Tag: me

Where to leave your perfectionism

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

When I was younger, I wasn’t worried. Not In the least.

I would wake in the morning with a light feeling in my chest and a carefree air about me. I would set out armed with a stick and go play in the woods and in the mud in search for adventure. 

I would crawl through culvert pipes and pretend they were entrances to magical worlds, rabbit holes to far off places. 

I would climb up to the highest part of a tree, and where the branches would meet at the center was a throne that I imagined was made for me. I would sit there and overlook my kingdom and pretend I could talk to the birds as the flitted past, giving me news of the worlds beyond. 

Then I would return home and write of my adventures in a notebook and draw maps of the new kingdoms I had conquered and discovered. Page after page I would fill with drawings and notes, describing the magic that I had found that particular day. 

But that’s not the way things are anymore. Now I’m worried, scared even, bogged down by fear and perfectionism. The stories don’t come as easy as they used to and the feeling of lightness and the glow of curiosity no longer radiates in my chest. 

Many times I have rested my pen on a blank page only to be met with a emptiness of mind and spirit. And on the rare occasions that I would actually write something, I would return to it, and rip its pages away because it was not perfect. 

I still relished the feeling of pages beneath my finger tips and the smell of new notebooks but I could never bring myself to fill them with the same colorful stories that I used to create so many years ago. 

But there came A Day I was tired of it. Tired of being perfectionistic. For my fear of creating something substandard drove me to create nothing at all. 

So I took with me a journal, perfect and empty, on a walk. More times than I’d like to admit, I had wanted to fill this book with a great many number of ideas and drawings but I could never bring myself to mark up it’s crisp, empty pages. 

So I walked to a pond’s edge and looked out upon its reflective surface, unblemished and smooth like a mirror. At its shore, I tied a string around the book and left a long tail that I could hold onto. And then I cast it as far as I could into the water. 

I reeled it in, the journal now a soggy pulp of pages. So I took it home and dried it. 

It was not longer perfect. The pages were wrinkled and the cover was beginning to peel. But that was alright. 

So I set it on my desk and opened it and began to write. 

Just a thought…

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

You might have heard  that courage isn’t the absence of fear, 

But knowing something is worth doing despite it.

But have you heard… 

that confidence isn’t the absence of insecurity, 

but knowing your worth it despite them?

Have you heard that happiness isn’t the absence of bad things, 

but knowing life has beautiful parts regardless?

Or that being powerful and strong,

Isn’t about exerting one’s strength but knowing when to hold back and let things go. 

Have you heard that love isn’t about the person’s lack of imperfections,

But caring about someone so deeply despite their flaws?

How about that forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re not hurting anymore,

But being willing accept their apology and love them despite that?

Or that being successful, 

Or being a winner,

Isn’t about never failing,

But picking oneself up again and again in spite of having failed?

Or that true wisdom isn’t being enlightened or educated,

But is found in knowing that there is so much that you don’t know. 

Have you heard kindness isn’t the absence of unkind thoughts

Or even frustrations,

But choosing to be gentle and patient anyway?

Because all heroes are capable of being villains but instead chose not to be. 

The 6 Stages of a Study Session

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

Steps of Studying

1. The Motivation

Whenever I need to study for something, at first, I’m pumped. I tell myself this’ll be a breeze and I’ll ace the test and I’ll be so scholarly and wear cool glasses even though I have perfect vision… but when the breeze turns into a hurricane, this motivation quickly leaves, leading me to step 2…

2. The Procrastination

I am a procrastinator. If getting distracted was a sport, I’d be on a Wheaties box. I suppose you could say I’m a pro (crastinator). In this stage Youtube is my biggest enemy and friend at the same time.

3. The Guilt

All through step 2 you are probably pushing back this nagging guilt. In step three this feeling resurfaces, leaving you on the edge of panic. If you are good student, then you’ll probably get your rear and gear and actually study but if you’re anything like me, you will proceed to step 4…

4. The Rationalization

This step is how you get reality to go away when it knocks on your door…

You will rationalize with yourself that you have plenty of time to get your book work done! One of the signs your a rationalizer is you use phrases similar to these:

Just one more episode of Andy Griffith and you’ll study…

Just another game of free cell…

It’s not procrastination if your drinking coffee… it’s procaffinating.

Well, another sentence read! I should reward myself with another study break and another box of pop tarts!

I wonder if iisuperwomanii came out with a new video….

They say if you say something enough, it’ll come true but what about if you ignore it? It’ll go away right? That’s how real life works, right?

Then comes along inevitable step 5…

5. The Realization/Panic

When reality goes from knocking on your door to repeatedly ringing your doorbell, to breaking the door down like some sort of Ninja Chuck Norris. But reality always seem to do this at the last second when you are an hour away from taking that test and you realize you are not toast, but charcoal that is covered in gasoline and gun powder that is on fire as it’s being thrown into an active valcano that is about to errupt! This is when you hit full on panic mode… and when you’re greatest ideas and inspiration comes, leading you to step 6…

6. The Scramble

No, I’m not talking about eggs. This step is also known as the cram. This step is usually about one morning as far time. This is where you cram so many factoids down your brain’s throat (I don’t even know how that works), that it practically shrieks in protest. In this step you burn like 12397 brain cells which is really sad considering you could of killed those cells doing something a lot more enjoyable, like watching Gilgan’s Island or smelling gasoline.

Then you usually end up taking the test, get a passable grade, and then come home, realizing, that the only thing you learned is… oh wait! You didn’t learn anything because all these steps are repeated the next time you have to study for a test! Live and don’t learn, that’s humanity for you!

The Sufferings of a Writer

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

1. Staying up til two thirty in the morning on a school night because you’re in the middle of a really exciting chapter.

2. Carrying a notebook and pencils/pens everywhere you go.

3. Getting a really good plot idea out of nowhere and having to drop everything to jot it down.

4. Eavesdropping on people’s conversations for dialogue ideas.

5. Getting a new computer and being thrilled at the prospect of all that free file space, and then having half of it filled up with Word documents within a month.

6. Having so many Word documents that you don’t even remember what some of them are..

7. Becoming stunned whenever someone asks you what your book is about (as if you could sum it up in a sentence, right?).

8. Being given an assignment to write a two-page short story and turning in a twenty-page one instead.

9. Envisioning a cute/funny scene in your head during a boring class and suddenly someone asks “What are you smiling about?” and you have to stammer something dumb.

10. When someone tells you your sad scene made them cry and being like “YES! VICTORY!”.

11. When you’re confused about something, putting two characters together and having them fight about it.

12. Being able to turn everything that happens to you into a scene for your story.

13. Getting inspiration not just from English class, but also from History, Biology, Foreign Language, Art and Math.

14. It annoys you when people use the wrong form of ‘you’re’ and ‘their’.

15. You correct people’s grammar in your head.

16. You know every little thing about a character… except their name.

17. It makes you slightly concerned when people look in your Google history that they will question your mental health.

18. You question your own mental health fairly often.

19. When someone walks in and you’re in the middle of writing you’re like:

GoawayI’mnotdoinganythingsuspiciouswhileIminusmyworddocumentveryquickly

20. You want to get (or already have) a sign on your door that says ‘For Your Safety, Do Not Disturb the Writer While She is Inspired.’

21. When someone suggests you edit out a part of your story that part instantly becomes your favorite part.

22. All your favorite songs either remind you of a scene or a character in your story (or perhaps inspired them).

23. Complimenting your looks, skills and personality are all right, but when someone compliments your writing without knowing it’s yours, your day is made.

24. You want desperately someone to critique your writing and at the same time you don’t.

25. You have that one character (maybe more than one) that you know better than your own family members, sometimes better than yourself, that one that you love so dearly and you can see them in your head and hear their voice like they’re actually there and they’re so real to you.

26. You feel guilty when you have to do something mean to a character you like.

27. You love all your characters, even the ones that readers aren’t supposed to like, even the ones that you know you’d hate if they existed, because you understand them.

28. Putting your character in a tense situation makes your heart speed up.

29. You have conversations with your characters in your head (and sometimes outside ).

30. You have a quirky thing you do that gets your creative juices flowing and inspires you, and if anyone else knew about it they’d think your insane.

31. You cry when you have to kill your favorite character.

32. You critique other people’s books while you’re reading them.

33. Everything inspires you some days, other days you can’t get a good idea for the life of you.

34. You get all excited to write before you do it, but when you actually sit down and open the Word document, you get about one sentence done in an hour.

35. You join rpg’s for ‘writing practice’ because partly you can make up characters that don’t have to be super complex, partly you don’t know what’s going to happen so it’s a challenge there, and partly they’re just fun.

36. You’re that person who writes paragraph-long texts with perfect grammar.

37. Your characters show up in your dreams from time to time.

38. You get inspiration from your dreams.

39. You have a Word document open at this moment.

40. You’ve smiled and said ‘That’s so true!’ to most of these.