Let's bring a lot of SEXINESS to start this new year with a very sensual couple session I shot a few weeks ago at the Addams Loft in Solingen, Germany.
The idea of “honor” has changed over time. This post looks at tThe decline of traditional honor in the wWest, from Ancient Greece to the Romantic Period.
These 5 day trips from Thessaloniki, Greece are the perfect getaway for every season, all less than 2 hours away from the city!
Since I started this blog, I've been trying to figure out something that I could do that hasn't been done a thousand times before. All the advice I know has been given by far better bloggers than I and far better than I'm capable of. The Moments of the Week slowed to a boring crawl. I don't want to be the jerk who just talks about me. But you know what I've realized? I am really good at making lists. And between writing and years of playing tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, I've come to enjoy making characters and helping others make them. So why not continue making lists like the hobbies one to help other people with their character creation? Most likely, this won't be a long-running thing, as there are only so many lists needed for character and world building, but I guarantee, you'll be able to find it here. Today, we're looking at bad habits. No character is perfect. Everyone's got these little quirks that they know they should work on fixing. Pick one or two (or more!) for your characters to make them more well-rounded and maybe give them something to improve about themselves. Bad Habits Apologizing Arguing Biting pens/pencils Blaming others Bottling emotions Bragging Buying things and not using them Cheating Cheek or Lip biting/tearing Chewing Chewing tobacco Coveting others' things Cracking knuckles/joints Cutting corners/skimping Drinking / Getting drunk Eating junk food Eating late Eating out daily Eating with mouth open Fidgeting Forgetfulness Gambling Grinding teeth Hair chewing/sucking Hangnail pulling Hard drugs Holding grudges Impatience Impulse purchasing Inability to sit still Internet overuse Interrupting Jaywalking Judging others Kleptomania Leaving dirty clothes/dishes out Littering Losing temper Losing things Lying Making puns Nail biting/picking No self-control Not backing up data Not bathing Not brushing teeth Not caring for health when sick Not involving others in decisions that affect them Not knowing limits Not listening/ignoring others Not responding to messages Not trying new things Overeating Oversleeping Overspending Picking at skin/scabs Picking nose Playing with hair Pornography addiction Procrastinating Selfishness Sitting still for long periods Smoking Snooze button overuse Speaking in 3rd person Staring Starting projects without finishing Staying up late Stress/emotional eating Stubbornness Sucking thumbs Tapping fingers/feet Too much TV Tugging ears Unprotected sex Using cell phone/tablet in social situations Using other people's stuff Verbal tics ("like")
It's hard being a perfectionist writer. No joke. You all who fit the qualifications know what I mean. The urge to edit everything. The desire to make it right the first time. The need for every chapter, every scene, every word to be perfect. That doesn't fly come NaNo time. It's easy to read the rules and learn the guidelines. Easy to tell yourself "just write." And way, way easier said than done. After six years of NaNo and seven attempted novels, I've learned a few things about NaNo, first drafts, and not pulling your hair out when all you want to do is Make. It. Perfect. 1. Redefine Perfect on a Draft-by-Draft Basis I think we can all come to a near-consensus on when our first draft perfection streak started: the first time a teacher, probably in middle or high school said, "This is a big project, so I want you guys to turn your first draft into me by next Friday." First draft? What's that nonsense? We'd been writing essays start to finish since our very first one. We'd perfected the last-minute, overnighter A+. Our first drafts are our only drafts. So we'd write up our turn-in-ready essay and make a few changes to dumb it down, give the teacher something to review. It really shouldn't have worked, but it did, and it ingrained in us the confidence that we don't really need to worry about drafts. We'll get it right the first time. HahahahahHahahHAAHAHaaaaa Thing is, though, a novel isn't an essay. There's a lot more room for error in 50,000 words than there is in 5,000. And when you realize 30k in that you have to completely redo everything because of a plothole you left in the third chapter, it's easy to give up. It's a failure, and we don't want to fail. Nothing less than an A, right? The trick is to redefine "perfect" to the individual draft, to move the goalposts of perfection one draft at a time. Author Jane Smiley said, "Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist." Accept this as the gospel truth. The first draft's goalpost isn't "ready to publish," it's just "written." It doesn't matter if there's giant gaping plot holes. "No plot holes" is the goalpost for draft two. Or "no typos" or "no atrocious grammar" or whatever you want that second draft goalpost to be. Not "perfect perfect" though. That's at LEAST third draft, if not fourth or fifth. 2. Just Because You Wrote It Doesn't Mean You Have To See It So you just wrote a 2,000 word scene and realize "this isn't working." You have to scrap it all. A whole day's writing, down the recycle bin. But before you hit that delete key, stop! You wrote that. And maybe part of it is salvageable or belongs in a different scene. Don't shortchange your wordcount or do something you may regret. Just hide it. You've got a number of options to make the bad text go away without actually going away forever. Make the text white or use black highlight on black text. Change the font to an unreadable one, like Wingdings. Move the text to the bottom of the document, several pages down, or if you're using a program like Scrivner, to a separate file. You may be able to think of other tricks to make your mistakes disappear. Whatever you choose to do, implement it, from single sentences to whole chapters. During the first draft, and especially during NaNo, don't just delete haphazardly. That's part of draft two. Write that on your goalpost. 3. It's Okay To Skip Around or Come Back Later If you're anything like me, you like your perfect drafts to be written in one long swoop, start to finish, Chapter 1 to The End. You write a book just like you read a book. Maybe the thought of breaking it up gives you cold sweats. After all, how can you accurately write the scene where the hero finally meets the villain if you don't know if the love interest is there or not, or if there's a mentor figure the villain's supposed to kill that you haven't introduced yet so you don't even know his personality! This is me telling you, it's okay. It's okay to skip that awkward conversation if you don't know how to write it yet. It's okay to jump forward to the end when you too happy to write the death scene. It's okay to come back later, whether it's a huge event or a name for a minor character. Leave yourself a note, highlighted yellow and surrounded by attention-grabbing symbols (I like to do [ADD ____]). You don't need the paragraph or scene or chapter to be perfect now, only complete later. And I'll tell you why. You don't complete puzzles by doing one row at a time, in order, right? You get the pieces and parts you can figure out first (the outer frame, the obvious, odd colored pieces, etc) and then use those to fill in the rest. You can do that with your novel. It's just a puzzle where you decide what the picture is. 4. You're Always A Winner It can feel like if you don't get that purple verified bar, you've failed. You'll want to pretend you never even tried, to make November and NaNo have just not happened for us. We're perfectionists because we don't like failure. But sometimes, despite our best efforts, even if we do everything right, we just can't win. Maybe life got in the way, or maybe you lost your drive. Whatever the reason, you lost. But you've also won. Whether you finish November with 100 words or 49,999, those are words you didn't have before. You WROTE. You created something that didn't exist before, and you have the road paved to keep going. There is nothing stopping you from keeping going beyond November. You don't have to put down the story and never look at it again just because you didn't finish it in the course of one month. The "victory" goal of NaNo is 50,000 words, but the real goal of NaNo is to just write. Did you write? Congrats. You've won. What did you win? The right to call yourself a writer. Heck yeah, that's awesome. And what are a few colored pixels compared to that? ******** So, perfectionists, let go of your hair. November is coming, and you're going to write, and it's going to be just fine. Self-inflicted bald spots only lead to more stress. Scientific fact.
Want to go for a hike? Great. But some of us are just lost in the woods, and we're not going to hide it anymore. Our sturdy hard enamel pin will let everyone know you're just muddling through. 50% of profits from this product will be donated to Black Outside, Inc, and Nature for All. Pin is 1 1/2" wide This pin has small parts and is not made for children! ©2021 Nick Jehlen
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by Sharon C. Macleod
1. The 442nd Infantry Regiment which was a largely Japanese American unit that served during WWII, did so while their families were held in internment camps. Their motto was "Go for Broke" and they were the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.
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If you’re thinking about teaching English overseas, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know from getting your TEFL certification to picking a country.
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Het valt op hoe vroeg Pieck er in slaagde een eigen stijl te ontwikkelen. Een stijl die hem geliefd maakte bij een miljoenenpubliek in binnen- en buitenland.