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Tag: empowerement

  • Once I forgot the typewriter I forgot how to live…

    (This is a continuation of the previous post: How to make your kid an avid reader/writer)

    I still remember when I was little, no computer yet in my house (I got my first computer when I started University) but we used to have a typewriter (well, we still do, it´s there forgotten somewhere in a dark place of my house). I had read in the newspaper about a writing contest, sponsored by the government in my city, and I thought it was a hell of opportunity for me. I was no more than eight years old, and decided to enter this contest for ‘novel writers’. I´m convinced that it was just for adults but I didn´t pay attention to it. I just wrote with my typewriter a wonderful story (that shamefully I never kept a copy) of a fantasy world. Since typewriters didn´t allow you to make mistakes, my presentation was extremely awful. Being a kid, I wasn´t conscious yet about having to redo a whole page whenever I had a mistake on the typewriter, I would just use an eraser and type over the mistake.

    Image source: site.xavier.edu
    Image source: site.xavier.edu

    When I was done, I begged my Aunt Nancy, who used to live near the post office, to put the papers in an envelope and submit it to the P.O. box of the contest. Of course, I never won or anything and the writing must had been really embarrassing, but I was just eight years old! Nevertheless, having such a wonderful imagination (that I still have fortunately), the story in itself must had been a lot of fun.

    At that age, I felt there was no limit for me and no barriers to achieve whatever I wanted. What a shame, I was never encouraged to follow these dreams. I wrote short stories for my mom and some members of my family before I was 10. I have a couple of them stored in a box, and of course the writing is terrible but the stories, the creativity, the characters were great. But what I remember the most is that I always felt fulfilled whenever I wrote those stories.That sense of fulfilment shouldn´t be forgotten, we should live our lives with the intention of feeling always like that.

    However, I did forget it… and it was shameful because it led me to years and years of an unsatisfied and unhappy life….

    P.S. will continue…

  • Oh men! we´d better achieve our dreams or….

    blog princetontutoring com

     

    Image source: blog.princetontutorial.com

     

    Oh men, If I thought I would had a weekend like the previous one, years ago, I would have laughed really hard. I´ve always envisioned myself writing a novel in the late years of my life. I would say “SOMEDAY I will write a book, when I´m retired, and have time, and blah blah…”, but then one day I just decided to say that is BS!  I will accomplish this dream “RIGHT NOW RIGHT HERE”, not in the near future, or someday when I´m in a retirement house, but NOW, when I have a day job and almost no time. I made the right decision…

    For the past months, I´ve been trying to write my first novel. I started writing short stories first but when I got what I thought an interesting idea for a novel, I decided to give it a go. I decided I was going to put ‘writing´ as number one in my priorities list. No more “extra activities” that would drive me away from it. I would write everyday, if possible, until I actually made a habit of it.

    Then, to not bore you anymore with the process to achieve this goal, I started to research about the process of writing books, how to build up characters, plots, etc. So much material about it, you wouldn´t believe me.

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    Image source: www.arcolatheatre.com

     

    Finally, I decided to enroll myself in the Writer´s Digest bootcamp: Agent One-on-One: First ten pages, which basically focused in the first ten pages of a novel. We got a video tutorial from Ms. Paula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary Agency, who was brilliant, the cleverest person I´ve ever listened to. She gave excellent advice of what Agents were looking for and what she expected to find in the first pages of a novel. She also talked about all clichés, and all the times she got to reject queries from writers. I was “Oh my, I´ve never going to make it!” I did some research about her clients, looked in the web for their books, and believe me , those were quality material, beautiful books, written so amazingly that I was “I don’t stand a chance, English is not even my native language! I´ve never going to be at that level” But I was already registered in the course, with 200 $us invested, which here in my country is a LOT of money.

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    Image source: www.trinitylgbt.com

     

    So to shorten things, Paula Munier was assigned as the agent who would review my pages (out of five agents in the bootcamp). I was thrilled, maybe she was the toughest one, but the one I´ve imagined myself working with. I sent my pages, expecting to receive a critique that would say “this is not good, you really have to improve, you should consider changing careers, or are you sure you want to be a writer?” I was already mentally preparing myself for that, telling me that I would try not to take it so bad, that I would improve, that this was just a course, and that I was there to learn and to improve.

    What I got was: “Nice work, Easy and Fun to read, Engaging premise, Likable hero, Colorful cast of characters, Unique great style” and I was … My god I was stunned.

    Of course she also described the parts where I could improve, like improving the flow of the scenes, avoiding overwriting, American grammar and punctuation (the British influence of course), and some issues with my second scene.  But nonetheless, I was thrilled.

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    Image source: www.kariwolfe.com

     

    And true, there is still a lot to improve, but it is all about the HARD WORK, and nothing else. If you want to write, you have to do it all the time. You have to read millions of books, if you want to improve your craft. It´s hard work and nothing else. Revision after revision and craziness along the way of course! I usually find myself about to go nuts when I get into one of those hard “revision” sessions, like I would dream with characters and get traumatized with grammar rules. But it is worth it.

    In the end, we don´t get a second life, we only have this one, we´d better make the best of it. That means we only have NOW and THIS LIFE to make our dreams come true. We’d better devote ourselves and work our asses off to achieve our dreams, or else when are we going to do it? There is no other way around.

    Believe in your dreams and just work the hell out of yourself to make them come true!

     

  • Feeling empowered…

    I´ve never felt more empowered, let me tell you how this happened:

    I was discussing with my family about the reasons of why I had desisted to go to an end-of-the-year trip to Istanbul and Dubai (personal reasons nothing to do with the beauty of these cities which I will visit but in another opportunity) and why I should consider other possible destinations instead. I came with the same strong opinions from my family: why do I waste money on trips instead of saving to buy a house, a car, or anything? And I my answer was more or less like this one:

    “Because I don´t want to get a loan to buy something that is going to torment me for years until I pay my debt. I don´t want to live like that, I want to be able to enjoy life as if I was going to die tomorrow. I don´t have personal obligations yet, children or other dependents and I want to be able to take advantage of that while I can.”

    It was more or less like that, and it is not the first time I use a similar answer to the members of my family but to friends as well. It seems that I´m surrounded by what I call: “negative traveling souls” and I really hate that!

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    Then we discussed with my family about my way of thinking, etc., etc. and I won´t tell you the details but let’s say that my way of thinking is miles different from them.

    But I felt empowered, because I love the way I am, and I feel so proud that I´m able to think like I do, even if I mistaken, because it just feels right in my heart. And at the end, it is all about being content with your heart, right? Would I be happy being a slave of my work knowing that I have to work for years in order to pay a mortgage? No, definitely no.

    I don’t want to think that much in any financial difficulties that could come when I´m old (as my mother points out), because maybe I won´t get that far!!! And I know many of you will say “how irresponsible way of thinking”. But I think that I´m actually very realistic, I know life is a gift meant to be lived as it were the last you were going to receive, and that people is realistic!

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    I don´t dream of living forever, I don´t dream of saving until one day I become wealthy and then can travel the world. Even if you become wealthy with your savings in years from now, who guarantees that you´re going to be physical able to travel?.

    I feel more real than ever, doing what I like, living how I want. How many people can say that? I feel empowered by accepting and being who I am…. Damn I feel so good!