No matter what kind of writing you do, fictional or otherwise the question of what 'noises' to have around has long been debated. Some people believe that pure silence is the best thing to give someone's mind complete space to reach its full ability, but then some people who aren't comfortable with silence prefer music, some more instrumental, others more lyrical. But what is the best? Well, quite simply there is no 'best' because writing is an incredibly personal thing to do, people are vastly different, and although there is always something similar in everyone when it comes to this sort of thing it can truly differ, and most probably always will. That's the way it should be aswell.
However, for me, as a person who doesn't really work too well in silence I have to have music but when it comes to the argument of lyrics or instrumental I kind of sit on the fence. Depending on what kind of mood I'm in, or what kind of genre I'm writing depends what I listen to. Generally I listen to slow soft acoustic songs from artists like Gabrielle Aplin, James Morrison, Joshua Radin, Norah Jones etc. These kind of songs relax me very easily and get rid of any stress I have, and obviously stress is a high creativity-blocker. I also find sometimes the slightest lyric in a song might spark an idea in my head for whatever reason. If I'm writing a particular intense scene full of action or horror though I listen to heavier rock like Thirty Seconds To Mars, Linkin Park, Emarosa, The Fray etc so that the faster speed, and inclusion of a heavier percussion puts me in the appropriate mood for the scene.
Lastly, for emotional scenes again I might just use the acoustic songs, but sometimes I find instrumentals help just as much, because when I write a particularly sad or poignant scene I like to imagine the kind of cinematic trope of complete silence except the characters and faded music. These kind of film scenes really engage the audience and effect their emotions, so if I can listen to music that coincides with this kind of scene I feel like I will produce a much more worthy piece of writing.
But as I said at the beginning everyone differs, this is merely what I do.
Thursday, 25 September 2014
Thursday, 18 September 2014
Approaching the Second Year: 12 days to go
Over a year ago I started this blog to document my entrance into Uni, and to write about any tips or experiences I encounter. Now 47 posts later the summers coming to an end, I once again realise the incredible changes that can occur over a year and in 12 days my bags will be packed ready to move into my new house to start the second year of University. So naturally I feel the need to re-cap, and talk about how I feel about the second year etc.
My first year was an experience full of MANY emotions, lots of stressing and best of all, new friends, old friends, wonder and personal development. Yes emotions did run extremely strong throughout the first year, emotions that I truly never knew existed, people react and deal with different things in completely different ways but for me settling in was quite difficult. I was a partial recluse at the beginning of my journey, because I was already feeling quite emotional before I had joined Uni for varying reasons, so being placed in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people was quite a strange occurrence. But soon enough I began to warm to the lovely people I was living with, and I decided the feeling of discomfort I had was a good thing, because it forced me to be more open-minded and willing to do things. Once I had this view in my mind adapting to student life, the night's and all became easier, and I truly and thoroughly enjoyed so many aspects of it. There were friendships that were being made stronger and stronger by the day at Uni. It is such a wonderful feeling to think that just a year ago I never knew any of the University friends I have now, and yet I've become so close to some of them. When I came back for the summer holidays 4 months ago, I honestly felt like a large part of me had changed, I'd lost weight, I had a better view on trust, I felt like I could talk to people easier and I felt better about myself in general.
Considering that is the tiniest snippet of my first year, it makes me feel so positive about going back now. Originally the idea of returning felt a little scary because I'd been home so long, and I'd made new friends, and had some of the most fantastic times, however simplistic they were. But remembering everything that happened and knowing that any problems in my mind that exist will be so much easier to deal with in, what is effectively my 'second life' is such an exciting thought. I finished my first year with a 2:1 and I was so utterly ecstatic when I found out, so that made me even more motivated to finish this next year with a First. I think that's quite an important part of uni...the future, you have to keep thinking about it, and what opportunities might arrive, who you might meet, what could change because that unpredictability begins to make 'the unknown' a little less daunting.
My first year was an experience full of MANY emotions, lots of stressing and best of all, new friends, old friends, wonder and personal development. Yes emotions did run extremely strong throughout the first year, emotions that I truly never knew existed, people react and deal with different things in completely different ways but for me settling in was quite difficult. I was a partial recluse at the beginning of my journey, because I was already feeling quite emotional before I had joined Uni for varying reasons, so being placed in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people was quite a strange occurrence. But soon enough I began to warm to the lovely people I was living with, and I decided the feeling of discomfort I had was a good thing, because it forced me to be more open-minded and willing to do things. Once I had this view in my mind adapting to student life, the night's and all became easier, and I truly and thoroughly enjoyed so many aspects of it. There were friendships that were being made stronger and stronger by the day at Uni. It is such a wonderful feeling to think that just a year ago I never knew any of the University friends I have now, and yet I've become so close to some of them. When I came back for the summer holidays 4 months ago, I honestly felt like a large part of me had changed, I'd lost weight, I had a better view on trust, I felt like I could talk to people easier and I felt better about myself in general.
Considering that is the tiniest snippet of my first year, it makes me feel so positive about going back now. Originally the idea of returning felt a little scary because I'd been home so long, and I'd made new friends, and had some of the most fantastic times, however simplistic they were. But remembering everything that happened and knowing that any problems in my mind that exist will be so much easier to deal with in, what is effectively my 'second life' is such an exciting thought. I finished my first year with a 2:1 and I was so utterly ecstatic when I found out, so that made me even more motivated to finish this next year with a First. I think that's quite an important part of uni...the future, you have to keep thinking about it, and what opportunities might arrive, who you might meet, what could change because that unpredictability begins to make 'the unknown' a little less daunting.
Sunday, 31 August 2014
Dont Underestimate The Powers of Anxiety.
I've written about this before, or rather the subject of Panic Attacks but I wanted to go further into the extent of Anxiety so that people might realise things and hopefully somehow calm their anxieties before it gets to an overly unhealthy stage.
I didn't want to do the awful thing and research just how common anxiety is because really there's no need to, it's a lot and we don't need graphs and charts to tell us that. Dealing with it is the important thing, but in order to deal with it you have to realise just how affected YOU personally are.
The plethora of people affected by anxiety are not all the same, there could be millions of anxiety sufferers and each one has something that makes it a little unique to themselves, so you need to home in on that specific element of anxiety in you. Allow other people to tell you they understand, accept that people will understand and accept their help, but whatever dependency you have on people you still need to kind of sit down and work out what is going to calm things down for you personally.
Anxiety stretches from losing breath and heart racing to full on physical weakness and pain. Depending how much you're worried about obviously affects what extent you get to, but if you get to the worse stage where you literally feel ill, not just mentally, but physically ill and achey, weak, hurt then that's really when the reins have to be brought in and control has to be taken.
One of the most overused lines to an anxiety sufferer is "Calm down" sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't and most of the time you can bat it off as useless, however when you start becoming physically affected "calm down" becomes an order, not a suggestion or a light offering of dialogue. Once physical affects start happening its even harder to cope with, it can come in the form of shakes, pain, headaches etc and stress on top of this starts to put you in a cage, that gets trickier to get out of and eventually reclusiveness can happen.
No matter how dependent you are, you always need someone at some point so being reclusive is very very self destructive. I guess it's alright me saying "stop when it gets hard" "don't become a recluse" but how do you actually succeed? I find these three things help even a little bit;
I didn't want to do the awful thing and research just how common anxiety is because really there's no need to, it's a lot and we don't need graphs and charts to tell us that. Dealing with it is the important thing, but in order to deal with it you have to realise just how affected YOU personally are.
The plethora of people affected by anxiety are not all the same, there could be millions of anxiety sufferers and each one has something that makes it a little unique to themselves, so you need to home in on that specific element of anxiety in you. Allow other people to tell you they understand, accept that people will understand and accept their help, but whatever dependency you have on people you still need to kind of sit down and work out what is going to calm things down for you personally.
Anxiety stretches from losing breath and heart racing to full on physical weakness and pain. Depending how much you're worried about obviously affects what extent you get to, but if you get to the worse stage where you literally feel ill, not just mentally, but physically ill and achey, weak, hurt then that's really when the reins have to be brought in and control has to be taken.
One of the most overused lines to an anxiety sufferer is "Calm down" sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't and most of the time you can bat it off as useless, however when you start becoming physically affected "calm down" becomes an order, not a suggestion or a light offering of dialogue. Once physical affects start happening its even harder to cope with, it can come in the form of shakes, pain, headaches etc and stress on top of this starts to put you in a cage, that gets trickier to get out of and eventually reclusiveness can happen.
No matter how dependent you are, you always need someone at some point so being reclusive is very very self destructive. I guess it's alright me saying "stop when it gets hard" "don't become a recluse" but how do you actually succeed? I find these three things help even a little bit;
- Forceful Desensitisation - If your anxiety is connected to something specific, for example a bus and the claustrophobia of a bus then if you feel you can, try and go on buses more often, try to get used to the hustle and bustle and try and lose the entrapment feeling by making it become a regularity. Put buses or whatever the source is in a routine that's happy. If it's transport, go somewhere happy then the mode of transport will be connected in your mind, no longer as a source of anxiety but a means to become happy.
- Calming Techniques - Sometimes all it takes is for you to look into ways of calming yourself down, whether its controlling your breathing (often the way to stop anxiety spiralling from the beginning) breathing in a steadied and structured way, where you concentrate on it can often relax you. Also the internet is amazing (with exceptions) and there are tonnes upon tonnes of techniques.
- Selfishness - Arrogance and general selfishness is one thing I cannot stand, but in terms of anxiety you sometimes need to be more selfish, if your stress is brought on by other people, limit it. Don't limit the amount of times you see them, just try to limit the stress you have for them by telling yourself that YOU will become worse, which will only make things worse for your friend anyway.
Anxiety is a [take your pick of swearwords] but there are ways of dealing with it. Just find the one thats best for you.
Monday, 11 August 2014
Fantasy; An underestimated genre?
Fantasy is a highly creative, imaginative genre that pushes boundaries of books and films similarly. In comparison to some other concepts/genres of entertainment, fantasy constantly surprises us. More and more people are showing us their ability to en-capture an entire selection of film-buffs and book-lovers with their incredible talent for the extraordinary. Authors such as J.K.Rowling and J.R.R.Tolkien, directors and writers like Steven Moffat, Tim Burton and a whole host of others have given us a means of escapism, a highly marketable selection of films and books and a more open-minded view of the world. The question is, is it underestimated? The power and influence of it, that is. A lot of people are aware of the genre, and possibly too many are a little quick to place it in one specific category, or restrict purely to a young generation. It's probably true that the younger generation and my generation (late-teens) appreciate fantasy more, and are more interested in it, but in no ways can it be specifically and solely for us. One of the best things about fantasy, for me, is that it does give a huge sense of escapism. I'm sure Noel Fielding would agree that it's impossible for us to live our lives and only look at things realistically, and that for happiness, for sanity, and for a bit of fun a little fantasy in our lives is healthy and necessary.
A piece of fantasy that has seriously affected my generation, as we've basically grown up around it and with the characters is Harry Potter, the book series took the world by storm, just as the films did. Wizards, witches, creatures, monsters have been around for ages, years, centuries even in myths and literature, and yet there was something strangely relatable about Harry Potter, which is what I think makes it so popular. Fantasy allows people to take ordinary things in life, and exaggerate them, fantasy itself is a more elaborate version of the word we already live in. Peer Pressure, the existence of strange and unfamiliar people, things. ideas and such have been used as stimuli for films and books such as Harry Potter. Even though that particular series was such a wonderful, fantastically and endlessly interesting one, the idea of going to a new school, new surroundings, nicer parent figures are relatable to a wide audience. Within fantasy, you get hints of reality, essentially its the basis...just made a bit more fun. This is why I think its so underestimated, because a lot of us, I don't think realise the possibilities that come from it, within these great fantasy creations are moral questions, statements etc that not only allow us to escape from whatever problems we have... but in someways give us hope, and allows us to confront them in our own way, in a more bearable way. Lets be honest as well, life is so much more incredible when we believe anything can happen. If you're sad and you see the world and just the world, just plants and people, it's not gonna make anything better, but if you imagine beyond the mundane and the ordinary that there is something larger, something so much more fantastical, how could that not lift your spirits?
I'm gonna wrap this up by saying that the entertainment sector, specifically books and films are underestimated in their powers to makes us feel better anyway but fantasy in particular has such a huge affect on people. Even if you don't realise it, after watching a Fantasy film or reading a fantasy book your mind is more likely to be widened, to be expanded to consider other things....and maybe that gives you room to find the solution you're looking for.
A piece of fantasy that has seriously affected my generation, as we've basically grown up around it and with the characters is Harry Potter, the book series took the world by storm, just as the films did. Wizards, witches, creatures, monsters have been around for ages, years, centuries even in myths and literature, and yet there was something strangely relatable about Harry Potter, which is what I think makes it so popular. Fantasy allows people to take ordinary things in life, and exaggerate them, fantasy itself is a more elaborate version of the word we already live in. Peer Pressure, the existence of strange and unfamiliar people, things. ideas and such have been used as stimuli for films and books such as Harry Potter. Even though that particular series was such a wonderful, fantastically and endlessly interesting one, the idea of going to a new school, new surroundings, nicer parent figures are relatable to a wide audience. Within fantasy, you get hints of reality, essentially its the basis...just made a bit more fun. This is why I think its so underestimated, because a lot of us, I don't think realise the possibilities that come from it, within these great fantasy creations are moral questions, statements etc that not only allow us to escape from whatever problems we have... but in someways give us hope, and allows us to confront them in our own way, in a more bearable way. Lets be honest as well, life is so much more incredible when we believe anything can happen. If you're sad and you see the world and just the world, just plants and people, it's not gonna make anything better, but if you imagine beyond the mundane and the ordinary that there is something larger, something so much more fantastical, how could that not lift your spirits?
I'm gonna wrap this up by saying that the entertainment sector, specifically books and films are underestimated in their powers to makes us feel better anyway but fantasy in particular has such a huge affect on people. Even if you don't realise it, after watching a Fantasy film or reading a fantasy book your mind is more likely to be widened, to be expanded to consider other things....and maybe that gives you room to find the solution you're looking for.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Shorts to Novels: Recovering from the loss.
I will not sugar coat it, when I realised my laptop had died, and there was a possibility that the hard drive could be so fried that I would not be able to recover any documents, it wasn't a pretty sight. I was stressing, I was annoyed, but obviously once the initial shock had subsided I set out to think positively and find alternatives. I searched around for backups of things that I had on there, very very focused on mainly finding the incomplete novel because the idea of re-writing the 14000 words that I'd managed so far was a little scary and upsetting. But there are hella worse things that could have happened! Nevertheless I had found a backup of the novel on my external hard drive, but it wasn't the most recent, it was although still a copy. Today, my positivity hit the roof and I thought that this could actually be a really good thing, because there were parts of the novel that I was a little unsure about, and not totally happy with, so this gave me a chance to re-create and refresh. My plan today was to go on a long walk to a little park/reservoir/lake thingymajig that I like to go to, looking around finding inspiration and writing ideas now, sentences, phrases etc and luckily what I'm writing now I believe is probably better than what I had. I think the main problem with my story was that I'd given myself quite a short deadline to finish a certain amount of words, so I had started to rush myself in parts which obviously is a shameful and sinful thing for a writer to do! With a more refreshed, quality-focused mind I've been able to write something better, and improve. It's like my laptop dying was actually my novels way of saying "I don't care about this laptop, you need to improve me, I'm shockingly bad right now, get your act together, slow down, refresh and clear your mind, and come back and write a better version of me.... I wanna sparkle!"
So with most things you just need to take your time! Just needed to remind myself that.
So with most things you just need to take your time! Just needed to remind myself that.
Sunday, 27 July 2014
Childhood and Blogging disappearance.
First of all I wanna explain why I've not been blogging in quite some time, basically I'm an idiot. I broke my laptop, and messed up the hard-drive and I don't particular have a large amount of money, so I haven't been to fix it yet, nor have I recovered the data from the hard drive (here's hoping the story's still safe). See that was quick and simple, disappearance is down to me being a bit of a prat.
CHILDHOOD. Standard definition would probably dictate that your childhood is the age between your birth and about 13-14 where you turn into a teenager and you get all grumpy and things start changing. This is not the type of childhood I'm talking about here, I'm talking about childhood with more a mental perspective. Over the course of our life, we tend to hear "grow up" "stop living in a fantasy world, you're not a child anymore" and "stop being so childish" at least once. In a lot of cases those saying them probably have a point, and you probably are being a little childish! BUT Childhood as a mentality should never disappear. Let me explain what I mean, yeah you can't crawl on the floor, with a dummy in your mouth expecting to be carried everywhere or transported in a pram for the rest of your life but Children have a lesser understanding of the world, which is good. Lesser doesn't mean bad, it means that they're not old enough to understand everything yet, they haven't necessarily learnt some of the harsh realities of life. I'm not saying that we should ignore the truth behind aspects of life, but children have this amazing ability to see the light; the positive in everything, they laugh at everything, they have a huge imagination where they can make vast worlds out a blank page. It's incredible really and its this part of our life that we should hold onto for as long as possible, no-one said that we had to decrease our imaginative thoughts, no-one said that we had to lose the innocence of childhood. A person who loves and truly lives is much happier than the one focused solely on the realities and seriousness of life. No-one should go through their life, seeing the world in a mundane way, of only paying bills and going to work and nothing more. The happiest person will be the one that can understand reality, and can still pay bills, work, and do the necessary and compulsory things that we, as humans have to whilst also hanging on to a brighter, more child-like side. It's also a great mentality to escape to if anything bad happens to you. escape to a part of your mind where you can see the world as more than just a sphere of nature, wildlife and people because it is more than that. The world contains a huge plethora of creative minds, of beautiful people (in every sense of the word) of people that dedicate their lives to making people happy. It contains places and things that hold almost emotionally healing powers, just by being there, or around them. Even if for one day, you should try seeing the world through a childs eyes.
CHILDHOOD. Standard definition would probably dictate that your childhood is the age between your birth and about 13-14 where you turn into a teenager and you get all grumpy and things start changing. This is not the type of childhood I'm talking about here, I'm talking about childhood with more a mental perspective. Over the course of our life, we tend to hear "grow up" "stop living in a fantasy world, you're not a child anymore" and "stop being so childish" at least once. In a lot of cases those saying them probably have a point, and you probably are being a little childish! BUT Childhood as a mentality should never disappear. Let me explain what I mean, yeah you can't crawl on the floor, with a dummy in your mouth expecting to be carried everywhere or transported in a pram for the rest of your life but Children have a lesser understanding of the world, which is good. Lesser doesn't mean bad, it means that they're not old enough to understand everything yet, they haven't necessarily learnt some of the harsh realities of life. I'm not saying that we should ignore the truth behind aspects of life, but children have this amazing ability to see the light; the positive in everything, they laugh at everything, they have a huge imagination where they can make vast worlds out a blank page. It's incredible really and its this part of our life that we should hold onto for as long as possible, no-one said that we had to decrease our imaginative thoughts, no-one said that we had to lose the innocence of childhood. A person who loves and truly lives is much happier than the one focused solely on the realities and seriousness of life. No-one should go through their life, seeing the world in a mundane way, of only paying bills and going to work and nothing more. The happiest person will be the one that can understand reality, and can still pay bills, work, and do the necessary and compulsory things that we, as humans have to whilst also hanging on to a brighter, more child-like side. It's also a great mentality to escape to if anything bad happens to you. escape to a part of your mind where you can see the world as more than just a sphere of nature, wildlife and people because it is more than that. The world contains a huge plethora of creative minds, of beautiful people (in every sense of the word) of people that dedicate their lives to making people happy. It contains places and things that hold almost emotionally healing powers, just by being there, or around them. Even if for one day, you should try seeing the world through a childs eyes.
Thursday, 26 June 2014
'Remember Sunday'; Simple, Sweet with a touch of Sadness!
(Photo Credit: http://hhof.tv)
So, to my knowledge 'Remember Sunday' isn't a greatly well-known film, which is a shame, but I believe if my memory serves me correctly then it is a TV film, several of which often end up overlooked and disregarded as 'real' movies or in the same league as those made for the silver screen. Okay it's not a breakthrough in any technical way, and it doesn't leave a huge mark on cinematic history, but the film is still an absolute gem! People categorise it as a Rom-Com and I suppose in some ways that's true but it's not an OVERLY comical film, there's comic relief but not constant comedy that I would associate with a Rom-Com. It's not a bad thing at all, no no! I'm not a right miserable git that loves depressing films; I love the fact that I can't really pin point this film to a genre other than to generalise it as 'Romance' and even then it's not too typical.
What makes it different from a 'typical romance?':
- No sex. "Whaaaa? No sex? It's a romance and there's no sex what-so-ever? Well then what do they do through the whole film, talk? or actually build their relationship? IMPOSSIBLE!" yeah it seems quite crazy that such films actually exist, but it's one of those small things that makes this film better and a little less typical. There's something appealing about watching a film and knowing you can watch it with ANYONE and not feel excessively awkward during the sex scenes. Yes folks, it's a family friendly one!
- Real chemistry. This ones a little nitpicky I guess but during my time of being a romance film/book freak I often find what can get in the way of the film being complete are the actors connection. When I say nitpicky I mean REALLY nitpicky! Granted the majority of films have a real believable and convincing love story, with great actors/actresses making us think they're actually together but there comes a time when we see a film like Remember Sunday and we go "Now THAT is chemistry". I can't really explain it in any other words but to say that other relationships in films often seem hollywoodified (sorry for the terrible word) and fit for cinematic purpose rather than making it a little more ... normal? Zachary Levi and Alexis Bledel look good together, sound good together and their on-screen connection is just beautiful to watch. Their acting is so solid and honestly the casting is perfect, they both retain the attractiveness that often sells a film but at the same time they're both a little different. Alexis especially has this certain thing about her I guess, she's beautiful but with an essence of reality, again most film-girls are hollywoodified but everything about Alexis' beauty seems natural and not so 'man-made' as others which I love!
- Concept. Now I'm not gonna lie and say the concept doesn't have any loopholes or possible inconsistencies, I'm also not gonna say that it does because it's all scientific and I only just passed science in school so forget that! But the concept is in a interesting one, it's one that allows us to feel compassion and sympathy for our protagonist and we understand that every day is confusing and tricky, so when he meets this girl and does everything to remember her (Despite the difficulties) it makes it all more amazing to watch.
It's just sweet, okay? Oh and the ending isn't perfect and happy...well I suppose its happy but its sad aswell, doesn't really make sense writing that but I promise if you watch it (its on Netflix) you'll understand and agree with me! It's one that should make even the manliest of men feel a little beat in those stone hearts that they so eagerly protest they have! And this slight self-confessed not-all-that-manly man here still recommends it to anyone, it's quite a daytime film aswell, chilled, if that makes sense!
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