Research. You're Doing It Right

There's a famous quote that I have not idea who said but I try to live by: "Write what you know." As a writer, I know firsthand that it's ten times easier and less stressful to write about something that you know well as opposed to something you have no experience with.

For example, I can't just randomly write about a girl who lives in Butte, Montana because I have no idea what Butte, Montana is like. If I do attempt to write about Butte, I'll be killing myself over what it's really like and what people in Butte, Montana will be thinking as they read my obviously inexperienced story.

Once I read a short story in which the main character was playing the xbox game Halo. I started to read it because it was had Halo in it. At the time, I was a big fan of Halo and thought it would be awesome to read something with Halo in it. By the time I got to the middle of the story, it was obvious that the author had never played Halo before in her life. I stopped reading because it was so disgustingly wrong.

So, as a writer, I try to only write what I know. If I don't know something, then I go look it up. My search history has some pretty weird things in it because of all the things I've had to search. I think the craziest thing I searched for was "easy exorcising rituals" for my ghost story that I wrote during NaNoWriMo.

The reason I've brought this up is because a while ago I was writing a story and the main character randomly decided to jump out of a moving car. Fellow authors can attest to the fact that characters will do whatever they feel like, whether the author wants them to or not.

Now, because I don't want people getting angry for being wrong about how damaged from the jump (I focused mainly on physical damage because it's already obvious there's some mental damage if she jumped out in the first place) my character should be, it took me a few minutes and much changing of information to make this situation seem realistic. For some reason I never thought to look it up on Google.

I don't remember how, but Parker reminded me of this certain part in that certain story and it's been coming back for a few days now. So, naturally, I finally look it up on Google.

I didn't get much information on it. It's quite possible that I didn't ask the right thing, but I did find a cool thing that tells me how to jump from a speeding car. It wasn't really the answer I was looking for, but it gave me some good information. Now if I need to get away from kidnappers, I know what to do.

But, like I said, it didn't really give me the answer I was looking for. If you can't find your answer online, what do you do? Figure it out yourself.

You're probably thinking I'm stupid - Parker thinks I'm stupid - but I want to go out and figure out how fast a car can be moving so that when I jump out minimal damage will be done to my body. Unfortunately, I can't do this alone and Parker's not willing to jump out of the car for me as I go 5 mph. And since he can't drive, I can't be the one to jump out of the car.

I suppose I'm just going to have to go find someone else to help me. Perferrably a guy who will find this as interesting and as fun as I will. And it will probably have to be a guy who can drive so I can be the one to jump. I don't want to be responsible for anyone's injuries except my own.

The only problem? I don't know anyone with that criteria. And I suppose it would be a really good idea to save up some money for the hospital bill for when I break something because I went to far.

I'll let you know if I ever go through with the experiment.

P.S. Here's where I found the "How to Jump From a Speeding Car" article. I just want to point out that the car I will be jumping out of if I ever do this experiment will not be speeding. I hope that makes you feel just a little bit better about all this.

Dreaming is Awesome

I had a freaking awesome dream.

I was married to some guy with hair to his shoulders. That's the first sign it's a dream because I don't really like it when guys have hair to their shoulders. He was still really handsome, though. Anyways, we were in a race that I was participating in for fun and he was participating in for real. Apparently he was like a professional runner. The first ten people across the finish line got to go to the second round. I was doing it because he was and like I said: for fun. Even though I suck at races in real life, I was actually doing really well because I was keeping up with him and he was at the front of the crowd of people racing. When we got close to the finish line, he started to sprint. Of course he made first place. Then I decided I was going to sprint. I miraculously made seventh place.

So the next race was about to start and my name in the dream started with an M, like Miranda or something. We were all standing in a line, my husband next to me, getting ready to go for it. This time, I wasn't doing the race for fun, I was going for the win. I was going to work my butt off, because if I could win the qualifying race, then I could finish this race. The race starts and we all go for it and it turns into something other than a track field. This time it was like a water park. We were racing through a water park. And we had to do like 100 laps. If you missed any of the water slides or tunnels, you were disqualified. I was doing pretty well as people started to get disqualified. We were through a couple of laps when my husband and I decided to team up. We were doing even better as a team, even though it doesn't really make sense.

We were going through this one tunnel on our marshmallows - yes, marshmallows - when it all went wrong. He was telling me that there was a tunnel in the tunnel and I kept telling him that there wasn't. I came out of the tunnel we were in, and I was disqualified. I was really upset because I wanted to finish with my husband. But I got out and went to the place where all the disqualified contestants were sitting. I dropped my bag of marshmallows (which fell really dramatically and slowly) and glumly started to watch the race, occasionally taking a sip of water from my water bottle.

I was started to get into it when a girl contestant started to hit on my husband! Seeing what was going on, the disqualified contestant sitting next to me took my iPod and switched my headphones with the girls headphones. He was going to toss the iPod to either my husband or the girl, but I had no idea how this was going to keep the girl from hitting on my husband and sabotaging his win. Before the guy could toss the iPod down to the girl or whoever, there was a knock at the door and I woke up.

I'm kinda mad that I woke up because it was a really cool dream that I liked and I wanted to see what happened and how the iPod would have helped my husband. Also, whenever anything pertained to my husband, I think I actually felt love. It was a really good feeling and I liked it. Also, I learned that even though I, as a woman, may always be right, my husband can be right sometimes, also. Just kidding, I don't really believe in the "the woman is always right" thingy.

Anyways, as far as dreams go, that one is probably one of my favorites and I hope I can remember it even ten years from now. I wrote it down so that it would be easier to remember in the future.

Procrastination FTW

I have this problem. Everybody's had this problem at least once in their life. You're not normal if you've never procrastinated. But I'm not sure if everybody has the problem of procrastinating and then hiding the fact you procrastinated, like you just murdered someone.

I have that problem. If I've procrastinated doing my homework, I will wait until no one is around to do it just so that no one knows that I did procrastinate. Sometimes, people just don't go away and I never end up doing what I procrastinated.

I hate that word and how many times I've said it, so I'm going to find a synonym.

My homework assignment that was due last night I haven't done because I put it off until the last possible second. But then Mom was in the room with me, so I couldn't do it at the last minute, which means I put it off for even longer. Now it's late and I'm probably going to get a B, A- if I'm lucky.

I don't know why I do this. It's not like Mom knows my assignment was due last night at midnight and not tonight at midnight. I could tell her that I just forgot or that ANGEL was down, or whatever reasonable lie I can think of (and I can think of a lot) but I hate lying and that's what I would be doing. So I just don't do it.

This is a really bad thing because I'm in college now and delaying homework isn't going to get me that 4.0 I want. In fact, I already botched my 4.0, but not because of procrastination; that was actually because I did my homework on early and then forgot to turn it in. But still, this is a problem.

I wonder if they have a 12 step program for procrastinators like they do for alcoholics and stuff. They should because I would totally benefit from it, as well as all the people I know.

Seriously, who doesn't procrastinate?

Lyrics I Absolutely Love

“When I got tired of running from you,
I stopped right there to catch my breath.
There your words, they caught my ears,
You said “I miss you son, come home.”
And my sins, they watched me leave,
And in my heart I so believe
The love you felt for me was mine;
The love I’d wished for all this time.
And when the doors were closed,
I heard no I-told-you-sos.
I said the words I knew you knew:
“Oh God, oh God I needed you.
God, all this time I needed you.
I needed you.”

And I so hate consequences;
Running from you is what my best defense is.
I hate these consequences,
Cause I know that I let you down
And I don’t want to deal with that.”

—	Relient K, I So Hate Consequences

I did it.

I managed to create another blog where I can post my most private and embarrassing thoughts. No, I will not give you the address to this blog because then it wouldn't be private anymore. Yes, I did change my name and any other name involved to keep it even more private. Yes, I do post everyday. No, the blog is not really helping get it off my mind. I'm not quite sure if I'm ok with that.

Now, to get that stupid blog and the subject of that stupid blog off my mind, I'm going to talk about something else. What? I don't know. Let's start with the ridiculous amount of blogs I have, and how many of them I actually keep.

(1) First is obviously this blog. I think the only reason I keep it is because I don't feel like I have the obligation to update everyday like I have felt from other blogs. This blog is a sometimes blog, a blog that sometimes I will update and sometimes I will look at. This blog mainly has posts about long things that I don't really feel like sharing with my mom. This post is something I don't want to share with my mom, mainly because of the aforementioned private blog that she will want to read and want to know what it's about, but I can't do that.

(2) The next blog I'm going to talk about it the one that I update a tad more frequently than this one. The web address is likeaturtle.tumblr.com. I love Tumblr because it's so much more organized and I don't feel as restricted to typing as I do here. Duck and Cover (my blog title) is a random blog; there isn't a theme or a pattern to what I post, I just do. I like that. So I post more often on Duck and Cover.

(3) After I made Private Blog (that's what we'll call it), I made another Tumblog called The First Sentences. This one is at firstsentences.tubmlr.com. This one is a themed blog and is only the first sentence in the book my mom and I read. My mom is the second admin to the blog and can post as well as change settings. I decided to make this blog because on Duck and Cover I would post the first sentences of books I read and I decided that it would be fun to have a blog all by itself for that. So far there are only two posts, but I can't read books that fast with school at the same time. And I am not going to post the first sentence of my school books, that would be lame.

(By the way, if you would like to become a member of The First Sentence so you can also post the first sentence of the books you read, let me know in a comment in this post so I can let you the requirements of becoming a member. Please leave me a way to contact you. If you don't have a Tumblr account, don't worry. You can make one easily and for free.)

(4) Zermith is another Tumblog created by my brother, Hyrum. That is only a temporary title until we can think of a better one. That one follows the progress in our Minecraft world. Hyrum and I post screenshots of the buildings we create, the changes we make, and a birdseye view of our world. If you would like more information on Minecraft, go look up Minecraft Fanmade Trailer on YouTube. That might give you a pretty good description of what it is.

(5) Get A Life Dot Com is a blog I made with my little sister that we don't update. It was fun at first, but I don't post unless she posts and she doesn't post because she's 9 years old and doesn't get online often - which is a good thing.

(6) For Private Blog, I will tell you that it's on Wordpress.com and I post nearly everyday (at least I have so far), but that's all you need to know.

(7) I have another blog on this account that I don't update. It's called Just Pondering and it was about the quotes and things that I found interesting and had a lot to say about. It's been pretty much discontinued because I just don't have any quotes I feel like analyzing.

(8) I have yet another Tumblog that I've discontinued. It was called Scraps. I don't remember the url, but the blog was just a collection of things I had written but had never finished or used in anything. I've discontinued it because it was a pain trying to find and transfer all my scraps. I have a lot of them.

(9) I had a Live Journal blog strictly about one of my stories, but I've stopped using that one because I've lost inspiration for that particular story. I may actually go back to it because I've had a history of rewriting the story, but it's unlikely now.

Any other blogs (I think I have 3 others, maybe more) are not worth mentioning or I just don't remember them. In the future I might have more blogs, but I'm running out of places to create these blogs and I can't imagine what I'll need another blog for. But I'm sure I will come up with something and find a way to make it a blog.

Privacy

I have so much on my mind right now that I want to get out, but I just can't do that. The things on my mind are private and I don't want anyone to know about them, but I want to get them out somewhere. Usually my blog is the best place for me to go to just write down what I'm saying and I wouldn't have to worry about what I was saying because no one was reading it. But now, I don't know if anyone is reading this or not, and if someone is, there's a better chance of that person being someone I know than not. And if I posted what's on my mind, that would be very embarrassing because the person I know would completely understand what I'm saying no matter how vague I might be and then I would be made fun of for the rest of my life.

So, my dilemma is that I need somewhere to write my most private thoughts down, somewhere where I know no one I know will find it and laugh at me for being so pathetic. And the reason this is a dilemma is because I would have already found a private place by now if I could. I just seriously have no idea where to go.

But I'm pretty desperate, so maybe I will be able to figure something out.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Be more politically aware.

That's it. If you have any good ways for me to get political information, like website and TV channels, let me know. So far, all I know about is Glenn Beck, and I don't want just his opinion on everything.