Ohh, it's funny how I can be stupid for a really long time and then realize something pretty basic. I know part of why I have a procrastination problem: I think that when I finally confront of the object that has caused my procrastinating that I will have to tackle it like a wild tiger, then kill it, then roast it over an open fire, chop it up most reasonably, and serve it to my starving imaginary family. Sans the metaphor, I make things feel bigger than they are, and I don't consider that I can have at them in more than one swipe.
A homework reading assignment that's 50pgs... sure - annoying. But 15-20pgs each day of a weekend is very unobtrusive. I've known this sometimes and forgotten it other days. Similarly, but more pathetically, I usually always forget that plotting for a story can go the same way. I can still feel the anguish that I experienced when my schedule "wasn't permitting me" to sit down and plan He's There, thus keeping me from writing it! I've gotta stop seeing this stuff as epic planning sessions and just pick at it. No pressure. It should be fun.
I learned (re-learned? Temporarily remembered?) the lesson thinking about some advice I got in a speech class about two years ago. If you want to present a good speech, nothing can be last minute about it and no part of the preparation can be powered through. Rather than tackling a tiger, it's more like training a... far less dangerous animal. My professor, Mrs. Corona, said that as soon as a speech was assigned, the best way to go about it was to never let a day pass where you hadn't looked over your notes, added to them, and read them aloud. Also, accept that you'll spend a few days working on it without liking how it is yet.
I'm glad I've thought about this while planning Nosferatu in Love!
It's a brand-spankin'-new story, I haven't had to plot in a while and the format here is different than a novel or even the Crystal Palace series, which has installments but they're not wrapped up with bows. But I have "secrets" to success. If you have your own secrets, then ignore me acting like I'm some kind of Writer's Block doctor. :D
1.) Look at the notes every day.
2.) Have a time (or at least a deadline time) when you're supposed to look at them. I pick 4-5pm because I like the lighting in my room at sunset and usually I'm in the mood for tea.**
3.) Work at it for ~2 hours. Time limits vary per person.
4.) Listen to music! I always develop a soundtrack for things I write. Even some of my AIW fanfictions have songs. I see if a lyric gives me an idea or the like.**
5.) Put it down when you feel like you've spent yourself or are getting distracted, because conditioning is a powerful thing. If seeing the document or papers again makes you remember staring at them when you didn't want to anymore, it won't be encouraging. Seeing them should make you excited.
**As always, tea is my helper when I write anything, as is music. :) Find helpers. The reason things like this help is because it's sensual - it appeals to the senses. It conditions your body into remembering and thinking about the story when it tastes/smells/sees/hears something. The effect does more than make you think of the story - it gives it a presence outside of your mind (even if it is in your mind, technically.)
Example - He's There is brought to you by nights at the park near my old house, pomegranate tea, peach green tea, My Brightest Diamond, and my tropical rain forest candle that I've had to replace thrice in the past five years.
I don't know if this is common, but I get inspired to write anything by the smell of fresh air. It's cold out so I can't do it for long, but I open a window, let the crispness come in, and hear the "sound" of outside. I've been inspired for Nosferatu in Love by an unexpected thing the past couple months - a dead tree right next to my window. lol I wondered if I could go on to my balcony and bring the living room coffee table out there to sit at, but, as I said, it's cold. It would actually be so awesome if I could at least put the padding in my coat that I require for Orlok's hunch (it's comfy) and go for a night-walk. But I'm in a new city where I don't know where to walk and I worry about my safety... God, I miss home.
Anyway...
The beach is in walking distance of Ellen and Hutter's home in my series and (presumably) in the original movie Nosferatu, as they live in a coastal town and Ellen very casually goes there by herself. I strongly connect Orlok with ships since he hijacks one on his way to her and I've read that his coat is apparently a mixture of a seaman's and a 19th century German nobleman's (this could be wrong, however. I don't know shit about costumes.) The sea is described in academic texts about Nosferatu as a place where the mind can try to stretch, but it cannot cross.
That's why I drew her on the beach. I think she'll go there a lot, and she's more of a main character than I expected!
I've been watching or listening to this while I plan, because of that. (Beaches inspire the shit out of me, too. How convenient...)
I was thinking of something like this in time-lapse or fast-motion (to clearly catch the fact that it's a sunrise) for the final credits of the last episode to a song called "Perpetual State". I don't know and can't find the artist. Anyone curious can find it on this playlist: http://unknowncolorx.livejournal.com/939.html. I'll go over the playlist another day. :)
So long!
♥,
J
A homework reading assignment that's 50pgs... sure - annoying. But 15-20pgs each day of a weekend is very unobtrusive. I've known this sometimes and forgotten it other days. Similarly, but more pathetically, I usually always forget that plotting for a story can go the same way. I can still feel the anguish that I experienced when my schedule "wasn't permitting me" to sit down and plan He's There, thus keeping me from writing it! I've gotta stop seeing this stuff as epic planning sessions and just pick at it. No pressure. It should be fun.
I learned (re-learned? Temporarily remembered?) the lesson thinking about some advice I got in a speech class about two years ago. If you want to present a good speech, nothing can be last minute about it and no part of the preparation can be powered through. Rather than tackling a tiger, it's more like training a... far less dangerous animal. My professor, Mrs. Corona, said that as soon as a speech was assigned, the best way to go about it was to never let a day pass where you hadn't looked over your notes, added to them, and read them aloud. Also, accept that you'll spend a few days working on it without liking how it is yet.
I'm glad I've thought about this while planning Nosferatu in Love!
It's a brand-spankin'-new story, I haven't had to plot in a while and the format here is different than a novel or even the Crystal Palace series, which has installments but they're not wrapped up with bows. But I have "secrets" to success. If you have your own secrets, then ignore me acting like I'm some kind of Writer's Block doctor. :D
1.) Look at the notes every day.
2.) Have a time (or at least a deadline time) when you're supposed to look at them. I pick 4-5pm because I like the lighting in my room at sunset and usually I'm in the mood for tea.**
3.) Work at it for ~2 hours. Time limits vary per person.
4.) Listen to music! I always develop a soundtrack for things I write. Even some of my AIW fanfictions have songs. I see if a lyric gives me an idea or the like.**
5.) Put it down when you feel like you've spent yourself or are getting distracted, because conditioning is a powerful thing. If seeing the document or papers again makes you remember staring at them when you didn't want to anymore, it won't be encouraging. Seeing them should make you excited.
**As always, tea is my helper when I write anything, as is music. :) Find helpers. The reason things like this help is because it's sensual - it appeals to the senses. It conditions your body into remembering and thinking about the story when it tastes/smells/sees/hears something. The effect does more than make you think of the story - it gives it a presence outside of your mind (even if it is in your mind, technically.)
Example - He's There is brought to you by nights at the park near my old house, pomegranate tea, peach green tea, My Brightest Diamond, and my tropical rain forest candle that I've had to replace thrice in the past five years.
I don't know if this is common, but I get inspired to write anything by the smell of fresh air. It's cold out so I can't do it for long, but I open a window, let the crispness come in, and hear the "sound" of outside. I've been inspired for Nosferatu in Love by an unexpected thing the past couple months - a dead tree right next to my window. lol I wondered if I could go on to my balcony and bring the living room coffee table out there to sit at, but, as I said, it's cold. It would actually be so awesome if I could at least put the padding in my coat that I require for Orlok's hunch (it's comfy) and go for a night-walk. But I'm in a new city where I don't know where to walk and I worry about my safety... God, I miss home.
Anyway...
The beach is in walking distance of Ellen and Hutter's home in my series and (presumably) in the original movie Nosferatu, as they live in a coastal town and Ellen very casually goes there by herself. I strongly connect Orlok with ships since he hijacks one on his way to her and I've read that his coat is apparently a mixture of a seaman's and a 19th century German nobleman's (this could be wrong, however. I don't know shit about costumes.) The sea is described in academic texts about Nosferatu as a place where the mind can try to stretch, but it cannot cross.
A certain self-reflexive edge characterizes Friedrich's canvases of unfathomable expanses, in which landscape becomes a meditation on vision itself, and Murnau's use of landscape as an analogy for the desiring self. Heinrich von Kleist's observations on Friedrich's Monk by the Sea (1809-1910; fig. 43) are particularly applicable to the mood hovering over Ellen as she waits on the beach for Hutter's return -- a situation charged with erotic ambiguity since it is Nosferatu who travels by ship, while her husband moves across the land. Appropriately, Kleist reports his response to friedrich's canvas in subjective terms: "that one has wandered out there, that one must return, that one wants to cross over, that one cannot, that one lacks here all life and yet perceives the voices of life in the rushing tide, in the blowing wind, in the passage of clouds, in the solitary birds." Like the nameless subject of Kleist's commentary, Ellen, too, wants to reach out for something infinite, supernatural, and eternal, although her sitting by the sea recalls a situation of confinement comparable to the one she experiences as she looks at the world through a window, day after day.
-- Angela Dalle Vacche in Cinema and Painting
That's why I drew her on the beach. I think she'll go there a lot, and she's more of a main character than I expected!
I've been watching or listening to this while I plan, because of that. (Beaches inspire the shit out of me, too. How convenient...)
I was thinking of something like this in time-lapse or fast-motion (to clearly catch the fact that it's a sunrise) for the final credits of the last episode to a song called "Perpetual State". I don't know and can't find the artist. Anyone curious can find it on this playlist: http://unknowncolorx.livejournal.com/939.html. I'll go over the playlist another day. :)
So long!
♥,
J
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