[Caelum's Scrapbook] Use Your Words.

[Caelum]

Thank you for being outstanding, y’all. I love you enough right now that I would even share my coffee with you were you here. And for the record? I adore elephants. Descriptive Writing Exercise Hereinbelow is a descriptive writing exercise I talked about on a fellow player’s scrap. You can apply it in different ways, but this is what might work best for forum. Warning: it only does you any good if you are completely brutal about following the rules of it. Take your PC and then take away their sight. Render them completely and utterly blind. Force yourself to write them doing something, complete with full descriptions, that are absolutely exclusive of anything sight based. Write this from first person point of view. (No, I'm not kidding. First person POV is the only way this is going to work. People have a habit of declaiming 1st POV as a statute of poor writing. This is patently wrong. While I agree 1st person does not belong as an MOD in a forum such as this one, it nonetheless retains many laudable values to both writer and reader when it is done right. As it pertains here, it can have the invaluable attribute of assisting a writer in not only finding but “hitting the right note” of their character’s voice.) You cannot talk about color unless it is in a metaphoric sense. (Night swept out of the ground like the color blue, cool and peaceful on my skin.) Don't use shape unless it is learned via another sense. Don't mention the expressions on a person's face unless you are talking about how they are evident in the tone of their voice. Et cetera, et alia. The second layer of the exercise is to delete any word that isn't necessary. You will find yourself distilling your descriptions in such a way that forces you to select the EXACT right word, using phrasing games to make the way a cup of tea smells reflect the present emotional state of your character. Don't let yourself write their thoughts. Keep thinking "show, don't tell" and you can bring that down further and further. Try not to settle for your first sentence or phrase structure idea and keep asking yourself in what other, perhaps more impacting ways X or Y can be said. For example, you can say: "She thought the way picture on the mantel shined in the sunlight was beautiful." Or you can say: "The glow of sunlight off the picture illuminated the very air she breathed." On the other hand: “Daylight’s glance against her mother’s picture felt not unlike benediction.” And on. And on. And on. It needs to be said this is an exercise for strengthening descriptive technique. It is not a guidebook on how it is strictly done. In summation: - Take away sight - 1st person POV - Every word must fall like a brick - Don’t cheat If you decide to try this and end up liking what you’ve done, post it here or in your scrap or in Dreamscapes even. Let me know if you do. I’d love to read it. - katie.

[Caelum]

This week has totally bummed me out. I remembered the awesome elephant + Cian Faroul drew for me and grinned like an idiot for awhile. Much better now. That is all. (Look! An emoticon!)

[Caelum]

On A Personal Note (Wait, I Mean Professional) This morning I had this conversation via text messaging. My father: Please stop cursing in your article. People know you’re my daughter. Me: If you weren’t my father… My father: I know. You’d have responded with “fuck off”. Me: You know me too well. My father: You get it honest. Still, stop doing it. Me: Pay my mortgage. My father: Fuck. Fine. Five minutes later. My father: Don’t show this to your mother. My father is an Irish Catholic professional journalist who has, in his autumn years (as he puts it), gone to the dark side (read as: PR). He appreciates the lyrical nature of cursing and would have been a warrior poet in the bygone days. He also knows how to smile like a shark which allows him to survive my “dumb like a fox” mother who in true southern lady fashion substitutes “bless his/her heart” for “they can kiss my lily white ass”. Now that I have successfully gotten rid of those readers who can’t handle adult conversation with a healthy sense of humor, I’m going to talk about something that has been on my mind. Courtesy. Courtesy is important in a collaborative forum as, without it, all of us would be at each other’s throats all the time and incapable of writing anything decent together. I consider myself to be thick skinned for a “sensitive artist type”. It would be pretty hard to say something to me that hasn’t been said before and both Dani (Tabernac) and I came into our own writing-wise within a rough and tumble group. We had to be able to take a joke, to take ourselves lightly and sling it back when necessary too. Does that mean we don’t want to see and hear appreciation for our efforts? No. It just means that we don’t require it in order to successfully function and that, yes, if we feel we’re being taken for granted our opinions of you are likely to lower. We know who we are and where we stand with the world and with each other; and we’re both pretty good at letting other people know where they stand with us too. That doesn’t mean we don’t have lines. I’m going to stop speaking for Dani at this point and speak solely for myself. I am pretty laid back and, miracle of all miracles, I genuinely like people. If you are courteous to me and involved in Mizahar, I am automatically inclined to like you for the sake of our common interests. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt in all things and that includes not being rude to you based on what someone else might say to me about you. If it was not said or done to me, then I don’t know it as fact and I’m not here to judge anyone. If you say or do it to me, well, I’ll call it like I see it and go from there. Are there people whose opinions I hold in higher regard than others? Absolutely. I’m human. I’m not an objective creature in all things. I will not be discourteous to you, however, based on someone elses opinion, nor will I intentionally insult you. I would appreciate it if you repaid the favor. My sense of humor is not something everyone appreciates. I understand that. when told that I’ve crossed someone’s line with it, if I feel they aren’t being childish and overly sensitive, I will sincerely apologize. Sometimes I’ll apologize anyway because I dislike the fact that the other person is upset at all. Rarely do I intentionally upset anyone. You can be certain that if I intended to insult you, there would be no question. My line may be set farther back than most, but it does exist and there are some topics that will send me from cool to furious/sad in a heartbeat. I like knowing where I stand with people and so I feel people have a right to know where they stand with me. If you really want to know, just ask; but if you’re doubting it that much, maybe you should first reevaluate your ego. I have paranoid moments too, but I try to recognize them as such and not leap to the conclusions. I succeed about two thirds of the time. The remaining third I handle as best as I’m able. Courteously. If there comes a time when I am not at least courteous to you, then you’re not being paranoid. You seriously ticked me off. Just don’t mistake “busy and/or distracted” with “discourteous”. Alright, I’m done. This needed to be said and I feel better now that I’ve said it. - katie.

[Tabarnac]

I was going to post a motivational elephant, but then the devil on my shoulder said I should just post a picture of elephantitis of the testicles, and then the angel on my shoulder said just don't post anything. Said angel didn't feel winning the war was possible, but averting it was better than nothing. Consider yourself lucky. Elsewise, I'll have someone Summon this:

[Bolden Denusk]

I asked myself, if I were Katie, what could be cuter than a baby elephant? The answer: 2 baby elephants playing!


Because you sound like you needed it. *hugs*

[Caelum]

[Tabarnac]

...but I got you to come back to Mizahar...

[Caelum]

Lol! That's an Occupy Wallstreet slogan, guys. Not a passive aggressive attack on some anonymous player.

[Caelum]

NaNo Time - Replied to all threads under different PCs. Check. - Replied to all mod threads that aren’t “Caelum Guest Mod”. Check - Posted Word Count chart. Check - Graded everything in my office. NO CHECK. Hrm. - Obsessively outlined thread goals. Check. - Completed IRL deadlines. Check!!! - Attempted to brace those people whom I will be ignoring for a month. Check. Scrapbook is now on pause save for inspiring images and quotations left kindly behind for me by other people. Well, maybe one or two myself. Put the bright where it belongs. After all, winter is coming. [/geek]

[Caelum]

One of my best friends wrote this. He is awesome. If you like baseball, history and cool pictures, check it out.