The Writing Sunday

Hey guys. I just finished watching The Magic Beyond Words. You might know what I'm talking about if you're a Potterhead. I went down to my room after an awesome morning at church and an evening with my family.

Ugh Okayyyy, not my family, because I'm still on Germany but my host family. We had double layer chocolate cake because they weren't here on my birthday, Anjo and I got to blow the candles and I got a ticket to Bruno Mars on November people! 

B-r-u-n-o M-a-r-s. Yes, you read it right. How cool is that?

Then I finally had a little time to play with my host brother/best friend. Today I was a baby, he gave me milk and told me stories because he was my dad. Then we were sharks and we protected each other from fishes. It was the longest day of the week. And it was a long week I might add. When you wake up at seven  to run to the train to go to german classes and make it back to you room at nine after cleaning the kitchen you just can't think anymore. All you can do is say you good night prayer and go to bed. At least that's all I can do. At least I got to read The Best Girl, by Emma Harrison. I think It was the ninth time. What? Don't you dare think I'm nuts. If you guys haven't read it, you should. I'm not a fan of Chick Lit, but this book was written by the Queen of  "Show, don't Tell." if you're a writer you might know what I'm saying.

So, today I had planned to go to church at night, but instead I decided to go to sleep early. Because that's what a normal person would do knowing that she has to wake up at five to Skype with her mom. So, I got to my room and after calling Ana I decided I could organize my photos again. I just can't deal with messy pictures. Now, that took me an hour. 

Later, I thought Well I'm not gonna have time to write to the missionaries tomorrow. Let's just do that. But. I had an idea on the back of my head. The Magic beyond Words. 

The Magic Beyond Words, Guys. You can't say no to The Magic Beyond Words. It took me a while to find it. That and my laptop was being stupid, so I restarted it. 

And I don't regret it watching it. 

Today I have absolutely no doubt that I'm a writer. I've known it since years. Right, not to many years, because I'm not even twenty but since I was a child. I might start editing again. It's time to get intrepid April Baker and her twisted family back on editing. That tiny little readhead is been waiting for moths. 

Well, I might start by seeing if I can still wake up at five. 

Confessing...

Every day I wake up looking at the clock. Knowing that I have to wake up and go to work, because I slept too long. Every day I say to myself that today it's the day to start writing in my blog again, I remember thinking that for a month or so. It never happened, because I kept waking up too late and at night I would be too tired to think.

So, today I woke up at 6, did some studying and decided that It was enough, today I'm writing.

Today I'm writing and I'm posting it, I'm not gonna try to be perfect, I'm just gonna be honest.

Germany is a nice country. It's safe, clean, very artistic and well organized. I mean yeah, It might be expensive and have the worst weather ever but I'm really thankful I'm here. I have three months left. I guess you guys haven't been wondered what have I been doing if I was not writing, because before I left writing was all I knew, all I wanted, all I did.

One thing I've been doing as an Au Pair is taking care of the kid and the baby. You know, playing soccer, building enormous rockets with Legos, painting, changing diapers, feeding, and making the kids fall asleep telling them the longest story I can instantly think of. It's fun.

I've been singing with friends from church just because we think we can sing. And I don't know about me but they surely can. I've been going to Institute with all the Young Singles of my stake, cooking for them of just helping to cook. I've been learning how to read the notes on the piano and just learning all I could about the Book of Mormon because that's priority.

I've also been taking some seriously good pictures, because I love sunsets and flowers. I've been getting some resto as well because we're on vacations, A sister gave me a Bible in german and I bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in german because you can't study a lenguage, you just take it as your own including it in your  life an normal routine.

My drawing have been improving as well :) okay! Not that much, I still can't draw a face.

I woke up early so I could write, but now it's time to go to work. But I really wanted to write.

goodbye.

I'm Alive!

And really alive I should say. Sorry I've been out for so long but I found so many excuses for not blogging "Oh, I need to sleep eight hours!" "I might need that time for something else." "I'm lazy and I don't wanna write right now." Okay, that last one is not an excuse, it's the truth.

Many things happened to me since I came to Germany. Things like getting pale because winter was really cloudy. I mean it. I can't remember a single sunny day.

Things like my hands being so not used to this weather that they started bleeding.

Things like getting lost many times in the U Bahn (That's underground train).

Some other things that aren't bad at all.

I went to Rome.

I got some seriously beautiful views :)

 And I baptized as a Latter Day Saint. Yes, you read it right. I'm a Mormon :)

That's all for today, I do have a lot to do today haha, I'll tell you more about some things in another post. Bye :)

Writing Tip #10 - The Editing Time

So, you have to edit a book. A book you just wrote.

And you have to go to work, school or both. You have to eat and you have to do it slowly because is healthier, do homework, housework, do exercise because It's very important, sleep at least 7 hours, read that lovely book you bought one day, watch you favorite T.V. Show and hang out with friends, family or people. Because you're a writer, not a hermit.

You happen to have to much to do. As a writer I know you do want to edit you book, even If you're too busy. Maybe you could do two things at once.

But.

When you edit while you do something else you don't pay full attention to it. You barely edit anything, then you'll be somehow disappointed because you're doing an awful job. And you don't want that. Don't let yourself feel that way.

So, this is a simple tip. Find the proper time to edit, and make it only for your book. No editing while eating, no social networks, stop going to the kitchen to get something sweet because you eat more than you write (Yes, I'm speaking for myself right now).

Give yourself a deadline. Make a schedule. Don't waste you time. Do something!

You book will thank you. 

Drawing! :)

Hey guys, I know I mostly post about writing, but I started drawing like crazy and thought I could share it with you. No, I'm not an ilustrator/designer and neither I intend to be. I just like creating. I love art generally. I just feel like I'm more like a writer, but yet, who knows? Here It is.

I didn't intended this drawing, It just kind of drew himself. But I liked it, even though I have no idea what It is. Hope you have a good week!

Writing Tip #9 - Brainstorming!

So, I really read a lot about this before I posted it but,

First things first.

What's a brainstorm?

Not that.

That's my today's Brainstorm!

So, I wrote a book (Yes, I do like saying it a lot.) and there was a hard part. My characters needed to find an enormous amount of money but the first idea I used was too obvious. First, I asked my friend for help because he's creative. I wrote down his ideas, my ideas and then I brainstormed it. and it ended up looking like that. Don't try to read it because It's in spanish haha. 

But yet, what is it?

Brainstorming is a creativity technique. It consists on writing several ideas or solutions related to a problem. This is mainly done in groups but you can do it individually and if you're a writer, you're not gonna have a problem with it. Here are some advices for you.

How to Brainstorm?

Well, there is really no tutorial for that, Brainstorms normally use mind maps. But you can gather ideas by Free Writing, Free Speaking, and Word Association.

Free writing: 

Free writing is another technique, it's mainly used by writers to overcome the famous Writer's Block and avoid self criticism But I find it useful.

Let's say you have too much in your mind and don't know how to put that in order. You have some ideas but somehow you can´t manage to list them. You don't need to! Allow yourself a bit of messiness. Just get a piece of paper and write all you can. Write nonstop until you run a out of ideas, and then keep writing. When you finish you will probably have a bunch of paragraphs, hopefully a ton of them. Re read them a couple times and list ideas.

Free Speaking:

If you're the talkative type like I am, you might get a lot of ideas by talking. I think talking is similar to Brainstorms because you improvise all the time. You don't plan when you're going to say.Except when you give speeches, obviously.

The problem is, you forget about them when you talk and don't write. So, get a recorder. If you can't, most phones have one. Set an alarm and don't stop talking until it rings. Then you can write them down.

Word association:

This one is my favorite. It's considered a creative technique, but also a psychiatric evaluation. If what you're looking for is a logo, a title or a name then grab a dictionary and look for synonyms, related words, similar words to what you're looking for. Be extravagant. Be ridiculous. Go for the most bizarre, abnormal words you can because you never know what you can discover.

Mind map

If you ever heard about Brainstorms before (and I know you did) This is the one you know about. A Mind Map is a type of diagram where you put the main word in the middle of a paper sheet and write ideas around it. The secondary ideas can be written around another idea, like a branches. Don't worry about order, don't worry to repeat ideas. Just let it go!

And now, I give you the Brainstorm Rules.

The more, the merrier:

Brainstorm's goal is having lots ideas. Focus on the quantity and not in the quality.

Stop Criticism: 

It's not the time to judge. Write down stupid ideas, strange ideas, useless ideas, and between all that trash you probably wrote down two or one that might be useful.

Improving Ideas:

What is described as a good idea? How do you find it? You might not find the answer to this question until you do a Brainstorm. You might find clichés, very common ideas and even childish ones. Don't be disappointed! You can always combine them or make another brainstorm.

So, here's the thing. (Dairy extract)

So, here is the thing.

Dorothee and Heinz came over because the baby will soon be born, i just hope Yazmin and Jan name him Pablo Arael and not  or San Diego. Dorothee is always nice to me and has made me coffee for three consecutive days.

Yes, three days.

You see, when you're sensitive to caffeine like I am, a cup of coffee at afternoon might be a killer. I haven't slept in three days.Yesterday I went to sleep at three in the morning and got up at six to take a shower because I am nuts.

But, who wouldn't be nuts after a month of sedentary state? Today I finally bought a bathing suit. It's not that pretty but I don't care. All I care is doing some sport. (By the way, Gaby. You just realized the ink is passing through other pages and you don't get up to get a pen. Look! There is even a pen right next to the lamp, that gray one. How lazy. Whatever. 

Maybe it's because these dumb markers costed you only 1 euro at Allerei and you needed a reason to use them, because you're too chicken to draw with markers. You also want to write with other colors but you have always written with a black pen in here. Or a blue one. Or one week you wrote with a brown marker because whenever you went upstairs to write, you forgot to grab a pen, but that was in 2009. So, why not trying something new?

*Grabs a hot pink marker*

There you go. See how can writing help? You're just lucky you want/enjoy/are relatively competent for writing. Because initially you didn't wanted to write today, did you? You wanted to sleep.

So, if you wanted to sleep, Why on earth are you writing?You haven't slept much and today you found and interesting book, a book you think belongs to Yazmin because she like interesting stuff; a book about Brain Rules. You didn't pay much attention to it because you eyes were as heavy as that wool sweater you bought at Zara and got the color mixed because you washed it together with a red sweater.

But back to the book. You do remember something about how the lack of dream affects the brain. You also saw that movie one time. Where the kids didn't slept, they had micro naps and got killed by a man with knives on his hands. So you know your brain is exhausted but you can't sleep. Even when Dorothee volunteered  to clean up the kitchen after dinner so you could go to bed early, because dinner are your turn of cleaning. But yet, you won't sleep.

You even laid down in your bed for a long hour and closed you eyes but all you got was visualizing how you want your room because you haven't had the chance of sitting at that comfy  couch because you don't think it gets enough light to read. You also imagined your next haircut and thought a lot about yours and Josué's favorite Universities. But yet, no sleep. 

You know you are tired and you need to sleep more because today Yazmin gave you some simple instructions but you forgot them a minute later, just like you can't remember what you read in the Second Book Of Nephi today evening before Anjo spotted you and went to "cure" you because you were "ill and had lots of spiders in your head" then you drew spiders and pasted them on the wall.

You know perfectly that you need to sleep because tomorrow you have dance lessons at 19:00 and also because you don't wanna wear a disgusted pillow face. And so, we're back to the fist question. 

Why on earth are you writing?

Rigthhhh. You couldn't read because you need your memory for that and your brain is a bit dry. You couldn't draw because you're somehow frustrated because you keep thinking Anjo draws better than you. Like that Africa drawing he made. You didn't want to use your laptop because it gets you into a little stress. So, you made your way out of bed and grabbed your dairy. You didn't know how to start so you read a few older pages and laughed hard at how you used to say you were in love and at the next page you didn't want to see him again, you also found useful material for the new book you're looking forward to write, because you're always looking for material. Then you turned the last page, took a deeeeeeeep breath, grabbed the black marker, and highly exited, you wrote down. 

"So, here's the thing".

****************************************************

Hey guys. Please excuse the spelling, grammar and typos. I initially wrote it in spanish and I traduced this at two in the morning and my computer failed so I had to to it all over again and it's tree in the morning.

Again. 

This is an extract of my personal dairy, it's the first time I ever publish something. The thing went on but this is the part I found funny and decided it deserved a second part of eyes to read.

Or maybe a bunch of them.

Hopefully a critique, a comment, something.

Is someone out there reading this? I'd like an opinion.

Schloss Oberschleissheim

For those who don't know, I said I was going to Germany,  and I wasn't kidding. I arrived here on 30th December and I've been here for a week. I haven't had time to go on Blogger before, also because I didn't have anything good to post but because I used Internet to write important emails. But today, I have something interesting to post. I live in a small part of Munich called Oberschleissheim. It's 4 grades here and they say that, for winter; that's pretty warm. I couldn't believe it.

One day we passed by this place and I promised myself I was going to visit it.

A Castle.

I quickly went on the internet to know more about this Castle, and It happened to be a Museum. It had many historical paintings and an awesome yard. I decided to go on Sunday, It was only two blocks away so I went on feet.

It was absolutely beautiful, the ceeling, the floors, the walls were extremely decorated. This Castle is called Schloss Oberschleissheim and It was built by this architect called Joseph Efner by 1,600. The architecture was decorated mainly Rococo, going foward to neoclasical. Perhaps not the decoration because It was Rococo; but the rooms were so simetric. The castle had a main room in the middle and the same amount of rooms in both sides of the main room, every room had a story, you could tell by the Rococo decoration and the Frescos in the ceeling.

A dinning table for victories had armery and battles all over the decoration, a room for praying had angels, Jesus and other religious figures. Even the paintings had a story, each room had like a tale if you looked at the paintings closely. The castle had very catholic tendencies, but also many mythological creatures such as dragons, gods. Let's just resume that I really enjoyed it and spent like four hours staring at paintings.

Later when I went back home I disliked walking, because I couldn't feel my arms, or my knees. But It was worth it.