Well it is almost time for a New Year. This is full of New Year resolutions and goal making. I have decided that one of my goals is to finish a novel this year and to also post at least 4 times a week on my blog.
The idea of setting goals is important in not only allowing us to strive for something, but it also gives us greater feelings of self once we make it to our goals and accomplish them.
What are the goals that your characters set? How do they accomplish these goals? Do they plan them out or do they just go at it?
What are some of your goals for the New Year?
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Looking forward to 2012
The following is a link to Forbes magazine: http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilylambert/2011/12/29/the-ultimate-resolution-for-2012-kick-debt/
Emily Lambert wrote the article about my financial woes and hopefully brighter future. This article is a little scary to put out there because it talks about all of my financial failings and how bad it has been. I hope that you see it as a hope for the future. Things don't always go how we hope, but we need to keep going and keep struggling even though it is hard. So this is an article of hope and looking forward to the future.
I hope that you enjoy. Looking forward to a brighter tomorrow and enjoying the present :)
Emily Lambert wrote the article about my financial woes and hopefully brighter future. This article is a little scary to put out there because it talks about all of my financial failings and how bad it has been. I hope that you see it as a hope for the future. Things don't always go how we hope, but we need to keep going and keep struggling even though it is hard. So this is an article of hope and looking forward to the future.
I hope that you enjoy. Looking forward to a brighter tomorrow and enjoying the present :)
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
I hope everyone had a good Christmas and hope that you have a happy New Year!!
We had a good Christmas visiting with family. The book project is coming along well. It is going to be bigger than I first expected, but I am really excited about how it is turning out. I will be working on it heavily next week and hopefully getting it finished by next week before school starts.
The holidays bring a different aspect of people that I haven't talked about already. It is interesting how we stay up later and wake up later, people begin to start getting more sensitive a little more on edge. This is due to not only the lack of sleep but also the change of schedule. There is more stress. This is one aspect of the holidays, but there is another side as well. People are happier and there is more time to relax.
Holidays have an important role in our lives and bring about changes in all of us. Hopefully you will take the time to observe how those around you have changed and how they act. Write it down and then incorporate it into your books. Our characters should also go through these changes in our books. It is also a good way of understanding how they may change due to schedule change.
Have fun writing and enjoy the holidays!!!
We had a good Christmas visiting with family. The book project is coming along well. It is going to be bigger than I first expected, but I am really excited about how it is turning out. I will be working on it heavily next week and hopefully getting it finished by next week before school starts.
The holidays bring a different aspect of people that I haven't talked about already. It is interesting how we stay up later and wake up later, people begin to start getting more sensitive a little more on edge. This is due to not only the lack of sleep but also the change of schedule. There is more stress. This is one aspect of the holidays, but there is another side as well. People are happier and there is more time to relax.
Holidays have an important role in our lives and bring about changes in all of us. Hopefully you will take the time to observe how those around you have changed and how they act. Write it down and then incorporate it into your books. Our characters should also go through these changes in our books. It is also a good way of understanding how they may change due to schedule change.
Have fun writing and enjoy the holidays!!!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Love vs. Hate
Today's post is on the idea of love and hate. Do they lie on a continuum or are they just opposites. The way we generally think of love and hate is that it lies on a continuum and as you get closer to one you get farther from the other. This idea is not necessarily true. In fact love and hate may be much closer than we think. The way I think of love and hat are that they are on one end of the continuum as opposites and at the other end is apathy. So the closer we get to apathy the farther away from love and hate we get. In fact in my mind it is worse to have apathy about a person than hate (at least with hate you care about the person). A simple test of this is think about the people that we hurt the most in our lives it is those that we tend to love the most. This is generally speaking of course and does not hold true for all people.
This brings me to the importance of the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist. These two ideas are closely related and play an important part in each other lives. You could almost say that you can't have one without the other. In our creating of our characters it is important to look at what is really happening within the lives of our characters and how they play on each other. Are they on a continuum or are they opposites on the same end of the continuum.
This brings me to the importance of the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist. These two ideas are closely related and play an important part in each other lives. You could almost say that you can't have one without the other. In our creating of our characters it is important to look at what is really happening within the lives of our characters and how they play on each other. Are they on a continuum or are they opposites on the same end of the continuum.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Checking In
Hello everyone,
I know that it has been awhile I hope that you have all enjoyed NaNoRimo and other great activities. I have been doing a lot as well including getting my draft in for my thesis in. This means all I have left is edits and then it will be time to defend it. I have also been working on my book project on "How to Diagnose Your Character." It is coming along and I have really been thinking a lot about what makes up who and what a person is. I have also been looking at what affects us as people and have begun to develop a diagram that I call the circle of influence. It is a circle that expands as it gets farther away from the person. I am excited about what it is developing into and look forward to getting it out there.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and that everyone was safe. Thanks for your continued support I plan on checking in more frequently now that the project has begun in full and classes have finished up. Hope to hear from you!
I know that it has been awhile I hope that you have all enjoyed NaNoRimo and other great activities. I have been doing a lot as well including getting my draft in for my thesis in. This means all I have left is edits and then it will be time to defend it. I have also been working on my book project on "How to Diagnose Your Character." It is coming along and I have really been thinking a lot about what makes up who and what a person is. I have also been looking at what affects us as people and have begun to develop a diagram that I call the circle of influence. It is a circle that expands as it gets farther away from the person. I am excited about what it is developing into and look forward to getting it out there.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and that everyone was safe. Thanks for your continued support I plan on checking in more frequently now that the project has begun in full and classes have finished up. Hope to hear from you!
Friday, November 18, 2011
Gone for a bit
Well as you have probably noticed I have not posted in a bit. I could lie and just say I have been too busy, but the truth of the matter is that my weakness is self doubt. This means that I go through times when I wonder if it is worth it (by it I mean writing not life I am happy and enjoy life :) or if it really matters what I write or post for that matter. So this is not to gain sympathy only to let you know that I will get out of it soon and also to let you know that I have started a new project that I am very excited about. I have decided to get my name out there a little by writing a book entitled "How to Diagnose Your Character." It will be based off of my posts and other material and will only be about 50 pages. I plan on self publishing it and seeing how it goes. It shouldn't take me too long to finish and when it is I would love to have some beta readers. Those who are willing to look at it from both a writer point of view and that of a non-writer let me know. So that will hopefully be happening by the end of this month or the end of the year. I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that things are going well.
This will give all of my new followers a chance to go through my old posts and glean what they can :)
This will give all of my new followers a chance to go through my old posts and glean what they can :)
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Culture
Culture plays a huge role in who we are and how we behave. Whether we go against the cultural norm or we follow the cultural norm we are still being influenced by the culture that we were both raised in and the culture that we currently live in. Some things that culture influences are: interpersonal attraction, sex, touching, personal space, friendship, family dynamics, parenting styles, childhood behavior expectations, courtship rituals, marriage, divorce, cooperation vs. competition, crime, love, and hate.
Just like in many of the things that we have already looked at it is always important to take into consideration the culture in which a person lives in. A person can also have cultures within cultures such as a person may live in America (1), live in a particular state (2), within a county (3), within a city (4), within a particular part of town (5), within a family unit (6). This doesn't even take into consideration the religion of the family, did they move recently or live in the same place their entire lives etc....
Triandis et al. (1988) proposed that culture can be looked at in different dimensions. One dimension of culture is whether or not the culture is individualistic or a collectivism. The team listed several differences between the two types and then began conducting studies on them. The following attributes are a few of the attributes considered to be from a collectivist culture: sacrifice, self is an extension of group, group is paramount, greater conformity, "vertical relationships" (child-parent, employer-employee), shame, hide interpersonal conflicts etc... The following attributes are a few of the attributes considered to be from a individualistic culture: Hedonism, Self is distinct from group, self-reliance is paramount, less conformity to norms, greater value on money and possessions, prefer to confront interpersonal conflicts, horizontal relationships (friend-friend, husband-wife) valued more, Guilt etc....
It is important to note that these two types of culture are on a continuum on opposite ends and so individuals and cultures will generally lie between these two extremes.
When creating our characters and the worlds that they live in it is important to understand the culture in which they are in. It is interesting that in many stories the MCs are generally fighting against the culture in which they live and so there needs to be reason behind this. I feel like I have said this before but I will say it again. In order for our characters to be realistic there needs to be some reason why they are acting outside of the norm.
Tidbit: Just for fun I'll tell you about a character I am creating for a D&D campaign that we will be starting this week. It is going to be a gestalt character, Ranger/Spell thief. Now if you understand this tidbit you would then be a geek :)
Just like in many of the things that we have already looked at it is always important to take into consideration the culture in which a person lives in. A person can also have cultures within cultures such as a person may live in America (1), live in a particular state (2), within a county (3), within a city (4), within a particular part of town (5), within a family unit (6). This doesn't even take into consideration the religion of the family, did they move recently or live in the same place their entire lives etc....
Triandis et al. (1988) proposed that culture can be looked at in different dimensions. One dimension of culture is whether or not the culture is individualistic or a collectivism. The team listed several differences between the two types and then began conducting studies on them. The following attributes are a few of the attributes considered to be from a collectivist culture: sacrifice, self is an extension of group, group is paramount, greater conformity, "vertical relationships" (child-parent, employer-employee), shame, hide interpersonal conflicts etc... The following attributes are a few of the attributes considered to be from a individualistic culture: Hedonism, Self is distinct from group, self-reliance is paramount, less conformity to norms, greater value on money and possessions, prefer to confront interpersonal conflicts, horizontal relationships (friend-friend, husband-wife) valued more, Guilt etc....
It is important to note that these two types of culture are on a continuum on opposite ends and so individuals and cultures will generally lie between these two extremes.
When creating our characters and the worlds that they live in it is important to understand the culture in which they are in. It is interesting that in many stories the MCs are generally fighting against the culture in which they live and so there needs to be reason behind this. I feel like I have said this before but I will say it again. In order for our characters to be realistic there needs to be some reason why they are acting outside of the norm.
Tidbit: Just for fun I'll tell you about a character I am creating for a D&D campaign that we will be starting this week. It is going to be a gestalt character, Ranger/Spell thief. Now if you understand this tidbit you would then be a geek :)
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