Wreck This Journal: Scrub This Page.

'Scrub here!' Right! Sure, as if a plain eraser would do the job!!! I guess, like everybody else who's done that that page I had to bring the big guns in, in that case I used sandpaper to scrub all the parts away I wanted ... add some lines and draw the left page and voila: sun and mo...

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Does What We Write Limit Our Vocabulary?

I'm currently editing a friend's novel. My focus lies on the story, because as foreign speaker - the story is written in English - I can hardly argue anything on the grammar and vocabulary front. But then in chapter 2 a single, little word has caught my eye and interest: "He made the mistake of looking into her eyes. They were large in her elfin face, pale blue with a thick fringe of lashes, full of emotion that he was unable to keep himself distant from." Elfin - a lovely word in a wonderful...

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WQ-28. Characters With Disabilities.

30 Days Of Writing Questions 28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there’s nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones. One of my good habits (or maybe disabilities) is to focus only on the current question. So, last week in WQ-27 I was a little too eager with my answer. I've already told you about J.J.! A dear, wonderful boy, just 17 years old. A giant in his look, but a little puppy in his mind. He's like that from birth...

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Wreck This Journal: Cover This Page. Using Only Office Supplies.

The background is a collage of different office papers, like address sheets and post-its. I guess, I overdid it a bit with the ink, the ink pad was a little too well filled. And then on top a various collection of office supplies ... just like the instruction demand...

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WQ-27. Appearances In Your Story.

30 Days Of Writing Questions 27. Along similar lines, do appearances play a big role in your stories? Tell us about them, or if not, how you go about designing your characters. Once again I become aware that I'm just a foreign speaker. I'm not quite sure, if I'd understood that question correct. After checking Carol's answer I think I got it. First, for my understanding, creating the appearance is a part of designing a character. And second, we'd already talked about Creating Characters in...

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Wreck This Journal: Tongue Painting.

With heart and soul, or maybe I should better say, with tongue and stomach, I'm a chocoholic! So, my first try following these instructions was quite a little failure ... what the hell do I know about other sweets?!? Well, I'd thought, lollipops would do the job, but those 'Chupa Chups' simply were colorless!!! I had a plan C (using fruits like blueberries), instead I returned to plan A then and back to sweets I know, which brought me to 'M&Ms'! And as you can see, they finally made the t...

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Thoughts About Editing And English Grammar.

Recently I wrote a story for Rattles Flash Fiction. Like the title says only a short story. As English is not my mother tongue I really needed some help with editing. To my surprise there weren't so many problems with words and vocabulary, but my poor beta reader Carol had other bigger issues to deal with: HOW TO FORMAT THE TEXT When my story was done I had the required 800-1000 words, but only two paragraphs, well three if you count the sentence to lead from first part of the story over to the...

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WQ-26. Character Art.

30 Days Of Writing Questions 26. Let’s talk art! Do you draw your characters? Do others draw them? Pick one of your OCs and post your favorite picture of him! Frankly speaking, I never came up with the idea to draw my characters - for the simple reason, that my drawing skills, when it comes to people, are just pitiful. Every passionate reader knows the disappointing experience when a movie is made of a book and you imagined your beloved characters differently. So, I leave it up to my (and my...

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Wreck This Journal: Fill In This Page When You Are Really Angry.

Well, I used quite a few techniques, that WTJ had already taught me: - Crumple. - Scribble wildly. - Drip water and smear the lines. - Burn. - Poke holes. - Tear stripes. - Drip some ink. - Cut through. - Write one word. P.S. I had to give that special treatment to a separate piece of paper, because the WTJ pages before and after were already well used! And, well ... it was a very controlled anger! My first attemps in destroying a sheet of paper that way were a total disaster - nothing left but...

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2012 Reading Challenge

'In the case of good books,the point is not how manyof them you can get through,but rather how many canget through to you.'Mortimer Adler My 2011 Reading Challenge was successful, maybe a little too successful. I literally got lost between all the pages and almost forgot my other spare time activities. This year should be a little different, more balanced. Like last year I head for 52 book. Plus I want to borrow another of Dolly's wonderful ideas (who got it from Shelleyrae). The goal is to read...

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Goodbye 2011. Welcome 2012.

"Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?" "Same procedure as every year, James!" Everybody in Germany knows those famous lines. There's no New Year's Eve without Dinner For One. It's tradition. It also seems to become tradition to start into the new year with the same blog post. Let's see, how good (or bad) I got along with my 2011 New Year's Resolutions. And let's talk about 2012. BLOG According to my blog archive I've done 174 posts. Calculating on the average, that's 3 posts a week - better...

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