Describe yourself in the third person - your physical appearance and personality - as though you were a character in a book.

Astrid sat on the couch, engrossed in the writing exercises in the notebook in her lap. Every now and then, she would lift the pen and stare at the sentence she had just written, her mind grasping at hwat would come next.
 It was her vain hope that these exercises would make her a better writer, that someday people would read the words she wrote and be impacted by what they read.
 But a lot of the time it all felt for naught.

Pick a small object to be given one day to your great-grandchild. Write a letter to that child explaining why you have chosen this object.

This was the key to my Grandmother's house. That makes her your great-great-great-grandmother.
When my Grandmother died, my Mum had copies made of the key to her house and gave them on silver chains to me and my sister. I think of this key as a key to my past, my family and my heritage. Mostly it is a key to love.
Think of love when you see it and wear it. It's nice and heavy, so you'll be aware of its presence whenever you wear the chain around your neck.

You have just swallowed your pride and done something you didn't want to do. Your friend wants to know why. The two of you are driving around an almost-full parking garage looking for a space for the friend's oversize pickup. Write the scene.

This scene takes characters and plot from the old project from a few entries ago. Sarah is the protagonist and she is in the car with her friend Ashleigh.

'Why?' she says, pulling at the wheel to turn us down yet another aisle in the parking garage. I let the question hang in the air and search for a vacant spot.
'There!' I sit up and point; one of the little lights on the roof is green. We slow down as we get closer, then speed up again to the sound of frustrated sighs. My friend's pickup is too big to squeeze between the sparkling SUVs that sit right on the lines.
Ashleigh's jaw is tight as she scans for another space. I can tell she's still waiting for an answer. My stomach roils uncomfortably and I press my back into the seat, struggling to find and explanation that will appease my territorial best friend.
'I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner,' I say, twisting my hands in my lap. I'm not use to feeling this uncertain.
'He's my brother!' she sayd and her voice rises, 'and you're my friend. I'm mad at both of you.' She closes her eyes for a fraction of a second and I look out into the lot until I'm sure she's focused on the road again.
'I told him no anyway,' I say.
'But you still saw him. Without me.'

Tell a complete stranger about a beloved family tradition.

Don't ask what the rhyme means. I'm not sure my Aunt even knows what it means :D

Tell a complete stranger about a beloved family tradition.
When my sister and I were little, we used to stay at our Grandparents' place in Bondi. It was a big, beautiful house with green carpet on the stairs and the first floor. The master bedroom was huge, as was our Grandparents' bed.
In the mornings, my sister and I would climb into bed with them and while away the morning. Part of this was singing a song made up by my Aunt when she was a kid.
'All in together,
This fine weather.
Stacks on the mill;
More on still.
Ah-ah, ah-ah-ah,
Ah-ah, ah-ah-ah.'

Write a scene where the only spoken dialogue is 'Uh-huh,' 'Ummm,' 'Urrrr,' 'Mm-mmm.'

I'm really curious what you'll think is happening in this scene. Please leave a comment with your imaginings!

Write a scene where the only spoken dialogue is 'Uh-huh,' 'Umm,' 'Urrrr,' 'Mm-mmm.'
She threw a look at me.
'Uh-huh,' I said, nodding.
'Umm,' she said, chewing her lip. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. I waited. She looked down at her lap, and from the fluttering of her lashes, I could tell that she blinked away tears.
'Urrrr,' I said, uneasiness settling in my stomach. Standing up, I went to her chair and knelt by her. I took her hand and made her look at me. I tilted my head at the couch.
Drawing a shaky breath, she nodded, 'mm-mmm.'

What a character holding a blue object is thinking right now

This prompt led me to revisit a character from an old project that I may revisit one day. I kind of miss Sarah, the protagonist of the book.

What a character holding a blue object is thinking right now
Staring at the blue pen in her hand, Sarah thought through her day. Ayla, her boss, had been curiously reserved. Sarah didn't know what to make of that. She was sure she hadn't done anything wrong - as  Ayla's apprentice, she would have been made well aware of any misteps - which caused her to realise that she knew very little about Ayla's personal life.

The long-lost roommate

I have a few long-lost roommates. Some of them are friends that I drifted away from and have little desire to reconnect with. Others were frinds of frinds who were lovely household companions and I do miss them.
Others were merely because of campus allotment - I'm pretty apathetic to those.

Something you had that was stolen

Two bikes. I've had two, good bike, that were stolen.
The first was a dark, green mountain bike. I loved that thing. It was so reliable and it helped me appreciate the outdoors and my body. Then it was stolen along with the bike rack it was attached to.
The second bike was a pale blue hybrid that was take from my backyard.

Tell a story that begins with a ransom note.

This prompt sparked a scene from a potential sequel to the wip (work in progress) that I'm revising at the moment. That's all I'll say for now, but if you're intrigued, I might think about posting snippets from the current project ;)

Tell a story that begins with a ransom note.
'If you wish to see her safe and whole, you will come and work for me. I expect and answer by Wednesday noon. You know what I am capable of.'
Caroline gripped the note so tightly that her thumb had ripped through the edge. Her hands shook and her vision blurred.
'Caroline?' a voice, muffled by the rush of blood in her ears, said behind her. Caroline didn't move until a hand on her shoulder made her turn. Mary swam into view, her dark, shapely brows darwn. 'What is it?' she asked, and reached for the note. After a moment of resistance, Caroline opened her fingers.
'She?' Mary's brow puckered further.
'Abigail,' said Caroline, her voice quiet. Mary's eyes wnet round.
'Oh, Caro!' mary pulled her into a tight embrace. Caroline held her friend close for a breath before Mary pulled away again. A spark shone in her eye, 'it's the Professor, isn't it?'
'I believe so, yes,' Caroline nodded. her vision was beginning to clear. A resigned determination settled in her gut.

You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

My perfect day.
My perfect day would be to wake up above the Earth and not have to work. I'd stretch and roll over, looking out the space shuttle sindows and gaze at the empty darkness and stars shining coldly. I'd daydream about what else we haven't found yet.
When I get hungry, I'd rise and make myself some breakfast and coffee and chat with my cabin mates. On a perfect day, they wouldn't have any work either.
Maybe after breakfast, I would call down to Earth and talk to my family. Even on a perfect day I would cry a little because I missed them.
Then, even though I might not have any work to do, I would get my suit on and go outside. Checking on things outside the ship is one of my favourite parts of the job. It's like being in an endless ocean, and it reminds me of when I was a little girl, when I'd think about the vast unknown and the very idea of my smallness would make my heart pound.

Write Facebook status updates for the year 2017.

'Man, the lates Fb update is pissing me off! Come on Fb, make an update that actually improves the interface.'

'In six months I'm going to welcome a baby girl into the world!'

'It is soooo hot!'

A housepland is dying. Tell it why it needs to live.

Please live. You are beautiful. You take my carbon dioxide and give me oxygen. Your deep green leaves give life to this room and make me happy. I need your life because all life matters. You are important.

The worst Thanksgiving dish you ever had

I'm Australian. And American. But I do not celebrate Thanksgiving regularly every year. So of course the holiday is special to me. And I love all my thanksgiving dishes.
Maybe the one 'dish' would be the delicious eggnog that cause my uncle to remark on how many calories it had.

642 Things to Write about

I did not realise that it had been so long since I've posted here. Almost two years! That's impressive, even by my standards.
In the meantime, I've actually started another blog. This one is about hair care and if you care to take a look, it's called Can't Stop Thinking About Hair over on Wordpress.
I'm back here because last Christmas I was given the writing exercise book 642 Things to Write About by The San Francisco Writers' Grotto. My cousin Caroline gave it to me because - like the rest of my family - she knows what a nerd I am for writing.
Only today did I pick it up and begin working through a few of the exercises. I try to write in my journal every day, but some days I get really bored of my voice and need a tad more direction. So I though I would reopen this blog and post the exercises daily.
I realise that with 642 exercises, that's almost two years worth of blog posts. But they're simple exercises, and my idea at this stage is to do a few of them each day, and then I will schedule the posts ahead of time. Cheating? Maybe. But are there even rules, except for what I give myself? It's my writing practice and my blog.
And speaking of my writing practice and rules, I'm just going to give a fair warning that because these are exercises, they will in no way be edited or even make sense most of the time. But I also want to start putting my writing in front of an audience, so this is a good, fairly low risk way to start. I may add some commentary to some of the posts if there are any back stories to my responses.

Enough rambling. Here is the first exercise.

What can happen in a second
Life can happen in a second.
Love can happen in a second.
Creation happens in a second.
So does beauty.
Sadness happens in a second.
Inspiration comes together in a second.
A kiss takes a second. Or a few.
A blink. And a faint.
Pain. And the world.
Poetry.

Thank you for reading,
Astrid

Write without pressure.

It's been six months since I last posted here! Wow-o-wow. I hope you've all been well. If not, feel better soon.
The reason I stopped blogging is that it started to seem like a chore. And I was in a tricky place. I was seeing a councilor and with his help came to realise that if I didn't want to do something and I didn't have to do it, why do it? So I stopped.
I also decided to go easy on myself writing-wise. Writing is something I really want to do. But the more pressure I put on myself, the less I write. Since the last time I posted, my writing has been going well. I attempted NaNoWriMo, and managed 30k (so I say I came second :P), but got stressed and remembered my promise to myself to write without pressure. And since November, I've kept going with the project. I might have the first draft finished by the end of January.

What else have I done? I've enrolled in a Postgraduate Diploma in Writing that will start at the end of February next year. I'm very excited, overly so. As in, already enrolled in all my classes and chosen tutorials excited.

And there's the West Coast Swing routine I'm doing for a competition in March. Yeah, I've kind of taken up Ballroom dancing too.

And I have two jobs! Ack! It's stressful, but there are things like rent and food that are necessary to life.

And! And! I've started researching an idea for the project I'd like to start once the first draft of the current WiP is finished. I won't let myself start writing it, but research is fine, and the more the idea brews in my head before writing it the better. So for now, I'm entertaining myself with pretty Steampunk pictures and cool facts about Sydney in the decade after Federation (naughty, I'm breaking my rule of not talking about future projects, but WHATEVER, I'm excited).

So, it feels good to be back and blogging because it's FUN. :D

Help with research.

1. If you could ask a witch for any kind of spell, what would it be? It can be good, bad, small, big, anything.

2. What trade does a bit of everything? A trade that has an apprenticeship, but might involve wearing a suit.

You're help is appreciated (I'll thank you in my acknowledgements, if this thing ever sees the light of day :D).

Happy writing!

Procrastination

A short post today.

In my last non-book review post, I was talking about my GAD. At my appointment with my psychologist today, we looked at some ways to tackle procrastination.
I procrastinate a lot. A lot of people do it. I even feel comfortable saying that everyone does it now and then.
But I'm not comfortable with the way I put things off. Especially things that make me happy, like writing.
Part of what we talked about today, was writing down the pros and cons of the task I might be putting off. If the pros outweigh the cons, do it. If the cons outweigh the pros, then you've stopped procrastinating and confronted the issue*.

So, regarding my NYWM project, my heart just wasn't in it. I'm sorry if you enjoyed it, but I've put it on the back burner for now and may return to it when I'm ready to put my heart into it.
Talking to a professional has helped me to look forward to writing time again. I've never believed in writer's block, until this year when I started yet another WiP while I had a two book series on the go too. I still don't believe in writer's block, not really. But I do believe that there are emotional and other problems that create the blockages, not the writing or creativity in themselves.

To be clear, I'm not just seeing a psychologist because I haven't been writing as much as I liked, but this is mostly a writing blog, so I'm posting my writing relevant thoughts here.

:D Not such a short post after all.

*That probably didn't make sense. I'll figure out exactly what I meant and get back to you.

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This might seem like a writing book by a poet, for poets. But it is just as valuable for other writers.
If you took each lesson or tip, and replaced the word 'poem' with 'novel' or 'story' (I can't say so much for scripts), you would have some great advice.
In my opinion, more prose writers could take a few lessons from poets anyway.
Of all the lessons, the one I appreciated the most was Hugo's sentiment that he was teaching 'his way' of writing, or showing us new writers how to find our own way. And that is so great. From high school through a creative writing degree to Twitter and the blogosphere, there is so much advice for writers out there. So when someone says they are going to teach me how to teach myself, I welcome it with relief and a smile.

Like many writing books, Hugo includes accounts from his life, and he uses the parts that inspired certain poems. I enjoyed these parts too, I always like to see what kind of life writers lead before/during their writing career.
Overall, this book is worth reading although some of it I'd heard at Uni. But it's always good to be reminded.


View all my reviews

Reassessing.

I have a tendency to take things a little too seriously. In this instance, it's NYWM. I started it because I thought it would be a fun way to start my character blog and challenge myself in a new medium as well as developing my protagonist from my book further.
Then I missed a day. Then another. And a third time.
I started to get anxious because I wasn't following through with my goals. And I started to get anxious because I thought it was crap and who would want to read it?
The best part was that I was concentrating on my other projects because I was putting off my NYWM goal.

Recently I've started seeing a psychologist, because this worry isn't something exclusive to my writing. He told me I have something called General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It's treatable and already I'm starting to feel better.
However, I used some of the techniques I've been learning to manage the worry, and applied them to how I'm feeling about not following through with NYWM goals.
I've overreacted a little, and realised that the idea behind NYWM (besides the writing of course) was to have fun. At least, that's how I should have been taking it.
And it's something I need to remember about my writing. I write because I love it, and it is ultimately fun. As soon as I start taking it seriously, nothing happens and my projects lie stagnant. The same with Twitter and Blogging. If I take them seriously as 'networking tools', then all of a sudden, I'm overcome with anxiety and nothing gets done.

So, especially for the rest of this month, I'm going to have fun with NYWM. Who cares if my character blog doesn't go anywhere? Who cares if it doesn't make sense?

Right now, I don't. I'm going to have fun.

First day of NYWM!

I have started my new blog! The first post of Long Lost: A Diary, has been posted! Check it out, leave a comment. Or tell me what you think here on Asterisk That Thought.

In terms of responding to comments on Long Lost, I have decided to use them in improving my writing as I go. I won't be editing after I've posted. Just cause that would get messy.

Anyway, enjoy! And I will be back with non-fiction bloggy things as per usual on this blog :D