I felt stressed. I didn't feel stressed very often, so when I did it hit me hard. It wasn't a huge deal, I realize that now, but things always seem worse in the moment. The basement was flooded, worse than usual. Mom and dad were gone all day and it was rained cats and dogs no -- llamas and alpacas! I forgot to do this thing with the gutters I'm supposed to do every time it rains hard like it was that night and before I knew it, water covered the basement floor. I was so glad mom decided against putting a carpet down there.
And then mom got home. I told her that Noah's ark was about to set sail in the basement. Of course I was exaggerating, mom just thought I was exaggerating more than I really was.
"No, seriously mom, there's a LOT of water down there, believe me!"
"Why didn't you do any thing?!"
"I'm not even a teenager," I replied, my 13th birthday was next month.
"What's your excuse going to be when you're 13?" She asked while filling a basket with towels.
"When I'm 13 I'll say 'but I'm not even in high-school yet' when I'm 14 and 15 'I don't even have my driver's license when I'm 16 and 17 'I'm not even an adult'."
"And when you're 18?"
"I won't have an excuse. At least not a good one."
Mom laughed and started mopping us the floor. After about two hours, not only did I feel really guilty, but the water was gone and everything was fine.
The End
Thank you for reading this pointless and random story that I wrote for no real reason except that I was bored.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
My note book
I have a notebook. It's a plain, red, 70 page notebook that I got for about 50¢. I have filled up about half of the notebook already. Every time I need to write something down, I write it in that note book and put the date at the top. The notebook has everything from stories to to do lists. Try this for yourself. Use only one notebook for all the stuff you write down (except for homework) and write the date on every page. Once you fill your notebook, get another one and do the same thing. Put all of the note books you've filled on a shelf or in a bin so you can look back at them every so often. After you finish a note book write the date of the first entry and last entry on the cover with a marker. It would say something like this:
2010
August 3-November 29
You could make a new years tradition of going through all of the things you wrote in the past year. Encourage friends and family to do the same. You don't have to write in it everyday. Just when you remember. You don't even have to write a complete short story. One of the pages in my notebook says nothing but "Time and Space" at the top. I have stories in there with no beginning or end. Write whatever you want! I also have pages where I simply wrote about a character. If an idea is nagging at your mind, write it down! Your note book will be full in no time.
Two paragraphs.... close enough...
Friday, October 15, 2010
Comedy, Drama and why not to make fun of school assignments.
Today I was too lazy to write a "writing a story" writing assignment. So I'm going to write about nonsense and why I love it.
The other day I made a goofy little CD for myself. I sang a bung of goofy songs I made up, put them on the computer and put them on my iPod. The CD is just plain weird. My favorite song is called "He Probably Hates You Anyways". The song makes absolutely no sense. Which is why I love it!
What does my strange music have to do with writing? Nonsense. Don't be afraid to write things that are.... out there. I'd say about two thirds of my writing is about goofy things. Like my songs, who finds a song about marring Ronald McDonald interesting and profound? If someone did I would like to suggest seeing a psychiatrist. Your writing doesn't nessecarily have to be serious. Sometimes you do have to write serious things, which is very difficult for me! I was assigned some poorly written, over-dramatic, oddly worded books for book reports. I wanted so badly to make fun of them in my writing... but alas, I could not. Instead I made it sound over-dramatic. My friend got a kick out of what I wrote and I still got a good grade because it did sound serious. I'm not giving you a way to do your homework. Don't try that at home! Or school. Or if your homeschooled I guess that would apply to both...
Drama can be written as comedy. You can completely turn it around. Which is fun to do. Here comes the assignment: Write a short piece on any subject, don't make it longer that a page. Write it and make it sound incredibly serious and dramatic. Then write essentially the same thing, only funny. Show both to someone with a good sense of humor. If they don't laugh, write the second one again.
When that is done, you can submit your work to our reader writings page.
Short, funny things are probably my favorite thing to write. Every time I hear something I think is funny (and would fit on a T-shirt) I write it down. I'm filling up a note book with things like "There's a pachyderm on my trachea" and "suddenly a plane landed in a field and out came Abraham Lincoln in a polka-dot dress, doing the cha-cha". Even now I have "I said sophisticated, not English" written on my hand. And my the way, that isn't an insult to the English, I was trying to act sophisticated and I started talking with an English accent.
Comedy is also about the words you choose. If you said "last night I ate salsa before bed which made me have a dream about Justin Bieber wearing a tutu" that's funny, but it might be funnier to say "Last night I had a dream that Justin Bieber of all people was in my ballet class. He can NOT pirouette! That'll teach me to eat salsa before bed!"
This post is getting really long. I'm going to keep writing!
Making fun of things is also good for comedy. Be VERY, VERY careful! Don't make fun of a person. Unless that person is yourself. If you resort to poking fun at things, ask close friends or your mom to make sure it doesn't sound offensive. The way things are written and the way things are read are very different!
Two writing assignments in one day:
That one I mentioned before and write a piece of comedy writing about a famous person from the past (like a LONG time ago) and write a story centered on the comic situations they would get in. (I just ended a sentence with a preposition... ignore that.) Submit your writing to the reader writings page and/or comment!
In retrospect, it would've been a lot easier just to write a "writing a story" blog post. I'm not looking over what I wrote because that will be a lot more work. Sorry for poor grammar and spelling and whatever. Have a nice day.
The other day I made a goofy little CD for myself. I sang a bung of goofy songs I made up, put them on the computer and put them on my iPod. The CD is just plain weird. My favorite song is called "He Probably Hates You Anyways". The song makes absolutely no sense. Which is why I love it!
What does my strange music have to do with writing? Nonsense. Don't be afraid to write things that are.... out there. I'd say about two thirds of my writing is about goofy things. Like my songs, who finds a song about marring Ronald McDonald interesting and profound? If someone did I would like to suggest seeing a psychiatrist. Your writing doesn't nessecarily have to be serious. Sometimes you do have to write serious things, which is very difficult for me! I was assigned some poorly written, over-dramatic, oddly worded books for book reports. I wanted so badly to make fun of them in my writing... but alas, I could not. Instead I made it sound over-dramatic. My friend got a kick out of what I wrote and I still got a good grade because it did sound serious. I'm not giving you a way to do your homework. Don't try that at home! Or school. Or if your homeschooled I guess that would apply to both...
Drama can be written as comedy. You can completely turn it around. Which is fun to do. Here comes the assignment: Write a short piece on any subject, don't make it longer that a page. Write it and make it sound incredibly serious and dramatic. Then write essentially the same thing, only funny. Show both to someone with a good sense of humor. If they don't laugh, write the second one again.
When that is done, you can submit your work to our reader writings page.
Short, funny things are probably my favorite thing to write. Every time I hear something I think is funny (and would fit on a T-shirt) I write it down. I'm filling up a note book with things like "There's a pachyderm on my trachea" and "suddenly a plane landed in a field and out came Abraham Lincoln in a polka-dot dress, doing the cha-cha". Even now I have "I said sophisticated, not English" written on my hand. And my the way, that isn't an insult to the English, I was trying to act sophisticated and I started talking with an English accent.
Comedy is also about the words you choose. If you said "last night I ate salsa before bed which made me have a dream about Justin Bieber wearing a tutu" that's funny, but it might be funnier to say "Last night I had a dream that Justin Bieber of all people was in my ballet class. He can NOT pirouette! That'll teach me to eat salsa before bed!"
This post is getting really long. I'm going to keep writing!
Making fun of things is also good for comedy. Be VERY, VERY careful! Don't make fun of a person. Unless that person is yourself. If you resort to poking fun at things, ask close friends or your mom to make sure it doesn't sound offensive. The way things are written and the way things are read are very different!
Two writing assignments in one day:
That one I mentioned before and write a piece of comedy writing about a famous person from the past (like a LONG time ago) and write a story centered on the comic situations they would get in. (I just ended a sentence with a preposition... ignore that.) Submit your writing to the reader writings page and/or comment!
In retrospect, it would've been a lot easier just to write a "writing a story" blog post. I'm not looking over what I wrote because that will be a lot more work. Sorry for poor grammar and spelling and whatever. Have a nice day.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Writing a Story: Research
There are some fictional books where you just can't get around it. In order to make you book good you have to do some research. There are different approaches to research. My approach seems to be: get a bunch of library books on the subject, read my favorite one and return them all before I have to pay a fine. Other people just look it up on the Internet. They do it the easy way, and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes researching a topic in your story is a good way to get away from the story, but not too far away.
How much do you actually need to research something? It depends. Say you're writing about a medieval princess. You would probably need to know the basic build of a castle, jobs of a royal family, duties of a lady-in-waiting, the clothing worn in that era ect. Chances are if you're writing a book about something you have at least a little bit of knowledge about what you are writing.
There was that movie that just came out. Legend of the Guardians or what ever it was? The one about the owls? Anyways, when I was watching the movie I noticed how detailed everything was (probably because I was wearing 3D glasses) and I wondered how long it would have taken, not just to create the art work, but to learn about owls. Everything was very precise. Someone must have spent hours and hours in a library reading about owls and how they fly and eat and everything else. I suppose they had to find an expert as well. The movie was based on a book, which makes it even more incredible, in my opinion.
That's all I have to say! Sorry this came out so late, I've been so busy and everything has been beyond hectic! I'm hoping to post more often in the days to come. Thank you for reading!
How much do you actually need to research something? It depends. Say you're writing about a medieval princess. You would probably need to know the basic build of a castle, jobs of a royal family, duties of a lady-in-waiting, the clothing worn in that era ect. Chances are if you're writing a book about something you have at least a little bit of knowledge about what you are writing.
There was that movie that just came out. Legend of the Guardians or what ever it was? The one about the owls? Anyways, when I was watching the movie I noticed how detailed everything was (probably because I was wearing 3D glasses) and I wondered how long it would have taken, not just to create the art work, but to learn about owls. Everything was very precise. Someone must have spent hours and hours in a library reading about owls and how they fly and eat and everything else. I suppose they had to find an expert as well. The movie was based on a book, which makes it even more incredible, in my opinion.
That's all I have to say! Sorry this came out so late, I've been so busy and everything has been beyond hectic! I'm hoping to post more often in the days to come. Thank you for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)