Just wanted to bring y’all a quick life update as it relates to my blog posts. 😅😂
I started a new job (my first full time job/internship position) which has been going great but it means I’m going to slow down a little bit on posts at least until I’m more well adjusted. 😂 As you can probably tell from the haphazard emojis, I’m a little tired. 😂 The job is great, I’m just having to adjust to a new sleep schedule.😂😂😂😭
Posts may appear more frequently on the weekends now but I’m not entirely sure yet.😂 Y’all know how it is. 😂
Good Friday Afternoon! I hope this blog post finds you well and in good health! This post is going to be a little different from the usual writing posts but is an important thing that I just sort of wanted to write about.
Calling yourself out.
So what do I mean by this exactly? Well, to put it simply, we, as people, make mistakes. Lots of them. And sometimes, in situations we can be the “bad guy”. Other times (and most of the time) though, it’s not so black and white. People will wrong us and while this is a crappy move on the other person’s part, we can be guilty of responding badly to things and being in the wrong ourselves. We can be put in bad situations by other people and, despite the fact that this isn’t necessarily what we signed up for, can still be at fault for behaving badly or, more commonly, cultivating some unhealthy thinking patterns.
For example, have you ever been wronged by someone and just written them off as a “bad person” and tried to never think of them again or perhaps even stewed over what they had done. I know I have. And while I think in some cases it can be black and white, this person did you wrong and you did nothing wrong, more often then not we at least had some part we played. But our response is so overshadowed by the bad thing the other party did that we deprive ourselves of a little something called SELF REFLECTION.
To be clear, this isn’t me calling you out. This is me calling myself out.
It is really easy to label people as difficult or cruddy people and move on with your life. And sometimes that’s what you gotta do in specific scenarios. But we can’t do that with everyone. Because nobody is perfect and it’s up to us to check ourselves.
So, here are a few questions to help you call yourself out:
1. “Is that really how it happened or just how you remember it? Or even, is that how you WANT to remember it?”
Have you ever played the game “telephone”? Where people pass on a message from person to person with message becoming more and more ridiculous or unclear with each passing? Sometimes our memory and thoughts can be like that. The more we relive an experience in our brain where we believe we are wronged, we warp the memory more, the more the angrier we feel. And the frustrating thing is often, there is a seed of truth in where this memory starts. This person most likely really DID hurt us. But we must evaluate that we are recalling events properly and are not dramatizing it in our brains to make ourselves feel more and more like the victim in the situation.
2. “How are your insecurities effecting the way you’re viewing the situation?”
Another thing to take a look at is your “weak spots” so to speak when you’re analyzing a situation. Are you taking everything in the worst way possible because you doubt yourself in specific areas?
Nothing is wrong with having insecurities. But it is our responsibility to be aware of them. And these insecurities can make us perceive things in an inaccurate light in specific scenarios so just watch out for them.
3. “What parts of yourself do you see in the person you’re criticizing?”
This is a good way to take a negative (someone treating you badly) and turning it into a sort of positive. This is a chance for you to look at someone and their bad behavior and check yourself. They just showed you how NOT to behave so now you can more properly recognize such a negative trait in yourself if it exists.
4. “Are you more concerned with being right or evolving as a person?”
Ouch. This one I’m going to leave here because I’m still recovering from it.
5. “What blame are you placing on someone else that you can take accountability for?”
Yeah, this one can hurt a little too because, let me tell you, it feels good to cast every bit of responsibility to other parties involved. Taking responsibility implies that you, at least in some capacity, were wrong. Sure, someone else could be wrong-er but admitting that you had some part to play is difficult but still necessary in certain cases, especially if you expect to grow from it.
6. “What hard conversations are you avoiding having with yourself?”
When we throw blame everywhere else, this can often be a sign that we are avoiding some sort of “truth” about ourselves that we don’t want to face. We don’t want to face it becomes its uncomfortable or perhaps because it doesn’t fit our current view of ourselves. But again, we gotta ask ourselves, “how else am I going to grow?”
7. “What is your most toxic trait that you admit to?”
Similar to knowing your insecurities, this question can help you identify further bad habits you tend to fall into and that effect your behavior and how you view people.
8. “Is your ego getting in the way of your healing?”
Another ouch from me.
In situations where I feel like I’ve really been kicked when I’m down, I have a tendency to hold a grudge. I want these people to be sorry because I want to show them that they CANNOT treat me this way. But often this comes from an unhealthy place. A place of ego that demands that people ask for forgiveness at every turn when they say something that slightly offends or hurts me.
But this is not beneficial to healing.
We’re going to have to get comfy that there are people who will not ask for forgiveness. It might benefit ourselves to ask why. Sometimes its because they’re just not very self-reflective. Sometimes it’s because they don’t know they did anything wrong and I just EXPECT them to know.
But regardless, we need to examine our motivations for wanting them to come crawling to us. We must look for where ego might be getting in the way. We desire validation in this situation. And that’s only human. But if we keep anger and ego locked inside because we think that will somehow heal us because we refuse to let this person “get away with it”, we’re never going to truly move on from the situation.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE:
I want to be clear, in certain situations, you may go through these questions and reach the conclusion that you are indeed handling this as best you can, and the other party really and truly is wholly in the wrong. Bad people, insecure people, and rude people DO exist and definitely create situations where the victim of the entire thing did nothing wrong. It doesn’t happen maybe as much as we’d like to think, but it does occur. In those cases, I fully believe it is okay to just say “wow, they’re sort of a bad/insecure/rude person and I don’t need that in my life.” and move on. You are a growing and evolving person, not a doormat.
Love others but also take care of and respect yourself.
Has it ever occurred to you That we’re looking at life through a keyhole? This rusty world Isn’t what it’s meant to be. Any beauty we see Are traces of something far greater And far more wonderful Than us or this broken world around us. We are peering at life Through a small sliver. As long as we draw breathe We have no perspective Of what is to come. For the opening is far too small For us to even understand.
There’s a cafe in town in which residents frequent and go to decompress from their hard days. Lilting jazz music fills the air and produces an ambiance of peace that falls over the place and washes over its customers. It is such a serene scene, one would never think it was haunted. But, surprisingly, the ghosts are the heart and soul of this restaurant. Every hour, the ghost of a musician will serenade the customers as they listen with expectant ears and faces. Drinks are served by animated bone corpses. And that weird knocking on the wall keeps time with the music, not at all creepy.
Love is like a trust fall Where someone is allowed to let you fall For if they dont wanna catch you You dont want them catching you at all. You lean into the air And land upon your back Too late to back out now Even though they’ve taken two steps back. So little surprise-you get the Wind knocked out You Roll over on your side, Your Heart is full of doubt But you close your eyes And then breath in Nothing left to do but Dust yourself off To get up And try again.
I’ve been getting into photography lately, so I wanted to compose a little list of fun little creative ideas for fun portraits and photoshoots! Feel free to let me know if you try any and which your favorite is!
Copper + Teal
Copper and Teal is a lovely color scheme that add nice contrast to your photos. A teal shirt or dress and copper accessories is an easy way to achieve this look and create a striking portrait. Bonus points if a poofy teal ballgown is included.
Chain Link Fences
For a lovely urban feeling collection of photos, try and employ a chain link fence by placing your subject on the other side and letting them pose against it.
Bubblegum
A super fun “prop” can be bubble gum! Just tell your subject to blow and bubble and pose as needed. The pink cna contrast with the backdrop and create a striking color scheme.
Lollipops
An easy way to add a splash of color to your photo!
A Paper-crown
Giving a paper-crown to your subject to wear can create a whimsical and child-like feel for your photo!
Light up Umbrellas
Perfect for making striking night time photos!
Glitter!
Glitter can be a bit of a mess, granted, but you can use it to make some fabulously fun photos!
Red + Blue
Employing the use of both red and blue lighting can create wonderful contrast in a photo and therefore making some very interesting to look at shots!
Sheer
You see it used in wedding photography all the time, but it doesn’t just have to be for that; you can create numerous artsy looking shots by using sheer and clever lighting.
Glasses + Lighting
Get some sparkling shots by putting glasses on your subject and having them pose with a light source of sorts around them. Then you can add reflections and sparkles in the glass of the lenses in editing to create a gleaming photo. I personally recommend the use of fairy lights to achieve this affect.
A girl goes to visit a grandparents house only to find a giant grandfather clock covered in a dropcloth in the attic. In an almost Narnia/Alice in Wonderland style story, she opens the clock’s door and finds it big enough to walk through. Inside she finds a clock inspired world facing a threat that she must stop.
Writing can be really hard sometimes. Some days the words flow seamlessly from my finger tips and there other days where I get stuck on every little thing. One things that I have found that has helped me with these mini challenges and road blocks is having a few choice writing cheat sheets on hand that can help me when I’m stuck on how to write a specific scene or character. And so I would like to share these little cheat sheets with you.
Emotion Cheat Sheets
Writing certain emotions are harder for me than others. Especially when writing more obscure emotions that go beyond “happy” and “sad” and “angry”. This is because, sometimes, I can only recall one or two actions that reflect that specific emotion and I don’t want to sound like a broken record when writing their non-verbal cues. “She shook her head”, “She grit her teeth”, “He smirked”, “She smirked”. It can get pretty redundant.
These emotion cheat sheets help me with that. They each give me an emotion and a brief list of mannerisms and reactions associated with that emotion that one can integrate between the dialogue.
This might be more helpful for essay writers or article writers but it can be useful for story writer’s as well. If you have a bad habit of writing overly wordy phrases that could be replaced with a more condensed version of the phrase for clarity, then this cheat is for you. It goes through a few commonly used wordy phrases in writing and suggests replacements.
I have a bad habit of over using specific actions in writing.
Look. Walk. And smile.
These are three actions that happen quite a lot in a book. But I personally struggle to find other words that convey the same meaning to avoid sounding redundant. So here are a few cheat sheets I use to help me “dress up” and better describe these actions.
Aaaaand here is the last one. And probably the one I struggle the most with. Said. Now contrary to what you might have read online, said is not dead. Let’s not overlook the danger of getting to flowery with our writing. There are still places for simple versions of words. Said will always have a place in writing, But again, this is cheat sheet is made simply for when you fear you’re sounding tedious and like you’re repeating the same word over and over and over and over and over and over again. And sometimes these words and phrases can better describe the tone with which an action is done much better than “said” can.
Good morning! Long time, no blog post? With that in mind, I think it’s either befitting or ironic that I am sharing a little list of comprised of some of the most common “Writing Sins” that totally mess with my writing productivity. Little things that mess with my best of intentions to write buuuut I could just refresh my pinterest feed one more time, right?
Having your phone nearby and not silenced.
Is it no surprise that I’m a super distracted writer? Generally I don’t see myself as an easily distracted person but there is something about sitting down that makes my wonder from whatever I am supposed to be doing and search for something else. And, often, that something else, is my phone. Phones basically give you instant engagement and gratification. I’m sure we’ve all heard the studies done on this. The tiny dopamine rush we get from the stimulation of entertainment (this rush being small but effective in wiring our brains to seek it out more or “refresh” the page). But, because of this, having my phone nearby, can often be a distraction waiting to happen. Especially if I don’t silence it. These days, for many reasons, I have my notification completely off nearly 100% of the time, and I will say, it really, really helps.
Having too many tabs up.
I’ll often find myself wanting to clarify this one “thing” in my writing so I open up a new tab, to research said “thing” and one rabbit hole of research later, here I am with 1000 tabs up and no writing actually done. So, for my benefit, I limit the amount of “tabs” I’m allowed to have open. In fact, it has to be really important for me to minus my word document and look up because I know my own tendencies. This is why I recommend that if you ever need to further research something for clarification in your writing, insert a filler word and move on. The filler word should be weird like “pink elephant” for its easily searchable in a word document and found. Come back to it later.
Getting a little to caught up in music
I feel there’s a common theme of distraction here. I cannot write with music really. I end up humming along and just getting way to into it and Oh! Look! Now I’m distracted. Again. If I do happen to be in a focused mood, instrumentals often work best. Chill instrumentals. And even then, it’s probably best I don’t recognize it so I’m not tempted to hum or sing along.
Being too perfectionistic and getting too bogged down in getting everything just right.
Hmmm… distractible AND perfectionistic? What a great combo! This is more of a mind thing. If I’m ever to get any writing done, I have to tell myself over and over again “you can’t edit a blank page, just keep writing”.
Not having a snack nearby.
I’m just repeating myself at this point. This is yet another gateway to distraction. Take my word, have food nearby, unless you have a specifically planned break for food.
Not knowing your productivity pitfalls or strengths.
Hence this list. But it can be different for everyone. It’s simply a matter of knowing yourself and your own unproductive tendencies and having specific ways to counter them. Not only that, but try and play to your strengths as well. If music really helps you picture the ambiance of a story, by all means, utilize that. If it is nothing more than a source of distraction (like it is for me), then maybe resort to some other background noise like ambiance sounds.
Getting too caught up in word counting.
If I am struggling to pump out some writing, I find I have a huge problem with typing, and then checking the word count like I’m writing an essay for school. This is because I have a word goal I hope to meet every day, and while this does me good, on bad days, I find myself way too caught up in meeting the quota. I haven’t really found a way to combat this if I’m honest. I feel that if I don’t force myself to write at least a little everyday, it is easy to get out of the habit and oh! Now I haven’t written for a month. Yay. But I definitely feel like my writing suffers when I am just checking a “list”. My only tip on this specific tendency is just know, that we all have bad writing days. But I think I ascribe to the idea that something, even if its a bit forced on this particular day, is better than nothing. Really I think that’s the ideology that’s at the heart of productive writing.
By the Brooke 
