Daily Prompt: The Power of Touch

After Googling it, I found that the Wikipedia page has 12 different explanations for the word texture. This is because of all the five senses, touch is the most prominent, and the one we take for granted the most. Textures are everywhere, and people don’t notice. You don’t open a door and notice the smooth but cold feel of the door handle, or the uneven scratched surface of the pine door. Why? because you’ve felt it a million times, so why should you notice now. 

Textures are everywhere, and familiar textures are comforting. 

For me, the most comforting of all textures is the feel of my partner’s stubble, when I rub my cheek against his and feel the soft bristles on my face.  This instantly makes me feel safe, and happy, and relaxed. It puts me at ease. 

Next time you’re out and about, try to notice different textures; the rough feel of tree bark, or a brittle crunchy leaf, or when you’re in a clothes shop take time to feel the different fabrics; cotton, velvet, wool. Appreciate different textures. Take the time to notice what you’ve never noticed before. 

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Focused on Fiction: Five Storytelling Tips

excellent advise, I recommend reading.

The Daily Post

November — and with it, NaNoWriMo — might be drawing to a close, but fiction writers don’t stop telling stories just because another page is torn from the calendar. And whatever the season, slapping sentences into a compelling narrative is never easy.

We’ve all heard the common axioms recited to writers everywhere: “Write everyday!” “Show, don’t tell!” “Write about what you know!” Sometimes, though, it’s a good idea to try something different to get the creative juices flowing in new directions. Here are five writing tips that might sound counterintuitive at first, but could potentially help you cross a word-count threshold, smash through a writer’s block, or just come up with a new story idea.

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Daily Prompt: To Boldly Go…

For me this was the perfect Daily Prompt Challenge, as I am constantly thinking to myself that I need to actually write down my New Years resolutions rather than just thinking them and having no proof that I ever committed to them. By blogging my resolutions it means I will have a hard copy; a constant reminded of what I want to achieve. 

For me, the resolutions are a promise. Not a promise to achieve said goal, but a promise to try. I may not be able to achieve every bullet point, but if I try each one then I at least know I have achieved something. 

Without further a due, here is my list of New Year’s resolutions:

1. Make an effort to blog at least once a week, in order to practice my writing and broaden my literary skills. 
2. To be more determined and motivated in everything I do, and stop being such a pessimist. Glass half full and all that jazz…
3. Be healthier. More to the point; eat regularly and balanced meals with no snacking or skipping, go to the gym at least once a week for at least an hour, drink less caffine- NO ENERGY DRINKS!, and get a good amount of sleep. This will then help me to achieve my next goal.
4. Stay between 7 and 8 stone. If I weigh less then I get obsessed with becoming and staying lighter and lighter, and if I weigh more I feel so unhappy in myself and become obsessed with trying to lose the extra weight. 7-8 stone is a good healthy weight for my height and age, and it will give me a lot of confidence to achieve this by being healthy, and not by ceasing to eat. 
5. Take more notice and be thankful of the natural beauty around me. It wasn’t till I became a photographer that I really noticed how many beautiful photos can be so effortlessly taken simply due to the breathtaking natural beauty of mother nature. A fallen multi-toned leaf, a water droplet clinging to a blade of green grass, a crinkled piece of bark coming away from the tree… natural beauty is everywhere you look, and it took me this long to see it more clearly. 
6. Keep my room in order. A clear room is a clear mind. My room is my haven, and it would make a much better thinking space if it was clutter free. 
7. Be more ladylike. I work in a gym with a ratio of 6:1 guys. This resolution might be a bit ambitious, but we’ll see!
8. Be more patient with people, and to be a nicer person. After years of being a doormat this last year or so I’ve really come out of my shell, so much so that I’ve been rather ruthless in my attempt to gain some respect and to protect myself. I need to tone it down and learn when is the appropriate time to step down from the fight. 
9. Be a better girlfriend. My partner is my absolute life, I love him with all my heart and would to want to live if I ever lost him. Despite this, I have an awful habit of pushing him away and having very little faith in him due to being hurt badly from previous relationships. I cannot control this, but I am really going to have to make an effort to try, not only for his sake but the sake of the relationship. 
10. Make a bucket list. I got this idea from a college the other day, he told me that every year he makes a bucket list of new experiences which he crosses off upon completion. I am a list person. I am constantly making lists of things I have to do – just insignificant things, like do a paragraph of my personal statement, or tidy my room, or go to the post office etc, so this would be a perfect way to achieve my yearly goals and force myself to try new experiences, which brings me on to my next item. 
11. Try new things. My life has become very scripted; I have a very ritualistic routine which has led me to become anxious in new and unfamiliar situations. Forcing myself into new situations (along with taking my anti-anxiety pills) will help to remove or at least calm down this fear of the unknown. 
12. Learn new skills. I bought myself a guitar a couple of months ago in the hopes that I could self teach, but after finding this difficult I simply quit. I should broaden my skill spectrum in order to better myself and set myself achievable goals in relation to these to new skills. 
13. Read more. I used to read all the time, but since I started working more I normally stay up late talking to my partner then go to sleep. Reading is a good way to learn new words, and learn different story telling styles which will help to make me a better writer myself. 
14. To draw more. My one talent (so I’m told) is my drawing, and recently I have barely drawn at all. Drawing is a skill, I guess you could call it, which can always be improved and redefined by practice. As they say; practice makes perfect. The more I do it, the better I’ll be at it. The problem is I lack time and motivation, but I will make time and hopefully become more motivated with the new year. 
15. I have a serious fault in that I have real anger issues towards certain bugbears. Especially noisy eating. When I hear someone eating noisily I feel a bubbling rage and I feel my blood boiling. Obviously I cannot control other people’s eating, which means this is a problem which needs to be addressed for my own peace of mind. 
16. Spend less money and save up. I have a bad habit of spending too much money and just fritter my money away on little things. If I save up I can spend it on bigger things I really want.

All these resolutions will go towards my ultimate goal of bettering myself and giving me another great year. Here’s hoping! 

Weekly Writing Challenge: Moved by Music

This song; Linkin Park: In The End, is not only one of my favourite songs, but a song that holds a strong memory for me. Every time the song plays; the memory floods back and I’m given a brief flashback. Brief. 

When I was younger I was a Tomb Raider fanatic. Still am actually. It started when my parents introduced me to it at a young age, and bought me a Play Station 1 and the game for my room. I loved it. Loved loved loved it. I really idolised Lara Croft (as wierd as that sounds…), I wanted to be her. 

Well anyway, as a young girl with nothing better to do in the school holidays than to sit in her room all day and play on her favourite game, I managed to complete the game multiple times. I remember my bedroom used to be beside my parents room, and my mum used to play Linkin Park on her stereo while she did the ironing in her bedroom. That was all I used to hear. It was annoying at first, I never used to admit to liking that sort of music, but I secretly liked it. 

One day I went to my room to play on Tomb Raider like I always did, and found I could not find my saved game… The disc had been wiped for whatever reason. Obviously this seems pretty insignificant but at the time I was devastated, and I remember so clearly that all I could hear was the sound of In The End playing in my mum’s room. 

To this day whenever I hear the song I am reminded of how I felt when I discovered my deleted data. How the feeling of sorrow and disappointment is rushed through me for that second. 

A Good Day?

Been having a lot of trouble lately, so bad in fact that I have been intending to go to the doctors to be put on antidepressants. The last couple of weeks have been better. I’ve been getting better. Till it all went wrong again. 

Basically my boyfriend’s family have kicked off again and it was a big blow out. So much so that I ended up in the night, on my own in the pouring rain, screaming at my boyfriend on the phone that I can’t take it any more. That was a couple of days ago. 

Since then I’ve been kind of okay. Not great, but not bad. Okay. 

Today I woke up for work exhausted and feeling down, especially knowing I won’t see my partner for a while as he is at a friend’s house for the night, so I was a bit low. Till I saw little Lincoln. 

I work in a creche, and little Lincoln is a 3 year old sweetheart. He ran up to me saying; “Kathryn! I’m going home now, can I give you love?” he held his arms out to me, hugged me, then gave me a kiss on the cheek. 

So although I have work later and won’t see my boyfriend, and am feeling stressed out, I know I have made an impact on a little boy’s life. And that is enough to put a smile on my face and render this a good day. 

Daily Prompt: Fright Night

I love being scared. Well, I don’t like actually being frightened, but I enjoy the thrill and exhilaration as well as the rarity of finding a film that makes me afraid. 

Me and my partner are massive horror/thriller/slasher/suspense film fans, and have watched so many that it is very rare to find one that is actually decent, and different from the generic cheap scares this era keeps producing. 

Ash is an absolute rock, and other than a wince during the alternate body-throw ending to Paranormal Activity I have never seen him scared of a film. As for me, I am never or at least very rarely affected by horrors (other than The Grudge elevator bit, the Paranormal Activity sleep watching scene, and the Sinister boogey man first appearance and lawnmower death) which is why I cherish the knots in my stomach. 

Some of the best films in this genre (other than the ones I listed above) I think are:

Maniac, The Blair Witch Project, Seven, Silence Of The Lambs, The Prisoners etc. 

For an avid horror fan such as myself and my partner, it’s a rare occasion when horrors have the desired scare effect. *sigh*