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Author: Carla Doria

  • When writing is only about writing

    To be honest, I’d been stuck with my manuscript for months already. Recently, I wrote how I planned to practically start over from scratch. At the end, I decided to take a similar approach, go over it but not with editing eyes (I’ve edited those sentences so many times that I didn’t know if I was actually improving them or making them worse) but read it critically, plotwise, characterwise. I felt that my biggest weakness was character development, I felt them flat. That is why I choose a very good advice from my blog friend Glynis in “Productive or Busy” (who also took it from her friend Shari) about writing separately several character pages (not necessarily related to the plot but their life story in general) to get a feeling of the characters. I loved the idea and started doing this on my current manuscript.

    As soon as I started just writing, I got those chills you have when inspiration hits you and you just start typing endlessly, feeling the flow of the words. I love this state. I know I don’t do my best writing from the grammatical/structure point of view, the writing is rather awful, but I get to release all the feelings and everything I feel should be put to paper.

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    After this cool experience, I had to go for a fanfiction story. I know being a geek has led me to write fanfiction stories before. This is a weird path for writing since fanfiction involves writing about characters that have already been created, but it is still writing and I had to do it. It felt so liberating that I thought that I was finally rediscovering my writing spirit again. The fan fiction story only awoke my inner writing muse. This was a one time short story and it is already finished, and I don’t plan to revisit the world of fanfiction for a while, however this process has stirred the desire that I’ve been having for some time to start a new story, for leaving my manuscript resting for a while, and just start telling this new story that has been doing circles in my head.

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    I realized that I might not be the first one. I’m pretty sure several writers have jumped to a different work and left others to rest for a while.  So I’ve started writing a new manuscript for a week already. I’ve been doing it daily (which wasn’t happening with my other writing) and I feel excited about it, ideas are flowing to my mind and I feel happy. I still plan to revisit my previous manuscript’s character pages since that aside process was been going well, but I feel like this new writing has strengthened and invigorated my new writing spirit.

    And you, has it ever happened to you that you started writing other projects without finishing others? Do you think it is a good idea?

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  • TED Talk: How boredom can lead to your most brilliant ideas

    Manoush Zomorodi talks about a developed app-experiment that challenges its users to be “Bored and Briliant”.

    As writers, we suffer from time to time from “writer’s block”. We find ourselves “procrastinating” and using/losing time only to check emails, social media and so on. Suddenly we find ourselves out of “ideas” or far from of a clear mind to write. The following talk might give you a different perspective:

     

    What do you think about this talk? Do you think you can find writing inspiration during your bored times?

  • Is it time to start the manuscript from scratch?

    It has been several months since I haven’t posted a blog post. And today was the day that I decided I would not go to bed until I finally did it. Work and travel are the excuses in general – and I won’t go to discuss them more since I want to jump into blogging pools as soon as possible without lamenting why I didn’t blog these months.

    My manuscript continues to be a manuscript. However, it seems it was for the best. After going through multiple reviews and editing rounds, I decided it needs a complete makeover. The story is nice, the theme topic is interesting, but it is not the book that I think it could be. I’ve struggled so much to keep the same characters and to bring to life all situations in the book, but I reached a point where I need to acknowledge that my characters might not strong enough, neither interesting enough and some situations feel awkward and forced into the plot. Maybe leaving the manuscript to rest for a long time was a good idea after all.

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    At this point, I’m not completely sure how to target this. Should I work on revamping the book, adjusting situations, and changing the characters over the existing framework, or just start from scratch?

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    Starting from scratch sounds good, but if I were to start a new complete book, then why insist on this “theme topic”? I have a couple of other better theme topics to explore. However, I cannot simply give up almost two years invested on this manuscript. Somehow, deep inside, I still want to rescue it and rescue all the time invested in it.

    I guess I relate to this:

    Have you experienced something similar? Any Advice?

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  • International Women’s Day

    Everywhere you hear about how Women don’t have the same opportunities as men. And although there might be some truth in this and there is a lot still to fight in terms of wages equality and cultural biases,  I believe that “determination” is what makes an individual (regarding of Gender) successful or not. I wanted to share this inspiring video about a woman who summarizes a woman’s struggle to these words “courage and determination”.

    [ted id=2223]

     

     

     

  • Book review: Lee Child’s Make me – Jack Reacher in paper

    This was my first Child novel. I’ve already seen some movies based on Child’s famous character but never got the chance to read one of the books. It was one of those authors I wanted to have a taste on, mostly because of his worldwide popularity and because his bookcovers were screaming “take me” from all bookstores at all different angles.

    However, I must say the book was meeh… or is it because I expected more?

    One could believe that after so many novels based on the same character, the character would be well developed and one would be able to read Jack Reacher without any problems. However, I got no taste of the personality of this character. I didn’t understand the reasoning behind his reactions, what are his objectives, his beliefs, etc. I only understood that he acts impulsively and that he is good with weapons. Other than that, there was no reason to make me like him or care about him. Is this because, in a Lee Child thriller, there is no need to know all these aspects about his famous character anymore? I don’t buy this.

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    In this Novel, Jack Reacher suddenly reaches the town of Mother Rest (apparently only because of curiosity at this town’s name). In this town, he meets private investigator Chang, a woman that suddenly trusts Reacher without any problem. In a couple of hours, he suddenly risks his life in order to help Chang and will go through to the end of the world to solve the mystery of Chang’s missing colleague. The book will take the action from San Francisco to other cities while all sorts of villains start chasing the duo that apparently has come too close to the truth. When the plots starts to get thicker, all sorts of scientific explanations arise and some of them feel forced to fit and explain the initial quest of the novel.

    Points of view are also blurry in this book. There were many instances when you didn’t follow the book’s point of view. You started to wonder if a certain feeling or line of thought was happening in Reacher’s head or on her colleague Chang? If it was on Chang’s, how did Reacher know she had that feeling? Or did we suddenly changed points of view? Confusing.

    Nevertheless, Child is skillful when it comes to describing action scenes, fights, gun exchanges, etc. For those interested in these details, they might find the most interesting narrative in these fight-heavy scenes.

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    It might be that this novel was not my cup of tee and I expected more from a famous author like Child, but I’ve read many thrillers before and I firmly believe that all the details described above (character development and points of view) can be equally and masterfully achieved.

    It was not a bad story but not what I expected.

  • Celebrating Christmas in the middle of the Heat

    When people think of Christmas, they usually imagine a Snowy postcard image, with Reindeers, snowmen, and people wearing winter clothes. Even if you look for Christmas clothes, you’ll find they are always sweaters – like the infamous ugly Christmas sweater -, scarfs, beanies, etc. It is not as you can find tank tops or flip flops with Christmassy designs.

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    As you already know, there is a South hemisphere that will have a very sunny and in-the-middle of summer Christmas. This geolocalization does not ruin Christmas for us. We still pretend to put fake snow around our trees and Christmas decorations. There are still polyethylene foam snowmen decorating the main squares and parks of the city.

    However, this Holiday Season has been different in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The city where I live. We’ve experienced one of the worst droughts ever. And water shortage has been the biggest concern of our lives. I haven’t met a person who doesn’t literally pray and wish for rain. It has indeed rained a couple of times this month, but it has not been enough. Valleys and rivers are drying. Wild animals and crops are dying as a consequence. The local government is trying to pull off a couple of solutions, but nobody knows if these projects (dams and tunnels built to bring water from other places) will be sustainable solutions in the long term. We need the rain. Global warming is a fact, and we’re experimenting the consequences.

    For Cochabambinos – people from my city – appreciating this resource has become part of our lives. We’ve learned the lesson. We try to save as much as we can and spend as less as possible. I take showers as fast as possible. I don’t let water be wasted. I only wash the necessary clothes and only when needed.  Most Cochabambinos cannot bear seeing people wasting water: like car washers that don’t recycle water or other unneeded uses of water.

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    I had relatives visiting a couple of weeks:  my aunt and my uncle, both from Santa Cruz, a city in Bolivia that has no problems with water. Although, they are aware of the shortage of water in this city, their behavior towards water is different from ours. You don’t wash a dish in several minutes, you do it fast. If you buy fruit, you don’t clean them one by one, you save water from the tap by washing them all at once. Of course, it is not their fault, but my aunt and uncle will be far from understanding the meaning of saving water, unless they move over here.

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    Unfortunately, you learn to appreciate a natural resource only when there is a lack or shortage of it. When probably it is too late. And similar to my aunt and uncle who only live a city away from mine, other people in the world won’t be able to understand this problem until they experiment it. Whoever that does not pay attention to Climate change is really lost.

    This is Christmas. It is nice. But if it were raining, it would be the best Christmas ever for me.

     

     

  • Delivering Happiness

    Well, it took me some time to write this post. I was kind of busy preparing my exit at my current job and readying for my new job. I will start in November working as Happiness Engineer for Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com and many other web solutions that seek to make the web a better place). So of course, I’m thrilled. The title of the position is very accurate actually. Happiness engineers deliver customer support but also go beyond that; they make sure WordPress.com users (mostly) go through a smooth and happy experience as they build and manage their blogs or sites.

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    Having the opportunity to help people with their sites’ issues and provide them advice, tips, and tools to make things better are exactly the tasks I enjoy the most. Anticipating their needs and contributing with their blogs’ journeys is fantastic. Of course, we can’t solve everything. And I really wish we could, but being there to support and empathize with them is what makes this a great job. We deliver a little bit of happiness in each of our tasks.

    So, how did I find this position? It was not that easy, and it was a long path. Basically, you need to prove you’re a good match for this company. And how do you do that? Well, Automattic looks for people who’re interested in learning every single day and growing each time more (I love that!). And what better way to know if you’re a good match for them than to “trying yourself”? Yes, you do that. You go through a paid trial so they can assess if you’re a good fit for the company’s culture or not. But this trial doesn’t only work for their assessment, you also get to taste the company’s culture and see if the role is made for you.

    What other characteristics are awesome about Automattic? The company is totally distributed. Meaning that Automatticians (people who work at Automattic) get to work from wherever they are in the world. Living and being from Bolivia, this is certainly a huge plus. (Although, I totally believe the future will be like this). They hire based on what you can bring into the company and not based on where you’re located or if it’s possible to relocate. And let’s be honest, as a passionate traveler, I’m excited about working remotely.

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    However, you can’t only assess a company based on the benefits and your position. You need to hunt for the “totally awesome” career factors. You need to hunt for a company that will push you to grow, learn endlessly, and contribute as much as possible. In the little time as a HE trial, I’ve learned more than what I did in all my career life. Period. I can only imagine how much I will be able to learn once I start working with them. My skills will grow exponentially 🙂 And although many companies push you towards continuous learning, some of them actually limit you without noticing (after all, they want you to make the job for which you were hired and not intervene too much with others’ work). At Automattic, I’m sure I won’t be limited. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a technical background (like me), your opinion and your work is taken into account. You can even rotate and explore as many areas as you like. 🙂

    So why do I believe this is my dream job? For me working as HE will let me:

    • Help people every single day and at every single second
    • Grow and learn every single second
    • Have infinite possibilities to contribute
    • Have more flexibility to travel and get to know the world
    • Have really awesome perks (Did I mention you get to travel a couple of times a year to meet the team and the company, you get your home office set up – with the best laptop in the market, the chair of my dreams, a huge monitor, a great desk, endless WordPress swag – and so many other perks?)

    I’m super excited. I know the job is going to be challenging (which I look forward to), but at the same time I feel like I’ve received one of the greatest opportunities to have finally the life that I want. I’m also excited to continue writing my books. But the writing journey conditions will be a million times better with a great job supporting me and my family.

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  • When you land the job of your dreams…

    Wow, only writing this title was an amazing experience. All writers must work, there’s no doubt about that (unless you land a big publishing contract that could only come after decades of experience 🙂 ) But wouldn’t it be great to make your writing journey while you have one of the best jobs ever? I’m still so thrilled that I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull off this post or not.

    It was really hard. It was Not one of those jobs where you apply, you get an interview and voilá you got the job. It was hard work and nothing else, and this makes this experience so rewarding because you know you fought for it; the results are only about perseverance and never giving up. It’s about being stronger than you believe. It’s about knowing you really did your best. That’s why this is the best job ever. A job where you get to help people, a job where you get to learn every single day, a job where you get to prove yourself every single day, a job where you can contribute, a job where you can grow endlessly, what else could you want?

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    Writing is one of my passions! And I will continue writing because it’s in my nature, and I cannot imagine myself living without writing, but when you have a job that makes your day happy every single day, then writing time is definitely going to be the best!

    And for all those wondering, what job is this? I’ll get you the details in a next post 🙂

     

     

  • TED Talk: Why you will fail to have a career?

    Loved this talk! For all of you who still hadn’t found out your passion or know what is your passion but are too afraid to pursuit, then this is the talk for you!

    Actually, this is the talk for all the people who want to have a goal in life and achieve it!

    Professor Larry Smiths presents, in quite a peculiar way, a talk that changes lives and inspires. He is a professor of economics at University of Waterloo. A well-known storyteller and advocate for youth leadership, he has also mentored many of his students on start-up business management and career development. The most notable start-up he advised in its infancy is Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry.

    Invest 15 minutes in this talk and it will be an investment for life!

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  • The editor in me: Spam editing

    I usually never get spam emails. My email account filters them nicely to my spam folder. But today somehow the email below managed to get into my Inbox:

    From: Jon W. Rosborough <rrjon4433@gmail.com>
    To:
    Sent: Friday, 22 July 2016, 7:25
    Subject: YOUR URGENT RESPOND IS NEEDED‏‏

    Wilmington International Airport
    1740 Airport Blvd. Suite 12
    Wilmington, NC 28405

    Compliment,

    Sorry for the delay in sending this message, We were checking over some files and packages in the office and we discover an ATM CARD which was addressed on your name, (I think it is Contract/Inheritances funds) I believe you can remember a dealing that has to do with some cooperate body or individual about this said funds to be deliver to you through an (ATM CARD) but I do not have any idea why it was on hold at our Airport up-to-date.

    So we contacted the Authorities and they asked us to get in contact with Senator Richard Burr, to get an approval to figure out what was in the package, After checking over the ATM CARD, we discover a total sum of $5.5,000.000 ($5.5 Million USD) through the router figurative machine who check on balance through the number on a ATM CARD, so we report back to the Senator Richard Burr and we were asked to deliver the package to you from this office. (Senator Richard Burr, City Hall, Room 222 181 South Street Gastonia, NC 28052) We need you to reconfirm your full name and  Home address to see if it will show on the package we have here. And also if you want your ATM CARD to be delivered to you immediately, it will cost you just only $95.00 which is the charges for the delivery clearance certificate of your ATM card, meanwhile your ATM CARD is save with our securities service so please have that in mind. The information above is where the ATM CARD was stopped at Wilmington International Airport North Carolina.

    THIS MAIL IS NOT A SPAM OR SCAM MESSAGE, WE CAN DELIVER YOUR ATM CARD TODAY IF WE RECEIVED REPLY FROM YOU, I HAVE INCLUDED MY NAME AND MY SSN: 768 67 6797 FOR YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM FOR REAL AND NOT A SCAM IF YOU NEED TO VERIFY ME, SO STOP DEALING WITH ANY BODY IF YOU HAVE SOME IMPOSTERS YOU ARE DEALING WITH AND FOCUS ON GETTING YOUR ATM CARD HERE IN WILMINGTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED NOT TO DISCLOSE THIS DEAL TO NO ONE OR ELSE TERMINATION FROM THE HOUSE OF SENATE WILL PENETRATE ON YOUR FUNDS DUE TO THE FACT THAT YOU WERE TRYING TO CONTACT ANOTHER PERSON TO FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS, SO NO MISTAKE OF SUCH WILL BE TOLERATED.

    Mr. Jon W. Rosborough
    Director

    As I read the email, my eyes hurt noticing all punctuation, grammar, and general writing mistakes. Since it’s Friday and I was in the mood to do something funny:

    I answered the following (I doubt they’ll ever reply me):

    Hi,

    Thanks but this not my card. I picked up mine last month at Dulles International airport. My deal was bigger: it involved 10 million $us. But I wish you luck finding the real owner. However, you really need to polish your writing here. Below is a sample of my editing services. If you need to polish other emails like this one, send me as soon as possible to my paypal account the small amount of $us 250. I’ll be happy to assist you.

    Best regards,

    Lucy

    Wilmington International Airport
    1740 Airport Blvd. Suite 12
    Wilmington, NC 28405

    Compliment (what is the compliment? to address a formal email use the following words: “To whom it may concern”, “Dear xxx”, etc.)

    Sorry for the delay in sending this message, (wrong punctuation. Period) We were checking over some files and packages in the office and we discover (past tense “discovered”) an ATM CARD which was addressed on (wrong preposition, use “to”) your name, (I think it is Contract/Inheritances funds)_(missing period here) I believe you can remember a dealing (a “deal”) that has to do (“is related” to?) with some cooperate body  (there is no such things as “cooperate body”) or individual about this said funds to be deliver (passive voice, use: “delivered”) to you through an (ATM CARD) (no need of parentheses here) but I do not have any idea why it was on hold at our Airport up-to-date. (poor choice of words, perhaps “until now”?)

    So we contacted the Authorities (no need to capitalize) and they asked us to get in contact with Senator Richard Burr, (misplaced comma) to get an approval  to figure out (poor choice of words, perhaps to “find out”, “research”, etc.) what was in the package, (wrong punctuation here. You need a period) After checking over the ATM CARD, we discover (use past tense here, “discovered”) a total sum of $5.5,000.000 ($5.5 Million USD) through the router figurative machine (there is not such machine…) who (if this is a machine performing the operation, then you need to use “that”, not “who”) check (past tense: “checked”) on balance through the number on a (change it to the definite article “the”) ATM CARD, (poor writing here, this sentence is too long, you need to put a period a start another one) so we report (past tense: “reported”) back to the Senator Richard Burr and we were asked to deliver the package to you from this office. (Senator Richard Burr, City Hall, Room 222 181 South Street Gastonia, NC 28052) We need you to reconfirm your full name and Home (no need to capitalize here) address to see if it will show on the package we have here. And also (it’s poor writing to start sentences with conjunctions such as “and” followed by the connector “also”) if you want your ATM CARD to be delivered to you immediately, it will cost you just only (poor writing, avoid these words) $95.00 which is  (“are”, you are referring to the “charges” which is plural) the charges for the delivery clearance certificate of your ATM card, meanwhile your ATM CARD is save (passive voice: “saved”) with our securities service so please have that in mind. The information above is where the ATM CARD was stopped (“was stopped”? do you mean “detained”, “held”…) at Wilmington International Airport North Carolina.

    THIS MAIL IS NOT A SPAM OR SCAM MESSAGE, (wrong punctuation, you need to use a period) WE CAN DELIVER YOUR ATM CARD TODAY IF WE RECEIVED (you must continue the same structure here and use present “receive”) REPLY FROM YOU, (wrong punctuation, you need to use a period) I HAVE INCLUDED MY NAME AND MY SSN: 768 67 6797 FOR YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM FOR REAL AND NOT A SCAM IF YOU NEED TO VERIFY ME (poor writing, you need to rewrite the whole sentence and use a simple statement such as “…. my SSN to verify that I am not a scan.”), (Period here) SO (Stop using “so”, this is so colloquial,informal) STOP DEALING WITH ANY BODY (this is one word: “anybody”, by the way, you can’t address a person like this, it sounds like a threat and you’re losing credibility here)_ (missing punctuation here: Period) IF YOU HAVE SOME IMPOSTERS YOU ARE DEALING (you really need to check your sentence structure. It’s all over the place and there’s no coherence at all …) WITH AND FOCUS ON (is this a command, a threat? you need to polish your people skills here…) GETTING YOUR ATM CARD HERE IN WILMINGTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, (wrong punctuation, you should use period to separate complete sentences) YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED NOT TO (wrong order of words “to not”) DISCLOSE THIS DEAL TO NO ONE OR ELSE TERMINATION FROM THE HOUSE OF SENATE WILL PENETRATE ON YOUR FUNDS DUE TO THE FACT THAT YOU WERE TRYING TO CONTACT ANOTHER PERSON TO FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS (terribly long sentence with no coherence at all), SO NO MISTAKE OF SUCH WILL BE TOLERATED.
    Mr. Jon W. Rosborough
    Director

    By the way, I’m not Lucy and I don’t intend to charge $us 250. I was just in the mood of laughing today 🙂

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