#so my method is to revise continuously while I write it

[euphonious-night]

this is some of the best writing advice I've ever found. I am one of those writers that invariably edits as I write; when I sit down to write, often the first thing I do is, in fact, go back to what I wrote last time and revise it.

(this comes from George Saunders's 2023 Mar 30 "Office Hours.")

[study-diaries]

Hi! I was wondering if you had any tips for studying consistently, especially with burnout?

I have an awful habit of studying a lot on one day then avoiding it and not even looking at my notes for 3 or so days after then repeat. i'm starting fifth year soon so this cycle can't continue because it will not end well for mw or my grades

Heyy :) Thanks for the ask.

I just answered a similar ask like this so i think my answer is pretty much the same.

How To Avoid Burnout While Studying

But you technically asked how to study while in a burnout so i'll add a few additional tips. I hope this helps :)

How To Study / Work During A Burnout

Micro Goals

Write down your micro goals. By micro goals i mean the goals that are broken down from bigger goals. For example, my first task was to complete chapter 4 in accountancy fully. Instead of completing it fully and contributing to the burnout, break it down. Divide chapters into 4 parts and complete each part throughout the day. This is more manageable and doesn't make you feel overwhelmed.

Watch Concept Videos

Whenever i'm too tired to study or revise from my notes, videos always help. I did this mostly for accountancy, economics and business studies. YouTube has a variety of videos and make the most use of it. It really helps during exams because it gives me some leverage of knowing some extra points that are in the textbook, but most haven't studied it so use it to your advantage.

1% Progress Everyday > 100% Progress Once A Week

I really feel that even one percent progress every day is better than giving your best on the weekend. I usually divide my subjects throughout the week. I don't exceed more than 2 subjects per day because i did have extra assignments and projects to catch up to. This is one important rule i really followed.

Find The Stressor And Find A Way Through It

Find your major stressor. And try to go around it as much as possible. You have to navigate around everything. Most common stressors would be tests, exams, pressure or extra curriculars.

I had ignored every single test and just winged it because one our teachers never corrected it and two i was focusing on my finals. I didn't even care for my midterms, i experimented with them. I didn't study for term finals because i wanted to test how much i actually remembered. When the pressure got too much at the end of final year, i just didn't go to school after the attendance closed even though they were having revision classes.

I don't know if it's the same for you but there is always a way to minimize the impact. Find stressors and try to make it easier for yourself.

_________________

Additional Posts That Might Be Helpful:

How To Study For Longer Hours

An Absolute Guide To Manage Your Time And Energy For School

Floor To Ceiling Method

How To Study Multiple Subjects

_________________

Hope This Helps :))

[a-mx-writer]

Postscriptum: Analysis

This was initially posted as chapter 49 of my longfic Marked for Life on AO3. The actual last chapter, 48, was inundated with upset comments; this is the response. Archived here on Tumblr as well now.

Story spoilers ahead!

After getting a truckload of comments about how the last chapter [of Marked for Life] is disappointing, came out of nowhere, feels like a plot twist for twist's sake, undercuts all prior chapters, etc., I'm getting tired of typing out explanations over and over, so here's the abridged version (detailed ones in the comments of said chapter):

This was always how it was meant to end: unhappily. I wrote this ending, nearly word for word as it is now, very early during the writing process (the earliest version I can find is December 28) and revised it very little after. I've been working towards this ending throughout the entire story and in my opinion, it is the logical escalation of the pair's relationship. They were never headed for "and they lived happily ever after"; I tried to set them up for failure as clearly as possible. Their entire relationship throughout the story has been shaped by conflict, by anger, abuse, and a disastrous lack of good coping skills.

They spend the first two years of this story hating each others' guts. They try to kill each other several times, they torture each other. It takes them two years just to get to a point of being able to work together. Just to re-emphasise, this is a relationship between a sadistic, genocidal imperialist and monarch, and her "common", tortured slave. I get it, we all love to see redemption and happy endings and overcoming challenges, but this is not such a story. If you feel misled, I must point out I specifically didn't tag Azula Redemption, Happy Ending, or anything of the sorts, and I pointed out the violent and complicated nature of their relationship from the start.

I ask you, if you hated the ending, to re-examine it under the following aspects.

Both of them are headstrong and assertive, steadfast in their belief in their own moral superiority and that of their belief system. Even when they get along, even when they get together, when Azula gets over her idea that Katara is a savage who needs taming, cultural and class differences still stand between them. Katara's disgust at the Fire Nation führerkult worship of the Fire Lord, at the rich people sport of hunting for pleasure, and her self-loathing at the realisation she has gotten used to servants; Azula's belittling of what she sees as Katara's naivety and her insistence that she will rule as she sees fit. Azula maintains that she is making peace not due to some ethical change of heart, but out of necessity. Under different circumstances, she would have campaigned until the world lay in ruins. She is making peace because it is the best way to ensure her survival and that of her nation, not because she suddenly sees how wrong the war is. In the same vein, she makes it clear that while she regrets torturing Katara, it's because she has since developed feelings for her, and her continued use of these methods, like incarcerating every associate – aide, family member, servants – of suspected traitors, or convicting innocent suspects to make sure they don't harbour resentment over their arrest, makes it very clear that her moral compass hasn't suddenly spun around. She remains fully convinced in her birthright to the throne, in the absolute nature of her authority, etc., and Katara takes extreme issue with that.

They put those differences aside for the more important cause of peace, but it's only natural that they would resurface once the external pressure of having to save their lives by making peace is no longer a concern. Imagine if they had married – a Fire Lady who calls into question the legitimacy of her Fire Lord? Who undermines the Fire Lord's authority, who rejects the culture of worship that she and her wife are entitled to? Conflict was always in their future.

Civilising Katara, Azula’s project. Bettering Azula, Katara’s project. Destined for friction, for collisions.

That is exactly what I meant. Azula would try to integrate Katara into her culture and class, whether outright and directly, or whether simply indirectly by taking issue with Katara's not fitting in, and Katara would try the same in reverse, trying to get Azula to let go of these traditions and political system. Because, in the end, can any of you imagine "I will never ignore people who need help"-Katara not trying to intervene in what she sees as an oppressive, indoctrinating system? And can any of you imagine born-to-rule-Azula just throwing 100s of years of Fire Nation culture out the window to reform it into a democracy with due process and civil rights?

But that's only one half. Because the other is the relationship between them, their emotional balance if you will.

I started them out quite violent. They both try to kill each other several times, they both get physically abusive towards each other. Azula burning Katara for fun and torturing her for information, Katara massacring half the palace in her escape attempts. The eventually reach an equilibrium of mutually assured death, but once they get together, that changes again. They're no longer looking to kill each other, but their conflicts get much more personal now, because while there's still the captor/monarch–prisoner imbalance between them, they ostensibly speak eye to eye, or at least closer to eye level, with each other. And here, they actually get more violent again. Katara slaps Azula, they beat each other up, etc. When two people who are in a romantic relationship take their conflicts out with violence, we tend to call that "domestic violence" and we consider that a bad thing.

But later, that happens less. They get in shouting matches, have from the start, but it lessens. When Katara speaks with Zuko, a clearly displeased Azula just says she doesn't want to fight about it. And a lot of readers took that as a good sign, as a sign of progress in their relationship. And it is, but it isn't solely good. Avoiding violence is great, yes, but what we have here is conflict avoidance. And that's not great. Because conflict is a thing that happens; even the most happy couple will disagree on something at some point. And the solution to that is to talk it out. Communication. Avoiding that instead simply leaves the conflict unresolved, or resolved to the dissatisfaction of one party. And that breeds resentment.

What will happen to them if this keeps happening? Azula will, time and time again, choose to drop a disagreement, rather than risk fighting about it. And she will be dissatisfied and angry each time. Over time, she will come to dread conflict, get pre-emptively angry at the prospect of disagreements, because she'll know it will end with her giving up to avoid a fight. And eventually, as they continue to disagree (like on any of the subjects listed above), she will come to hate or dread speaking to Katara entirely. Ask me how I know.

This transition away from physical altercations and towards bad coping strategies was intended to set up this ending and show that their relationship isn't getting all that much healthier, just less overtly abusive. That seems to not have come across quite clearly, because most of the comments celebrated the end of violence and took it as a sign of their improvement, which it really wasn't intended to be. And thus the escalation of that – Fire Lord Azula, later in life, removing herself from the international stage, and turning to isolationism and xenophobia for her people, taking conflict avoidance to the diplomatic extreme – caught many readers unprepared.

And then the last puzzle piece: the evolution of their characters.

One of the key themes of this story is the way Azula gets better while Katara gets worse (as measured by Katara's moral standards). Azula gives up on conquest, loses her lust for world domination; she discovers her own sexuality and in the process makes life better for many persecuted people in her nation. At the same time, Katara learns to manipulate Azula, she takes an incredible amount of lives, she bloodbends several times despite her vow never to. She becomes more comfortable than she'd like giving orders to Fire Nation soldiers, she integrates herself into the court, and she is an accessory to torture and execution. And she loathes herself for it every step of the way, and later hates how comfortable she's become with it all. As she says at the end, those three years have left scars on her. She will never be the same.

And this becomes evident in her fate after the story. She becomes the chieftain of her tribe and leads ambitiously. One could call it ruthless, one could call it driven, goal-minded, and standing her ground. And they point is, all of these are qualities she's possessed before. All I've done is dial them up a little, dial down her inhibitions a little, and infuse her with some things she's learned from Azula. Because Katara has always, throughout the show, been ambitious, never one to take shit from anyone (Pakku showdown), and occasionally morally quite flexible – waterbending scroll, Painted Lady, etc. And, crucially, she is very caring and places great value on kindness, helping others, and taking care of your own. As the comics show, she also cares a great deal about the future of her tribe (such as when she clashes with Sokka over the degree of industrialisation the South should or should not receive). I don't think it's a far reach to imagine her eventually (no, I didn't specify a time frame; no, it doesn't happen immediately after her return five years later) succeeding Hakoda as chief.

She has a chip on her shoulder regarding the Northern Water Tribe's culture of sex segregation and misogynistic oppression, so she doesn't conclude the reunification efforts begun before her ascension to the chieftainship. She feels the SWT is owed something for its destruction and the lack of help it received, so she claims now-unowned former Fire Nation territory for her people, stares the Earth King down over it and wins. She carves out a place for her people – without whom the war would not have been won – in the new world, to provide for them, to get what she sees as justice. She's always been ambitious and tough, and now she's gotten a taste of real power, real authority, from Azula and liked it more than she would have been comfortable with in the past. And perhaps being one half of the couple who made peace, achieved what none did before, has gotten to her head, but either way, she's used to getting what she wants now, she's used to calling the shots now, and she's already once delivered justice in the form of the peace. She's still the teenage girl challenging a sexist teacher to throw hands, she's still the girl who disguised herself to help people in need, and she's still the girl who snaps at her brother who disrespects her people's culture and arts. She's all that, but she's grown up, and the three years with Azula have shaped her.

If you previously disliked the last chapter, I hope at this point you're saying something like, okay, it makes sense like that, but where was all that in the story?

It was there.

I hoped it was quite clear enough; evidently it wasn't. I thought I had foreshadowed it extensively, perhaps not extensively enough. Throughout the story, I made sure to contrast good moments with bad ones. They get together, but not without a screaming match and a huge breakdown. They make out at the dojo, and then Azula goes all wrath-of-god on the servant and triggers Katara into a full-on flashback, and Katara has the realisation that she's been looking at Azula through rose-tinted glasses and that the cruelty is still there. They have a romantic retreat (if not quite voluntarily) to Ember Island, some domestic bliss – and then Azula has a panic attack and they fight. They make up, and then Azula makes it clear she is still who she was, will still govern as she sees fit, disillusions Katara as to her change of heart or lack thereof. They want to make up, they beat each other up when Azula says insensitive things. Katara is reunited with her friends, Azula insults her and calls her loyalty into question. She talks with Zuko and has a lovely afternoon, Azula snaps at her and then refuses to talk about it.

One step forward, two steps back, that was the idea behind writing all of that. The world gets better, in the end, but they've paid a high personal price for it, and every little bit of silver lining for their relationship is bought at the expense of being abusive towards each other, or mistrusting each other, bought with pain, heartbreak, or violence.

I hoped by showing that, and by sowing the seeds of their conflicts early – the class difference, the cultural difference, their wildly differing morals and ideals, and their inability to constructively resolve conlicts –, I would have spelled "doomed by the narrative" all over their relationship.

It appears that at least for some readers, a much more substantial amount than I assumed, it wasn't enough. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the ending, I really am.

But at the end of the day, I've told the story I set out to tell. I never promised a happily ever after. I made the two of them go, as one of you put it, through hell and back, and they've come out as scarred, hurting people. Nobody said going through hell was a guarantee for happiness.

I hope to have sufficiently explained my reasoning. I hate to ruin the lovely chapter count of 48, but I couldn't fit all of this into an author's note, and the stream of disappointed comments compelled me to explaian the matter once and for all, which I have hereby done.

This post on AO3

[maniculum]

Do you have any books or sources for learning Olde English? I want to write a medieval-based story but I don't know how to write the characters speak the language.

That depends -- when you say "Olde English" do you mean Old English, like pre-1066 English? That's pretty far from modern English and it's unlikely that readers will be able to understand it easily. If that's what you're looking for, the texts I was taught with are:

Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader

Quirk's Old English Grammar

Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader

They're all from a while back -- and, as you can see, some use the now-deprecated term "Anglo-Saxon" -- so you can find older editions free in the public domain. More recent revised editions can generally be found in cheap paperback form. I believe there are some more modern textbooks that are quite good, but I haven't looked at them, and I don't know how affordable they are.

I have also consulted with Zoe (@meanderingmedievalist) on this, and she recommends Baker's Introduction to Old English, as well as the related resource Old English Aerobics:

The reason there are textbooks for this, though, is because you genuinely have to treat it as a foreign language. It's very different from modern English. As a sample, here's the beginning of Beowulf:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon hu ða æþelingas      ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing      sceaþena þreatum monegum maegþum      meodosetla ofteah egsode eorle syððan aerest wearð feasceaft funden he þæs frofre gebad weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah oð þæt him aeghwylc þara ymbsittendra ofer hronrade      hyran scolde, gomban gyldan      þæt wæs god cyning.

So if you put a lot of it into a story for a modern audience, most of them will be a bit lost.

If when you say "Olde English" you mean "English that sounds archaic and medieval, but is comprehensible to a modern audience", you're probably looking for Middle English.

I don't have any direct references for learning the language there, as I was mostly taught through immersion (i.e., here's a Middle English text, read and translate it, now do another until you get a feel for it), but Zoe recommends Fulk's Introduction to Middle English, so that's a good bet if you don't want to go through that process.

However, I do think the "just read the texts" method also works fine -- especially since, if you're writing a medieval story, you'll want to read some of the literature anyway for inspiration. Here's what you can do to use that method outside of a classroom setting:

Step One: Get a Middle English text with a facing-page translation. Armitage's edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is good for this. Read the Middle English text, referring to the Modern English translation on the facing page whenever you don't understand it. Do this with a pencil in hand, so you can annotate the text with definitions, translations, and notes about how the sentences work.

Step Two: Get a Middle English text for which modern translations exist. Don't get the modern translation. The Canterbury Tales works for this: it's a classic and you should be able to pick up a copy anywhere. The version on my shelves is Baugh's Chaucer's Major Poetry -- which is heavily footnoted with definitions, potentially saving some time with the dictionary -- but it doesn't really matter as long as it's in the original. Read it. Every time you don't know a word, look it up in the Middle English Dictionary (available free online, in searchable form, here) and write it down. Again, best to annotate directly on the page with a pencil. Trust me, it helps to do it that way. Once you're done, get a modern translation and check your work.

At this point, you'll probably have picked up enough of the language that you should be able to write in it to some degree, though you'll want to continue making reference to the Middle English Dictionary to make sure you're employing period-appropriate usage and spelling. If you have access to the Oxford English Dictionary (if you're at a university, you almost certainly do, otherwise check with your local library), use that to check when the words you're using originated -- the OED has that listed, and that'll keep you from accidentally dropping an 18th-century term into medieval dialogue. You can also use their Historical Thesaurus to find period-appropriate equivalents for terminology.

Optional Step Three: Keep reading more Middle English literature with the dictionary open, annotating as you go, to get additional practice. If you can get through Le Morte Darthur in the original (get the P.J.C. Field edition), I think you'll be set in terms of "writing convincing medieval prose". Not because it's particularly difficult -- it's late medieval, so the language is actually more modern than either of the texts mentioned in steps one and two -- but just because it's long, so you'll get a lot of practice working through it. As a bonus, reading Malory will familiarize you with lots of good knightly vocabulary in case that's the kind of story you want to write.

Optional Step Four: Read scholarly articles on Middle English language and literature to get a more in-depth understanding. Again, check with your local library, or if you're at a university, a university library will have a vast amount of resources on this subject you can browse through.

[saskia-mae]

how to revise effectively

revision is a very important part of education, but many people have no idea how. in this post i'm going to outline the basics of revision. it's important to note that different subjects will require you to revise differently, there is no one size fits all when it comes to revision.

less is more- studying for 30 focused minutes is way more effective than a 5 hour study session while you watch tv.

work on exam technique- this is such an overlooked part of revising for an exam, but if you know how to answer the questions and what structures to use, it will really help you. ask your teacher or search for your exam board online to find out the best way for your subject and exam board.

manage distractions- if like me you get distracted super easily, you need to create an environment with limited distractions. this means put your phone on do not disturb, if your house/place of study is noisy put some headphones on and listen to classical music or study ambience (my favourites are the Harry Potter rooms by Asmrweekly on youtube). if you get distracted while studying by thinking of things you need to do, something that's really helped me is to have a piece of paper next to me that i can write all my thoughts on, so i can continue studying and do what i've written afterwards.

set precise goals for your study session- this helps to reduce procrastination. for example, if I put "study geography" on my to do list i'll procrastinate, but if I put "do 30 flashcards for the topic hazards" I have a clear idea of what I need to do

use the pomodoro method- having breaks is really important in keeping you engaged while you're studying. I don't follow the typical timings, but I usually do between 30-45 minutes of studying followed by a 10-15 minute break depending on how I'm feeling

utilise your study breaks- it's so easy to pick your phone up and scroll through tiktok until you realise your 5 minute break turned into a 3 hour tiktok binge. when I go on a study break, I only go on my phone to snap people back, or for a little scroll on pinterest. I also like to get some more water, grab a snack and stretch. If I'm having a longer break, I'll try to get outside and go for a walk, especially if the weather is good (in England this is about 5 days of the year haha)

now, onto different ways to revise

doing past papers

doing flashcards

making timelines

doing essay plans

making mindmaps

blurting

quizzes

if you study languages, practicing translations or specific types of questions that come up in the exam (for my exam board this is things like gap fill activities, 90 word listening or writing summaries, finding synonyms in a text etc.)

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2023?

Whatever I wanted, mostly.

----

As I mentioned last year, my site now has an RSS feed with basically everything I've done back to 2020, so this will mainly be going over the same stuff from that, just with added context.

In January, I finally sat down and properly realized an idea for a short story I'd had sitting around for a while: From the Sidelines, about a fantasy RPG expedition going sideways. I remain very proud of it in both concept and execution, and hope people read it.

In February, Your Turn To Die was released on Steam Early Access, receiving character profiles and some bonus mini-episodes, adding two more later in the year.

After finishing From the Sidelines, I carried that momentum to revisit my Ut0p1a story series about funny computer animals. I'd always meant to continue it - and conclude it - but hadn't been satisfied with the ideas I had for it until totally rethinking them this year. In March, I posted the remaining stories one after another: Right to Code and Left to Code. I'm very proud of these as well. Also in March, Kenshi Yonezu released LADY. (Video, interview)

In April, Uri released the Data Book of the Strange Men Series, a big collection of the writing she's done on the games in the series, with a lot of new parts as well, all translated by me.

Then in May... uh, well, let's see. In April, Capcom released the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. I always adored the Battle Network games, and was initially excited that they finally did the thing... but by the time it came out, I was pretty disappointed by how, while you certainly couldn't call them low-effort ports, the effort didn't extend everywhere I thought it should, with the biggest offenders being the total absence of any "convenience features" except Buster Max Mode, the bad font, and the almost entirely untouched translations.

So, I ended up deciding I might as well just replay the originals, and that was a fun time (aside from the parts that were bad). Doing this, I couldn't help but notice how... turbulent the translations were, even if I'd always known they were less than ideal. I mean, the first two games just used periods for ellipses despite the tight character limits, then in BN3 they had an ellipsis character... but it's center-aligned, Japanese-style? Aside from the intro, which has normal ones? Gosh, somebody should fix that - it's simple enough to find and edit in YY-CHR. "JapanMan" is silly, too - I wonder if anybody made a patch for that? Wait, what do you mean there's just a tool to extract and insert text in all the Battle Network games including the Legacy Collection???

Thus began a journey that sort of occupied the rest of my year. First I did the BN3 Translation Revision, trying not to worry too much about cross-referencing the Japanese text unless something seemed wrong, so that I didn't spend too long on the project. Then I began to consider BN2, with its unfortunate "foreigner" text that would need some more significant reworking. I established more convenient tools for comparing with the Japanese script, and thus did a much more thorough job with it, releasing the BN2 Translation Revision in June (AKA Princess Pride Month).

Finally, after giving myself time to recover and actually finish replaying the series, I knew what I had to do to close things out. With the BN4 Translation Revision, you can finally play Battle Network 4 with a translation that isn't such a mess. Whether you'd want to is for you to decide, though if you can get over the structure, I don't think it's the worst game in the series by any means. (Oh, and in December I also updated the BN3 Revision to 1.1, doing a thorough pass with the methods I'd honed. But I think I'm pretty much good on MMBN translations now.)

Anyway, backtracking to other things that happened during my Battle Network haze... June had Kenshi Yonezu's Moongazing (video, interview), and July had Globe (video, interview, interview).

Last but not least, released in November, I translated Refind Self: The Personality Test Game, a short game from Lizardry (creator of 7 Days to End with You) with a fun concept.

----

Obviously I was right to have said "no promises" last year. But really, Your Turn To Die should get its final part on Steam sometime next year, maybe even early-ish in it. That's certainly the goal.

I'm also hoping to buckle down and finish one of my own games, but as usual, who knows how that'll pan out. Letting my whims carry me this year let me finally finish From the Sidelines and Ut0p1a, which was great, and it also led me down a Battle Network rabbit hole, which was... fine, but definitely for a narrower audience. I'd always like to get back to more free game translations and the like, too, but it takes effort to find things I'd want to translate. For now, I think my increasing desire to be able to let loose some of these original games I've been planning, and the stories in them, might come out on top.

[hischierlovebot]

11, 12 and 17 for the fic writer asks <3

Hello my friend <333

fic writer asks

11. a WIP you’d like to finish someday

Oh there are so many. Right now, that's fake hanahaki, although that one should be getting finished soonish, because I'm 30k deep already and we will come out victorious. other fics that have been on the backburner for a while now are the auswilly fake dating, and the werewolves with no werewolves fic, which has been haunting me for around 2 years? And I hope I can get to those this year!

12. a trope you’re really into right now

Well I recently finished my leverage rewatch so I'm very into heists and cons but tbf most of my free time (dead hours at work) is spent fighting fake hanahaki so there hasn't been that much reading from me! I am, however, itching for the kind of fic that you finish and leaves you feeling hollow because of how good it was so if you have any recs, I'll take them <33

17. talk about your writing and editing process

Man this will be very long and also maybe a bit confusing. I'll post under the cut.

The most important part to understand about my process is that there's no editing. There is a final revision, where I go over the text to polish it and catch stray typos, but I don't really write in drafts: what you get posted to ao3 is what the fic has looked like, most of the time.

So, my process goes a little like this: I get an idea, I write down the scene that comes to mind (most of the times with the longer fics, we're not talking about a fleshed out idea, just a scene that I build the rest of the story around. In soulmates, for example, my goal was to tackle my issues with the concept as a whole, and in fake hanahaki, there's a scene that encapsulates this very well, but that I still can't share for obvious reasons), and then the rest of the story is built around it.

If it's a long fic, or a more complex one, say soulmates or hanahaki, to name hrpf examples, then I need to figure out the plot before I write it. It's something that only really happens with these fics because I can't write if I'm not satisfied with what I've written before.

I think of it as building blocks. I need to have a solid foundation to build on, because if it's wobbly, then I keep worrying it's going to bring down the rest of the structure, and there's nothing I hate more than spending hours on a thing, only for it to be absolutely pointless. Sometimes I get stuck with the base and I can't continue until i figure it out, but I can focus on other stuff, that helps me see the whole picture a little clearer. It's why I tend to write out of order, and, afterwards, I take all the pieces and line them up until they make sense. Currently, fake hanahaki is 60 pages long, and there's only like 45% in order. The rest are disconnected scenes that would probably confuse the fuck out of a reader, and that I have to line up to figure out what's still missing.

Once that's done, then the fic is pretty much done. Because I can't write if I'm not satisfied with the build up of a scene, I've gone over them a bunch of times, so there's no need for further rewrites. They were done as the scene was written. What it needs is a final revision to catch any typos, and then it's ready to go out.

If you're wondering, yes, this means that I rarely if at all use beta readers, also because I worry about annoying them with how much I write and switch wips and fandoms lol there are no deleted scenes either because if they weren't going to make it then they never got written and if they were on the page then I just have to figure out where they go. Is this method of mine the most efficient? Probably not, but it's what works with me and I don't think my works turn out that bad so I'm going to stick with it.

And I think that was it lol sorry for how lengthy this was, and let me know if there's anything that wasn't clear!

[darkpetal16]

June 26th through July 14th Progress Update

June 26th 2024 - Continued to write and program ch1 for Dancetale. This will be my first game incorporating the use of magic prosthetics.

June 28th 2024 - Continued to write and program ch1 for Dancetale, mostly focused on the different branches of the different prosthetics MC can have, and began researching canes for MCs with a leg prosthetic.

June 29th 2024 - Completed the prologue / ch1 groundwork for prosthetics (right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm and a three-way combination of those variants), along with if MC uses a cane. Currently now drafting / programming Toriel’s house.

June 30th 2024 - Drafted / Programmed the opening sequence for Toriel’s house. The locket makes a return!

July 1st 2024 - DANCETALE Programmed a portion of MC customization. Attached is a snippet of just the clothing customization.

HORRORTALE Drafted more of the lab

July 2nd 2024 - HORRORTALE Worked more on programming the opening scene. Also came up with a different idea for the later half of the lab that I think will be much more interesting, so started outlining that instead.

DANCETALE Worked on a new sequence as part of day 1. Since there’s so much customization, I’m trying to naturally spread out the options throughout the first day so it’s not so overwhelming.

NOTE: Discord voted for a 0 death Toriel encounter in DT

July 3rd 2024 - DANCETALE - Continued drafting & programming for ch1. Worked briefly on Toriel’s dance, but mostly focused on programming the soul variants & writing the backstory for MC with Chara.

July 5th 2024 - DANCETALE - Nearing completion for Ch1’s first programmed draft. Only two scenes left to complete - the dance with Toriel & the first major “Bad Ending”.

July 6th 2024 - DANCETALE - Played around with creating a rhythm game for the boss fight. Attached is what was voted on to use as buttons in the forum.

HORRORTALE - Drafted a very fun scene where a certain ghost meets a certain reaper. >:D

I did briefly open up MAFIAFELL to begin the revisions / corrections needed but then my computer blue screened so I quietly backed everything up when it came back on and moved on lol.

July 7th 2024 - Had two full uninterrupted hours of me time and got to start something I’ve been wanting to do for a hot minute: UNDERFELL update.

Began with updating the ui and themes, and randomized which LI talks to you after your first death. Hope to do more soon!

July 8th 2024 - Almost finished UNDERFELL’s facelift. Made it all the way to the city. I think I’ll be able to upload the updated version tomorrow.

July 09th 2024 - Completed the visual update to UNDERFELL and posted it.

July 10th 2024 - Mostly worked on trying to figure out how to code a few things for DANCETALE. Trying something new and haven’t got it working yet. I also did a little more drafting into ch1 while it stewed in my thoughts.

July 11th 2024 - DANCETALE rhythm boss fight coding. Vid’s in the forum for more details, but it took me a couple days to get it working well enough.

July 14th 2024 - DANCETALE continued drafting & programming Ch1. Only one day left. Also created a brief “how to” on the boss battles / rhythm games. After some play testing I have determined I’ll leave the rhythm games just for boss battles, and use a more typical method for regular encounters. It’ll bog the game down too much for each regular encounter to have its own rhythm game to its own song.

NOTE: Discord currently voting on death loop & soulmate rule in DT.

[saesbangs]

!!!URGENT WRITING COMMISSION!!!!

Hello! It's me, Seira, and I am opening a really really urgent writing commission.

Where will the money goes?

All the money received from this comms would go straight into paying my dad-family debt! Our lives literally crumbling apart as we speak from the debt accumulated by my dad-family, while me, my siblings, and basically my household need to survive and serve food on our table for us to continue on living.

I need to come up with $500 by the end of this week and this is truly overwhelming for me, I mean I'm just a college student who should be looking for an internship and not an actual job. But since my parents are both too weak and sick to work, I have to take upon the responsibility in paying their debts, while also taking care of my college performance so that my scholarship isn't getting withdrawn.

In total, to pay off the entire debt I would need $5k so that's my long term target but for now my target is to reach $500 within this week (so yeah I will hyperfocus my ass out these days and do speedy work on your fics, I promise there ain't going to be any quality drop </3)

Well enough of my backstory, pretty sure you won't be too interested in that!

What do I offer?

A fanfiction tailored to your liking! I'm more confident in writing melancholy fictions and a deep dive into feelings without too much actions, dialogue, or scenes compared to the latter but I would try my best to deliver my most perfect job either way! All to achieve your satisfaction in my fics ♡

Fandom I write for:

♡ Mainly Ensemble Stars (! cast) and Final Fantasy XIV but I will do my homework and do thorough research for everyone regardless! I would highly appreciate if you include detailed request for your commission so I know your expectations!

♡ I accept all type of fics aside from horror and comedy (my sense of humor is too dead for this send help)! romance, slice of life, smut, anything!

♡ I accept yumeship, canonxcanon, ocxcanon or any ship you'd like

♡ If you comm something that is too gorey or kinky I might decline the request but so far I'm pretty comfortable writing them! (I just have less experience in that area lol)

Pricelist:

♡ $5 per 1k words, up until 5k

so if your fic has 4k words, it's gonna be $20 (4 x $5)

♡ $8 per 1k words for 5k-10k

so if your fic has 8k words, it's gonna be $64 (8 x $8)

♡ $10 per 1k words for more than 10k

so if your fic has 12k words, it's gonna be $120 (12 x $10)

Payment method:

♡ Currently only accepting direct through PayPal or ko-fi (also PayPal haha, we don't have Stripe here unfortunately, im not sure if that affects your payment method or not..)!

♡ If you're Indonesian I have more options you can use, just let me know!

Terms and Conditions!

♡ I will hold the right to use your project as sample for future portfolio, unless specified otherwise.

♡ Projects will be done within 1-7 days at most. If I sense there will be a delay, I will inform you immediately with specific reasoning and new timeline forecast, you may or may not accept the new timeline and we can negotiate the solution.

♡ Full upfront payment via ko-fi. Indonesian local transfer may do 50% DP upfront, full payment after revisions.

♡ No refund is by default. Unless I fail to deliver within promised time without notice beforehand, then I will refund your paid fee 100%.

AVAILABLE SLOTS: 8/10

Slots will be available again once I finish each projects! So no, it's not a batch system, it will be continuously rolling ><

Feel free to DM me for more inquiries!

I have some preview of my work over on my ko-fi page, but if you'd like to see more of my work before requesting a commission, feel free to hit me up! I would love to share with you more of my writings regardless of your final decision ♡

HELP A SISTER IN NEED! </3

N/B. I would also be eternally grateful if you'd like to donate through my ko-fi. Even $1 would mean a lot to me and my family at times like this. But please do DM me if you intend to comm so to not making any confusion hehe

here's my ko-fi link for donation, if ever anyone of you want to, i'm not forcing you i hope you'd request a comm instead tbh TvT

[the-wip-project]

hi i have been following along the reach for the stars event and im noticing some patterns in my pace (like the days i can do more or i just dont get anything done) and im very thankful with you, like it is helping me keep track with more motivation than before (i just dont post it because im very shy sorry but i sincerely thank you for the account and space you made here on tumblr with the wip project)

i wanted to ask for some tips ? with being overwhelmed by projects, like now that i have done some progress (40k words in may and it is the only month i had done some writing) what can i do to manage the stress and anxiety with big projects or pages to edit and revise ?

Hello Anon!

How "to manage the stress and anxiety with big projects"...

I feel like I'm entirely the wrong person to ask this, but I'll try my best.

Writing and project management are two different things and two different skill sets. One on the main reasons that big projects like webnovels, webcomics, epic fanfictions, and book projects quietly and sadly die at some point is, that the writer or artist fails at project management.

As a sidenote: I don't think that's all that bad. Even a WIP that stays unfinished forever has worth. It's still inspirational and we can still think how we would continue the story. It still adds to our lives as a reader.

Anyway.

So let's talk about project management.

You can find lots of business gurus and services offering to teach you the one perfect solution for all your needs. Just pay $500, and you get the webinar, the ebook, and a personal coaching session (pre-recorded)! The self-publishing sphere is full of this.

But none of this helps you or anyone because you, as an individual, have to find a way of managing your creativity, specifically. I think that methods of managing your creative output have to be much more individual than people like to say.

In the book of writing advice I'll probably never finish, I keep saying: "Work with your brain, not against it."

You don't need to buy a course for that.

You know yourself best, and you have to figure out what your brain needs to thrive. This is so very individual. You might find a strict schedule to be helpful, which can clash with real life demands, while I embrace the chaos and always run out of time.

I found the Quit books by Becca Symes to be really helpful, who focuses on what kind of things we take as given and maybe should question or even quit. What are the assumptions you make about how you work, and are they true and useful? Always a good question to ask.

Maybe you can work with lists and a giant calendar to schedule your time and post-it notes on a whiteboard. Maybe a specific creativity date once a day or once a week is how you can focus. Some people love a plan, others hate it.

The thing is: That you find managing your big project to be difficult and anxiety inducing doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. Project management is a whole different skill set than writing. It's okay that it doesn't come easily to you. That doesn't mean that you're failing, it just means that you have to try out a few methods to make it easier for you. Not easy, just easier.

It will probably never be the favorite part about your project, and that's okay. If we were all great at project managing, we would all be in business and administration and wouldn't that be horrible.

I hope you'll find the courage and stamina to continue your project in a way that works for you and makes you happy. That is all you need to focus on.

And if you'll ever make a post about your writing (and mention this blog), I'll give you a star.

Look, here's one for you now for writing so many words:

Keep writing!

~ barbex

[dancingontheblades]

The Tale That Never Ends is the story that I wanted to write when I first got obsessed with YOI. I was constantly thinking about how Yuuri and Viktor's story would continue. How living and training together in St. Petersburg would be like. How eventually competing against each other would impact their relationship. And what the challenges each of these things might be. And most importantly, I needed the two of them to get married.

Since I had only ever written fanfiction for books, I decided to write a couple of one-shots set between the episodes to familiarise myself with the world of YOI and to figure out how to transform things like storytelling and characterisation from screen to page. Writing is my go-to method to get to know fictional characters and understand their motivations because it allows me to see the world through their eyes. These scenes had been supposed to answer some of my most burning questions, like "what happened after the kiss?" (well, not truly answer because we have no information on that, but some sort of logical extrapolation). Somehow, that escalated into a 375k novelisation - not at once, but during the revisions (I have a history of writing this alternate ending or that prequel and suddenly, the whole thing blows up). The first draft of CYHMH was about 200k and was done in autumn 2021. I started writing TTTNE right afterwards and ended up revising and polishing it while I was posting CYHMH. While Yuuri and Viktor fell in love during the summer of mutual pining, their relationship deepened as they settled into their domestic life. While Yuuri became more confident in one story, he used this confidence in the sequel to fight for the gold that eluded him so far. While Viktor got familiar with Yuuri's culture in CYHMH, Yuuri got familiar with Viktor's culture after his move to Russia. While Viktor found new purpose in coaching Yuuri, he worked on his comeback due to the passion Yuuri rekindled in his heart a couple of months later.

It was quite a detour, but ultimately, I'm glad my attempt at getting to know the characters blew up like that. Not only needs my chaotic writer brain to oversee large parts of the story because ideas and concepts can change as a story comes alive, but by the time I started DMHLTN, the characters felt like old friends.

You can read The Tale That Never Ends here.

[presidenthades]

I am doing very minor revisions of Daemon’s Handbook (mostly formatting and continuity errors), and I wanted to do some behind-the-scenes commentary before too much time passes and I forget my original thoughts. Here’s Chapter 2!

(Note that these commentaries aren’t canon to the verse until/unless the author writes them into the series. I might change my mind on a few points later, but these are the thoughts I had while writing.)

Those gold dancing slippers with pink roses and sunbursts? Aegon 100% bought those for Jace (in Sunfyre’s colors of course), and that’s why she freaks out about them in Chapter 3.

Helaena has FRIENDS in this verse! Because she gets to grow up with three kinswoman close in age to her! Yay! I imagine her spending a lot of time with Jace, Luce, and Joff while they’re all living at the Red Keep.

That black and green three-pointed star is supposed to be some kind of reference to the three main couples of this series. Please don’t ask for details because I don’t have any 🙈

Rhaena and Baela’s crushes on Helaena and Jace, respectively, have begun sprouting in this chapter. They are very embarrassed by their dad acting like a weirdo in front of their crushes.

Daemon has a mental diatribe about Aegon’s dissolute ways, but in actuality Daemon would probably enjoy hanging out with someone who can keep up with him in Flea Bottom. Alas.

Neither book nor show canon says anything about Aegon or Aemond squiring, but I think healthy young princes would be expected to squire, like Daeron. I’m thinking Aegon strongly disliked the idea of having to squire (which involves a lot of acts of service) so maybe he a) threw a fit or b) used some weaponized incompetence until people gave up. 😆 But show!Aemond would like the idea of becoming a chivalrous knight, and Criston seems like a good option to squire for, considering Criston’s proximity to Alicent.

In this verse, Rhaenyra chooses to move her family to Dragonstone for different reasons than canon (where she felt pushed out by the Hightowers). Here, she’s mostly concerned about Jace and Aegon. I’ll delve into more detailed commentary later for Chapter 6, but basically, the kids have hit puberty and Jace and Aegon have already been caught sneaking around to kiss and hold hands. You can’t really keep them apart if they’re living in the same castle, so Rhaenyra’s solution is to relocate her daughters. Rhaenyra still plans to commute to court as needed (like in Chapter 4), but it’s not the most politically expedient move even if she’s decided it’s best for personal reasons.

We get our first glimpse of what the Jace/Aegon relationship is like. Jace spends a good amount of time trying to make Aegon act nicer (especially toward Aemond; no Pink Dread in this verse). She tends to use the carrot instead of the stick, which is Aegon’s preferred learning method, so Jace is more successful than Alicent who does it the other way.

Daemon doesn’t believe in anything he can’t see with his own eyes so he’s not superstitious, BUT Joff makes him question a lot of things. 😆 He figures out real fast that regardless of whether she’s actually witchy, it’s best to stay on her good side. (Otto also knows something is up with that girl lol)

I’m definitely exploring Joff’s dynamic with Laenor in a future installment in this verse. For now, let’s just say it was complicated. As precocious as Joff is, she’s only 6 and she doesn’t actually know everything.

“Window closes, heart opens, door opens, heart closes.” Helaena’s prophecy is about Aemond’s eye and the Luce/Aemond relationship, though I originally planned for it to play out differently (more to come in Chapter 4 commentary). As the fic currently stands, the prophecy breaks down like this: window closes = Aemond loses his eye. Heart opens = Luce opening up to Aemond again. Door opens = the rookery door when Daemon messes with the letters. Heart closes = Luce and Aemond’s three year estrangement.

Chapter 3 commentary here

[study-diaries]

How to avoid distractions while studying.

.

Social Media.

I personally know how hard it is to study when constant social media notifications are popping up so i just turn them off. This is obvious and the easiest way. Keep your phone in another room while you're studying.

Youtube

Here's the thing, YouTube is something we can't avoid, especially when it comes to studying because many times, we want to learn from the videos but end up getting distracted and therefore, i maintain 2 accounts. One, a personal account where I watch all my own channels like vlogs and other content videos and another account only for studying. I don't subscribe to any other channels beside the channels that help me with my studies in this account. I've noticed that I get a lot less distracted because your recommendations would only be study related or the content related!

Write them down

When you're studying and you noticed that you're getting a lot of distractions. Take a paper and write down the distractions with the timings and then continue studying.

Distractions - Time

Phone - 20 min (specify time: 8:20-40)

By this, you can analyse what's distracting you more than the others and you can actually calculate your study hours better and help yourself improve it.

Reduce everything by 5 mins

It's okay to get distracted. Everyone gets distracted and the best way to decrease your distractions is to decrease them by 5 mins for some days and then keep decreasing them gradually. It's the best way to work honestly because it helps you remove the distractions over time as a habit.

Complete your chores before sitting down

You might know that whenever you sit down with a firm motivation to study and then you take your notes, books, materia etc and a voice from the kitchen comes saying"You haven't finished the dishes!" So, now you go to do the dishes and then another chore pops up when you sit to study and another and another. So, here's my advice, either you complete all your chores before you study or you complete them after or you could complete them during breaks. But make sure you're not distracted by them.

Turn daydreaming into a weapon

Personally, this is something i really really struggled with, like whenever I sit down to study, I ended up daydreaming about a certain book or plot. It would definitely not help me study so recently, I started assigning fictional characters to subjects and personally, like, gosh my economics was alittle more interesting when I was "teaching" it to Cardan Greenbriar (tfota). It's kinda childish to have like an imaginary friend or such but it certainly helps with boring subjects. Imagine scenarios or do anything with your imagination as long as you're studying the content. It helps you remember important points even though it may be absurd.

Q and A sessions

From time to time, get in the habit of quizzing yourself, I do it after every topic i complete. I'll ask questions which are not in the book, I'll twist the questions just like in the tests. This means that you have to stay focused if you truly want to answer the questions or even form the questions. You can even do it with a friend/study buddies!

Tennis method

This method is really useful and i kinda made it up. You hold your hands up in the air facing towards each other. Now, after you completed a topic, you "throw" your first point from one hand to another and the other hand should "throw" back the second point and so on until you're completely done with it. If you can't "throw" a point back in less than a minute, you need to revise more. Personally, I love doing this because I'm focused on answering and it's actually kinda fun "throwing" points like balls, even though it may look crazy to any outsiders xD (You can use this for maths for formulae, vocabs etc!)

Hope this helps! :D

[indigrovee]

Week Eight | Unexpected Pivots

The Experience:

Week Eight presented itself with an unexpected challenge. At the start of the week, I had an accident causing a hand injury that has made me unable to properly use my dominant hand. As my experiment relied on drawing, crafting, and writing by hand, this injury caused significant disruption in my ability to produce work and proceed with my experiment as planned. Having these limitations has been a really frustrating experience, as it forced me to shift my work approach, and slowed the momentum of the progress I had built.

Due to this, I found myself back at the drawing board in the stages of revisiting my experimentation planning. Using scissors, pencils, paints, and physical techniques were no longer an option, so I faced the possibility of having to move over to a completely digital graphic design experiment. This was not what I had imagined, as my previous goals for the week were to explore the combination of mixed media, sustainability, and graphic design, through the creation of upcycled fabric posters promoting sustainable fashion. I realised I needed to adapt my practice to suit the current situation. 

Sustainable communication and graphic design were the themes I valued the most within my experiment. I modified my initial plans, keeping the theme of sustainable fashion central, so that I could continue making, and prepare for the practice crit session at the end of the week. As my original plans included designing sustainable fabric posters, I stayed with this, and began developing a list of poster concepts that explored a few ideas around this theme. I wanted each poster to communicate a way that consumers could reduce their personal fashion waste. Pivoting in this direction allowed me to continue exploring my interests while adapting to the situation. I brainstormed three poster concepts that each explored a section of fashion waste (seen below). I still listed the visuals as using collaged, fabric backgrounds, however I knew until I could make these the backgrounds would be plan, with the information as the focus. 

Approaching the practice crit session, I knew I wanted to gather opinions and thoughts about my new making direction by showing these concepts to my peers. Once Thursday finally arrived I presented both my fabric poster from week seven, and the revised direction I had begun exploring. I found the practice crit session really valuable, as it reinforced that my ideas and focuses around graphic design and sustainability were worthwhile and relative to my previous work. Being asked questions such as “How does this connect to capstone?” and “What is your main output of communication?” also reinforced that centering my work around graphic design was not only a practical change, but also thematically aligned with capstone’s emphasis on sustainability and communication. 

Through this discussion I decided that the best way for me to user test was to assess how well my posters communicate sustainable fashion messaging with the viewer. Using a google form seems like the most effective method of gathering this feedback, by asking the viewer questions such as “What was communicated?”  and “What could be improved?” etc. Gathering this information will help me to understand my strengths and weaknesses as a communicator and designer. 

After the crit session, and solidifying my ideas, I redefined my objectives and success metrics to fit my new experiment. Seen below is my previous week eight objectives, compared to my new week nine objectives:

Now that I understood my goals, I began to mock up posters in Illustrator. I planned to refine these over the weekend and next week in preparation for the final critique session. My goal is to develop a final poster that communicates clearly, engages the audience, and tests my graphic design abilities. 

Below are my initial poster mockups:

My aim with these was to create concepts that are simple and allow me to try out different formats etc. to prepare for next week. I created at least one mock up for each of my conceptual ideas and produced these four designs above. From this, I will choose one or two designs to refine and create one finalised poster from that ready for the critique session next Thursday.

Reflection on Action:

This week was truly a learning experience for me. While the injury to my hand was initially a major setback and lessened my confidence, it forced me to be open-minded, and reconsider what was important to me in my work and design. While this was the biggest challenge I've faced so far, without it happening, there wouldn’t have been a shift in my experimentation and I likely wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone. This experience made me ask myself what it was I was really trying to communicate, and how I could still do that effectively even in an unideal situation. 

It focused my attention on what I was trying to communicate instead of the materiality of it, and encouraged me to reevaluate my priorities. Facing these challenges taught me the importance of being adaptable as a designer, and made me recognise my ability to problem solve when necessary to suit a  situation. I successfully managed to shift my idea to suit a completely digital format while still aligning my work with my original values of sustainable and visual communication. The practice critique session was successful in shaping and clarifying this as well as confirming that graphic design was the right direction not only for experiments but also towards capstone. Talking to my peers also helped me to solidify a user testing strategy for next week. 

While I faced many positive outcomes during the week, they were all built upon challenges. The initial setback created a snowball effect of challenges that I had to face and overcome. The momentum that I had built up in the previous weeks suddenly stopped, and the sense of pressure to have a completed experiment ready for the final crit sesh was looming. Having an experiment that heavily relied on physical making meant completely re-planning my experiment mid-week to plan something that was possible. This was really stressful in the beginning, and proved to me that not everything always goes as planned. Facing these challenges taught me the importance of being adaptable as a designer. While the situation was definitely unfavourable, I learnt and honed valuable skills that I otherwise wouldn’t have. 

Theory:

This week in my research I thought it would be interesting to look into methodologies and how their processes might relate to my experimentation. While doing this, I came across ‘Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle’. (Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, n.d.) The cycle follows four stages, Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualisation, and Active Experimentation. Surprisingly, this methodology shares relatively similar stages as the Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Both of the frameworks highlight the importance of reflecting on an experience to gain knowledge and improve. 

Looking into this methodology related to and helped me to understand the learning process that took place during this week of making. Being unable to craft was my concrete experience. Reflecting on my values as a designer followed reflective observation. Re-developing and adapting my experiments was the process of abstract conceptualisation, and finally starting to mockup new posters became my active experimentation. This cycle reinforced my approach to this week's challenges, and the importance of being flexible. 

I knew it was important for me this week to research graphic design techniques, and how I could integrate these into my posters to improve my overall designs. Taking professional design practice as a paper last year gave me the opportunity to hone my graphic design skills. While I took an interest in posters then, they were film posters that often lacked the amount of information that would be included in this type of informative poster. 

I found an article by AdEspresso, that gave examples of call to action posters, and advertisements. (Quadros, 2022) It gave examples of designs and explained the importance of clear messaging by discussing what worked about them. To engage people in your message the article states that we should “provoke emotion or enthusiasm” through our designs. This will make the audience more likely to engage with the messaging and actually take action regarding the issue. 

Building on this, I also wanted to look into popular styles of graphic design to understand what aesthetic appealed to audiences. I found this article from Looka that discussed graphic design styles from modern to contemporary. (Bicaku, 2024). The styles that really stood out to me that related to what I envisioned my posters to be were Swiss Style, Flat Design and Contemporary. 

Swiss Style: 

Flat Design: 

Contemporary:

All three of these styles share overlapping characteristics and principles that make them effective and engaging to viewers visually. The principles that particularly stood out to me were the emphasis on readability, visual hierarchy, bold typography and vibrancy, and the simplicity in design. Together the elements create visually appealing, communicative designs that are essential when addressing and engaging audiences. These qualities are something that I want to include in my own designs, and through this research I now know what styles to look into to help me achieve this successfully. 

Preparation:

My goal for next week is to develop a final poster that clearly communicates fashion waste, engages the audience, and tests my graphic design abilities, in preparation for the final crit session. To achieve this goal, firstly, I'll refine my current concepts to ensure that they successfully communicate the message that I aim to portray. From this I'll finalise one or two of these poster designs so that they are ready to present for the crit and gain feedback on. To gain feedback, I plan on making a short google form that asks my peers questions regarding what the issue being portrayed is, and what elements are done well or could be improved. I also plan on bringing a list of questions to ask in the crit session about techniques that I have used in the design process, such as colour, font, hierarchy etc. 

Doing this will help me to gain outside perspectives and insights on my ability to communicate through graphic design. By understanding how my designs are perceived I can hone my skills, and develop certain areas where improvement might be needed. There is always room to grow, and it’s important to me going forward as a designer that I have the ability to effectively communicate my ideas and messages in a visually appealing way. 

Below, I’ve created a rough plan that I intend to follow for next week:

Following this plan will help me to stay focused and on track throughout the week. Allowing me to create a hopefully strong and refined final poster. 

Bibliography: 

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. (n.d.). Toronto MU. https://www.torontomu.ca/experiential-learning/faculty-staff/kolbs-el-cycle/

Quadros, M. (2022, October 21). 17 Call To Action Examples (+ How to Write the Perfect Social CTA). AdEspresso. https://adespresso.com/blog/call-to-action-examples/

Bicaku, E. (2024, May 16). Graphic Design Styles: A Visual Guide From Modern to Contemporary. Looka. https://looka.com/blog/graphic-design-styles/#stepeleven

[jbeansblog116]

Listening: Reading Journal #2

I often struggle with listening to lectures or audiobooks for extended periods of time. In order to completely focus and have my full attention, I must be doing essentially nothing. My mind races, and combining my over-thinking nature, an audiobook, and a task that requires my total attention is a recipe for disaster. I’m just too easily distracted. That isn’t to say listening cannot be useful to me, it’s just important for it to be constructive. I can crochet or walk while listening to an audiobook, but that doesn’t require much thought for me and it’s something I can zone out with, instead giving my attention to the words being played through my headphones.

The reason I start this week’s post with this is because I believe that listening is as subjective as any other form of teaching or revision. What works for some may not work for all. While Ratcliffe’s Rhetorical Listening surely makes a good argument for the implementation of it in everyday life, I don’t find that it will work for all, especially not myself. She explains that it is:

Another way of helping us continually negotiate our always evolving standpoints, our identities, with the always evolving standpoint of others. It is also another way of helping us recognize that our standpoints are not autonomous points of static stases but rather complex webs of dynamically intermingled cultural structures and subjective agency (Ratcliffe 209).

Yet, doesn’t reading, at its base level, do the same thing? There needs to be a combination of the two; a sort of checks-and-balances system where anyone can thrive with these methods to succeed. I enjoyed Ratcliffe’s writing thoroughly, but it (personally) felt more theoretical than applicable.

I believe that Clark makes a better argument to incorporate listening with the writing-prose method. It feels more substantive, with her example of revisions being something that I can see working for myself. She writes that, “Revision is often a ‘hit and miss’ procedure-- the correction of a few misspelled words, a half-hearted sprinkling of commas. No real reformation occurs” (Clark 83). I agree with her whole-heartedly in this instance as I often struggle to revise my own work properly. I wrote the essay, and upon revision I may notice spelling errors or lack of indentation, but my phrasing usually sounds good (in my opinion). That doesn’t mean it’s correct, as I’m sure you’ll find a word or phrase in here that should have been omitted or reworded, but since it’s how I speak and write, I simply don’t pick up on it. She incorporates listening into her revisions, stating that:

Substantive revising can occur, however, through the proccess of listening, which can take place either in the classroom, during office conferences, or in a listening center located in the writing lab. In a setting which stresses the importance of listening, students can read their drafts aloud to one another and gain the benefit of immediate audience feedback (Clark 83).

Her examples that she provides of this work perfectly, and it’s not too different from how a typical class-room environment should function. By working in groups or pairs, students can give constructive feedback to each other when reading their own papers. A quick note of “I’m sorry, I’m a little bit confused by that,” can lead to an entire discussion where the writer understands what the reader (or listener) is interpreting instead. It holds their attention as well, keeping themselves engaged with spoken material while thinking critically about it as well. It also works in Ratcliffe’s idea of a cross-cultural dialogue, where each student’s voice will be carried and heard in the way that they meant for it to be. Dialect and tone directly affect how a text can be interpreted, so having this outlet within a class would be key in allowing your students to be true to themselves and their work. There isn’t one way of writing or speaking that is better than the other; both can be heard and understood on an equal playing field.

Ratcliffe also includes a string of questions that had me sitting and contemplating her points awhile after I had finished reading. Her questions caught me off guard, asking, “Why is it so hard to listen to one another? Why is it so hard to resist a guilt/ blame logic when we do listen? Why is it so hard to identify with one another when we feel excluded? Why is it so hard to focus simultaneously on commonalities and differences among ourselves? And how do the power differentials of our particular standpoints influence our ability to listen?” (Ratcliffe 197). I think all of these are valid points to bring up; they’re points that should be brought up. Does it merely show how social media has impacted my generations attention spans? How it’s made us shallow and defensive? Or is it something more? I still don’t really have an answer yet, and I’m hoping that with time I’ll come up with some. I end my post here to ask those of you that read my journal this week what you think.

Works Cited:

Ratcliffe. Krista. Rhetorical Listening: A Trope for Interpretive Invention and a “Code of Cross-Cultural Conduct.” Dec. 1999.

Clark, Irene. Listening and Writing. 1981.

[melseltblog]

Chat with Aphrodite

Heyy!!

For my class, i had task of using an AI tool called Magicschool to interview a fictional character. I chose Aphrodite, the goddess of love, for a fun twist. The AI made our conversation feel real. After the interview, I got a transcript and used Google Docs to organize it. Reading it back was fascinating! You can click here for the transcript of the interview.

I then wrote a report about my interview and sent it back to Magicschool for feedback. The AI’s suggestions helped me improve my writing, making it feel like I had a personal tutor. You can click here for my first draft, report, feedback and revised report.

Using AI in education is a game changer. It makes learning interactive and fun, like my chat with Aphrodite. AI provides instant feedback, helping students learn and improve quickly. It’s great for practicing language, offering real time corrections and conversations. AI in language learning has many good sides. Immediate feedback helps learners correct mistakes and improve faster. But, AI can sometimes make errors or miss context, so it’s important to use it alongside traditional teaching methods. Real teachers are still soooo important! My experience with AI was fantastic. It showed how technology can make learning more engaging and personalized. While there are challenges, the benefits of using AI in education are clear. I’m excited to see how AI continues to transform learning!

Next post is going to be the last. See you 💖