Voice Week Day 5 — Beautiful Chaos

It's the last Voice Week day which is actually kinda sad for me. I really enjoyed writing these this week. All the comments I've been getting have been huge confidence boosters so thank you to all who commented, it's really encouraging to read your thoughts ^ ^.
On a random side note, my OCD is very pleased that there's five different badges: one for each day. If there was seven, I might just go insane XD

Well, I suppose we should get on with the final writing then, shouldn't we? Onwards!

I sit on the worn porch to my house and look up at the stars. There's a certain wisdom about them that doesn't let my eyes stray. Their glow is so sincere and true. Nothing within them questions what they’re doing. I envy them.
A shooting star glides through the sky, it’s tail leaving a breif stain in the sky almost as though a painter took his brush to it. I follow it’s path with my eyes. In space, life is chaotic but alluring—nothing like mine. How do they exist with such a simple idea of who and what they are, of where they belong even? Stars, tell me your secret.

Well there you have it, the last one. To read more posts like this, check out the Voice Week blog.

Thanks for all the support from those who have been following and commenting, it means a lot :) 

Voice Week Day 4 — The World Is Sleeping

It's the second last day of Voice Week. Be sure to check out the last three post if you haven't already :) 

Let's get straight into it today. Onwards!

I lay with my back pressed to the cool rooftop and gaze skywards. There’s something about the night that brings tranquillity to my heart. I think it’s the fact that humans are sleeping and all that’s left awake is the quiet hum or the natural world. The big and beutiful natural world.
My eyes try to take in the entire sky at once. The stars suddenly look like they’re dancing and vertigo over whlems me. They’re just as hypnotizing as they’ve always been.
Just then, a shooting star whisks across the sky. When I was young, I asked my grandmother about heroes and how we were to know if someone was a ture hero: someone who would change the world.
“If a star falls from the sky within the minute a baby is born.” she told me while watering her plants, “It means that baby will do great things in life.” 
“Oh. Mommy says that Alex will do great things in life.” I swirled my finger through the dirt. 
 “He will.” My grandmother looked over at me, a gleam like starlight shone in her eyes. “But your were the one who was born under a shooting star while everyone else slept.”

That was my longest one yet but I really enjoyed writing it :) 

To anyone who's commented on my past posts this week, thank you so much! It makes my day to see that people are enjoying reading my writing as much as I'm enjoying reading theirs. 

Be sure to check out the Voice Week blog if you haven't gotten a chance to and I'll see you back here tomorrow for the last day of the challenge!

Voice Week Day 3 — Paradox of the Stars

Day three of Voice Week: the week long challenge where other writers and I all chose our own prompt to help us exercise our voice in our writing. 
*like a movie trailer announcer* One challenge, five days, five different voices...

*coughs* Ahem. Onwards to the writings! 

My feet pound through the streets under the clear, dark sky. Every muscle in my body is tense. 
It should be raining. The stars shouldn’t be allowed to shine at a time like this. They’re practically mocking me, those stupid stars. Go away! I don’t want to see you! 
They don’t listen. Of course they don’t. Why would I ever think they would? 
I shoot a glare upwards with some false idea in mind that it will make me feel better about myself. Just as I do, a shooting star soars across the heavens. My fists tighten, my nails dig into my palms to the point where I wonder if I’ll draw out my crimson blood. 
I nearly make a wish—a sheer habit of mine—but thank goodness my subconcious stops me before I can waste my precious thoughts on something so trivial. And to think I once believed those foolish stories about all my dreams coming true.

A longer one but I felt that I couldn't have explored this character's voice properly without the extra words. If you're a Voice Week reader and want to return to base or if you want to read more posts like this, here's a shortcut. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Voice Week Day 2 — Perpetual Darkness

Day two of Voice Week is upon us. Before I started writing this, I had some schoolwork to do and ended up falling asleep...
What is with me and accidentally almost not writing for the day? 
Voice Week is a challenge I've taken up alongside some other other writers in which we each pick a prompt and write around 100 words in the voice of five different characters—one for each day. 
I've been reading what other writers have written and it's been really inspiring and just overall enjoyable. 

Onwards to the writing!

As I leave the brightness of the city, my eyes gravitate to the starry sky. No matter where I go, I can at least rely on the consistent lustre of the Milky Way. Some things will never change. 
A shooting star grabs my attention as it sweeps through the sky, it's white tail chasing after it. In all my life I've seen many places and with it, many of these meteors. I've never bothered wishing, though. Never ever. What's the point? A simple wish won't cure brokenness. Brokenness can't be cured. It's not a disease. And after all, some things will never change. 

How is it that both today's and yesterday's posts are 103 words long? I kinda like that for some reason.

If you want to read more posts like this, visit the Voice Week blog. There's a lot of really great writers participating, you won't be disappointed :)

Voice Week Day 1 — Above and Below

Maybe you've seen this badge in the sidebar of my blog for the past month. Well it's time to find out what it's for.
Voice week is a challenge where I pick a scenario/prompt and write around 100 words in the heads of five different characters for five days in a row. I'll be exercising my writer 'voice' hence the name Voice Week. 
I've had so much fun reading other posts for this thing...it almost stopped me from making my own tonight! 

But anyways, onwards to the writing!

The purple, star speckled sky reflects off the puddle on the ground beneath my feet. Stars shouldn't be below me, they should be above me as high and as mighty as they are. I don't deserve to be on top. I'm not strong enough. 
Ripples scatter the stars as I step through the water and look up instead. A shooting star streaks through space just in time for my eye to catch it. I used to always make a wish whenever I saw one. When did I last see one? Has it been that long or have I forgotten the simple pleasures already? 

Yep, it's short. 100 words is less than you might think. 

If you want to read more excepts like this, check out the Voice Week blog. I highly recommend it, I really enjoyed going through them myself :) 

Beautiful People | Louis

Hey guys! School's back in and so I took a little break from blogging so that I could get back into the groove of studying, essays and deadlines again. If you've been following my blog for a couple months, you'd know that I've been participating in the Beautiful People link up hosted by The Notebook Sisters. The last few times, I've been answer questions about Masara, my MC from my science-fiction novel, Crec. This time, The Notebook Sisters have challenged us bloggers to answer questions about one of our villains. I've chosen to do Dr. Louis (pronounced Lewis) Taylor from my WIP The Dome.

Onwards to the questions!

1. What is their motive?
Pleasure. Louis does what he wants because he wants to do it. He's even more likely to do something if it can help him get what he wants most (another major motivation). Three cheers for a segway into the next question!

2. What do they want, and what are they prepared to do to get it?
Louis believes that power comes from knowledge and so ultimately, he wants knowledge. It sounds cliche but he'll do anything for knowledge. A better question would be, "what won't he do?" In that case he wouldn't hurt Andrew, his longtime, childhood friend and coworker or his dad.

3. How do they deal with conflict?
If he's in the middle of the conflict, he thrives. Half the time, he's the one that's started the whole thing. If he's just an observer, he typically watches with interest or else ignores them.

4. Describe their current place of residence.
On the very edge of the city, right next to the forrest and in the newer part of the town, Louis lives in a brand new condo complex. So new that he's only one of two residents. He stays on the third floor in a two bedroom condo. 
It's pretty modern with an open concept main room; it's not really furnished other than the futon and small wooden round table and four matching chairs in the living room. There's a bed, nightstand, lamp and digital clock in one bedroom. The other bedroom has been converted into a laboratory. It's filled with metal cabinets, lots of tables for makeshift counter-space and a bookshelves to hold his binders of research.

5. If they were writing the story, how would it end?

Richard Armitage who looks
scarily like Louis is this picture

He'd make it back to Up There with his research and and use it to get his job back as a geneticist.

6. What habits, speed patterns, etc. are unique to them?
If he's got keys on him, he'll spin the key ring on his finger. Also, he typically speaks in shorter sentences. Longer ones really aren't his thing. He certainly doesn't communicate figuratively.

7. How do they show love? What do they like to do with/for people they love?
He shows his love through words. If Louis gives you an honest to goodness compliment then he cares about you. Something he'll do for someone he loves is some sort of simple act of service like cooking a meal or washing their car or something. It's been a really long time though since he's ever done any of that though.

8. Do they have any pets?
He doesn't. His 'pets' are the animals he's studied back Up There. He's not overly affectionate with animals so as a warning, no one should give him a puppy for Christmas.

9. Where would they go to relax/think?
Louis doesn't really relax but when he does he'll go to his lab. Doing little experiments even if they're just simple high school level reactions gets his mind off other things.

10. What is their weapon to choice? 
His wit. Louis is freaking smart. His wit is too strong for his own good which leads to successful manipulation. He'll learn all about you and then use yourself, those you love or anything you care about against you. If he uses a physical weapon, it's mostly a threat to push you in the 'right' direction. 

So that's Louis for you :) If you want to check out more posts like these, click here. If you're interested in participating in the link up, be sure to head over to The Notebook Sisters to check it out. Thanks for reading!

We've Been Contaminated?

Coming up this new school year (which is officially in full swing for me as of today) I'm going to be working on a new project for my blog involving the Myers Briggs Personality types. 

These are all 16 types. Look familiar? 

I'll be finding one guy and one girl from all sixteen types and interviewing them through some sort of recording thing. Whether that's a Skype call with an audio recording program or an in person interview with a fancy mic, I'll be getting the person's real voice. That way you can get a feel for how each type talks differently. Do they think out loud? Are they indecisive? How are they deciding upon their answers? 

I'm then going to create profiles for each person and stick them somewhere on my blog (I haven't decided upon the location yet, maybe they'll get their own dimension!).

The interview will be uploaded to my SoundCloud and I'll release a transcript of the interview as well probably through a public google drive. 

It's going to be incredibly fun and I'm beyond thrilled to be starting this ^ ^ It's going to be a learning experience on personality types for both me and all the readers. If you're into that, be sure to subscribe through blogger or email if you're old school like me ;) 

Because this project has been on the forefront of my mind, I began picking apart a few things. One of them being that personalities aren't really allowed to be a set rule book. 

Last June I started writing an essay called "We've Been Contaminated." My central thesis was that our raw personalities we're born with have been contaminated by our surroundings. Fears, insecurities, people who we live with etc. But I scrapped the essay because it felt wrong. 

After some long nights of thinking, I figured it out. Contaminated is the wrong word. All of our experiences, good and bad have shaped us. Ours fears, preferences to types of music, the people we chose to spend our time with, they all shape us. You just can't call it contamination. 

I know two ENFJs quite well. They're both amazing people but in their own way. They grew up very differently. One is a twin, the other isn't. One enjoys sports, the other is more into the arts. They're both driven but in different ways. Similar things irk them but some of those things derive from different life experiences. 

I'm not saying that if you had both girls grow up in the same environment (same family, friends school, everything) that they would turn out the same. The truth is that we all have blends of a few personality types. 

I'm an INTP. A pretty solid one at that. When I read the INTP description, I'm a little scared at the accuracy. However, I'm adventurous and hate to not get things done like an ISTP. 

This is me...

But so is this XD

I tested one of my friends and came up with three different types. We had to read more detailed descriptions before honing in on the one that was the most accurate. 

It's become an important thing for me as an interviewer to treat each person that I interview as a new and fresh individual. There's no such thing as a true INTP or ENFJ. Some might be more true to the description than others but that's to be expected. There aren't sixteen types of people in the world. There are seven billion and they're all incredibly unique. 

I have a friend who's a psychologist. She told me that personality types are like world cultures. Cultures have traditions, ways that they greet each other, ways they eat food, they have their own views on what's disrespectful and what's respectful, and they just generally will live their lives differently from the next culture. 

My cousins came from Holland. They told me that Canada is very laid-back. We had to scratch our heads at that one because to us, our lifestyle is all go, go go. 

Even though, these cultures are all very different, that doesn't mean that the people inside live according to their culture. All of them have their own lives, morals, schedules, beliefs and traditions. To say that everyone in Canada loves hockey, lives out in the boonies and feeds the moose in their backyard would be totally unfair. So the types are like the cultures. One type, some similarities but a lot of unique people within them.

If you follow my interview project—and I hope you will!—keep these things in mind. If you use the interviews as references, that's all they are, references. If you listen to an interview with an ESFJ and then meet one in person, don't be shocked if they're different people. 

Do you know your personality type? Have you met someone with the same type? What was that experience like?