Consequences and how to get unstuck

Hello everybody, as you did not see me for a bunch of weeks here on the blog, you can realize I’m still struggling to find out the right balance between work and writing. As my days are never the same, it’s pretty hard to create an habit.

Anyhow, I found a way to get unstuck that might be useful also for you.

I thought about consequences.

As you know I have been struggling for one week and half to go on with Joyce’s goal to win Kevin’s love.

And I remember that she stole some money to get the flight to get back to England.

Now it’s time for Joyce to deal with the consequences of her behavior. Developing the plot this way let me go on towards the first major turning point and let me test Joyce in aspects she never dealt with before.

Besides, Joyce will step towards a first changing for the first time, not a radical change in her behavior though, but I’m wondering how a childish and stubborn and self-obsessed person like her can face life difficulties. After all, I’m writing as a way to study my characters and their growth from childhood to adulthood.

Little update: yesterday evening I took my draft and found that I had clear in my mind my first major turning point (1MTP), but could not find the right hook from what I’ve previously written.

For that, I decided to give some room to my imagination and decided I would have written the 1MTP later.

The fact is that I can’t see the whole scene with my eyes and I’m more excited with what will happen next the 1MTP.

Here I sum up my 1MTP: I want Joyce regretting to have been come back home just for Kevin and now that she feels hopeless and her pride is wounded, all that she wants is getting back to school abroad, but a terrible news forces her to stay at home.

What I’m asking to myself to develop the part after this terrible news, is what Joyce will do soon after realizing she must stay home and deal with all the people she hates? What’s the consequence?

Who she will ask help to? And who will help her, what will suggest her to do?

Consequences, consequences, consequences… that’s the fuel of the story.

Writing a scene (first draft)

Go on, even if you feel more as a carpenter than as a writer.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s someone out there with my same passion for writing experiencing my same doubts and woes.

If so, I’m writing this for you and for me, too.

During these days I got just a very little time to spend with my writing and non-writing stuffs (Socials, blog posts, quotes to pin).

It’s a sort of training getting in and out of your word with the easy capability to still keep up with the trail, where you left your story to be completed.

It’s an ability to train, I think.

As I got just a few time to focus on what I love, I found myself writing more as a carpenter hammering around than as a writer writing delicate and sensitive things.

That’s a fact.

Last week I felt butterflies in my heart and words streamed out easy from my brain through my fingers.

This week, I’m kind of hammering the keyboard lol.

Everyone advices you to keep on writing even if you don’t feel to, but I’ve never followed their advice, because I already know that the quality would be pretty bad and I would got frustrated.

Instead, this time I think I should follow this path, we should go on writing instead of stopping us.

As this is a first draft, be conscious that what matter is quantity, not quality. We must accomplish the final goal: have the story get done.

As usual, to start the engine working,  I start writing randomly, maybe getting some inspiration from what happened during the week.

Here is an example of my random writing:

Sorry for my grammar, but Englsh is not my first language. (Besides, don’t worry about grammar when writing your first draft).

His back in front of her, she can’t peer how he looks now. And she even doesn’t care.

She feels the urge to slipping behind him, feeling his muscle tensed under her palms and smile. She needs to smile at least.

And he was the only person she was glad to see after a long time.

“Just guess” she grins behind him.

Aiden’s muscles tensed as she imagined. He yanks her hands down and turns.

His face gets serious. She never saw him so serious. Mocking, but never that way, his eyes focused into hers, his temper was almost annoyed by her presence. He still takes hold of her wrists.

“Stop doing the kid”.

Her hands on him got him frustrated.

Joyce stops smiling, regretting to let go of herself. Her face turns steely. her eyebrow rises up in one second, her fury ready to explode.

She yanks her arm back from his grip and that’s the push for him to yank her back when he slams his lips on hers.

What she deserves the way she deserves it. It was his way, the only one he knows because he has never known how to way differently.

Random scene 1

Last week one of my colleagues at work brought some cakes and sweets to celebrate his birthday.

Another girl and I went to kiss and hug him to thank for his kindness. And as he was sitting at his desk, alone, we took him by surprise. I know two girls all at once is like he won at the lottery lol, for that he froze as he did not believe at his eyes!

He did not reply or say anything because I know he got a great poker face btw, but as I feel to put a lot of him into my second protagonist Aiden, I know the reaction I wrote above fits perfectly both Aiden and him.

What’s your way to find inspiration for writing your scenes? Let me know in the comments!

Writer’s block

The truth is that I can’t built up characters without relating them to people I know for real.

Joyce was stuck on that plane for about one week. And my brain was fighting over to solve that problem. Instead, I went to live my life and I stopped her life for a while to live mine.

Over the desperation to being stuck along with her, my process to get unstuck is quite easy, but I forget it everytime I’m back to that situation.

After being upset with myself, I remember that the first thing to do is to step back to what you have previously written.

While flipping through the Word pages, I felt the urge to write a scene that came to me thanks to a conversation I had with a person.

This person gave me a different perception of a woman’s life, something I never thought about, because I think it’s something that doesn’t suit me. But it fits so well on Joyce, my main character, and gave me the right shade in her pattern of color.

So I worte this scene even if I know I’ll put it in the middle of my story.

Then, I came back to the part I needed to go on with and felt still stuck. For about a week I left Joyce being stuck on her plane and I went out living my life. Then, after a week, I complaint with myself to have lost the train of thought.

The solution comes to me, finally, after about 1 week, at 23 p.m. (damn, tomorrow I need to go to work).

I rise her stake.

She came back home just to declare her love for Kevin but things went bad for her.

So she gave herself a timer within she promised to herself she would have achieved her goal: winning Kevin’s love.

How to raise her stake? I read an article that I’m going to wrte below.

1. if my character doesn’t achieve X in a certain amount of time, then big consequences will ensue. I’M GOING TO USE THIS ONE FOR NOW, JUST TO TEST HER. I’M CURUIOUS ABOUT WHAT SHE WILL DO NOW.
2. By putting the main character — or those they love — in a position where they lack such safety and security, you’ll force your character into survival mode. The consequences if your character doesn’t succeed are high, but readers also know that people in survival mode often make rash decisions.
3. Placing your character in a situation where they’re forced to question their beliefs or face the loss of their reputation, is an easy way to add instant tension to your story. NOT THE ONE FOR ME NOW. I WANT SOME ACTION IN A SHORT TIME.

Now I feel excited to know how she will get out of troubles.

She stole some money from her school mate to pay her flight to come back to England, she quitted the school (she is attendind her year abroad in France) just to celebrate Kevin’s graduation party to have the opportunity to come out about her feelings for him, but her plan went bad.

So now she is planning to have two more days off, away from school, just to win Kevin’s love at all cost. As it is not enough, she needs her family to not know anything she has done.

Why Joyce is so stubborn and doesn’t follow the rules at only seventeen?

Warm-up

When you come back to your words count goal, it’s easier if you warm up first and then get into the real race.

For me what works the best is coming into my world back again.

My warm up is thinking about my characters as friends I’m looking forward to see. For example, Joyce is to me that kind of girl that you see at school, the one that attends your same class, eat your same lunch sitting at the table next to you, but still you consider coming from another world. You look at her and see that she is the type of girl that doesn’t fit you, what she says, how she acts, it doesn’t fit with your personality. And still, she acts in a way that you find curious to know about just because is something completely different from yours.

By the way, today my warm up looks like this. This morning I planned to sit here at the park and then I looked at my agenda and felt overwhelmed. Still. Shit!

I’m sorry if this post is not perfect, but I think this must follow my stream of consciousness, otherwise it won’t be real and pure for you, neither for me.

But I did already know that going on towards the inciting incident as I have planned to do was just scary and overwhelming for me. Yes, because I planned to start my week 1 by writing from the beginning towards the inciting incident. First draft obviously.

And that’s huge, I know. I don’t know if I’ll accomplish my goal, but at least I will try it, anyway.

But I sat here and look at my agenda and consider what to do first. Pinterest, Instagram, We heart it, 500 words per day, then my blog post and Joyce is still stuck on that plane and I feel she is ready to do the bitch, just let me know how you want to do the bitch, damn girl!

I post like this just because it’s a way to exorcise my fears and to free my mind, to not think in a logical way in the sense we are used to understand. My random thoughts  sound logical to me, anyway.

I need to free my mind, free my thoughts, because i’m writing a frist draft, the only place in the world where are no rules, believe me, no rules at all. Once you understand this, it will be easier to write.

So today I felt to warm me up by writing this.

Anyhow, Joyce is still there. She doesn’t look forward to see Kevin. She got a plan.

Little adivce about characters. I found that I feel natural putting what attracts me about a person into several characters, not just one. For example, I found Kevin is completely different from Aiden, but if I see Kevin through Joyce’s eyes, I would describe him just like the boy who squeezes my heart every time I see him. I feel how her heart stumbles when Joyce sees Kevin, it’s exactly how mine does when I see him, even if Kevin and his personality doesn’t fit mine, but hers.

Joyce just can see the bridge of his nose slipping down and then the tip going up to the ceiling. A very slight dash of freeckles that just came out after the end of the summer, as he spent most part of his days under the sun. And then I can see how he ligthly tilt his head in the opposite direction and smile when you said somehting true, but he doesn’t want you to know how mush true is it for him.

Joyce is fascinated by details as much as me. She doesn’t give a damn about what’s just beneath the surface, she doesn’t care for now, as much as me.

And her brain puzzles over the way to talk to him alone, as much as I want do it with my Kevin, but I can’t find the way.

When you write, be truly yourself. Think about a simple situation. For me know is how to talk to someone you have a huge crush for, but you can’t because of the place you are, because of the people around you both. because of their bad talks about you, because of your reputation falling into pieces, because of what other may think, because this boy is still engaged, because of a matter of age, because millions reasons.

What’s yours? Write about something you experienced. If you focus on your days, for how much you consider them all the same, all boring, all painful, you will find something to write about according your own perception of the world, your own experience of some event. And your own experience is gold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First: before I began writing for real and procrastinanting too much for me to bear this shit long enough, I decided to have a script in mind.

 

Little advice before getting into my mind

I’m sorry if I’m going to schedule my posts not from the very beginnig.

The truth is that I decided to start blogging later than I beagn writing.

For that, I’m going to skip some topics for now, because I already worked on them and I want to keep you up with the things I’m really doing now. 

What I’m going to skip, but that I will write about later is how to get to the final idea, how to write down the paper the very bones of your story, how to get inspiration for your characters, why I’m writing what I’m writing (this last concerns the theme and the message I want to give to the readers through my novel).

Though, I promise I’m going back to these parts soon.

The fact is that I want to use this space as a diary and I want to be 100% genuine with you, showing up my real process, my mess. This is not a perfect guide, because I know that before having a perfect guide that works for you, first you need doing mistakes and having a big mess growing up in your mind. Once you’ve tried several methods and faced troubles, you start improving your writing and find what works the best for you.

My purpose is to show you the “backstage” of my writing process, how you step out of the mess and start building your own world.

Many authors avoid to expose this intimate part of the process because it’s like stepping into the mind of a psychopath (for real! lol).

But I feel I want to share this part with you, it’s my way to exorcise my fear and at th same time tracking where my path is going to go.

Where I’m starting from now?

1. I’ve got already the bones of my story clearly in my mind: I know how it will begin and how it will end, what are the key scenes (inciting incident, middle, turning point, moment of truth) –> as promised, I’m going to focus on these topics later
2. I already know some aspects of my main characters (Aiden, Joyce, Anne, Kevin)
3. I already wrote some key scenes, but I found that keeping on writing just scenes that are not linked to each other misses my purpose of cohesiveness.

Now I’m stuck with the inciting incident and in the next post I’ll explain how I got myself unstuck.

Myriam

Back again…

Hello there! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? (Like just a bunch of years —lol!)

Last time we talked, I was nineteen and I started blogging about movie as a manner to state my identity, something that school never helped me to find out. So I decided to find it out on my own.

But I was too young and some of my beliefs about being talented and being successful in what you love doing turn out to be completely wrong.  But as long as my beliefs did not help me to work seriously hard to be talented and successful as I wanted myself to be, I quitted my passion of writing.

Instead, I prefered focusing on a bunch of wrong decisions I made, rather than going on on what I love doing.

For a long time, almost four years, I avoided coming back here out of shame.

Along this period everyhting has changed but my love for stories. The urge to put words down the paper is still here and I want to believe that if it stays despite all the changes I went through, then it means something.

So, I realized what I want for this blog has completely changed.

It’s time to come clean.

I don’t plan to offer resources on movies anymore.

If there’s something interesting, I will surely write about it, but for now I plan to step my way back to my roots.

For too long I felt like I betrayed a promise to myself, not working hard for what I want. I lost too much time and time is a non-refundable currency.

I need to have the gumption to build my dream of becoming a writer and I want this blog to be the place where the magic happens, not just for me, but for you too. I want this blog to be a place to inspire you.

Starting writing from zero is hard and I’ve never found a proper guide to tell me what a first draft is and how it works.

Besides, writers tend to be quite private and what may work for someone could be totally wrong for someone else.

So I want to give my vision, for all the people outside that have the gumption to start writing from zero as I’ve been doing since 5 months.

So moving forward, I’m pivoting this blog to focus on my own way to build stories. Maybe that means no more movie blog posts anymore, or maybe it means just a bunch of them, who knows! But I want to start focusing on giving you my best advice on moving on with your romance along with mine and I hope you will find them helpful and inspiring!

In the coming months, you can expect to see me:

• Using this blog as a day-by-day diary that goes through my writing journey starting from zero as an aspiring author
• Sharing my solution to overcome the fear of putting the words down the paper
• Giving practical tips about being interesting as an author on your socials, about creating a writing habit, about staying focused on your goals
• Using my Instagram and Pinterest!
• Lot of stream of consiousness and random thoughts from my messy brain

Never fear, I know that authors and writers are private people and sometimes they prefer not to talk about what they are working on to anyone because they are scared to be judged and that their work doesn’t worth.

Please, consider this place yours, because talking about what you are writing gives you more power! Feel free to join your journey along with mine, because we are stronger if we are together!

I really must thank all of you for your support!

Keep on writing your stories,

Myriam

Suggestion: Photoshoot and backstage from the most famous movies

Hi dudes! It’s hot here, but let turn your mind away from the heat and enjoy this unpublished gallery from the most famous movies in chronological order. Pay attention, please: danger of laughter and astonishment XD

Frankenstein (1931)

La finestra sul cortile (Rear Window) 1954

Bulli e Pupe (Guys and Dolls) 1955

Gioventù bruciata (Rebel without a cause) 1955

Psycho (1960)

Goldfinger (1963)

Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)

2001 (1968)

L’esorcista (The Exorcist) 1973

Lo squalo (Jaws) 1975

Monty Python (1975)

Tutti gli uomini del presidente (All the President’s men) 1976

La spia che mi amava (The spy who loved me) 1977

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Un lupo mannaro americano a Londra (An American werewolf in London) 1981

Conan il barbaro (Conan the barbarian) 1981

Blade Runner (1982)

Nightmare (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Gremlins (1984)

Top Gun (1986)

IT (1990)

Hook (1991)

Batman Il ritorno (Batman returns) 1992

L’armata delle tenebre (Army of Darkness) 1992

Le Iene (Reservoir Dogs 1992)

Léon (1994)

Goldeneye (1995)

Star Wars Episode I (1999)

Il Signore degli Anelli (The Lord of the Rings) 2001

Il Signore degli Anelli (The Lord of the Rings) 2003

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Casino Royale (2006)

V per Vendetta (V for Vendetta) 2006

The Dark Knight (2008)

Inception (2010)

Harry Potter (2011)

Il Cavaliere Oscuro-Il Ritorno (The Dark Knight Rises) 2012

Even If: If Batman and Joker were painted by Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci, how them could be?

Ciao ragazzi, è passato un po’ di tempo dal mio ultimo post, ma non preoccupatevi, sono tornata XD E oggi voglio mostrarvi una gallery aristica che ha come soggetto il mondo di Batman? Conoscete Batman? Certo che sì, il mitico uomo pipistrello, dapprima un fumetto e divenuto poi un film adattato da molti registi negli ultimi anni: Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan. E ora diventato, insieme a Joker, soggetto delle opere più famose di Leonardo da Vinci e Van Gogh grazie all’artista Vartan Garnikyan.

Hello guys, it’s been a long time since I wrote my last post. Don’t worry, I’m back XD And I want to share with you a little bit of art, for a change. You know Batman? Sure! It’s not only a comic, it’s also a thousand of movies shot by a lot of directors during the last years: Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher, Christopher Nolan. And now Batman rules into art too! Let’s see the masterpieces by the artist Vartan Garnikyan who put Batman and Joker in famous paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Van Gogh.

Davvero fantastiche! Qui sotto potete trovare un emozionante corto del regista Jacob T. Swinney che celebra la cultura di Batman dagli inizi del 1943 fino ai giorni nostri, dove Batman diventa Lego!

Godetevi la gallery, a presto ragazzi 🙂

They look amazing! Here below a nice short by director Jacob T. Swinney to celebrate the Batman culture from the beginning in 1943 till Lego mood!

Enjoy the ride! See you soon guys 🙂

Short: Sabbia by Paolo Sorrentino

Mentre a Cannes Sorrentino presenta Youth- La Giovinezza, oggi voglio mostrarvi un cortometraggio non convenzionale firmato proprio Paolo Sorrentino (vincitore dell’Oscar 2014 con La Grande Bellezza) per lo stilista italiano Giorgio Armani che da poco ha compiuto i suoi quarant’anni di carriera (qui il mio #Atribute per questo grande artista!). Sabbia è un corto a tratti surrealista, soprattutto per le scene dei due corpi tenuti insieme come fantocci da una corda. Voi cosa ne pensate? Questo cortometraggio riesce ad incarnare l’eleganza elemento distintivo di Armani?

While Sorrentino is attending Cannes with his last film Youth- La Giovinezza, today I’d like to show you an unconventional short by Paolo Sorrentino himself (who won the Oscar in 2014 withThe Great Beauty) for Italian designer Giorgio Armani who has just turned 40 years of amazing career. The original title is Sabbia (Sand) and it takes from Surrealism in several parts like the couple of bodies chained together with a rope. What do you think about? Is this short able to represent the Armani fine style in the best way?

Shorts: And the ASVOFF Award goes to…..

Come state gente? Ho trovato finalmente del tempo per scrivere sul blog; la scorsa settimana è stata un po’ movimentata, ma ho già un piccolo regalo per voi che presto vi mostrerò (a proposito, sabato scorso è stato il mio compleanno è il mio regalino per voi riguarda proprio il weekend che ho trascorso fuori in occasione della mia festa ;)). Ecco qui i corti finalisti di ASVOFF, ora tocca a voi scegliere il vostro preferito e indovinare il vincitore dell’ultima edizione di ASVOFF 🙂 Sono curiosa di conoscere i vostri gusti, partecipate numerosi!

Hello people! I’ve finally found time to write here, last week was full of things to do but I got a little gift for you that I’ll show you soon (by the way, last Saturday was my bday so the gift for you is about my little weekend trip ;)).  It’s time to guess who’s the winner among all the ASVOFF filmmakers; so let’s see a little memo!

 Journey by Monica Menez

The Sound of COS by Lernert & Sander

Connecting by Jacob Brown

L’errore by Brando De Sica

http://en.vogue.fr/fashion/fashion-websites/videoslideshows/a-shaded-view-on-fashion-film-the-winning-films/344#lerrore-by-brando-de-sica-for-catherinelle

So everything else is up to you! Choose your favourite short and guess who’s the winner, then I’ll tell you who won the ASVOFF 😉 I’m curious about your tastes!