Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
Return. The word is going through my head over and over and mostly because I wish my eyesight would return to normal. At this particular moment anyway. It keeps going blurry and then for a few days it’s fine. I need to keep track of what I eat, perhaps. Or how I sleep. Or how many hours I spend looking at a computer screen.
Reach. Add an E at the end and you get Re-ache. What my shoulder keeps doing. First it’s fine and then it re-aches. Wow, I’m stretching with that word, aren’t I?
But I’m just complaining.
Still, it would be nice to be able to return to the full health I had even ten years ago. Living in the past can be a pain in the rear-end at the best of times. Especially since we can’t go back – we can only move forward. Forward to what? Hey, there’s another reason to stress.
I think about living in the moment often. I think about it more than I actually do it, because it takes practice. To actually BE in the moment, to fully concentrate on what I’m doing, whether it be breathing or typing or washing dishes, is easier depending on what I’m doing. It’s much easier for my mind to wander if I’m performing a mundane task. But when I write I must fully concentrate. In fact, trying to pull me out of this concentration is like trying to yank out a tooth with a pair of chopsticks. Not easy.
I read somewhere yesterday, a quote from an author who said that writing is not an escape from reality, but rather a plunging into it. I’m really up in the air on this one. Yes, a good piece of writing, whether fact or even fiction, can express reality in ways that we sometimes don’t want to face. But writing about one reality isn’t necessarily the reality that the writer is living in. Did that make any sense? I hope so.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
“…it is delusion to assume that the creator controls his creations and that an attempt to exert such control while ignoring the true nature of those creations is doomed to failure.”
~ Diana Gabaldon, as William on page 470 of An Echo in the Bone, in reference to writing fictional characters in a play.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
I love to inspire people. There are many ways to do so, however. I’m told that my prompts inspire writing, which is great – it would be wonderful to inspire a painting, but I don’t know that I have the face for it. I’m afraid any painting I’m in would have to include a broomstick. Haha.
But I also get a lot of satisfaction out of inspiring people to live better lives, be happier, be grateful for what they have… the list is endless.
I want to ask you this: if you could inspire people to do one or two things just by doing them yourself, what would they be? Please answer in the comments or, if you’re inspired to blog about it either link back here or comment with a link to your post so everyone can read.
As I worked on sorting things out yesterday–things I haven’t seen in years that were in boxes around my house–I got to thinking about how good it feels just to get rid of stuff. It wasn’t until I had a thought-provoking conversation with my best friend, John, this morning that I understood why.
When we throw out or otherwise get rid of things we don’t need in our lives, it not only creates physical space for us to live, but it relieves the untidiness it occupies in our minds. For instance, every time I think about getting rid of a game I have already played, I think to myself, “Maybe I’ll play it again one day,” and so it stays. I realize a game isn’t that big a deal – it doesn’t take up must physical space in my house. But if I think about getting rid of it ten times in the space of a month, it adds up to nothing less than stress. Now if I think about ALL the things I have in my house that I don’t need… it really adds up. If I just get rid of it I no longer have the choice, and so I can stop thinking about it.
It’s like procrastination. As long as there is something to do, my mind is cluttered with it. And the more I think about all the projects I have on the go, the more I realize that they are just things which are occupying space in my life. I need to purge them by getting them done already.
As Lao Tzu was wise to point out,
We mold clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that makes the vessel useful.
It’s not only the pot: it works equally for our homes and our minds.
After much thought and many comments, I’ve decided to try out the “like” button in my comment section. As Jason of HarsH ReaLiTy pointed out, it’s another way of making connections and interacting and I know this to be true by experience. I have, in the past, clicked on the blogs of people who have “liked” my comments and found a few bloggers who were interesting enough to follow, and who subsequently followed me back.
In all I’d have to say that the enlightening conversations I had on this post have highlighted not only the benefits of “liking” a comment, despite its often narrow meaning, but I’ve had some fun “liking” comments there too. My love/hate relationship with the button has tipped slightly to the “love” side. Or at least the “like” side.
If you decide to come along for the ride, you can turn your comment likes on by going to your dashboard, in the settings and then the “sharing” section. Why not give it a try? You might end up “liking” it.
Anyone who would like to try it out may feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post. If you do, please ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet. It’s a great way to meet new bloggers!
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
“Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water. Have the patience to wait! Be still and allow the mud to settle.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching_____________________________________________________________________________________
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
Writing characters who are vastly different to ourselves is something many of us do, or at least strive to do. It’s not easy to extract one’s personality completely from the page – we can only write what we know, after all. Yes, imagination is a far-reaching avenue, but how do we make it stretch as far as it can possibly go?
I have a theory that is probably not all that unique, but I’d like to share it anyway.
When I was in high school drama class, I learned about something called the Stanislavski Method, or, Method Acting. For a full description of what it is and how it came about click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislavski%27s_system In my own words I can tell you it’s a method of acting where the actor studies the motivations of the character and makes use of empathetic observations in order to “become” the character. Its a way of bringing about realism and believability.
This is the method I have striven to bring to my writing. To “become” the character I’m writing makes my dialogue and my character’s actions come to life. To do so I need to be able to concentrate and to empathize with what they are experiencing. I often try on their expressions and imagine, as though I’m watching them on a screen, moving in the ways that their emotions dictate. There are times, therefore, when I must go through a scene twice or more times in order to get the nuances just right from each perspective, but by doing so my scenes are much more lifelike and full of what makes my readers able to envision them.
I believe empathy is something that is essential to a writer. It’s why we people-watch; to gain insight on how people emote, their body language and what causes it. Without empathy, we can only write characters who are cardboard cut-outs of stereotypes.
I realise this is hardly a groundbreaking idea, but the Stanislavski Method of Acting is certainly one to pay attention to for a writer. The more we know our characters and what makes them tick, the more our readers are able to sympathize with their plights. We want our readers to love them or hate them. For this to happen our characters must display passion, and for them to display passion we as the writers must feel it first.
Do you ever imagine yourself watching your scene play out before you? Are you able to put yourself in your character’s shoes? I’m very interested to hear what other writer’s methods are.
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