The magnifying glass

If you follow my instagram activity you'll know what I'm talking about.

Recently I mentioned that it was gifted to me with a joke and today I'm going to tell you what it is.

Before I started wearing glasses (I have astigmatism, low percent) I always kept the phone close to my eyes. My grandpa started joking that he was gonna get me a magnifying glass so that I don't look at the screen this close. To make it even better my writing is really tiny. So the magnifying glass would be needed for two things.

I really took it only as a joke but I guess he sensed that and took it as a personal challenge to make it real. 

Next week when I come for the weekend he hands me that magnifying glass.

Since that moment it has taken some damage on the glass and the base, but it's still usable and in one piece.

This has become a bitter sweet memory with a pain on the heart.

No hammer-on this time, stay safe and get at least two opinions on your health.

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My WIPs

I started university and have a shit load of assingments to do so let me procrastinate with this post XD.

Today I will introduce you to my wips. In other words tell you how many drafts I have started and get emberassed about it later. 

Here we go!

1. Newfound Myght 

Status: Not started

-Of course, starting with the main wip. 

Newfound Myght (English edition) is the first book in "The first mages" series. If you follow my blog you know how much this book and the characters in it mean to me.

Here I introduce you to Sarah and her friends. Their journey of reconnecting begins. And while they try to clean the rust off of their friendship they also try to understand a deadly illness that is killing mages. This illness is caused by mages they call "Spell thiefs". They don’t know who these mages are, and they also don't know how to save the ones who are slowly dying. All of this while fighting off demons, who're trying to gain access to the magic portal. 

2. New era 

Status: Draft

-New era is the second book in "The first mages" series. While the first book was about reconnecting with old friends and resolving their problem this book is about finding this friends and fighting a war of magic. While they were trying to solve one problem another was hiding in the shadows and broke them apart. Now the few that are left have to rebuild what was broken and prepare for the big fight which will give the mages power over the demons. Or maybe the demons will take over and enslave all that walks, breaths, and talks.

3. Tales of broken kids

Status: Draft

-Tales of broken kids tells us stories about The first mages. Sarah's years undercover, how Bary got to Mandoned, and how the Heil brothers got to where they are. This book might be perfectly useless but I do have fun telling stories that otherwise would've been only a side info. 

4. The healer, the hunter, and the mesmerist

Status: Draft

-Book one in "Lost magic". The magic, the world around it, and the people affected by it had been gone for so long that the stories about them are just legends almost forgotton in the modern world. There are a few that know the stories. And they're all part of the magic. Recently it's making it's way back into the world. The creatures are being born again, brought back to life by this old era. And the responsibility to find balance with the new changes falls on the shoulders of three strangers. Their problem? They have hard time becoming friends with each other. 

5. Pray with E

Status: Draft

-A standalone (hopefully) where the predator (the Devil himself) plays with his prey for the first time. His favourite victim slowly becomes the person who knows the most about him and the only one he's comfortable with sharing what his life before becoming the Devil was like.

While he slowly accepts that he will never be able to kill Prey her hope for life slowly fades away.

6. Raffael and the red wolf

Status: Draft

-As the title says this is a book about Raffael and his red wolf. If he had a choice he would've had a dog. But he broke a law. Him and Wolf both used forbidden magic, which leaves a permanent mark. To escape a death sentense Raffael takes the wolf and runs away.

Now what did we find out? That I have a problem XD.

How many wips do you have? And what are they about?

Till next time Hammer-on and Jam along! 

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I made some changes...

Sooo... I made some changes.

I will no longer post tips, or maybe just not focuse on this niche of the blogging community. Bethany Meyer explaned it better than I ever will so go check her post on the topic.

Long story short I don't think I know enough to give tips and it's overwhelming.

But, I will continue postin my opinion, real life stories, and short stories. These are much more fun to write and I will no longer be ashamed that I have more of them than I have tips drafted in posts.

Another thing I'm considering. I don't read writing tips on daily bases but I do my research from time to time. I can either assemble a post from what I've learned or tell you a story about how I got in the research hole, give links to good articles and hopefully make you laugh along the way.

Also reading and writing logs! Either monthly or when I am like "Damn, it's been a while. Better rant about what I read/wrote."

I've also tweeted a lot of funny/meme-ish scenarios about my WIP? Meme posts? Am I too cheeky? HahahaAhahAHaHAHAHA I HOPE NOT!

I have a blog post in mind. Basicly ranting about what I did as an amature and why I'll avoid genuenly good tips to get back in this energized amature state.

Anyways, thank you for making it this far, I hope you like the changes I make and stick around for the new era of this blog.

Till next time hammer-on and jam along!

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Why I don't write with pen and paper

          The short answer is because it's simply not for me.

     The long answer has a story.

          Ones upon a time I was a writer happy writing on her phone.

     And ones upon a time my sister was like "Hey, why don't you write on paper? It's easier for me, you also won't damage your eyes as much."

     So I dug up that old notebook I thought would fit the job. I wrote six chapters there. SIX CHAPTERS. It was all fun and all until I had to write all of that in digital format. Let me tell ya, I was exhausted after this. After only one chapter. Don't ask me how I handled the other ones.

          Anyways. It's been years since this happened. I now have that same notebook infront of me. I will write short stories in it. Everything that won't be a chapter and is just a practice will be written in this notebook.

          If it's not for you, if you don't feel it will work. Don't force it. Do what feels right to you. 

     If you like the idea and wanna try it go for it. 

          Alright amazing creatures. Till next time Hammer-on and jam along.

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The series that thaught me everything in my writing

          "The first mages" was originally the name of just the first book then, later on, became the name of the series and the first book got renamed to "Newfound might". Probably will be renamed when I start translating or writing it in English.

          With The first mages, when it was still just one book, I learned not to let people's opinions get to me. When my classmates found out I'm thinking of writing a story they laughed. We were really young all it took was one kid to start making fun of me and all would follow. At that moment I gave up before even starting. I didn't think of writing for a long time. Not until my literature teacher made us write a short story for whatever. Now I didn't write this short story on The first mages but it was enough to show me what writing really should be. A joy that only the power of words can give you. 

        After getting back home that day I started writing my first book which later became my first series.

          This book taught me that I'm not a writer who can easily write stand-alones. After getting towards the end and feeling that need to write more for this story I should've known. Just when I started thinking it will end after the second book an idea for a third one came to mind. And so on.

        I learned I am not a planner. Making a complicated plotline, thinking of every little detail isn't my type of plotting. I prefer to write a simple short story and let the details come on their own. This is also something that changed lately. I am not making extremely complicated plots, I just want to do this little bit of plotting to make my books cleaner, easier to edit, and that little bit more interesting.

          With it now being a series I learned never to write two books from the same series at the same time. And of course, this rule applies to sequels. If the book is with events that happen after the first one you are gonna want to finish that piece before starting the next one. My character should've been with her magic eyes already stuck onto her but no, I had to multitask the wrong thing. Of course, I didn't leave it like that but I'll talk about this in a second.

          This series also showed me the painful beauty of rewriting. Almost finished with the second book I decided to go back and change it all. add more details, fix plot holes, and all of that just to realize I want to rewrite the whole thing after finishing the third book. I am currently in the process of rewriting the second book. The first edited draft was written in a childish style. I will forever love it but I gotta move on from it and give myself space to grow around a more complicated plot with better pacing and character arcs.

          I also learn how to write in English with The first mages series or at least the prequel of it Tails of broken kids. It's the new aspect of writing I'm excited to explore. It gives me this beginner feeling and motivation that I had writing the first book of the series back at the end of 2016.

          The series has one more thing to teach me. Either translating or rewriting in English. I am this close to finishing the second book and moving on the third. After this, I have only one book to write in Bulgarian and it's (hopefully) my first stand-alone.

          The first mages series is my ultimate journey, it will forever stay my favorite and I will never stop loving it. Sarah is the character closest to me. My first character. I knew her name and personality before even writing the first chapter. I still remembered her name when I wrote that short story for literature class. Her story and relationships have changed a lot. She first had a loving family and now I seriously don't know how she is keeping her shit together. She taught me how to flaw my characters and make them grow.

    

    

          Thank you so much for reading this post and getting to this point. It truly means a lot to me. Till next time hammer-on and jam along.

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A pantser's take on plotting

        Being the usual 'figure out the story as I go' type I never clicked with any plot methods. I tried basic structures, some messy planning I came up with, and the Three act one I didn't even bother with. For the three years, I've been writing (four years anniversary this December) I have given plotting only so many chances. To be honest it probably failed because I didn't try it for real.

        I tried plotting because every blog post I ever read said "Only start writing the story when you have the plot figured out". It was until late in my writing experience that the inclusive inspirational posts for pantsers started to pop out.

        This affected the young me. I can assure you the exact moment writing stopped being so easy was when I started reading writerly articles.

        Now I am not giving another chance to plotting because of a writer I adore or I just decided I will try it. The two reasons are my obsession with Supernatural and the Paranormal Activity movies. This shit connected as fuck!

        So after I decided to try plotting I didn't turn to articles this time. Instead around this same time, writerthreats on Instagram had started to do online courses. So I signed up, they reached out, we had a little chat, and now I am writing this blog post.

        What we talked about and what ideas I had after the talk is for another post.

        One of the things we went over was writing a summary of your chapter to avoid plot holes. I do the same shit but before writing the chapter. It is an easier start into the writing session and the three of us agreed on it.

        So I started thinking why is that?

        The longer you hold something in, a thought, an emotion, the heavier it gets. And so the longer you have this idea in your mind the harder it gets. Writing two-three sentences of what should happen in this chapter gets the thought out and before your eyes. So now you're no longer just thinking of it. It's out in the open, you see it and now you can start working on it with ease.

        Following this same chain of thoughts, writing never gets overwhelming. Our heads just get full of ideas. The craft stays the same, what changes are the number of tools you have on your belt. And you have no idea which one to use first.

        I don't know what to think of first and that annoys me. Because there are a ton of things that should happen before the end, I know where I should stop but I also want to include a few sub conflicts to make them blend with the third book smoother, but I also should be writing because otherwise, I will never finish this second book, but wasn't knowing the end supposed to make it easier?

        Are you understanding what I'm trying to say? Is it overwhelming? It should be.

        This kind of thinking is what I feel like is my main problem when it comes to the keyboard and writing in words in that empty document. It all stacks on me and by the time I start writing it's already too much. So I pull away from the laptop, minimize the window and play yet another horror movie, get scared, and release all that stress I've been holding in.

        And then I get no writing done, I beat myself up, and feel like shit for both not writing and beating myself up.

        This is not healthy. And it wasn't until Mel Robbins posted this video about how her morning routine failed that I started to take it easy on myself. This happened right before I took a week off social media. Sort of.

        Let me tell you something. This week off I wrote almost every day. It wasn't easy but it also wasn't as bad as it ones was. I used to really not want to write. I would get sick thinking about turning on the laptop. Lately, it's still hard to start and even continue writing but now I want to keep doing it. Not because I have a word count to fulfill or a goal to accomplish. I have a story I kinda want to write and show to people.

        I've settled for this plotting idea. It won't be anything extremely detailed or complicated. Just something simple for a person who won't stick to her own rules and probably change her mind a hundred times. A.K.A. me and Brian.

        Anyways, thanks for stopping by. Until next time hammer-on and jam along!

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I accidentaly cut a toxic person out of my life

     Here's the backstory.

     I am posting my story in Bulgarian on Wattpad (currently not). I had written ahead and asked if people would be interested to read and not wait. Except my best friend two dudes wanted to join so I made a group. Every Sunday I'd send them everything I've written for the past week.

     Now what happened to make one of the guys leave had nothing to do with my work.

     The kid is easily annoyed, has close to no chill unless you catch him in mood. And he's never in good mood.

     You know messanger added a new feature. More of the love themed emojies would float and I was gushing over it in the chat. He started to type in repetedly "Stop" and of course I wouldn't stop, this is the cutest thing I've seen in a while.

     He threatened to leave the group. Just after that the other boy whined because his emojies wouldn't float. So I made a screan record in the chat to show him. Meanwhile whiny dude probably thought he is the shit around town and made a scene of leaving the chat.

     Believe me when I tell you I physicly laughed at my screen. Huge weight fell of my chest and now this chat is one of my favourite places.

     I didn't contact the guy who left and I will not. Even if he wants to get back in the group I am not adding him again. It's now a sacred place I do not want to ruin.

     My whole point with this post is to not repeat to you "Cut toxic people from your life". I'm sure you understand why this is important but it doesn't connect with you on a deep level.

     I didn't feel the meaning of this until after I was no longer in contact with this dude. I've thought of this before and I will say it.

     The best advice in the world will mean nothing to you until you experience it yourself.

     So don't just read advice. Try to see why it is adviced.

     I did it by incident and now I have a safe space for myself.

     Till next time Hammer-on and jam along!

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