The Influence of Andrew Pudewa

Writing Prompt: Write about one person who has influenced your writing (in positive or negative ways). Be specific about the ways that person has provided influence; provide specific examples, if necessary.

I frankly don’t feel like writing about this. Of course, Andrew Pudewa would sympathize with me. Andrew Pudewa was my writing teacher in high school… I mean video writing teacher. I was home schooled, so he was the closest thing to a real, in-the-room teacher I got. He often starts his DVD lecture series by talking about how he hated writing. His whole goal is to show how writing can be fun, how you can use certain techniques to make the process go smoothly, and to ease children into writing in more complex, engaging ways.

I blame Andrew Pudewa for my subtle addiction to short sentences and adverbs.

Pudewa trained me to map out my essays using a keyword outline, similar to the typical five paragraph essay outline most people learn, and follow a dress-ups checklist (essentially forcing the inexperienced writer to utilize who/which phrases, adverbs, adverbial clauses, short sentences, and the like) all in the name of varied, interesting paragraphs. Andrew Pudewa showed me so many tips and tricks for writing a good paper, if I actually sat down and went through the checklist, I could essentially create an A+ paper, excellently crafted with sick transitions that no mad dawg and his fool of a Took could mistake as anything less than pure, writing genius.

Because, these techniques work.

They work because they force you to think about your writing in depth. You can’t cut corners when you have to make sure you use a certain amount of variation in every paragraph. Andrew Pudewa made me see the importance of variation and rhythm in writing. Which I neglect when I’m in a hurry or when I don’t feel like writing.

Dear Friend…

This is an appreciation post for my friends… Because I love them.

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Dear friend with the sweater,

You have this interesting quirk where you like to hide your smile behind the neck of your sweater. I would tell you to stop doing it, because you have a great smile, but I like to watch you pull your head into your fuzzy, pink, sheep-sweater shell.

Like a turtle.

Have you seen The Master of Disguise? Yeah, you remind me of Pistachio. He’s pretty cute, too, and you both like to “become another person.”

Turtle away, my friend. Turtle away.

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Dear friend who I went to coffee with on Monday,

Legend tells of a legendary friend…

Whose skills were the stuff of legend.

This friend was so cool, in fact, that her enemies would go blind from overexposure to pure awesomeness!

So, yeah, you’re too awesome, basically… You could even be the dragon warrior.

We should hang out… Agreed? Agreed.

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Dear friend with the coffee addiction,

Sometimes, I wonder what it must be like to be you, and so I drink a cup of coffee. Some people can take their cups of joe in stride, but I turn into a ball of frenzied energy that can’t concentrate worth a SQUIRREL!

Ehem…

I still don’t understand how you can drink so much of this bitter, deceptively delicious-smelling substance. Are they called brews because they’re actually magic potions? You do like wizards a lot. Maybe that’s why you drink it…

Are you actually a wizard?

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Dear friend with the babies,

They aren’t actually your babies, biologically. They’re actually baby sheep. They’re really cute. Can I adopt one? It must be fun to play with baby sheep.

I’m jealous.

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Dear friend who loves cats,

In the near future, you will own a mansion. Your mansion will be next to my mansion, and running under our mansions will be a cat tunnel because my cats will want to hang out with you, too.

Of course, you’ll probably need to hire someone to sweep up all the fur…

Once we’re done petting the kitties, though, we should try out that new machine you bought, the one that brings fictional characters to life. Then our characters can pet the kitties while we’re busy ruling the world.

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Dear friend with the braid,

Your braid rivals Elsa’s.

Seriously. You look fierce.

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Dear friend who loves Supernatural,

I still haven’t watched it. I plan to, but for now I’ll just second-hand fangirl every time someone posts something about Cas and Dean and Sam on my Pinterest page. I guess your excitement for the show rubbed off on me. I don’t mind. It’s fun to watch your eyes light up when you talk about your favorite stories.

Carry on, my wayward friend.

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Dear friend who I used to share a room with,

I miss the laughs. No one in the dorm knew why you thought I was funny, but I appreciated your good humor.

You made me laugh, too.

That was fun…

I’m okay…

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Dear friend born 13 days after me,

We knew each other before we were born. You were technically conceived before I was, but I was born first. We must have telepathically communicated in the womb to switch up our due dates so we could mess with our moms.

They never saw it coming.

Of course, now we’re not so good at the telepathic thing… We should do it again some time. It was fun.

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Dear friend who still hasn’t seen Big Hero 6,

Tomorrow…

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Dear friend that I didn’t write to,

Someday I will. I didn’t forget you. It would just take more creative energy than I could muster and countless hours of writing—hours I don’t have—to write everyone a letter. I’m sure you understand. You are a very understanding person, after all. That’s why you’re my friend.

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I love you all!

Coping

It’s Valentine’s Day. That means I have to write about love, right? Every blogger in the world is… Probably. Or, you know, they’re actually out there with their significant other.

Or maybe they’re single and crying in the corner.

Frankly, I don’t really care all that much.

While everyone enjoys today’s Hallmark holiday, I get to sit at home in my pajamas and watch Netflix.

Kidding. I’m working on a paper. What is a life, anyway?

This last week, school blew up in my face. To cope, I enjoy blasting angst ridden music, eating chocolate/bacon/chips and salsa/the entire contents of the fridge, and sporadically deviating from homework to internet.

Internet is a verb in my vocabulary.

“Excuse me. I’m internetting right now. I can’t life at the moment.”

Well, because it’s V-day… I’ll show you one of my favorite finds while internetting.

I stumbled across this unconventional-ish lovey-dovey webcomic after a friend showed me this adorable little gif:

And I fell in… extreme like, breaking my entire rib cage in the process. Because it’s just cute, okay? Look at the little cuties!

So, I rooted out the source.

Thomas primarily concentrates on love interactions between Pon and Zi, as in the picture below:

Yeah, it’s cheesy.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for this crap.

But, he observes some love struggles, too. Like this:

Although love can be full of joy, sometimes it can feel restrained. Like somehow we aren’t doing enough or that our love is inadequate. Learning how to express love appropriately is sometimes really difficult. Often times really difficult. That’s why communication is so important to a relationship.

This is no longer about romantic love alone. When I say love, I mean any relationship.

Some people get stuck on the idea that love is all hearts and happy feelings.

False. Sometimes it feels like this:

Love can be a pain in the neck. To the point of decapitation.

Loving someone means that you fail each other, even when you had the best of intentions.

Loving someone means you might get lonely… and possessive.

People need to be able to be together, but also not together. If we don’t have adventures outside of each other, what are we going to have to share with each other? The point of love is to empower the other person and yourself to become all you can be. Surprisingly, we all have enough love inside us to share with multiple people, to help many people in this way, and they have enough for us, too.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. Something so great is not easy. But it’s worth it. (Using cliches is allowed on Hallmark holidays.)

Loving someone means miscommunication.

Again, let me stress the importance of talking things out… Never think the other person doesn’t want to hear it. This only leads to more miscommunication and hurt feelings.

Being individuals, we want different things. We can get on each other’s nerves.

But, being different is fun. Different perspectives, conflict, these are good for growth. We should invite growth. Being passive in a relationship can lead to stagnation, frustration, and boredom. According to the many random things I’ve heard and learned over the years about relationships, the biggest love killer is not fighting, but indifference.

Sometimes, we miss it when others are trying to show us love.

It’s important to learn how the people we love receive and show it.

But, at the end of the day, love is a happy thing.

I suppose that’s why Valentine’s is a thing. We want an excuse to get away from the daily grind and have fun with our loved ones.

Ehhhhh. Well, that’s okay, but it’s a lot more fun to surprise the people you love with gifts and fun outings on unpredictable days… Just saying. Try it sometime. Why wait for a Hallmark holiday? It’s a bit boring if you ask me.

Be unpredictable!

And attack from above~

Efficient Strokes

Our Weekly Prompt: Think about the process you personally use to accomplish something: eating breakfast, driving home, doing laundry, making cookies. Write a defense of that process as the best, most logical approach. What are the implications of using this particular process?

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Alright. I am racking my mind trying to find one thing I do where I use the best, most logical approach. I seriously can’t think of one. I am pretty sure I accomplish nothing with efficiency or efficacy. When I do a job, I start looking for the most efficient ways of accomplishing said job, but with ordinary tasks, I skip doing anything that would make it better than another person’s process. I take my time. I don’t really bother trying to do things quickly unless there’s a deadline. I’m pretty sure I’m one of the laziest people that exists…

…

…

Okay, wait. I thought of something.

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How to Pet a Cat: 101

Okay. So, everyone has different ways of petting a cat. One way is the head to tail stroke. Others favor the belly rub or the scritch under the chin. I’m telling you that you aren’t getting full satisfaction out of petting your pretty kitty, and neither is the cat. In fact, that cat probably thinks you’re an incompetent loser who doesn’t know how to pet her.

No. That’s what she’s thinking.

As you can see by this helpful infographic, there are many ways to pet your kitty. If you neglect to try all of these at least once, you have not reached your full petting potential. But the most important technique is not shown here…

Following the theme of the infographic, I shall give this special technique a name. It is The Give-Me-Your-Catnip Shakedown. I know, creative name. I pride myself on my creativity.

The Give-Me-Your-Catnip Shakedown starts by putting both hands on the shoulders of your cat. Unlike The Hyper-Space, you do not sweep your hands quickly down the whole cat. Once you have your hands in position, start vigorously rubbing your cat in short, broad-handed strokes. Continue down the entire length of your cat, then repeat.

This maximizes hand to fur contact ratio, almost instantly starts your cat’s purr, as well as massages his aching muscles. After 12 plus hours sleeping, those muscles can get rather sore.

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Of course, as my friend, Sara, pointed out, you can just stroke him and fondly call him “hairy baby,” too.

That’s perfectly acceptable.

Now that you know, go, pet your kitty! If you have one… For those of you who don’t, here’s a six minute video of people petting cats.

It’s Not Your Fault

“It’s not your fault.”

A friend showed me a clip from Good Will Hunting, a scene between Robin Williams and Matt Damon. I haven’t seen the movie. I want to now. I looked up an article on the scene. In it, Professor Sean Maguire (Williams) confronts a young man who’d been abused by his foster parents, Will Hunting (Matt Damon). Take a moment to watch this and then continue on, my wayward son.

Over and over again, Sean tells Will, “It’s not your fault.”

Will becomes tense, saying he knows.

He doesn’t know, though. He lives with the shame his foster parents inflicted on him. In his mind, it’s his fault and he needs Sean to break that belief, a belief that’s oppressed him, belittled him.

I don’t know about you, but I have never experienced the level of hurt Will and others like him have. I wasn’t abused or worse.

But, I still needed someone to tell me, “It’s not your fault.”

My entire life, words from caring and uncaring people alike had altered me from the curious, brave little kid who could talk to anybody, to an isolated, anxious, insecure teenager—now adult. I blame myself for every failure, every single lack of perfection I exhibit.

“I’m not good enough.”

“I’m worthless.”

“I can’t.”

Like little black thorns, so many words have lodged themselves in our hearts. We believe a thousand lies. The biggest lie I’d believed: everything is my fault. Even when it isn’t.

I think we forget that our environments, the people in our lives, the circumstances that made us, they flow into us. It would take an inordinately strong, positive person to swim up a river of negativity without tiring and getting pulled down. Well, I’d been trying to tread water in this river and I was drowning.

I talked to my mentor about the immense anxiety that recently broke me down and made me face my problems. I told her how I’d listened to other’s opinions on how I should live my life instead of choosing to do what I knew was best. I was failing to do everything that was expected of me. I felt unmotivated, depressed, and worthless. Trapped. Alone. All I wanted to do was sleep, because I couldn’t escape. I was trying to change. Trying and failing. I still did everything wrong. I didn’t know what to do. I felt hopeless.

In response to everything I told her, she said: “It’s not your fault.”

I felt a sudden release.

It’s not my fault.

I didn’t understand why, but I believed her.

It’s not my fault.

I’d blamed myself for the negative thoughts, the lack of motivation, for feeling things I knew I shouldn’t. I’d had friends shift the blame on people in my life, saying they were behind my problems because they really weren’t helping me, but limiting me. But, what I needed was that one person who could look at me with all my defects and let me know that it actually wasn’t my fault. That I had hope. I needed someone to forgive me so I could forgive myself.

My friend says that everything will get worse before it gets better. I’m not saying that everything is fine and dandy at the moment. In fact, life just sucks a lot. But, now I have my mentor’s voice in my head. Instead of feeling guilty every time I fail, instead of being guilted into accepting the “help” of people who tell me who I should be and how I should act, I hear the words, “It’s not my fault,” echo through my head.

Enough rope to pull myself upstream.

“I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying; we’re actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before.” ― C. JoyBell C.