thomcantsleep

[thomcantsleep]

Benjamin Zephaniah

I woke up especially late today and discovered that Professor Benjamin Zephaniah had died following an ongoing battle with a brain tumour and it wasn't sadness I felt, it was shame. And it hasn't been the first time.

Benjamin Zephaniah has a strange, almost subliminal effect on my mind and possibly the collective consciousness. I don't think about his impact on my life and my creative upbringing and how he was integral to both until he finds his way back into my conscious through kismet. Then I realize what he has done for me in that moment and only that moment.

One time semi-recently, I was rooting through old, wrinkled books in my parents' room to decide what to keep and what to give away. Whatever exact books you are envisioning in your mind right now - let me tell you they were all there. Rankin, Patterson, Gerritsen but not just Sunday Times Bestsellers; C.S Lewis and Roald Dahl featured heavily from my parents' distant past as well.

There was another book that I don't remember owning but was apparently mine. I remember reading it in Year 8 English Lit but never buying it. It was a play called Face by Benjamin Zephaniah, a cautionary tale of how the reputation of a popular boy in school declines due to an accident that disfigures his face despite being essentially the same person.

It is disappointing to report to you, the reader, that my class did not like this play and it not being officially on the curriculum, it was sacked off. What I did as a 12 year old boy was knock one of the class copies of the book to read it in my own time. It was deeply interesting to me on a subconscious level because I grew up with people not liking me and not understanding exactly why.

I had forgotten all about this though and it's only sitting here now and remembering the several instances where my paths had crossed with Benjamin Zephaniah's work. Year 8 (8th Grade) was a tumultuous and impressionable time for me as I was at a crossroads between falling in with a bad crowd or concentrating on my love of books and writing and it's bizarre that that is the trade-off but societally, it is in school. If I hadn't read that play of my own volition, fuck knows what might have happened to me.

I'll share one more story.

Courtesy of De Montfort University

At my university, we had a surprise visit from the man himself where we were all made aware just a week in advance and excitement and tension shot through my veins. The only feeling I think I can compare it to is the combination of giddiness and dread thst cultivates in your stomach before you have your first kiss. It was a 10am lecture which I frequently struggled to get out of bed in the morning for. I was having difficult times in my social life and was suffering with anxious and depressive feelings a lot of the time. Knots and dread every morning. On that day, I was on campus two hours in advance.

I remember waiting in the lobby outside the theater for what felt like a lifetime and getting cold feet. I wanted to head back just because something in my head told me I was undeserving of being there. I don't know why those feelings existed in me but it's probably because I didn't have any questions for him, any books for him to sign and I was too scared to ask for a photo. I regretfully ended up having no interaction with him whatsoever.

As for his talk, he was as great as you'd expect him to be. He talked wondrously about his life story, the background of some of his most iconic poems as well as some perhaps lesser known tidbits but my main takeaway was how humble he was; putting himself below everyone in the room because he has zero academic achievement in his field. If nothing else, its indictive of the false credibility of the mechanics of academia. Especially after he had told us all of world experiences that would make your teeth itch.

From the official social media of Benjamin Zephaniah

And today, like every other time Benjamin Zephaniah has entered my conscious, it has been at a crossroads in my life where I struggle to sleep and wake up for my night job. It has been at a time when there have been doubts on my mind about my creative ability, where I'm going in my writing career and even if I will have one. I woke up to discover Benjamin Zephaniah had passed away and before I knew it, I was reading and watching everything that he had ever done.

And once again, I remember why I do this. Why I love this and why I want to achieve big things through prose and poetry. My will to not leave behind my dreams and accept consumption by the zeitgeist. Especially, in attitudes to how art is commercialized and capitalized in our modern world. Zephaniah preached absolute creative freedom. Anarchy in writing. He never shut up for anyone. He told the absolute truth and told it beautifully, no matter how stark the reality is.

Thanks to him, I will not throw this away.

This wasn't really a tribute so if you want to read one, I'd recommend reading this from my former lecturer, Prof. Simon Perril of De Montfort University.

#benjamin zephaniah #writing #poetry #rest in peace #rip #zephaniah #tribute #creative writing #prose

[thomcantsleep]

A Dead Medium and an Exodus.

I'm so tired.

This article is basically just going to be venting my frustrations with the platform of Tumblr, the act of reviewing a piece of contemporary media and/or any discussion of works of art. If you think that's fucking boring then I don't blame you but I have to get it out of my system.

TL;DR: I'm quitting Tumblr because it's giving me no real incentive to keep working to post anything and I'm running out of time in my life to give a shit about this stupid platform.

So recently, I made a think piece on the popular coming-of-age platformer Night in the Woods. I use the title "think piece" because I didn't really review the game. Instead, I made a commentary on it's themes and a critical analysis of it's characters without being boring and over-wrought. If I achieved that or not, I don't know. It's not really for me to say.

However, it took a very long time to construct and put together. I thought about it a lot. I played it a lot. I read theory and studies on generational trauma and pay-gaps for a tumblr post on a video game. You may feel that that is unwarranted for a semi-successful indie game from 2017 but I believed it was. You may argue that I was wrong to believe that but that brings me to the whole reason as to why I'm writing this.

Now, I've been doing this on and off for a little while now. Early 2021. I began with reviewing animé series episode-by-grueling-episode. I was perhaps regrettably inspired by LS Mark's popular long-form videos reviewing every single episode of The Simpsons and Family Guy as well as some podcasts that I can't remember the name of where they delved into gigantic anime franchises piece-by-piece. I've done Re:ZERO (Series 1 AND 2), Persona 4: The Animation and Steins;Gate to varying degrees of success and enjoyment levels.

I enjoyed Re:ZERO because it was a new thing that I didn't really know anything about. A friend tried to get me into it and whilst I suffered to begin with, I relieve suffering by writing about it - the only thing that I've ever been good at. It was fun to interact with people who disagreed with me and it was semi-popular considering I had only just started blogging on this website.

I enjoyed Persona 4: The Animation because as corny as it sounds, it's a series that's always been close to my heart. It's the first animé I ever properly watched all the way through and I enjoyed it with two of my best friends so I decided to revisit the show to analyse it. There's no way I was going to hate it. It was pretty unanimously well-received if by less people.

I also did Steins;Gate.

My live reaction as twenty-six posts about Steins;Gate get zero notes whatsoever.

Now, that's a lot of episodes. Fifty episodes of Re:ZERO, twenty-five episodes of Steins;Gate and of P4tA and that doesn't include other stuff I've written surrounding those products as well as other odds and ends. But that was a long time ago and to not put too fine a point on it...

This sucks now.

fanart that The Gauntlet stole from someone as well as a myriad of other journals with a litany of out-of-touch articles about Tumblr having a resurgence

I am dedicating serious amounts of time and effort into this stupid website for no money and I don't mind that but I'm not even being paid in reaction, interaction or exposure. My lengthy essay on Night in the Woods got a solitary five notes. My wordy overview of Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre got a whopping TWO notes.

You may be reading this if you haven't scrolled on already out of sheer indifference and thinking "Why do you care? Why are you complaining? That no-one likes the stuff you make?"

Well, I'll answer.

This website simply isn't conducive to what I want to make and what makes me happy creatively. I've done my best to evolve and be a better writer and a more well-read and researched one at that. What's my reward? To be buried deep in the algorithm because I want to take longer to make a thing. This is a tale you have heard time and time again from people who make anything online, not that existence is suffering but that existence is beholden to a magic string of numbers that dictate whether or not people will see you. I don't want unanimous praise. I don't want plaudits. I just want something. Any reaction at all. Anything.

I'm sick of it.

To make it abundantly clear; I don't care if you think it was good or not or if you think it was worthwhile or not. I care if you think at all. To reach for the proverb dubiously attributed to Tess Gerritson: "Only the forgotten are truly dead"

This website is creative death.

The stupid Sisyphus meme.

To be perhaps less morose, I think I've outgrown posting on Tumblr now. I am dedicating way too much time to writing about animé and video games for no comeback my way and time is marching on in my life. I'm working night-to-night to get some cash in my pocket and frankly, I need to start putting some work into my novels and short stories and anything else that can be picked up by a publisher to put food down on my table.

Thank you for reading my big song and dance about no longer posting on a shitscape for twat millennials who like homestuck and harry potter. If I am back again, it won't be about media analysis, it will probably be on something completely different.

For now though,

goodbye and thank you for reading

-thom xoxoxo

[thomcantsleep]

What "Writing What You Know" Actually Means: The Fear of Failure and Doubting Oneself.

I felt compelled to write this because I feel that the view on this praxis is slightly warped. Differing approximations include "Writing what you know explains why so much literature is about boring privileged men" and "My life is boring, why would I write about it?" and my personal gripe: "Why would I write about what I know? It's limiting."

It's important to me because said warped view is routed in self-consciousness. Something that I'm a big fan of pushing in writers is alienating the self-doubt in your head. It isn't about creativity or the lack thereof, it's about realizing that you have more ideas than you think.

My Own Case

I know this because I am a victim of it too. I want to be absolutely perfect and non-copying. Nothing I make can be similar to anything ever made previously. Everything has to be new, fresh and original in the truest sense of the world. This has followed me for years because I would come up with something I thought was my own idea but then I would see my idea in another popular piece of media and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

This is, of course, bogus. You can't live your creative life like that. It just isn't feasible. The reality is that I'm self-conscious and paranoid about people saying something like "Well, it's just like X except there is Y and there isn't Z" which is projection. I think that about other things because I have literary brainworms. I am so enraptured by the study of story beats and the composition that it's hard not to view everything so nakedly. It's reductionist.

What Does This Have To Do With Anything?

I am saying, in a roundabout way, that writing about what I know is not good enough. I do not trust or rely on my own ability to turn up with the goods. This is demonstrated by the fact there are nine finished drafts on this account that I will not publish because I don't think that they are good enough. But here's the thing: They might not actually be good enough.

But failure is a part of the process and me, not publishing any of it, is a fear of failure and, therefore, a fear of progression.

TL;DR: I too have notions of self-doubt in my creativity.

I know right? The great thomcantsleep with <100 followers who you have never heard of in your life

Write About What You Know... What Do I Know?

My life experience is this:

I have autism spectrum disorder.

I come from a working class home:- A self-employed father and a mother who always worked in bars or factories.

I'm Scottish but living in England.

I'm bisexual and introverted.

I have wrestled with anxiousness and paranoia.

I have a social trauma due to being raised by the internet.

What the fuck is that? That's nothing. Writing about what you know is bad. That's not that far away from me! I have depression too! Boring!

Here Is Why You're Wrong

Funny thing about inspiration is that it is always there in our brain. We just have to realize that it's there with other stimuli. The paradigm "Write What You Know" isn't inspirational. It's a building block for a world or a character. How would that world react to that character? How would that character react to that world?

Every main character that I've ever written has been autistic, shy and has some kind of social trauma. Limiting? No because the settings have all been vastly different and, as a result, the stories have all been different. This is where the self-anaylsis ends before I enter masturbatory territory.

A Case Study: Khaled Hosseini

It has been zero hours since I mentioned Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.

If you don't know, Khaled Hosseini grew up during a transitional period for Afghanistan so a vast amount of his books surround Afghanistan past, present and future. The Afghan identity is commentated on as a culture in how it interacts particularly with Western culture. He often delves into the many perceptions of the country and how they've changed, weaving in tragedy that is semi-autobiographical. The Kite Runner is a great example of this.

It depicts the rapid decline of Afghanistan due to political intervention from Russia and the United States and analyses the class structure and how that in itself has changed. Hosseini is quoted as feeling "survivor's guilt" as he was able to seek asylum during these interventions.

Now... I am not suggesting you have yourself a tragic upbringing because it will be interesting to write about. I am suggesting that your upbringing is more interesting than you might think and that you are thinking about it too closely. Hosseini didn't publish The Kite Runner until he was 38 years old so it would be safe to say he has seen A LOT of shit before putting his foot on the gas. I am not saying you wait until then to start either.

Start off in a smaller way.

The Root of the Problem...

There are two explanations at play here:

You apply too much weight to the phrase "Write What You Know": It's not meant to be taken as "You should write your own biography about your life down to the last detail" - What if you lead this life except something happened differently? Who would that person be?

We end where we start - self-doubt and a resistance to it. "Limiting" and "Boring" and the first quote I used (which is just plain wrong). The only limiter to your own project as a creative person is yourself. You are beating yourself up in thinking the story you have inside you isn't interesting and not worthy of putting pen to paper.

If you don't end up putting pen to paper, you'll experience the fear of failure that I detailed halfway through the article where I nearly lost you with my rambling.

Addressing Creative Resistance

There is only one way: Write.

The problem with all these cheesy paradigms and soundbites is that they are true. You have to allow yourself to make something. Even if it objectively fucking sucks, YOU HAVE TO DO IT. You can't make something and expect it to be good straight away. WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW.

FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT.

you might learn something :)

#writing #writers #writblr #writersofinstragram #writers block #writing exercises #writing advice #creative writing #fiction writing #wellness #self-confidence #self-doubt #self doubt #mental health #creative writing blog #creative writer

[thomcantsleep]

ICYMI: This is what's going on my main blog!

Breaking Late: My Adventure into Breaking Bad in 2022

It should go without saying but the following blogpost contains spoilers for Breaking Bad.

It's taken fourteen years for me to finally watch this TV show and this is my third attempt at writing a blogpost about it.

(23/11/2022) Addendum: This post has taken me around 2 weeks to put together and I've rewritten and reworked it 4 times now. I currently have three, full and completely different drafts of this article. Even now, looking at this one (my best one), I still don't feel that it's good enough. The problem is Breaking Bad is one of these shows that offers so much to think about that it continues to unravel itself the more you think about it. I have to stop now because it's getting silly. This is as much as I'll ever do on the subject. As I write this, I have already seen El Camino and the first two seasons of Better Call Saul and if I don't publish this now, I never will. The long and the short of this post-script is that I'm sorry if I couldn't go into enough detail; There is literally no more room for it anywhere.

I always knew that this was a huge deal but lately, with Better Call Saul coming to a close, the hype around the universe that's been built as a result has been inescapable. There was no way I was avoiding it. I've been putting off watching Breaking Bad for an exceptionally long time but I've done it. Over the period of around a month, watching between two and four episodes a night, I have documented my experiences, thoughts and feelings over the course of the series.

I thought it would be interested to to hold up my late arrival to what is frequently labelled "The Greatest TV Show of All Time" as a document of interest for the avid Breaking Bad fan.

This has taken a very long time to convert my notes into something presentable and after chopping and changing various approaches, this task has been completed. I hope you enjoy and settle in, this is going to be a long one.

Walter White: The "Protagonist to Antagonist" Experiment

The raison d'etre. The whole point of Breaking Bad. The goal. Let's start there.

So I knew the basics of the story structure going into this. Walter White is a chemistry teacher, he gets cancer, enters the meth production business with his knowledge to pay for it and then becomes a drug kingpin. I don't know doesn't know that about this. This is where it becomes difficult for me to judge because I am waiting for it. The changes aren't unexpected but I still appreciated the incredibly carefully structured character arc.

Everything about was growth was totally believable and logical. Especially in the first season because it perfectly demonstrates his thrill of taking a walk on the wild side. This comes full circle in the final episode where he admits that he did it for himself because he enjoyed it. You really get behind the sense of reckless abandon that comes with mortality, the addiction to money and the deflation that Walter feels when he finds out he'll survive the chemotherapy.

All this being said, I found him to be a prick from the very beginning. His interactions with Jesse lead him to come off less bookish and more bitter. Bitter about the situation that he consciously put himself in to use a former student that he has a dislike for to pay for his treatment. I have to say that from the beginning, Mr. White is pretty unlikeable already. He had his moments of sympathy alongside his moments of evil but he reached peak bastard when he killed Mike Ehrmantraut. Everyone surely must love Mike and that moment has to be the pinnacle of his alienation to the audience (More on that later).

Personally, I found that the actual character development of who he was becoming wasn't actually the most compelling thing about his character. It was the consequences of his actions and his efforts to escape, rectify or outright ignore the falling dominoes. His hand being forced to do bad things before slowly seeking them out and relishing it. There's nothing more I can say that hasn't been said before on the subject.

They succeeded in their mission to draw his character arc in the end. I don't think anyone can deny that. I wouldn't blame you if you just scrolled right past this bit.

A Fresh and Clear Attitude to Television

I prefer the filmic approach that they take to make Breaking Bad the programme that it is. My favourite part of watching this was something that I came to realize around the middle of the second season. It hit me that this show hasn't, at any point, treated me like an idiot. What you see is exactly what you get with Breaking Bad and it's one of the few times where you can view that phrase as a positive.

All the tension, the comedy, the drama, the tragedy; it is created organically. There is no manipulation of the audience with obnoxious editing and garish music. Sure, there are musical cues but the purpose is to punctuate moments not to carry the weight of them. Even then, score is used very sparingly in favour of a perfect, hand-picked soundtrack. The outcome of these creative decisions is the feeling that you're actually watching a movie, not a TV show.

The shots and the settings they use are tremendous for building the universe. Especially, the shots in the Navajo canyons and deserts. Junk food for the eyes.

It doesn't over-explain anything either. You don't have to be told every little detail about a story and it doesn't have to show absolutely everything if it isn't essential to the viewing experience. That sums up why I love the directorial style so much. It's utterly economical in it's delivery which adds to the rawness of the telling.

The Neverending Tragedy of Jesse Pinkman

They are so brilliant at forging this fantastic, pitiful loser because it isn't enough to have him simply exist. He is unwittingly way out of his depth so often that you feel sorry for him. A lot of what happens to him is not his fault which compounds his self-destructive behaviour. The changes that character goes through is the most intriguing in the series for my money because Walter White's perception to begin with is essentially our perception because we have little else to go off of. We see him as a meth-dealing lowlife who takes the shortcut through everything but as the show moves forward, it becomes apparent that all he needed was a push in the right direction.

The way they execute Walter White's manipulation of Jesse makes for a delicious kind of dramatic irony that I certainly haven't seen before. Dramatic irony is usually used for creating an air of igorance around the main character to then be instrumental in their downfall. Traditionally Shakespearean, it is used theatrically to create alienation. What sets this show aside from the traditional tropes is that they treat violence and murder with weight and attention. It's not entertainment. It's damaging the main characters, especially one Jesse Pinkman. I loved the gravity that comes with Jesse finally realizing that he's being manipulated and to do the right thing for once in his life. If we're talking theatrical theory, that's his carthasis: survival.

I found that I became frustrated with Walter from the get-go because he was already using him and wouldn't give him the time of day. The moments in "Fly" and "Bug" when Jesse gets his own back on him are incredibly satisfying and he literally has the last laugh in the final episode after years of pain and suffering.

My favourite scenes are the introspective recovery meetings because it's the only time that Jesse questions himself and his place on Earth. The rest of the time, he is being used by Walter White and made to do incredibly immoral and illegal things in the face of his evident moral compass. That's the perfect brew for making a tragic character because the end result is the audience not really knowing what to make of him saving his own skin when it means he is unsuccessful with nowhere to turn. The universe and the cosmos views him as expendable and his fighting of a losing battle makes for fantastic tragedy.

I Hated the Season 2 Finale: The Wayfairer 515 Disaster

This was where things started getting rocky for me and I think the problem is how they built up to it. There all these mysterious teasers in the episodes "Seven Thirty Seven", "Down", "Over", "ABQ" so there is a certain degree of expectation piled on what the meaning of said teasers are. They're all super moody in their atmosphere by playing on your senses. The image of a fire-damaged pink teddy in a swimming pool, the presence of hazmats and contamination connotations create the unsettling, uncomfortable feeling. The mystery is further explored upon when we see Walter's car windshield smashed open and the two bodybags.

When the monochrome filter disappears and reveals the colour and the widespread damage of whatever this mystery has caused, you're fastening your seatbelts because you know it's going to be revealed. You're waiting for it all episode, all season. Then what happens?

Two planes crash into each other in the air, the bear drops in Walter's swimming pool and the episode ends.

Irrespective of the likelihood of the actual moment (which, upon reading, is exceptionally unlikely), it just fell flat and I know what they are trying to illustrate with this. Walter letting this man's daughter die and he returns back to work, ill-prepared and his lapse of concentration causes this crash. My problem with that angle is that it isn't really Walter's fault necessarily. Someone in that important of a job shouldn't be returning to work so soon and if they want to get the impact of the deaths caused across to the audience, then do that.

They didn't. It just happens and it's done. Aside from a few instances where it's referenced in the following series, the actual impact of this supposed huge tragedy isn't touched upon nor does it have any bearing. My point is this: They didn't execute the actual event with enough punch. I don't feel sorry for Donald Margolis because I barely know him. I feel sorry for him that his daughter died and that whole scene is done expertly but him crashing the plane? I've only just this minute found out that he's a traffic controller.

I might get flak for this but whilst credit where credit is due, criticism is where criticism is due. This moment in the series sticks out like a sore thumb. I just wish it wasn't here. I can tell that they want to try and do something a bit different and bit unexpected because the obvious thing to do would be to show Donald angry, a loose cannon, trying to kill Jesse etc. Instead, his reaction is more true to life at the end of the day. The only plane crash-related moments I liked is how Saul Goodman is constantly trying to capitalize on the disaster in the background, long after it's actually happened.

I'll talk more about Saul Goodman when I've finished Better Call Saul.

Gustavo Fring: An All-Time Great Villain

I love, love, love this character. I cannot get enough of Gustavo Fring. The writing of him, the acting by Giancarlo Esposito, the painting of his backstory. All of it is pure genius. Easily the greatest part of Breaking Bad. The best villains are the ones with very good reasons for their actions, ones that create conflict in the minds of the audience. Fring is vindictive, calculated, intelligent and he is one of those characters where you feel that something important could happen at any time whenever he is on screen.

I could gush about how much I loved this character and talk about how they made him a wonderful example of Machiavellian evil but I'll be here all day. So instead, in no particular order, my favourite scenes and moments featuring Gus.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gus' behaviour when he is shown to be working at Los Pollos Hermanos and hiding in plain sight. The best example of this is when Walter is told by Hank to put a tracking device on Gus' car when Mike is clearly watching and Walter is struggling for a reason not to do it. The scene itself manages to be both tense and comedic at the same time somehow but what makes it is when Walt goes inside to see Gus to inform him about what's happening. Fring calmly tells him to "Do it" with a smile and a cursory nod. Like in every scene, all the actors do a wonderful job at portraying human reaction to ridiculous situations but Esposito's malicious smugness is just gorgeous.

Fring's revenge on the cartel is beautifully done but his interactions with the empire undoubtedly reaches a peak when he steps out of the laundromat to face the music with his arms in the air. You cannot help but think that he's cool when he walks through those sniper shots and looks directly down the scope. That's something else about his state as an antagonist, he is frustratingly likeable because of how brilliant he is.

Gus is so good that I feel silly even writing this much about him because it's so obvious that he's a brilliant character. You get the picture. I can't get enough of Gustavo Fring and he is sorely missed in the fifth season.

Hank Schrader: A Study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

I was pleasantly surprised with the direction that they took Hank Schrader's character. Not only does it differ massively from the regular outlandish cop going against the grain of the police force trope but it subverts your expectations of who Hank is to begin with. I feel like the show really, properly analyses the comparitive realities for the kind of person Hank is presented as in the office, particularly in the first episode. As a result of things that he's seen and done, he changes and evolves beyond just being a policeman with a glock who busts drug dens and batters minorities. The "Not the man I thought I was" monologue with Marie in the bedroom perfects the character they're aiming for and the stark differences between who he's around dictates his behaviour and actions. The outcome of discovering who he is really hiding behind his boardy exterior is beautiful.

I love that he goes well beyond the bog-standard comic relief character and that he is actually a brilliant deducer when it comes down to it. My favourite part of his character arc is the realistic nature in which he questions the clues and the hints presented to the DEA to throw him off the scent. I feel as though the progression is natural. The game of cat and mouse doesn't go in to the staggered, drawn-out territory nor does it venture into ridiculous. Hank isn't a clever individual but a committed and experienced one.

The actual catching of said mouse, I'll go into more detail in my next point. How the fifth season plays out and my reaction to it factors in ASAC Schrader amongst other things.

My Strange Feelings about The Final Season

I'm just going to come right out and say it. This was a fucking weird season in the grand scheme of things. IN MY OPINION.

The first part struck me as especially odd, pacing-wise. The first few episodes struck me as a dwindling. Random characters and elements of the scenario are being stuck on to the end of the previous season which I feel has a pretty satisfying conclusion. Now I get it; Hank needs to catch Walter, Walter needs to become like Gus, Jesse needs to conquer Walter's manipulation and get his comeuppance. Walter ends the series by saying outright that he "won" and I was comfortable with that.

However, there's all this rigmarole with the extremely irritating Lydia, the exceptionally bland Todd and his army of Nazi biker dickheads, something about Mike needing money to pay off imprisoned people in the know. It just felt glued on to the fourth season as a way of continuation, for the sake of Hank finding Walter. I get the point that Walter seeking out this kingpin, empire lifestyle that Gus had isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It isn't that easy to be Gus and I liked that they tried to get across that Walter wasn't realizing that he was trying to become like him. Gus worked for this empire and influence his whole life and Walter is never satisfied with money he's earning.

I also find that everyone in this season is acting incredibly weirdly and out-of-character and I have reasoned with myself that Walter's actions have changed those around him as well as himself. But it still strikes me as odd that everyone in the story is so keen to dismiss this man that they've known their entire lives because he has meddled in the drug industry. I feel as though the only one with real solid reasons for complaints are Skyler because of the danger he's put his family in. But Marie is supposedly angry because she has blamed Walter for Hank's troubles when there isn't really concrete evidence that he had anything to do with Hank being shot. I get that she is supposed to be an irrational person. I get that Hank has been after Heisenberg the whole time and is driving himself stir-crazy with it.

But I find that Hank becomes pretty unlikeable in this season because he seems to only be angry on deadset on catching Walter because it will be good for him. He isn't really bothered about all the damage he's done and all the people he's killed despite him listing all of it off in a confrontation with him. It comes across like he's miffed that Walt lied to him. At no point does anyone in the story go "Can we just hear Walter out? Maybe he has some kind of explanation?" but they don't and it's incredibly infuriating to sit through.

I have to reason that this is the point, however. Conquering. Comeuppance. Consequences. Conclusion etc, etc, etc. Total alienation is reached. As an audience member, not only do you not know who Walter is anymore but you don't really know anybody. The unconscious evil has to be met with unconscious good to be conquered. You're just watching a car crash happen at this point. Post Mike's death, it's almost feverish chaos. The only one you have left to root for is Jesse and that's famously snuffed out in "Ozymandias" - the prime example of narrative alienation. All that being said, it still makes for an unpleasant watching experience.

Walter White's Ending

"Granite State" and "Felina" almost feel seperate from the final season. It's a redemption arc or an epilogue. A full stop to a journey and I loved both of the episodes. Controversially, I preferred the former episode to the much lauded "Ozymandias" - the only episode that I knew the title of before watching because of how famous it is. It's not that I didn't like it or even love it;- Maybe expectations were too high, I don't know.

Anyway, I thought that despite my grievances about the last season, Walter White's conclusion was done expertly. There aren't many finalés you can say that about. TV shows rarely end with unanimous agreement. The cartharsis of him finally admitting that after all this time, he did all this for himself. He just wanted to live a little and any excuse will do to make money. It wasn't that it became clear throughout the show that he was finding reasons to keep going further and further to the point where money had nothing to do with it. It's not enough to just want money and to do anything to get more of it, it's to have an insatiable greed that makes evil.

The cerebral nature of Walter's actions remains present throughout the shooting of the nazis and the threatening of the Schwartzes and that works so much better than White giving up and turning himself in or going out in a blaze of glory. The reason being is that he knows that he has done so many wrongs that righting them is herculean task. The least he can do his enact poetic justice on those who have it coming to them and finally allow Jesse to run free of his own authority and agency.

It was perfect.

Conclusion

To say I was pleasantly surprised by Breaking Bad would be an understatement. Without hyperbole, it has restored my faith in television. Truth be told, I find myself to very skeptical and outright cynical about the medium. My general view of TV is of endless, disappointing monotony of an exploited, decaying premise. All shows die on their feet before they're firmly in the coffin and six feet under. I've started many, many shows but never, ever come close to finishing them. You can only borrow so much of my time. Part of why I tend to write about animé and video games is because there is an ending. Even if you don't complete a game to it's entirety, you still feel like you've experienced enough to put the controller down and still feel positive about it. What I enjoy about animé is that often, there are only one or two seasons of them. Short and sweet. If it's too much, then I won't bother.

Breaking Bad opposes every complaint I just had. It is NEVER boring, it is NEVER disappointing, it is NEVER monotonous. It ENDS. The seasons aren't chocked full of episodes that are a thousand hours long, written by a million people. It starts and it ends. That's it. There is something to be said for concluding.

Favourite Episodes:

Season 1

Most Favourite: Crazy Handful of Nothin'

Least Favourite: Cancer Man

Season 2

Most Favourite: Peekaboo

Least Favourite: ABQ

Season 3

Most Favourite: Half Measures

Least Favourite: Green Light

Season 4

Most Favourite: Salud

Least Favourite: Bullet Points

Season 5 (Part One)

Most Favourite: Dead Freight

Least Favourite: Madrigal

Season 5 (Part Two)

Most Favourite: Granite State

Least Favourite: Buried

****3/4/***** (Four and Three Quarter Stars)

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Are there any blogs that provide good writing tips?

Honestly I haven't paid attention to, or consciously thought about, writing tips in like 4 years. I don't know if the phase when I looked up and tried to apply writing advice was a necessary developmental phase or if it just wasn't doing much for me.

Just read a lot. Read a lot of different kinds of things, especially stuff that's lasted <500 years, and pay attention to the parallels you see. Make comparisons, totally batshit and inappropriate ones sometimes. TvTropes is seriously your friend for learning how pieces of stories work together and getting used to seeing the components.

Read micro-fiction. Read comics. Listen to songs that tell stories. Don't read Shakespeare, watch a performance and then try reading what you just watched. Read fairy tales. Read stuff with complex framing devices and weird shit like that.

Analyze. There's no such thing as "it's not that deep." Dig deep into things that were never meant to be that deep. Analyze the shit out of everything.

And write. Write things that you think are cool and that make your brain itch in a good way. Indulge yourself. And write more. No, more than that. Keep writing. Write even more. Take a break. Read.

Repeat this process for, I don't know, until you're dead I guess.

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Writing mistakes that editors will call you out for!

Disclaimer: this is a harsh and mean informative post on mistakes that make your writing amateurish or fanfiction-like. In the professional world, editors will call you out on them in a much harsher way that here.. but hey, they’re easy to fix! Of course, the quality of writing is often a matter of individual taste and experience, though there is a theory to it and ways to make your work clear and interesting to your readers.

And yes, as cruel as it sounds to admit—most fanfiction writers are amateurs who will not help you improve your own writing. You might have to close your Good Omens AO3 fanfic for a few hours to read the actual work by Neil Gaiman. That said, fanfiction is an amazing gateway to becoming a pro author because it gives you insight on what the audience likes, and the practice you need to improve! There are many fanfiction writers who’ve taken the time to learn from professionals about their craft, and are in a place where they could become successful published authors themselves.

That aside, here are 7 writing mistakes that hinder your writing!

1 – Dialogue tags

This is BY FAR the most common mistake that amateur writers do, and particularly prelevant in fanfiction. Alternative dialogue tags (whisper, shout, murmured) should be used VERY sparingly. “said”, “replied”, and “asked” should build up the majority of the tags you use.

Oftentimes, the reader will understand the tone based on what the character says or by their actions.

2 - Tense changes

Pick a tense and stick to it. Many times, amateurs waver between past and present which leads to awkward reading. Choose which tense you prefer and stick to it. An extra caution should be taken when using past tense, however, to correctly use past preterite (I ate) vs past perfect (I had eaten). While both can be used, they are different so make sure you understand when to use which.

3 – Pointless dialogue

It’s time to cut the small talk. While chitchat and banter may be fun to read, particularly in fanfiction, editors will ask that you remove it if it doesn’t advance the plot. What you want to do is cut down on the filler in your story, and if that means your characters NOT having an argument about macaroni cheese, then so be it. Save dialogue for important and meaningful conversation only—your readers will prefer it, I promise.

4 – Pointless description

Hand in hand with the previous point, description should be kept consise and relevant. We don’t need to know what your character is wearing or the details of their “black, leather, zebra-print sofa under the wide windowsill in the master bedroom”. Keep the descriptions short, fed into the plot little-by-little and relevant to what is happening. Your readers are smart—they can imagine the rest for themselves! That’s what makes reading fun!

5 – Use the character’s name

The blue-eyed boy has a name for the great purpose of you using it! Literal writing, nine times out of ten, is better! Green orbs are distracting, but green eyes are to the point and clear. It’s the same with names! The name, title, role (butler, governess etc), or pronouns should always be the default. Any other term should be used sparingly when there is no other alternative.

6 – Abandon the pet names

Yes, pet names are cute and fun, but not when they’re in every sentence of conversation. Things like “babe”, “baby”, “sugarpuff sunshine fairy” should be used SPARINGLY. I can assure you, the love interests saying it once or twice in the novel will have a far greater impact on the reader than if they say it every time they call their partner. An overuse of pet names becomes distracting and make the character seem both immature and a caricature. It also has a similar effet to repeating the other person’s name during a conversation—it leads to unnatural dialogue as we only really say the other person’s name to them in order to get their attention.

7 – Immature characters

This is a biiiiig one in fanfiction. You may see characters who are adults in their mid to late twenties but who still behave like teenagers. Granted, if you are a teenage writer, this can’t always be corrected, though it does become apparent to any reader over the age of eighteen.

Truth be told, adults mature and don’t react as overtly as many poorly-written characters do. A twenty-eight year old is very unlikely to tell two teenagers who are making out at the kitchen table to “get a room”, nor are they likely to be victim of some horrible miscommunication that leads to a lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers situation. Of course, it is still possible, though it does read as unrealistic and makes it apparent that the author has not yet reached the age of the character they are writing about. Take reference from real people around the age of your characters and if all else fails, you could always look for the possibility to age them down.

The point of correcting these mistakes is to create a novel that is easy to understand without the reader feeling as though they're swimming through mud. Publishers look for clear, consise books that tell one story from start to finish!

Good luck!

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How You Learn How to Write

They say that you can’t teach writing and they’re probably right. What I believe is that there are definitely ways to get better and improve your craft. Certain things are absolutely necessary to progress and improve as a writer - no matter what the skill level is.

I’ve got a few things here and there that aren’t trade secrets but more good advice for moving forward with your writing.

1. Put Pen to Paper.

You don’t know what you’re like at writing if you don’t try at least once. The important thing about giving it a go is that if you won’t know where to start if you don’t start at all. You may think that you’re terrible at writing or that you’re God’s gift to the medium but you have to produce something - and I mean anything - to get started. Think of it as taking a preliminary test for a college to get a handle on your skill level. See my blog about writing exercises if you need any help. :)

2. Get Help (and Allow Yourself to Be Helped).

It seems incredibly obvious considering what the subject of this article is but what is fundamental to learning the art of writing is that you have to know how to get help, where to get help from and how to apply it to your work. What I should point out at this juncture is that you should never hand out money to people who are offering to read your work. Most literary agents would happily read your work for free.

But it doesn’t have to be a literary agent. Just get someone who you trust to tell you the truth and be honest. Preferably, get a reader to critique your work like they would for a book from a bookshop. The more important aspect is psychological. You have to learn how to take criticism on the chin and not take it personally. Understand that whoever is giving you constructive critcism has your best interests in mind. What is constructive criticism? Simple. The want for your work to be more effective and when that want is asked for. Not unprompted put-downs in preference of what the critic wants.

Be prepared to take the advice and make the changes to your work. You may see it as a damage to your work and you may even not end up with that in your final edit but cycling through the chunks of info will help you find your way - what is good and what isn’t.

3. Read.

I’ll keep putting it in writing articles until I’m blue in the face but you have to read. If not read, take in any media - painted art, television, cinema, music - and think about it creatively; how was it put together and how it works as a piece of media. Take in the story, the composition, the structure, the dialogue and the syntax. What you learned in English Literature at school is useful in these scenarios because of the problem-solving skills it teaches you. When you understand what makes something quintessentially good. What, exactly, absorbs you in the product?

When you know the answer, it will make you a better writer. Think about art like a philosopher thinks about life or how a psychologist thinks about the mind.

4. Make Use of Your Notebook (or memo app on your phone).

Plan. Write down story ideas (they won’t stay in your head forever). Keep tabs on your progress and if someone tells you helpful advice or if you read a pertinent quote online, write it down. Be economical and try not to fill your notebook with random circled words out of context or underlined dates for no reason. It isn’t enough to just cosplay as a writer because you actually have to be one if you want to be good at it. This piece of advice is only small but it’s practical and a good notebook can put in the hard yards to make you work-hours more efficient in the long run.

5. Engage Your Imagination.

The word learning might sound tedious to you because it probably reminds you of a time in your life where you were depressed, bored, lost or just generally having a bad time of it. The truth is though that the best writers at the top of their game with nothing left to prove are still learning. You have to think about the process of writing without an academic mindset so you get the best out of yourself.

I did go to university and it must be said that it didn’t necessarily teach me how to write but taught me how to be better. I didn’t take a fancy to writing in school because they don’t really teach it and the subject of “creative writing” isn’t defined by 2+2. It’s closer to crafting a sum with two numbers you’ve invented yourself. I may be rambling but my point is this: engaging your imagination is learning how to write.

6. Read Your Own Work Aloud to Yourself.

This is very hard. It’s difficult but very, very necessary. You have to read what you’ve written out loud to yourself so you can see how it sounds.  See if you’re out of breath at the end of sentences and if full-stops (periods) and commas are in the places that they should be. You have to believe me when I say that reading in your head is a completely different sensation.

You’ll even discover certain adjectives and nouns don’t roll of the tongue the way you think they do in your head. There is a certain beat and rhythm to writing that you won’t discover without properly dictating it out loud. As a little bonus, you could unearth grammar and spelling mistakes dotted around here and there. That brings me on to my next and final point.

7. Master The Basics.

Okay, this is the only hard-nosed point that I have to make so I left it at the end.

This isn’t even something that you need a degree for. You just have to know how to use Google and utilize it for incredibly accessible knowledge about language and how it is constructed. Grammar, punctuation, sentence structure - all that really boring stuff that you learned really early on. If you didn’t pursue the subject of English Language (or the respective national language class in your country) in further education because of whatever reason, you will lose that basic knowledge.

If you use a word and you ask yourself what it means and your brain doesn’t have a proper answer, look it up. Always double-check that a word means exactly what you think it means. You can’t just guess or go from memory unless you are positively sure. Don’t allow yourself to be caught out and, by using Google more and more, it will stick in your head. For example, I used the word quintessentially in this article earlier. I looked up both what it means and how to spell it. I was 95% sure but that isn’t enough. If you don’t know where the apostrophe goes in a sentence, I am begging you to look it up. There is no shame in not knowing and using a search engine takes ten seconds max.

If you master the basics, even your writing isn’t all that much to write home about, it will look professionally put together. You’d be surprised how many mistakes you read online and you don’t even know it is a mistake. I have made mistakes that have been easily avoidable had I just looked it up.

#writer #writing blog #creative writing #creative writer #creative writing blog #writing advice #writing ref #writing tips #writing help #learning writing #learning experience #learner writer #writing education #blogging help #literature #english literature #learning #refs #teaching writing #writing tasks #writing prompts #writing prompt #writing

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How To Start Writing - Exercises and Prompts to Massage Your Imagination

Some would say that it’s the hardest part of the whole affair. How to actually put pen to paper and begin somewhere - to take the first step in a long walk. It is difficult but it doesn’t have to be and something that I’ve learned from my time at university is that ultimately it’s up to you to put your foot on the accelerator.

What can prove useful is taking writing exercises just to get you started. Here are some of my favourites.

1. “I Remember...”

This is a timed one and I recommend giving yourself fifteen minutes but you can go as high as thirty if I you feel you need it. Essentially, you picture a place or a time in your personal life - it could be just a particular season or a year or even your whole childhood - and start every sentence with “I remember” just to see what comes to mind. What is important to remember is that a lot of writing is based on personal experience whether we like it or not and tackling your own upbringing artistically could bring the best out of you.

The important caveat about this writing exercise is to not stop if you can help it. Write on impulse. Whatever comes to mind about say, when you were fourteen years old, get it written down. You never know which direction you could end up going in. You may be telling yourself that your life isn’t that interesting but you’d be surprised what you can recall and the poetry that comes with it. Think about the senses, thoughts and feelings that would be going through your mind at the time.

This exercise is for testing your descriptive ability.

2. Photo/Music/Object Prompts.

Grant Wood - “American Gothic”

This one is pretty free-form. Look at any image - preferably a painting - of landscaped scenery or of abstract art and see what comes to mind. You may think it’s simple, too easy or even limiting but the point about utilizing visual prompts is that you can always fall back on them. The best ideas are always happened upon accidentally. You may find that your mind is exploring a facet of life previously uncharted in your brain.

My favourite kind of prompt - music - can be incredibly provocative. This is especially true if it’s a genre or category of music that you aren’t necessarily familiar with. Whatever your preferred way of streaming music is, look through genre mixes, radios or playlists of stuff that you’re maybe only vaguely familiar with and just let it play. Close your eyes. Picture the music. Picture the story it’s telling. Put yourself in a new world.

You could even take a physical object and study it for a while. Think of a story for it. It might be a weird esoteric knick-knack or a statue that your mother has hung on to for 45 years for no good reason. What do you feel when you look at it? What goes through your mind? Where could it come from? You could even go to a place near you and engage that same creative mindset.

The possibilities are literally endless.

3. One-Word Prompts.

Specifically, limit yourself and see what comes out. For example, you have to start a one-page short story that starts with the sentence “The trees were made of gold”. Have a couple of attempts and see what happens. There are websites, Twitter accounts and probably even Tumblrs that generate prompts and challenges.

You could decide to write a short story with a certain title like a single word. Base the entire story around that word. This, of course, all counts for poetry or even if you’re doing a diary or a journal entry. The primary function is to get your mind thinking unilaterally about writing and how you approach it. Make something out of what is supposedly nothing.

4. Short As Possible (The Shape of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut)

This is more of an editing exercise and a practice in story-structuring. Take a pre-existing story, either one you have written or one by someone else, and make it as short as possible. Cut it down to the absolute basics and by doing this, you excavate the bones. You know what is important and what isn’t. In a way, it’s like planning posthumously.

To help me explain this, I’m going to use a favourite of mine: Kurt Vonnegut’s The Shape of Stories

Image Courtesy of OpenCulture.com

Vonnegut uses a chart system to explain how certain stories are shaped based around the fortunes of the protagonist. Higher on the wavelength equals better fortunes and lower equals worse and he points out that contrary to the proverb, things often get better before they get worse. But other types of stories follow different patterns with different events marked on each peak and trough to underline the great shape that stories all take. When you understand this, you are able to know the important events, why they happen and when they happen.

The point of this is to get a handle on what direction you’re going in your story when you cut everything down to basics. When you know what events are the important ones and what they do for your story, it can do wonders for your long term ability to draft a story.

...If that makes sense.

5. Don’t Write If You Don’t Feel Like It

This one is going to blow your mind.

If you’re sitting there, staring bare-faced at the paper with nothing coming out, banging the keyboard with frustration, I’ll illuminate you. Just stop.

Get up and turn away from the keyboard. Close the lid or shut the notebook. Put your work away and go and do something else with your time. Distract yourself. Watch a new TV show or a film. Go out for a walk. Read a book. Do anything else because one thing that you aren’t going to do in those moments of fierce writer’s block is write. Allow yourself a break and put your mind at rest for a bit because when you come back, you’ll be more ready to tackle your work. It’s an exercise because it’s a psychological difficulty to give yourself a break if you’re a creative individual. Time always hangs heavy on your hands but only if you let it.

“There is no such thing as “Writer’s Block”, only impatience”

#writing #writers #bloggers #writing advice #writing tips #writing tricks #writing prompts #writing exercises #creative writing #creative writing tasks #writing tasks #recommendations #advice #tips #tricks #prompts #exercises #tasks #writing help #writing references #refs #learning writing #fiction writing

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The Cheat Codes for Being a Fiction Writer (Some Of Them)

I’ve recently finished my Master’s course for Creative Writing. In fact, I handed in my dissertation at the start of the month, sealing off the educational period of my life possibly for good. I can’t say I learned a lot about being a writer but what I will say is that you pick up a great deal of extremely useful tidbits. The artistic university experience is food for thought and not sustenance for the starved. You’ll be plodding along for a few weeks and thinking that what you’re doing is a waste of time and then, suddenly, you’ll be presented with something that could massage your brains in a way that you weren’t expecting. It might be an experimental poem with a bizarre format or it could be an entirely new form of writing that you’d never heard of before.

Casper David Friedrich - “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog”

The one thing you won’t find at university (from my experience) is how to actually do the writing bit. There is a lot of debate about whether or not you can even teach it as a subject at all which is an argument you’ll probably never hear the end of. I certainly won’t be able to teach you either but, like music theory, there’s some pathways to the craft that open your brain a lot more to the process.

1. Less is More.

Sounds like a pretty old adage but it’s one of the most useful attitudes when it comes to what is called a “writing economy”. You have to be economical. Any artist in any avenue will sympathize with the compulsion to always add more to a piece of work when you should be taking more out. If you can get the same feelings out in less words, than do so. One of Matt Groening’s directing philosophies behind The Simpsons is being as funny as possible in as little words as possible - even if that means no words at all.

Obviously, there’s a limit to this philosophy that you’ll quickly get to grips with. It’s like changing gears in a car. You have to know when is the write time for what. Read it out to yourself. Is it too long? Are you running out of breath before the end of the sentence? The economy and quickness is also relative to the mood of the piece.

2. “Places need you to go to them“

Credit: u/dienaked

Setting can be easy to overlook if the centrepoint of whatever you’re writing about isn’t the setting. The place exists in your head but you need to let the reader go there and feel what you feel. Use the senses. Think about the possible small fixtures of the room and what they would add if you let the reader in. Like the last point, there isn’t a need to be meticulous because you have to allow the reader’s imagination to imagine.

If you’re thinking about an entire town, my go-to would be Derry in Stephen King’s IT. As you can see from the fanart (u/dienaked on r/stephenking) is that the world is so richly drawn that one is able to produce a map like this at all. I would recommend the book and the latest movie to take notes on how Stephen King makes more than just a backdrop.

3. Understand You’ll Make Mistakes.

An important lesson about making art is that failure is part of the process. Whilst I include the grim acceptance that you don’t have the Midas touch, I specifically mean that it takes a while to get it right. I forget about the first two points sometimes and get swept up in the hotbed of my own brain. It’s easily done. It actually took a few years of me being told those two things to fully get my head around what they properly mean.

I've probably made some mistakes in this very post.

You aren’t God’s gift to the medium; without fault and above judgement. I’ll pack into this point that it does help to get your work read by someone who will be honest with you. It doesn’t have to be a writing professional but someone who reads a moderate amount. Ask them for specific things you want feedback on like story, structure, form and themes.

4. Be Obsessed With Your Characters.

You have time. You don’t have to but it does help to get to know your characters as much as you can. What is their favourite food? Where were they born? What was their childhood like? It helps because it makes dialogue a whole lot easier to write and how they behave come off a lot more natural in your writing. You won’t find yourself arriving at a point where you would be asking yourself: What would they be like in this situation? How would they react?

I say again that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. It is especially useful if you’re constructing a fantasy or sci-fi world or any kind of series.

5. You Actually Have to Read Books.

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Yes. I’m sorry but you could really do with reading books fairly regularly. You can’t really get away with not doing it. I thought for the longest time that the books that I had read up to my point in university would be enough to carry me because I’m incredibly influenced by all of them. You get it into your head that you’ll be compared to all the great writers as unfavourably as possible but it just isn’t true.

I have even said to myself that I’ll just end up subconsciously “copying” whatever I’ve read which isn’t really true either. Essentially, if you’re a creative person, anything you will ever do will have some connection to something that you’ve absorbed previously. You can tell yourself that isn’t the case or come up with any excuse not to read. But you really should. Just pick up a book before bed and do half an hour, twenty minutes.

This is all aside from the other obvious benefits of reading.

6. Each Chapter is a Short Story.

Taking this philosophy in your structure will make writing a novel a whole lot easier. Plan out each chapter like a short story. Work out what the conclusion is and what will be the crux of the chapter. It will ease you into the habit of planning generally because you have to plan to some extent.

You’ll also find from taking this advice, you’ll be taking the entire process one step at a time and it could help those who feel bogged down by a project.

7. Be Ruthless.

The editing process is nearly more than half the writing process and you have to be ruthless with what you cut out. There will be times where you come up with something incredible. Your brain will come up with the goods unexpectedly but you have to pause for a moment and question if it really works with what you’re aiming for. If it isn’t then you have to be brave enough to delete it. Nothing stopping you from saving it for later though.

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” —Stephen King

This also counts for any of the building blocks in your story. If something doesn’t work, you have to be prepared for the possibility of scrapping the lot. You can afford to let the cards collapse.

8. Do What You Like

This is the best one. The greatest thing about being an artist is that you can do what you like and go about it however you want. You are in control of your process and there are so many different methods to get your engine running. I implore that you experiment with all the incentives and prompts that you’ll easily find on the internet for free. Try stuff out and see what works. Personally, my favourite thing to do whilst writing is listening to music or ambience. There are thousands of playlists on Spotify that are specifically for writing/studying/whatever so why not give that a bash. On YouTube, you will not be able to get enough of 10-hour ambient noises that folk have made.

There will be always something that suits your mood and way of working. You just have to find it. Read how other writers go about their process because it won’t be a secret.

My final tip would be that you’re always learning all the time. I’m still learning how to do this Tumblr thing and how to put these kinds of articles together. Your job is to allow the information that you’re taking in to stick to you and put it to use.

Some Books I Would Recommend:

Jeff Vandermeer - Wonderbook

Stephen King - On Writing

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five

Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner

#creative writing #writing #writing lifehacks #lifehacks #fiction writing #fiction writing tips #writing help #literature #english lit #english literature #writing at university #studying #studying writing #amwriting

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Bisexual

It's something that I've been dealing with since my teens not in a hyper-spiritual way or in a deeply troubled way but simply if I "qualified" or not. When questioning myself, I looked at gay and bisexual people who I knew and didn't see myself as one of them.

Anyone who has known me personally will know that I often changed my answer. Sometimes I might've said that "I thought about it and decided that men were gross" which was true. I do tend to think that men are generally gross and I frequently find that I am deeply unattracted to a large portion of them but that's besides the point. You are bought up to believe that being bisexual must mean that you are attracted to absolutely everybody or that the attraction levels are at least split straight down the middle - whatever that means.

From time to time, odd things would happen conversationally where I would have cause to question why I view the world slightly differently compared to other straight men that I knew. Things that go beyond your bog-standard man who wants to stay as far as possible away from his sexuality. I found that I was pretty comfortable with talking about men who I found attractive because I thought you can admit that without sacrficing the all-precious sanctity of heterosexuality. Again, I was bought up to assume that it meant 50/50. I would have a self-aware moment where I would ask myself: "Why am I so eager to know this sort of thing?" I wouldn't know the answer. There would be this cognitive dissonance where I would dismiss thoughts and ideas because they couldn't be true - I'm a straight man.

It's probably because I subconsciously sought the social normalization of bisexual discussion. Inertly, I must've thought this was normal. It's funny because me posting this is going to be a huge surprise. I've literally told no-one that I'm going to do this because perhaps, I want to force that social normalization by hook or by crook. To me, it isn't a big deal but it feels like I'm wrapping something up now. I'm bisexual. I just am.

What's been most illuminating and has stuck in the back of my mind ever since I read it on social media is that LGBTQIA+ people often find that they have to prove their sexuality or gender identity on a practical level or they aren't believed or validated by some. I, and many other bisexual men, may never ever enter an all-male relationship. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't go both ways either; heterosexual people are never questioned on their heterosexuality. Thinking about this has been a game changer.

The last thing I want is a big fuss and I suspect that is something that puts people off coming out. I don't think that I'm going to get booted out my house for this but I absolutely do expect that they will bore the bollocks off me with embarrassing watercooler chitchat for the next six months. I have not suffered in denial or in persecution. Nothing at all has actually changed other than that I will fill in forms slightly differently.

Once I hit that little blue button on the bottom right corner that says “Queue”, I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight and I will be constantly thinking about deleting this from my drafts because I’m not ready yet or that I’m still unsure.. I’m even thinking about hitting backspace on all of it as I type this sentence. I want to talk myself out of it. If nothing else, all these feelings prove it and verify it for myself.

So fuck it.

#bi #bisexuality #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia #coming out #coming out stories #coming out story #bisexual

[thomcantsleep]

Being Proud of Myself

I was overwhelmed over the weekend by the response to my post about my experience with autism. It’s the most notes that I’ve ever gotten on Tumblr before and it was only in a couple of days and I even got a couple of messages from people saying that they related to the experience which was especially very cool. It’s exactly what you want to see and hear when you write something like that because enabling other people to start a conversation about things like this is massively important to our society.

It all gave me precious happiness and serotonin that made me feel warm and fuzzy so thank you if you read it.

After talking about it a lot and letting everyone in my life know that I reached a milestone, I got a funny feeling. It felt like I was relishing in the numbers game instead of just being happy with what I had wrote and what I had said. Essentially, my ego was stroked which I don’t react well to. I don’t like feeling proud of something that I’ve done. I thought about the alternate universe where that post got no attention whatsoever and if I would feel the same way and the answer is definitely not. Whilst it was definitely great to hear other people’s stories and talk about the world of being diagnosed with ASD which is something that I’m very passionate about, I was happier with how much attention it was getting on comparison.

It made me feel like not a great person because I don’t really do this for attention. Part of the reason that I left Twitter was realizing that I was uncomfortable with the proverbial points system where you are rewarded with dopamine shots every time someone “likes” your post. I didn’t like that because it was fake happiness and you are effectively encouraged to achieve that fake happiness at any cost. That’s why people often pin their most “successful” tweet to the top of their profile like a trophy.

But this sensation that it was giving me was similar and I got those pleasure chemicals every time I checked Tumblr and I had a bunch of notification bubbles. I shouldn’t feel pleasure with the big number but rather, with the people reading it and relating to it.

The problem with me is that I’m not used to feeling proud of myself. I remember only really beginning to recieve compliments and atta-boys when I was in my mid-teens and I got a taste for it. Really, I should be happy with myself because I’m enough without needing props from exterior sources. Instead, I get lost in the feeling. With the assistance of the internet, I get carried away with myself. I’m far better now that I used to be because I learned to teach myself that I can have self-worth outside of all this.

It also isn’t helped by being autistic because I often don’t know what or how to feel about things. I have a detachment from happiness because whenever I do feel happy, I find it oddly embarrassing and I feel vulnerable when I smile. An off-shoot of this is that I wouldn’t know happiness if it slapped me in the face. I feel like I should have a voice lingering over me to tell me that this is supposed to be a happy point in my life and that I should feel happy. I feel weird about being proud as well.

I remember everyone around me being excited and interested in me publishing a book. I got heavily embarrassed and I feel embarrassed writing this now because it feels like a petulant humble brag for me to just randomly bring this up now. I just need some kind of example. People told me it was good and I felt happy with myself but it didn’t feel real because I didn’t achieve happiness myself through my own ends.

Which is of course, a ridiculous thing to say because I did achieve it myself. I spent a long time writing and working on something, making it good and then I published it. My work paid off because it got largely a good response. The funny thing is that if it got largely negative response, I would’ve thought that I deserved to feel like shit and I think that’s because it’s more comfortable and easy for my brain to assume that I am without worth and prosper. Happiness is unfamiliar. It feels risky and dangerous.

Perhaps, if we all embrace the happiness, we’ll then take the smooth with the rough and adjust to the serotonin levels in our body. If we don’t, then we won’t treasure happiness when we have it.

How we do that? I dunno.

Sorry.

#serotonin #happiness #derealization #dopamine #depression #autism #asd #aspergers #aspergers syndrome #neurodivergent #neurodivergencies #neurodivergence #nd #neurodivergent blog #mental health #mental health blog #wellness #mindful #mindfulness #health #mens mental health

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How Bo Burnham’s INSIDE Improved My Creative Approach

It feels like it has been a very long time since something has came about that has been so universally acclaimed and it has grown on me more and more since my first viewing. At the time of writing this, I have seen it four times.

It’s funny because my initial praise seemed fairly pedestrian in that I enjoyed it because it struck the comfy place between base-level silliness and excavated deeper meaning. You can still enjoy this work of art if you take it for what it is but the iceberg is there if you want to take a deep dive underwater which is precisely what you want out of any art. But there, I’ve praised INSIDE for essentially being extremely competent at visual storytelling and thematic resonance as opposed to telling what those themes and story are. How themes of living with anxiety and depression, the blurred lines between the creative self and the human underneath the skin and aspects of self-awareness.

It also couldn’t have released at a better time or in a better way. It wasn’t hastily knocked together in prime pandemic hour when every production company was scrambling for some COVID-19 related media. It isn’t really about the pandemic either and I feel like he could’ve made this whenever and it would still touch and relate to people like it has. It’s just even more relatable to a lot more people. Personally, I think it’s a bit of a mistake to put this out in cinemas because it obviously isn’t crafted for a crowd of people. I feel like being in a massive theater full of other people would detract from the claustrophobic experience of watching it.

I can go on and on about how brilliant INSIDE was at achieving all this and more but I want to talk about the infectious creativity behind Burnham’s latest song-and-dance.

The term ‘home-made’ is synonymous with low-effort. Not anymore. Sure, it’s obvious that Bo Burnham’s equipment wasn’t bought in an alleyway and that it is bound to have cost an arm and a leg. But the point is that it could’ve been made with electronic equipment that Burnham found at the back of his shed and it still would’ve went down just as well. The power was in his all in his hands to make something exceptionally good and be in complete control of the output which is an abject rarity in this world. So he made what he wanted and had to answer to nobody - on paper anyway.

As an aside, something that I found frustrating was that everyone and their dog was trying to get ahold of him for an interview about it or a podcast or whatever when, I really don’t want to know behind the scenes or the thought process. It’s not something we should want to know. It would be like asking Salvador Dali what he was thinking when he turned the urinal on it’s side and signed it with a fake name. That may sound a little pretentious but it’s true that once he tells you, some of the magic has gone. You should want the magician to baffle you.

Anyway, it’s clear Bo Burnham is writing about himself whilst simultaneously expressing a self-consciousness about how he is percieved by himself versus the perception of others. This is especially present in the reaction scene where Bo Burnham reacts to himself reacting to himself reacting to himself reacting to his song Unpaid Intern. The end result of him writing about himself is fantastically earnest and thought-provoking despite the groundwork being very small.

It’s something you appreciate as a viewer when you’re watching it because it’s not like you are being let inside someone’s thoughts and feelings, you are being let inside someone’s thoughts and feelings. He has used the concept of being by oneself to think about oneself conceptually. That is perhaps what I admire most about INSIDE because it’s a special, secret slice of Bo Burnham. Personally, I’m self-conscious that I’m scrubbing myself and who I am over everything I do when it isn’t entirely necessary or that I’m tricking myself into thinking people are interested. No-one looks at INSIDE and thinks that Burnham is being narcisstic or self-absorbant.

Of course, it isn’t a new thing that an artist has put a piece of themself into something that they’ve made but it’s rare that someone has done it this way.

Conceptually, Burnham has created something unique that does defy the laws of what movies should be. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but if you’ve ever tried to recommend this to someone else, you struggle to describe what it even is because, unlike the fucking boring Death Stranding, it actually has invented a new genre. If there is one thing I hate in craft, it’s rules. Bo has given me something to aim for in that respect.

If anything, INSIDE has given me a kick up the arse. Aside from inspiring me to put myself in my work and take my own control of it, it could inspire a whole new wave of young film-makers. Hopefully, it’s given TV and cinema executives a kick as well that it might not be such a bad idea to give the artist complete control over whatever they want to make. Hopefully.

#bo burnham #inside #burnham #bo burnham inside #inside review #inside analysis #bo burnham review #bo burnham analysis #homemade #homemade cinema

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Don't ever hesitate. Reblog this. TUMBLR RULE. When you see it, REBLOG IT.

The original post only has US helplines. I’ve added UK helplines underneath. It would be great if people could add numbers from everywhere in the world.

Depression Hotline: [phone]

Suicide Hotline: [phone]

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: [phone]

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253

Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453

UK Helplines:

Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail [email protected]

Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111

Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: [email protected]

Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 [email protected]

b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: [email protected]

b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)

Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: [email protected]

Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600

Drinkline: 0800 9178282

Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail [email protected]

Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight

India Self Harm Hotline: [phone]

India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669

Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868, Free and available 24/7

suicide hotlines;

Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430

Australia: 13-11-14

Austria: 01-713-3374

Barbados: 429-9999

Belgium: 106

Botswana: 391-1270

Brazil: 21-233-9191

China: 852-2382-0000

(Hong Kong: 2389-2222)

Costa Rica: 606-253-5439

Croatia: 01-4833-888

Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67

Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908

Denmark: 70-201-201

Egypt: 762-1602

Estonia: 6-558-088

Finland: 040-5032199

France: 01-45-39-4000

Germany: 0800-181-0721

Greece: 1018

Guatemala: 502-234-1239

Holland: 0900-0767

Honduras: 504-237-3623

Hungary: 06-80-820-111

Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90

Israel: 09-8892333

Italy: 06-705-4444

Japan: 3-5286-9090

Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292

Malaysia: 03-756-8144

(Singapore: 1-800-221-4444)

Mexico: 525-510-2550

Netherlands: 0900-0767

New Zealand: 4-473-9739

New Guinea: 675-326-0011

Nicaragua: 505-268-6171

Norway: 47-815-33-300

Philippines: 02-896-9191

Poland: 52-70-000

Portugal: 239-72-10-10

Russia: 8-20-222-82-10

Spain: 91-459-00-50

South Africa: 0861-322-322

South Korea: 2-715-8600

Sweden: 031-711-2400

Switzerland: 143

Taiwan: 0800-788-995

Thailand: 02-249-9977

Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800

Ukraine: 0487-327715

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Rambling About my Autism: Masking, Self-Exploration and Understanding Eachother

I don’t know if I speak for every single neurodivergent person out there but I don’t struggle with autism. I struggle with other people not having it or not even having a concept of what it is. I don’t expect total empathy but it would be nice if I got a centimeter of wiggle room when it came to social situations without coming across like I want cheat codes for life.

I use the pronoun “my” because everyone experiences autism differently and it’s such a complicated diagnosis that it’s entirely understandable why neurotypical people are very confused by it. It doesn’t help that autism isn’t really touched upon in education or that representation of neurodivergent people in the media is pretty poor. Often, whenever an uninitiated neurotypical person thinks of autism, they either think of edgy internet humour or Rain Man and they’re just as bad as each other in my estimation.

I was diagnosed in Primary School when I was about seven years old but at the time, I didn’t think much of it. I might’ve told some of my friends at school but I couldn’t tell them anything about what it meant or anything. I never understood why my parents took me to this place far out of town where this man in a suit was asking me bizarre questions and conundrums or why I had to leave the room for several minutes whilst the man just spoke to my parents.

I was one of those kids who was steadfastly attached to a counsellor because I had a short fuse in the nursery which carried on until I was about nine years of age. I don’t remember her ever having a conversation with me about my diagnosis. Maybe she wasn’t qualified to speak about it or something, I don’t know.

Anyway, I only really took notice of it when I was fourteen because I started to realize that I was missing pieces of puzzles all the time. Throughout school, I had a terrible fear of failure in the sense that I didn’t want to try and do anything without very specific instructions because I was scared of the consequence of doing it wrong. People would tell me jokes and I wouldn’t get them. I would miss social cues sometimes. I was overly self-conscious of things that “normal” people aren’t supposed to be self-conscious of like the size of my shoes.

Then, I was worried about telling anyone because of the stigma attached to it at the time. Being raised by the internet mostly, people made fun of autism all the time and not in a particularly fun way. Being autistic meant that you were stupid and sub-human. I feared facing direct harrassment in real life so I left it alone for a bit. Only my friends knew about it.

It wasn’t until I was about eighteen where I realized that it was something special about me; it was part of my character. I read more about it. I talked to people online who also had autism or they were concerned that they might have it and encouraged them to be diagnosed. I was exploring it and I realized that it was more interesting than I thought. I embraced it. One of the very few good things about the internet is that you are allowed to be who you are and find other people who are the same as you. I know this is because of social engineering and advertising etc but still.

To this day, I still live with it and it still does bother me from time to time but I feel like part of being human is self-exploration and learning to live with yourself. There are still times where I act irrationally because I’m socially paranoid which is an off-shoot of me being a constant thinker. There is still a fear of me doing or saying the wrong thing to upset people or that I’m misinterpreted. Not having many friends at school, I’m keen to get attached to people but I get quickly overwhelmed and anxious. I would still probably suffer a sensory overload in nightclubs which can lead to something like panic attacks All this is part of learning about yourself and it’s a disservice to not try and address it. Not to solve it, but to realize who you are and accept yourself.

What some neurodivergent people are self-conscious of is the idea of masking. This essentially means that you hide autistic behaviours by doing an impression of a neurotypical individual which is a practice that is definitely unhealthy. I’ve been guilty of this throughout university when I’m rubbing shoulders with people I barely know because there is an element of safety in it. Ultimately though, you should be allowed to be yourself in real life and I do know that there are some people who see my overanalysis in conversation and wished that I would shut the fuck up. What I say to that is that there will be people like that anyway if you’re autistic or not and we should work together to normalize being who you are. “Normal” to me is who I am.

Really, I’ve had it easy in comparison to other autistic folk. Some won’t find out for ages that they’re autistic because they don’t have anyone around them showing concern or, if you’re AFAB, you have to jump through all these hoops because of the inherently sexist industry. In 2021, the “woman are just hysterical” viewpoint is indeed, still a thing. I spare a thought for people who are getting diagnosed after their teens when I got diagnosed in about an hour. To those people, I encourage you to keep pressing forward with it and to not give up getting the help and support you need. It’ll be alright because it’s not as scary as Rain Man makes it out to be.

If there is anyone reading this who is concerned that they might be autistic or that they know someone who does. I say that you don’t need to be concerned. If you want to be diagnosed, push for the diagnosis but if you can’t or you don’t want to. That’s fine too. Do what I did. Reach out to other autistic people and talk to them. Join a Discord server and have a chat because there are more neurodivergent people out there than you might think and they are all looking to open the conversation as well.

Outside of that, I don’t know where this was going. Just try and understand each other.

#autism #autism awareness #neurodivergent #neurodivergencies #asd #autism spectrum disorder #autistic #mental health #wellness #mindfulness #ally #nd #aspergers #neurodivergent blog #mental health blog #masking #autism masking #autism in girls #autism in women #autism representation #representation #neurodivergent representation

[thomcantsleep]

My Relationship with Twitter

C/W: R/W Conspiracy Theories

I recently left Twitter for what is probably the tenth time I would’ve said. I also would’ve said that my reasons for leaving each time were the near enough the same.

Simply being on it, through one way or another, drives me up the wall.

This time though, I feel like I’ve properly re-evaluated my relationship with Twitter and come to real conclusions about the reality of the kind of place that it is.

It’s been fairly recent that Twitter has properly blown up into the monster that it is and it coincides with Facebook becoming uncool which I would’ve said to be around 2015 or 2016 at a guesstimate. i’ve been in an on-again/off-again relationship with the blue bird since 2012 when I was thirteen which is not a great age to be on it now. It wasn’t really a problem back then though because no-one used it. If you look at tweets from 2012 from major brands, you’d struggle to find a post that reached 300 likes. Celebrities might not get to 300 retweets whereas now, the likes of BTS easily clock 100k RTs and gobble half a million likes for breakfast.

I’m not one for crowded places for a start. I’m susceptible to a sudden wave of extreme and overwhelming self-consciousness which is otherwise known as a panic attack and only a couple of things activate it. Heterosexual nightclubs or vulnerability in an online space although I’ve been far better in recent years. Essentially, I get too emotionally invested in something publically and I walk in on myself and see all these eyes staring at me so I clam up. That’s one thing about Twitter that frightens me.

Something that I used to thrive on but have since rejected was pointing at conspiracy subscribers and laughing but, living in this current world, it isn’t really something that you can laugh about anymore. It’s just a downer never mind it being a broken record. There’s only so much material you can wring out of them before you find yourself alone in your house being angry at an invisible person with a bunch of numbers in their handle and an egg for a face. Whilst scrolling through Twitter, anything could be delivered to you and often, you don’t have any control over it.

Sometimes, you do have complete control. I have no idea why I have an impulse to open a reply section when I know exactly what will be inside it and that’ll definitely set me off for the rest of the day. If you don’t use Twitter or that you don’t use it that often, you might say “Well, it’s easy to just block or mute words or phrases”

Here’s the funny thing.

Twitter will do it’s best to make sure you see it anyway. It not being the specific post or person but the same sort of thing whether you like it or not because Twitter is supposed to be for everybody. You can not escape.

For context, I muted over 200 words or phrases and blocked over 600 accounts. Twitter encourages you to have arguments with people or come out with controversial hot takes so you can rack up the twat points and that can’t be healthy can it?

I don’t like having arguments and I never have. They almost never go anywhere or lead to any conclusion and just leave me feeling cold. Whenever I get into any slight disagreement on Twitter, I just feel frustrated because it’s no place to be having a nuanced discussion about anything. You start treating debate like firing missiles in a battlefield because you have to pick what bases you want to cover, how you want to make sense of it all and how it is explained clearly for the recipient so you can achieve a victory. The moment you click send, you have to start preparing your rebuttal because the other person is already preparing their counter-strike.

Why? Who gives a fuck? Who are these people? Why do we insist on combative conversation?

It’s the same reason why I don’t bother responding to people on this website messaging me calling me a cunt because I didn’t like Life Is Strange. What’s the best that they are hoping for? It’s the same on Twitter, same anywhere.

The reason why I like Instagram and that I’ve never fallen out with it is that it doesn’t really suggest conversation of any kind. It’s not the primary focus of the app (outside of the gathering of data), the primary focus is for looking at whatever images you like. It definitely does have it’s harmful side if you follow a great gambit of influencers but, unlike Twitter, if you don’t follow them, you won’t know they exist. I just follow my friends to see the serene scenes of their jogs up to Loch Lomond or walking their dogs in the Argyll country. Folk are generally happier on Instagram and they aren’t likely to post paragraphs of their thoughts and opinions on the new Zack Snyder movie. It’s comforting to be on it.

Because Twitter can make you laugh now and again, you want to stick around for the craic so you forget about all the times you’ve seen the same joke repeated. This does have a bit to do with how I’ve became sick of Twitter as well. I find that good jokes on Twitter get ruined immediately with either folk stealing it, rehashing it or repackaging it because, as per discussed, everyone is looking for the high score that’ll get them a pocket pussy sponsorship or whatever. So no meme is safe from being butchered and bastardized by someone who has “Turn Notifications On” in their bio. Not to sound like your grandad but it does feel like you’re living in an echo chamber - an echo chamber of crap patter.

The best part is that you can’t “mute” an image so you can’t see that fucking annoying lord of the rings meme template often enough.

Long story short; that’s why I’ve stopped using Twitter.

I still have a Twitter account though that has been privated for the moment but it’s just so I can post the new Tumblr posts to let folk know what I’m up to. If I have any updates about the books that I’ve got in the cannon then I’ll tweet a wee thing saying what I’m doing. But then I get the fuck out of there because scrolling down is practically an addiction and I need to get to sleep at night.

#twitter #mental health #social media #social media anxiety #social anxiety #anxiety #depression #anger #self-esteem #wellness #mindfulness

[thomcantsleep]

Procrastination

It’s always something that I struggle with because I’m been doing writing “professionally” since 2018 when I started studying creative writing at university. Now, it's 2021 and I'm on the final stretch to completing my Masters degree and it's still affecting me. It will continue to affect me forever. Everyone procrastinates even if they don't realize.

But you’re convinced that it’s a bad thing and you feel guilty about doing it when you should be getting on with whatever it is that you’re doing. You’d be procrastinating even if you were doing a thing that you love and have a passion for. As i’m writing this, I’m occasionally looking up out the window, clicking my fingers and checking my phone.

We have to find time to not focus and to not concentrate because our brains just aren’t as good as you might think and the evidence is there. If you see yourself as being negatively effected by procrastination then it probably is because you possibly have low self-esteem and not enough self-compassion to let yourself off the hook. You have to allow yourself room to be patient with yourself because the worst thing you can be during a creative process is impatient. Really, you just want the results immediately and to skip whatever process it is entirely as opposed to trying to find enjoyment in the development.

Part of development is looking around, clicking your fingers and gratuitously checking your phone. The conclusion is that no-one actually “struggles” with procrastination, you struggle giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. Next time, try being nicer to yourself when you find that you aren’t doing as much as you perhaps could do (if you were superhuman).

Embrace procrastination and be mindful when you work. You might find you’ll enjoy it a bit more.

What inspired me to write about this was Blindboy Boatclub’s talk on Mental Health at JOE.ie. You can watch that here.

#mental health #procrastination #mens mental health #mental health blog #creative tips #creativity #working at home #working from home #procrastination advice #advice #tips #wellness #mindfulness

[thomcantsleep]

Why?

C.W // Cancer

I’ve recently felt a lot more safe in myself since engaging in things like meditation and cognitive behavioural therapy so I can now openly talk about things that bother me in an accurate and honest way. I find it a lot easier to tackle the complications in my brain if I address them out loud realistically which is essentially the bottom basics of CBT. It improves my relationship with mental health which has been a turbulent one throughout my life so really, this blog is just for me more than anyone else but if someone can get something out of it then that’s cool.

I’ll try and keep this up whilst I take a short bit of time away from my dissertation. I’m finding difficulty working on that right now because we recently recieved news about my uncle contracting lung cancer and, I shit you not, the opening of the book that I’m working is my main character coming back from his estranged uncle’s funeral. So putting pen to paper is proving difficult right now. Today has been the second day in a row in which I have opened up the word document.

So this is probably procrastination so I might as well put that procrastination to good use whilst I’m at it. I don’t really fancy writing about animé and television this time because it’s just too stressful. This will probably be more of a diary. We’ll see how it goes.

#mental health #first post #wellness #mindfulness #cbt #cognitive behavioral therapy #behavioural therapy #behavioral therapy #mental health blog #mens mental health #anxiety #depression #paranoia #diary