27. I'd save the excess milk from my cereal in the morning to be used the next day (and maybe the next).
26. Called Fast Food 800 #'s to complain about their horrible dining experience and got free meals
25. Flipping your underwear inside out instead of doing laundry
24. The sickest thing I've ever done to save money was eat bits of other peoples' lunches that they left behind at one of my old jobs several years ago.
23. I was in school and didn't have health insurance. I got this nasty mole (one of those dangly ones) on my NOSE and couldn't afford to get it taken off. So I iced it and cut it off with an Xacto blade that I had sterilized with alcohol. There was lots of bleeding but it worked. And then it came back (!!) and I had to do it again. This time it didn't come back. It's amazing what a poor girl will do for vanity.
22. Dish soap instead of shampoo
21. Used to dig through the butts in my car's ashtray when I was out of smokes.
20. Turned to eating Mac 'n cheese..... The catch was that there were tiny bugs in it. So I took a strainer and the bugs went though, while the noodles were just fine. Yeah, that was a bad time in my life. I was so poor I couldn't afford to throw away a box of Mac N cheese.
19. I've seen guys who had no cash for laundry take about 20 loads and jump on it to get it into the washer so it'd fit. Dumped in some soap, added their 50 cents, and the machine... caught on fire. Filed up with water, but the belt couldn't move the agitator, so it burned out the belt - smoke and all kinds of stink coming from the machine... their clothes basically got wrecked...
18. Rummaged through the garbage next to the mailboxes of our apartment complex to find discarded coupons.
17. Had a roomate that ate a 5 day old McDonalds Quarter Pounder that he forgot he left on his bookshelf. It didn't look any different!
16. Dated a horrible person because she was rich and would pay for dinner out 6 nights a week
15. Rice with cinnamon for breakfast, rice with soy sauce for lunch, rice with ketchup for dinner. If I was feeling very saucy (!) I would mix the soy sauce and ketchup.
14. One winter we ate rabbit about 6 times per week and I was sucky at cooking it.
13. Saltines for a dime a box from the day-old store was the only thing I ate for six weeks. Haven't been able to stand any kind of crackers since then.
12. I once ate a whole blueberry pie while sitting in a toilet stall in a grocery store. I was extremely broke at the time. I took a night job at the grocery store to make some extra money and because I though I would be able to sneak some food home. Getting food out of the store ended up being very difficult because they were careful to watch you while leaving. It was pretty easy to eat stuff while in the store though. You just needed a decent hiding spot.
11. I drove from WA to Alaska one summer. I bought a sleeping bag in Canada, used it every night for nearly a month, then returned it on the way home.
10. My uncle lived on unsweetened kool-aid and homemade biscuits for two years. The biscuits were flour and water - that's it.
9. My ex boyfriend would take ketchup packets from fast food restaurants and make ketchup soup out of them- basically, ketchup and water.
8. Using coffee filters instead of toilet paper.
7. Grossest thing I've ever done to save money was pick popcorn buckets/drinks out of the trash at the movie theater to get refills for $.25 or free depending on the movie theater my friends and I used to sneak into. That was when I was 13 though.
6. Had no insurance in college... needed to get rid of a skin tag. Dental floss and canned air. Floss around the base and spraying the can upside down provided the freezing effect. Pull each side of the floss and voila... you're done! It bled pretty well but toilet paper and some borrowed neosporin did the trick.
5. On a snowboard trip, not wanting to pay the exorbitant prices for lodge food, I made Chili out of condiments... - -Nab a paper or styrofoam cup from the actual food line, fill it with hot water for tea (they'll only charge you for a tea bag, not hot water). Then hit the condiment bar for ketchup, stir this in the hot water until its dissolved, crush up a couple crackers to thicken it, pickle relish and onions for veggies, salt and pepper to taste (adding in some brown mustard will give it some spice as well).
4. Went without health insurance. For 12 years. Turned out to be a money saving decision, but I don't necessarily recommend it.
3. When we were living out of a motel last year with no money and still waiting for food stamps to kick in, we ate nothing but oatmeal cooked in a crock pot for a week straight. No salt, no sugar, no cinnamon. Just water and oats.
2. Once for about a week I used an old t-shirt I found in my shed as toilet paper.
1. My friend did some drug trial - and actually had a spinal tap as part of it.
Showing posts with label Personal Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal Development. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
If you want to learn how to write better where do you go?
Well, you can take a creative writing course.
Or read the books, biographies and studies of men and women hailed as literary geniuses throughout history.
For today, I´ve chosen to take some advice from one the most popular fiction writers of the last few decades: Stephen King.
Now, great sales figures aren’t always an indication of greatness in any field.
But it probably means that the creator knows what s/he is doing and what works. Plus, I have found that that quite a few of Stephen King´s books – like Insomnia, The Long Walkor The Running Man- are really good reads (and sometimes even greater films).
I’ve learned/been reminded about these seven tips by rereading King´s memoir/how-to-write book On Writing - highly recommended for many good insights into writing and a writer’s life - and by a whole bunch of his novels I’ve sacrificed sleep to keep on reading.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
1. Get to the point.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Well, you can take a creative writing course.
Or read the books, biographies and studies of men and women hailed as literary geniuses throughout history.
For today, I´ve chosen to take some advice from one the most popular fiction writers of the last few decades: Stephen King.
Now, great sales figures aren’t always an indication of greatness in any field.
But it probably means that the creator knows what s/he is doing and what works. Plus, I have found that that quite a few of Stephen King´s books – like Insomnia, The Long Walkor The Running Man- are really good reads (and sometimes even greater films).
I’ve learned/been reminded about these seven tips by rereading King´s memoir/how-to-write book On Writing - highly recommended for many good insights into writing and a writer’s life - and by a whole bunch of his novels I’ve sacrificed sleep to keep on reading.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
1. Get to the point.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
1. Get to the point.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
Don’t waste your reader’s time with too much back-story, long intros or longer anecdotes about your life. Reduce the noise. Reduce the babbling. In On Writing King gets to his points quickly. Get to your point quickly too before your reader loses patience and moves on.
2. Write a draft. Then let it rest.
King recommends that you crank out a first draft and then put it in your drawer to let it rest. Now, how long you let your text rest may vary. King puts his manuscripts away for several months before rereading and start the editing process.
I often let a post rest for a day or two before I start editing (as I´m sure many other bloggers do from time to time too).
This enables you to get out of the mindset you had when you wrote the draft and get a more detached and clear perspective on the text. It then becomes easier to edit, add and cut in a sometimes kinda ruthless way. The result is most often a better text.
3. Cut down your text.
When you revisit your text it´s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.
Don´t remove too much text though or you may achieve the opposite effects instead. King got the advice to cut down his texts by 10 percent from an old rejection-letter and has followed this advice for decades. While editing my blog I´ve found that 10 percent seems to be a pretty good figure not just for mammoth-sized books.
4. Be relatable and honest.
King has an honest voice in his fiction and in his memoir. He tells it like it is and makes us relate to him and his characters. Since King´s fiction often is of an odd kind with strange plots that seldom happen to normal people I think one of his strengths as a writer is being able to write relatable content anyway.
One of the keys to doing that is to have an honest voice and honest characters with both bad and good sides to them. People we can relate to with all of their faults, passions, fears, weaknesses and good moments. King´s characters seem human. That creates a strong connection to the reader who starts caring about the characters.
Another key to being honest and relatable is keeping a conversational style. Keeping it simple and using language that isn’t unnecessarily complicated. Using the words that first come to mind.
5. Don´t care too much what others may think.
King admits to being needy about the emotional feedback he gets when he lets his wife read a new story for the first time. He gets a kick out of hearing her laugh so she cries or just cry because something in manuscript really touched her. But he has also gotten tons of mail over the years from people who confuse his sometimes nasty characters with the writer. Or just thinks he should wind up in hell. And King hasn´t always been a favourite among literary critics either.
But from what I gather he just sits down at his desk and keeps writing every morning anyway. If you listen too much to your critics you won´t get much done. Your writing will probably become worse and less fun. And criticism is often not even about you anyway.
6. Read a lot.
When you read you always pick up things. Sometimes it might be reminders about what you know you should be doing while you write. Sometimes it’s some cool idea or just the world and atmosphere the writer is painting. Sometimes it’s something totally new that makes your jaw drop. That one is my favourite. And sometimes you learn what you should avoid doing. There are almost always lessons you can learn.
If you want to be a better writer you need to read a lot to get fresh input, broaden your horizons and deepen your knowledge. And to evolve you need to mix yourself up with new influences and see what happens.
How do you find time to read more? You can cut down on other evening activities like watching TV-shows you don´t care for that much anyway. Or, as King suggests, you can bring a book to waiting rooms, treadmills or toilets. I like to plug in an audiobook while I´m on the bus or walking somewhere.
7. Write a lot.
I’ve saved the most important tip for last. To become a better writer you probably – and not so surprisingly - need to write more.
Many of the best in different fields – Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods - have gone beyond normal limits of practise. And so they reap extraordinary results.
But what do you do when you don´t feel like writing? Waiting for inspiration can become a long wait.
One good way to get around this is to find an effective solution to reduce procrastination. You may have to try a few before you find one that works for you. Another way is well, just to do it. And if you just get going your emotions changes a lot of the time and any initial resistance becomes fun and enthusiasm instead.
Many of these tips can be useful no matter if you are a blogger, writing reports at work/in school or quietly spending your nights secretly working on that great novel that will astonish the world.
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