aka sit in my dorm, sleep until 1 pm, and eat an entire bag of chips while binge-watching Orange is the New Black). And you'll get to hear about it! How exciting.
So, let's all cross our fingers and hope that I don't wimp out on this like I've done with every blog in my life (except my tenth grade angsty poetry blog, which I kept up for a full six months before quitting). And if you subscribe to this blog or leave even one comment, I will probably bake you an entire cake shaped like a heart and send it to you with the power of my appreciation, so do that.
I guess this counts as my Saturday post. It's about the new experience of writing an introductory blog post over a year after writing the actual introductory blog post!
See you on Wednesday,
Ariel
So, you might notice that there are already two posts on this blog. You might also notice they're from October 2013, and this post is being written in January 2015. So, yeah. That's definitely proof of how incredibly lazy I am.
You might ask, then, "why are you writing a blog post now? Wouldn't it make more sense to start a new blog, and let the humiliation of not posting for over a year be forgotten?" But look at the header of the blog! It's so pretty! I worked for like an hour last year to make it look like that. I'm not just going to let that go. Plus, I already snagged the URL "arielkalati" for this. I can't give that up.
"Why now?" you might ask. Wow, so many questions for a figment of my imagination, reader. Well, if you check out the calendar, we're only ten days into 2015, which means we're still in the reasonable zone for starting on New Year's resolutions. One of my resolutions this year was to create a better online writing presence. (Hi, agents and publishers! Please love me!)
So I've decided to start working on this blog again, finally. AND I came up with some snazzy ideas for how to make it exciting and fun for both me and you. Get ready. I'm planning to post two times a week, once on Saturday and once on Wednesday. Wednesdays will be a "regular" blog post, where I'll essentially post short informal essays (or possibly lists of gifs/links) about stuff I care about/possibly writing excerpts. "Stuff I care about" includes:
-Creative writing, the writing industry, YA writers (I'm the creative consultant for a young writers' conference called Chapter One Con), and more
-Books! I love YA and sci fi/fantasy in particular.
-Fandoms. Especially Harry Potter, but also Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus, the Hunger Games, the nerdfighter fandom (if that's a fandom, I don't know), and a lot more. I also like criticizing fandoms, e.g. questioning why Cho Chang is so vilified in the HP fandom.
-Poetry, both the kind you read and the kind you hear someone perform.
-Nature and the seasons. I'm doing a research project this year about the effect of the change of seasons on a particular forest on my campus, so you might get a post called something like "GUYS DID YOU HEAR ABOUT SQUIRRELS." Might. I'm not promising anything.
-Social justice/feminism.
-Educational reform (if you're a high school student who hates the SAT, please keep up with the blog just for this, because I hate the SAT more).
-Other stuff I'm thinking about.
I hope that's not too all-over-the-place for people. If anybody who reads the blog is like, "uh, stop talking about Harry Potter, I want to read more posts about feminism," I am very willing to oblige because guess what? I will do anything to make people like me! Ha ha, oh me.
Anyway. And Saturdays will be extra special blogging days, because I'm planning to do what I am arbitrarily calling "experience blogging" on Saturdays. Which sounds like a New Age Postmodern Hipster sort of thing, but it's just because I'm bad at naming things. What it means is that each week I am going to make myself have a new experience, and then blog about it. That could mean I read a new book or watch a new movie, eat a new food, or go out into the city and check out an art gallery, go to a protest, watch a play (my college is about half theatre kids so that should be easy), go to a meeting of a new club, etc. It just has to be something I haven't done before, or at least something I don't do every freaking week (aka sit in my dorm, sleep until 1 pm, and eat an entire bag of chips while binge-watching Orange is the New Black). And you'll get to hear about it! How exciting.
So, let's all cross our fingers and hope that I don't wimp out on this like I've done with every blog in my life (except my tenth grade angsty poetry blog, which I kept up for a full six months before quitting). And if you subscribe to this blog or leave even one comment, I will probably bake you an entire cake shaped like a heart and send it to you with the power of my appreciation, so do that.
I guess this counts as my Saturday post. It's about the new experience of writing an introductory blog post over a year after writing the actual introductory blog post!
See you on Wednesday,
Ariel
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