Happy Sunday!

So, I don't know how January usually goes for you, but my Januaries are typically full of STRESS and SCHOOL and TRYING TO DO EVERYTHING BUT FAILING and AAAAAHHHH

Sorry, did that get overly dramatic? ;)

Anyways, January 2020 wasn't much different than usual. BUT I did discover some new fandoms/music/other stuff that I'm super excited to talk about.


Hmmm, so what exactly did I do this month?

Um. Well. *struggles*

School started. It's not horrible thus far, but, you know, it's school, so yayyyyy.

But my life has been so uninteresting this month . . .

OH! I went to the March for Life this weekend and it was GREAT. Exhausting, stressful, and very emotional, but it was also a very powerful experience. And I also got to hear President Trump speak! That's the closest I've ever been to any president or candidate, so that was cool.


My Hero Academia (seasons 2-3). I got re-addicted to this show over Christmas break, and January 11th was one of the characters' birthdays!

Guys. This is seriously one of the most motivating TV shows I've ever seen. If you need a kick in the pants to get stuff done, just watch an episode. they are also extremely stress-inducing and bring on full-scale worry sessions over the characters' safety, but it's fine

Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 2). This is my third time rewatching the series, and I forgot just how heartbreaking season two is. And Azula is hands-down one of the scariest villains I have had the pleasure of witnessing - and that's saying something.

from Giphy - Sokka's saying "It's the quenchiest!" XD

Star Wars. So I spent the first day of the new year watching The Rise of Skywalker and crying. XD It's not the best Star Wars movie ever, but I found it thoroughly entertaining and a step up from some other Star Wars movies *cough cough* The Last Jedi *cough*.

Honestly the funniest part was the realization that I've created (but never written down) fanfiction dealing with a certain plot twist in the movie. And I did this about a decade ago. XD

The Hobbit. Unpopular opinion, but the Hobbit movies aren't actually trash. No, they're not perfect, and they definitely don't always go along with the book, but they're pretty entertaining and well-done. My family rewatched all three this month, and now I can't stop listening to the soundtrack.

Excuse me but KILI MY HEART

The Hobbit. Obviously.

Anime OPs. (and when I say "anime" I exclusively mean My Hero Academia XD) I've gotten really addicted to these opening songs - they're super catchy and high-energy and fun to sing in the car.

Skyrim. The perfect studying soundtrack - it's like ambient tracks, but with a fantasy twist. 20/10 recommend.

This year, I've set two "unofficial" writing goals:

- To write something creative every day, even if it's only a few words
- To write one flash fiction piece every month.

Will I undoubtedly fail at both of these goals as the year goes on? YOU BET I WILL.

But will I still give a valiant effort anyways? YOU BET I WILL.

So far, I have written something creative every day this month! I've been mainly working on re-outlining The Inhumans, which has been . . . interesting.

As for my flash fiction piece . . . yeah, that hasn't happened yet. But! January doesn't end until Friday, so I still have time! yes this is just me giving excuses, shhhh

Just in case you missed one of my posts, here are the links to all of them. XD


Meanwhile, around the blogosphere . . .

Gray started a new blog! You can find the new site HERE, and I'm very excited to see what she does with it this year!

Victoria is starting something called ScribeTunes, where she and another writer are creating playlists for writing! Her post explaining this awesome idea is right HERE.

Um, Kara's new book is coming out IN SEPTEMBER!!! *screams* There's more information HERE.

Jenna's Writer to Author series has begun, and it's been awesome so far! <3 <3

Guys. So much stuff is happening in the blogosphere that I can't possibly link to it all. This post would get wayyyyy too long. But I am LOVING all of your new content. <3

. . .

So. On to February, then.

*deep breath*

Maybe I can actually stop panicking over everything I have to do and get stuff done.

XD

Or not.

-Nicole <3

Stop comparing yourself to other people.

They're at a different stage of their art than you.

Don't worry - you'll get there eventually.

I hear this all the time from bloggers, YouTubers - you name it. It's posted all around the Internet and mentioned frequently in pep talks of all kinds.

It's so easy to hear and think, "Yeah, of course I won't do that. It's stupid."

But then you sit down at your desk and pull up your preferred word processor, and that blinking cursor stares you straight in the face.

And suddenly you begin thinking of all your favorite authors, and their lyrical prose, and their heartbreaking characters, and their intricate plots . . . the list goes on and on.

And your thoughts turn to your own story, and all the glaring typos and plot holes and characters with unclear motivations, and a sinking hole appears in your gut, the type that swallows every good thought you've ever had about your craft.

Replacing the good thoughts are thoughts like these:

I'll never be good enough.

So what if  I'm "not at their level of craft yet"? I never will be anyways.

What's the point? My writing will never be as good as hers is.

I'm just not good enough.

And you know what?


You're absolutely right. You're not them. God didn't create you to be them. He created you to be you. And trust me, you are good enough for Him. If you weren't good enough, if you weren't worth something to Him, He never would have created you.

He gave you your talent. And if writing (or whatever your passion is) is something that sets your heart on fire and makes you smile and feel closer to Him, then He will give you the means to do it well.

But there's also the saying of "The Lord helps those who help themselves."

If you want God to work with and through your writing to make it great and powerful, then you have to put in the work. 

And no, this isn't always easy. This is a constant struggle for me. Work is work, no matter if it's your passion or not. And work means bending over a desk for hours at a time, pondering word choice. Work means giving 110% of yourself for as long as you can.

Work isn't supposed to be easy. That's why it's called work.


You know what is easy?

Procrastination. Comparison. The thought of "I'll never be as good as any other successful writer, so I might as well watch YouTube for three hours."

This thinking is so dangerous. Not only is it impressing upon you that your skills are worthless, but it's also giving you permission to waste your time.

*slams hand on table* STOP THIS RIGHT NOW. Trust me. You don't want this to become your permanent thought process.

You're thinking this because you're comparing yourself to others and finding yourself and your craft inferior. And because of this, you're too scared to work on your craft because you fear it will never measure up. But in not working hard on your passion, you're also not improving at it. And that's worse than working hard on a project and thinking that it's a failure.

Because failed projects will eventually turn into projects done right. But a project never completed can't ever improve.


Stop comparing yourself to other people.

You're just as good as they are - don't put yourself down.

I see these messages all the time. And they're right, but only on one count.

You can't compare yourself to other people. God didn't create you to be them. God created you to do things only you can do.

But the only way to discover these things is if you put in the work.

So stop reading this post. Go pull up that word processor and stare that blinking cursor down.

And write.

-Nicole <3

Happy Sunday!

In 2020, one of my unofficial goals is to start plowing through the loooooong list of tags I've racked up through my 1.75 years of blogging. Whoops. XD

A while back, the amazing Bree @ The Long Voyage tagged me for her original tag, the Never Have I Ever Tag (Writer Edition). It looked really fun, so here we are, about five or six months later. (Sorry, Bree. XD)

THE RULES:

• Link and thank the blogger who tagged you. Thanks, Bree! <3
• Include the graphic somewhere in the post (or make your own!) *points above*
• Answer the questions truthfully and honestly. . . . seems legit.0
• Tag 3 bloggers. See, now this is a reasonable tag amount. *glares at the Sunshine Blogger Award*

NEVER HAVE I EVER...

Hahaha. Ha. Ha.

Yeah, I am totally guilty. 95% of the novels I start are unfinished. It's embarrassing. Never ask me to show you my Google Drive.

. . . technically, no. But I have started stories by hand, if that counts. :D

ALL THE TIME, GUYS. This happens especially when I take a month-long break from a story and completely forget what tense I was using. This happened several times when I was writing the first draft for The Inhumans #1.

Are you kidding? I STILL don't research as much as I should. Even for second or third drafts. I'm just lazy. (Should I look up how much a bottle of hair dye costs? Yes. Have I done it yet? . . . No.)

Do your research, kids. Don't be like me.


I can't say that I have. My protagonists' names are basically set in stone from the get-go. I HAVE changed side character names halfway through the story, leading to much confusion.

Despite the fact that I HAVE done NaNo before, it's a hard no from me. I've never written a complete story in less than 31 days. Maybe I'll finish the current one I'm writing soon, though.

(editor Nicole here. I wrote this post about three months ago. and no, I have not finished that current project yet. #yikes)

. . . no. I don't write late enough for that. XD Although I AM becoming a night owl, so this possibility is becoming more and more likely.

*sigh* Yes. Quite a bit. I don't think I've done it online, per say, but I definitely do it in conversation with my friends. And when looking at newspapers and official documents.

. . . . yeah, I'm that person. XD


I don't think I've yelled at myself, but funny story: I was writing last year's NaNo novel before the start of religion class. My friend - let's call her Rose - is super competitive, and we were having a study game in class that day. She thought I was studying for the game, and being the person she is, she told me, "Stop studying for the game, Nicole - unless you're on my team."

I told her that I wasn't studying, I was writing. But then, just to spite her, I wrote this glorious sentence:

What were THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT IS HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER. TAKE THAT ROSE we going to hear now?

No, you didn’t read that wrong. Our test was on the Ten Commandments, and I interrupted a sentence to write that. XD

Yes, that's still in the rough draft. No, I have no desire of cutting it yet.

*shrugs* Not to my memory, but that sounds like something I would do.

Very few of my characters are based off of someone I know in real life, so I'd have to say no. I wouldn't keep it out of the question, though. *cough*

HECK YES. Let's put it this way: you can clearly tell when I was listening to Hamilton while writing. I literally have one of my characters saying, "I am not throwing away this chance." *facepalm*


. . . no? I MAY have written a few sentences while on a bus or something at that time, but I honestly don't remember.

I do not like coffee, so no.


Oh, yes. I've even dreamed about my characters before, and let me tell you, those dreams are interesting. (Never get me started on character dreams - I have a LOT of examples.)

*cackling laugh* That's classified information. All I will say is - maybe in the future.

This is an accurate depiction of my life. Why do you think I'm writing this blog post right now? #procrastination


I don't think so. I HAVE had some Carpal Tunnel Syndrome symptoms before, but my wrists haven't actually hurt before.

That thought terrifies me, so I don't have many drinks near my iPad/laptop. But no.

I think all the software I use automatically saves? So no.

Google Docs is the best. What can I say?

By "finished a novel," do you mean first drafts? Because yes, I have!

If you mean fully completed revisions and edits and have a finished product . . . well, I'm working on it.


Not gonna lie, yes I have. Usually when my characters are being naive, or when the Author Favorite is about to appear. I recently did it in November when I was planning out my Broken Character's backstory.

I don't think I've cried YET. But I already know scenes where I probably will, and I am dreading writing those scenes.

I have attempted this, but I'm just not a very good drawer, and I don't understand the one map website I tried to use. So technically, yes, but they're not very good maps.

Yeah . . . I mean, it's searches like "effects of bruised ribs" and "what do spear wounds look like" that make me pray that the FBI doesn't think I'm a serial killer.

I'M A WRITER, I PROMISE!

THE TAGGED

Hmm . . . who do I want to see do this?

Faith @ The Writer's Song
Ash @ starlight strands
Savannah @ Savannah Grace Writes
And one more, just because I feel like it . . . Jenna @ Jenna Terese

And, I mean, if you want to steal this tag, I'm not going to stop you. *gifts you the tag* That way I can hear alllllll the secrets.

I hope you enjoyed this tag! If you did, make sure you smash the subscribe button and hit the little bell icon so you get notified - hold up, this isn't a YouTube channel. XD

-Nicole <3

Happy Sunday! And HAPPY 2020!!!!

*bad joke incoming*

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Wow, I haven't written a blog post since last decade. Crazy, right?

*booing*

Ahem. As I was saying, it's a new year, and with it comes, for some of us, NEW BULLET JOURNAL SPREADS!

I originally wanted to do a "How to Bullet Journal" post, but there are already so many of those out there. Instead, I decided to do a post on different types of spreads you can put in your journal!

If you're planning on starting a bullet journal, don't worry - I'll point out the basic spreads to use before going on to more . . . shall we say, unique spreads. XD And the necessary spreads kind of turned into a how-to post of their own.


Anyways, let's just jump right in. This intro is long enough.


First off, to clarify - when I say spread, I just mean a page in your journal dedicated to a specific topic. It's nothing fancy, it's nothing elaborate (unless you want it to be) - it's just a page or two. XD

And ALL of these spreads can be modified to suit your needs! There's no "right" way to do any of them - it's entirely up to you. Don't feel limited. :)

So, our first "necessary" spread to mention is the . . .

FUTURE LOG

This sounds complicated, but the only thing that's complicated is writing out allllll the little numbers.

Basically, a future log is where you write down all the important dates for the year. This way, if you hear of an event happening in six months that you want to remember, you have a place to jot it down.

You honestly don't even need the little calendars to go along with it. I just like the visual.

MONTHLY CALENDAR

As the title suggests, a monthly calendar is where you write down all the important events for the month. You transfer all the dates of that month from your future log to here (just so you don't forget they exist) and add in any new dates that come up.

You can also add a "motivational" quote or two - or just a stupid quote. Whatever works. XD

DAILY LOG

You guessed it - this is for all the daily tasks that you need to accomplish. This is the spread that you'll use most often (obviously).

There's a ton of different ways you can do these logs. Here are a few:


This one is ugly as all-get-out, but it's good for summertime.

This is a good combination of time-blocking and just listing tasks. (I only stopped because coloring in all the blocks was time-consuming.)

For more daily log inspiration, I highly recommend YouTube. XD


Okay, so that's all of the "necessary" spreads you would need. Now for the fun stuff! (This is where it gets good.)

TITLE PAGES

Doing a title page at the beginning of each month in your bullet journal looks really nice. I also do one at the beginning of each year. They don't need to be Extra - I just write the name of the month and a quote or aesthetic below it, and it works just fine.

YEAR IN PIXELS

(please ignore the fact that I spelled pixels wrong)

I tried this in 2019, and it's pretty cool. Basically, at the end of every day, you fill out a square with a color corresponding to your mood. At the end of the year, you can look back and see when you were the most stressed or the most happy. And it only takes thirty seconds out of each day to complete!

(I should add, though, that drawing out that graph? NOT FUN. It took FOREVER and I was continually in fear of smudging. Beginning bullet journalers, be advised. XD)

REASON TO SMILE

I got this idea from Keturah a while back and loved it so much that I still do it. However, I've stopped dedicating a page to it - now I just write it in the corresponding daily log.

Every day, you write down one good thing that happened, no matter how insignificant. It's like a quick, positive journal entry.

Highlights from my own reasons to smile:

HABIT TRACKER

If you want to form a habit of learning a language every day, journaling, or something else, than habit trackers are the spread for the job! I've drawn in mini-calendars for each habit and colored in the corresponding box for each day that I've done the habit. 

However, you can modify this to whatever works. I've tried graphs before. You could also do lists, doodles . . . whatever you come up with!

BRAINSTORMING SPREADS

I can't provide an image for this because SPOILERS for secret projects, but you can just turn a page into a hurricane of random notes that will most likely disturb all who look upon it.

That's what a brainstorm page is for. Don't be aesthetic. The messiness IS aesthetic.

(so I have no idea what I'm saying at this point but it's fine)

SPREADS THAT ARE JUST COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURES

I accidentally drew the spread upside down, and when I realized that, I got ticked.

So . . . yeah. Moving on. XD

SPREADS THAT YOU MEAN TO FILL OUT BUT NEVER DO

Because let's face it - not everything is going to work for you. This "RM Memories" spread seemed like a good idea, but I never filled it out.

Which is fine, honestly. Sure, it's a little annoying, but I learned from that. From now on, I'll just write memories down in blog posts or in a diary. :)

Don't stress about not completing something or messing up something. I didn't complete my Year In Pixels, I don't cross off every single checkbox for the day, and I definitely don't do my habits every single day. But none of us are perfect.

In fact, to remind myself of this, I wrote this on my 2020 title page:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So those are just a few spreads that you can use for bullet journaling! If you want inspiration for some different spreads or designs, here are a few YouTubers I HIGHLY recommend:

AmandaRachLee (if you want plenty of doodles + monthly playlist spreads!)
studyquill (for simple, school-related spreads)
TheCoffeeMonsterzCO (for stickers! lots of them! and pretty intense daily logs)
DORMI (a Korean bujo-er who does really simple, easy spreads)

And of course, there's a huge bullet journal community on Pinterest as well. XD

I wish you luck in whatever journal or planner you use! And have a productive 2020! (because seriously, I have been 100% unproductive) (if anyone needs a productivity accountability partner, HIT ME UP and maybe we can work together!)

-Nicole <3