Writing is hard

by with No Comment Personal

Writing is hard.

Actually, let me rephrase that: reigniting your passion for writing after losing it is hard.

Here’s the thing. I’ve had this specific story living in my brain since I was in the fourth grade. That means these characters have coexisted with me for nearly 20 years.

Back in high school, I carried a little notebook everywhere I went, scribbling down ideas every spare second I got. But when graduation hit, my passion for writing seemed to vanish with it.
When high school ended, so did a lot of the passion for writing.
I haven’t completely abandoned the characters. They’ve always been living in my head rent-free along with their stories. All of the characters have their own backgrounds, secrets, and personalities. It’s simply not possible to not think of them sometimes.


But last year is when I started experimenting more. I woke up with the idea of: “what if I create a physical character? A version of my original character I can hold?” And this inspired a spiral into custom doll making because, for some reason, that inspired me to write.
But the good news is that it did, it actually did help.
Having to sit down and think about my characters, what they are wearing, their personalities, what accessories they carry? It made me realize how generic my characters are.
And that part of my writerly journey inspired a whole passionate rewrite and rework of my characters.
My story became less of an average weird chick flick and slice of life, reforming itself into a more modern, scifi feel. While the story still takes place in the year 2105, my vision of the future looks entirely different now.

The takeaway? If you are facing writer’s block or struggling with character development, try building your characters from scratch in the real world. Take a few minutes to design their wardrobe. map out their physical traits or maybe even make a poseable doll.

It completely transformed my writerly journey, and honestly, it might just help you, too.

I’m so excited to finally share this sci-fi world with you. Welcome to the journey—this is just the beginning.

Strange things I remember from School

by with No Comment Personal

So as I was listening to music while recovering from surgery, I realized something. I have a lot of weird, random things that I remember almost vividly from school. They can range from songs we played in band class to random words that just stuck with me. Without further ado, here are some random things I remember from school.

  1. I remember in 5th grade, we had a competition to see who could find the longest word in the dictionary. Back then, I didn’t have a cell phone – my classmates might have, but I just didn’t. The word I found was pretty long, but just not long enough. If I recall correctly the winning word was Tintinnabulation, and the winner got to choose a pop from the teacher’s lounge as a reward. Well later on in life, in 7th grade I believe, I remember coming across the word tintinnabulation again analyzing a poem. It means “ringing of the bells”, and for whatever reason, this word has stuck with me for that long.
  2. Another thing I remember from school is analyzing the song “American Pie” in one of my English classes. I remember this vividly since it’s a song I listen to and it’s in my Spotify playlist. It’s a good song, but have you ever thought of the meaning behind it? I remember discussing it and hearing the lyrics “The day the music died” was in reference to a band dying in a plane crash. There is apparently no official determination what the lyrics mean, however. An interesting read about the song lyrics is on the BBC website, incase anyone was curious.
  3. The next thing I remember is actually a song played in driver’s ed. I remember the lyrics so well, and it honestly scared me a lot as a kid just learning how to drive. The song is shown below featuring a interesting set of lyrics and a unique music video.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ7oqmikZDQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed

4. One of the strangest things our school did during the year (homecoming and a dance in the spring that I forgot the name of) was a dress-up week, ending in a assembly at the end of the week usually. That’s not the strange thing though – our school has actually done “mattress races”, which is where everyone in the school lays down on the ground, in order by grade, and chooses one kid to surf on a mattress. Teachers would flock the students on either side to make sure the kid didn’t fall off or get stuck. And whoever was able to propel the mattress to the end the fastest would win. It was so cool as a kid, even now I don’t understand why.

5. The next thing I remember from school was playing a song called the Great Locomotive Chase by Robert W. Smith. I remember it being a really unique song for the brass instruments, as it features the trombones doing a specific technique to sound like a train whistle.