Big-headed Turtle Platysternon Megacephalum (or Big Headed Turtle) Is A Very Odd-shaped Turtle With A

10 Ways to Avoid Writing Insecurity

by Sean Platt

Face it. There are few things as intimidating as the blinding white of a blank page.

It makes no difference if it’s an empty sheet lying on our desk, or a blank screen, aiming between our eyes. Defeating “nothing” by subjecting it to “something” with our words is what gives a writer breath.

Whether to pay our bills or please our muse, eventually words must spill. Here are ten tips to help plow past writing insecurity.

1. Appreciate your unique perspective.

No one sees the world exactly like you, and no one can articulate it in quite the same way. The oldest stories are told and then retold, not because they invent new things to say, but because inside a timeless message, each storyteller may weave a million individual moments.

2. Writing is conversation.

The more we speak, the more we understand the fundamentals. Writing is no different. Most of the time, our brains operate on the surface, doing only what must be done. We may adopt the push and pull of conversation to push our voice further. Writing, much like a good discussion, can help us dig a little deeper.

3. Allow your influences to shape your voice, not drown it.

Creativity is borrowed. None of us formed our thoughts in a vacuum, and all of us were subject to a myriad of different models. Inspiration lives inside us, and our subconscious never forgets. We need not copy our heroes, their hand is always there to guide us.

4. Believe.

You can do it! Fear is a set of handcuffs, keeping our fingers from flight. If you don’t believe in yourself, then no one else will either.

5. Ignore the rules.

Rules can be intimidating; intimidation a shortcut to insecurity. You may not know precisely when to use a comma and when to use parentheses, but that decision will never equal the importance of a good idea. We first need broad strokes to lend foundation. We wash our world in red, blue, yellow, and green. Chartreuse and vermillion come later.

6. Write for someone specific.

Nothing will crystallize your voice, like scribbling for a single set of eyes. It doesn’t matter who it is, and it doesn’t have to be the same person twice. Write as though you are speaking to them. Design your jokes to make them smile, your words to feel them near.

7. Write without pause, return later.

Alone with our thoughts, it is easy to think the worst, but we should never allow them to slow us down. When our inner whisper begins to shout, we must lower our nose and keep on going. Once drained, leave. Return later, and you’ll likely be surprised at what you’ve written.

8. Take pride.

Our words are simply a more permanent version of our thought. Be proud of who you are, and know that what you write is a reflection of you.

9. Even Stephen King writes with his door closed.

No one gets it right the first time through. Just start. Even if the world will be watching once you are finished, no one is watching you now. Close the door, breathe the silence, and let what’s inside you come out to play.

10. Dip your toe, then jump… the water’s fine.

The first keystroke is always the hardest, but begetting something from nothing is what separates us from the lower species (well, that and opposable thumbs). Pushing past our fear and into uncertainty, is when we’re most likely to find ourselves.

How to Do World-Building Research

Whether you’re building a fantasy world from complete scratch, or mentally designing the suburban house your very realistic story will take place in, at a certain point in your writing process you’ll need to plan out your story world. Here are a few world-building research methods to get you started:

Ask Questions

Ask anything and everything you can about your world. Each story will require different lines of inquiry. Listen to your story and follow the questions it seems to want you to investigate. What kind of car did your main character’s grandpa drive? How was the president elected? Why is everyone so obsessed with peanuts? The answers might appear in the story you’ve already written, in your imagination, or you may have to delve deeper into your research to find them.

Draw a Map or Create a Model

Is your story world so complicated it’s making your head spin? Get out paper or other materials and make a visual representation of it. This could mean making a floor plan of your main character’s house, or mapping out an entire town, country, or kingdom. Physically creating your world is research in itself, but it can also guide you to new lines of questioning. You might discover that your story world contains a lot of lakes, or elk, or antiques, which in turn pushes you to research craters, or migratory patterns, or the history of antiques, which then leads you back to questions about meteors, or a lineage of hunters, or a family history of con artists, etc.

Outside Research

You may need to read history books, watch documentaries, conduct interviews, research online, or conduct first-hand research to get your questions answered. If your story takes place in Kansas and you’ve never been there, you could plan a trip, watch movies or read books set in Kansas, or talk to people who have lived there. Remember to record sensory details as well as facts. How does the air feel? What colors are prominent?

Take Notes

No matter what research method you use, take lots of notes. These can be straightforward recordings of the facts, or more creative expressions of what you encounter. Maybe something you stumble across will inspire you to write a poem, make a drawing, take a photo, create a mood board, or outline a new character. Keep in mind that your best ideas might come when you’re not actively researching, so keep a notebook or device nearby to record ideas that pop up when you’re not expecting them.

Use Your Own Experiences, Opinions, Ideas, and Imagination

Research doesn’t just mean looking into what other people say, think, or feel about a time, place, or topic. It can also mean exploring your own thoughts and perceptions! Say you’re researching a story that takes place in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. You’ll want to read history books, conduct interviews, watch films and documentaries, read novels set in that time period, research online, and perhaps even travel. But while you’re doing this, also pay attention to how you think and feel about the information you’re gathering. What details stand out to you? Does something you encounter make you mad? Why? What interests you about this time and place—and what bores you to tears?

When to Stop Researching

Some writers absolutely love story building… to the point that they never want to stop researching and actually write or revise their story! If you notice you’re procrastinating by languishing in the research stage, it’s time to get back to your story. As you return to the writing, you’ll probably find that you need go back to story building, then back to the writing, then to story building again. So don’t be too nervous about putting down your research: You can always go back and revise your world if you need to.

Of course, it’s completely acceptable to be obsessed with story building. All writers have their own attachments—elements of story telling that they love above all others. Some people get obsessed with a character, a plot, a setting, a theme… So if you’re a writer who loves your worlds, don’t be afraid to own it. Lots of amazing writers— especially science fiction and fantasy writers—are known for being huge world building geeks. If that’s what excites you, indulge! Just be aware of when you might be using it as a crutch because you’re nervous about composing or revising your story, and challenge yourself to move on—knowing, of course, that you can always come back to it if you need to.

Hope this helps!

ah, these are quite the specimens! I wonder what sanctuary they're located at.

A Melanistic & Albino Alligator

Photographer: snakebytestv

i've been writing a book and the feedback i've gotten from family members is that i have been using a lot of description, that the plot is moving along pretty slowly, and "something" needs to happen. do you have any tips or advice on moving plots along quicker in order to keep the reader's attention? thanks so much!!

How to Move a Story Forward

When your character is just milling about in their world describing what they see, what they’re doing, and what’s happening to them, that’s not really a plot. It’s just a random string of events happening to your character, and typically it doesn’t make for very interesting reading. This kind of story moves slowly because nothing’s actually happening. Imagine following an average person through their average day versus following Katniss Everdeen through day three of The Hunger Games. It’s a big difference. And that’s not to say every plot has to be as exciting or dramatic as The Hunger Games, but there does need to be a conflict.

So, the first thing you have to do is sit down and figure out what your story is really about. What is going on in this person’s life that is worth writing about? Is there some sort of inner conflict they’re struggling with? Or is there an external conflict of some kind? Usually there are both with the focus being more on one than the other.

How stories begin…

Most stories start when a character’s life is still normal but just about to change. Katniss was getting ready to go hunting with Gale. Bella was settling in at her new high school after moving in with her dad, and Harry Potter was just living life as the boy in the cupboard.

What happens next…

And then something happens. This is called the “inciting incident” because it “incites” the conflict and brings on the important events of the story. Katniss volunteers as tribute when her sister is drafted into The Hunger Games. Bella meets Edward Cullen and an instant attraction develops between them. Harry Potter receives his letter to Hogwarts.

The character responds and forms a goal…

The character’s normal life has been turned upside down. Now what? For Katniss, the most important thing in the world to her was the safety and well being of her sister and mother, and since she is the one who keeps them safe and fed, her survival of The Hunger Games is vital. That’s her motivation, and her goal is to win the game. Bella becomes obsessed with learning more about Edward and who, or what, he is, and she falls for him and the magic his world brings into her otherwise boring life. Being part of that world is her motivation, staying alive in the process is her goal. Harry finally has a ticket out of his life of being abused and unloved, and he has a chance to connect with the legacy his parents left behind. Leaving his old life behind and embracing this new one is is motivation. Surviving his first year at Hogwarts is his goal.

But goals aren’t supposed to be easy to reach…

If the character can just sail smoothly right up to their goal, mission accomplished, that makes for a pretty boring story. You never hear people say, “WOW! THAT WAS AN INCREDIBLE GAME!” when the score was 20 to nothing. What makes the game exciting is when the teams are neck and neck, one getting ahead for a little while, then the other one being ahead for a little while. It’s the trying, and often failing, to get over obstacles that makes the conflict more interesting. In a lot of ways, that struggle actually is the conflict. What obstacles stand in the way of your character and their goal, and who (or what) put them there? For Katinss, the obstacles were the other tributes and all the frightening things added to the game by the gamemakers. For Bella, it was the nomad vampires who caused trouble at first for fun, and then later for revenge. The obstacles Harry faces are partly due to conflict with other students and teachers, and partly due to the first “shots fired” in what would become the overarching battle against Voldemort.

You win some, you lose some…

And it’s important that you show some wins along with the failures. Sometimes the character tries to overcome an obstacle, fails, tries again and succeeds. Sometimes they fail and have to come up with a work around. Either way, the fails add to the tension and drama while the wins add excitement and interest in what happens next.

The final showdown…

Eventually you get to the big showdown, aka “the climax.” This is when your character faces down the biggest challenge that stands in the way of reaching their goal. This could be an epic battle between your character and the villain. It could be the moment where your character realizes they’re in love with their best friend and they chase them to the airport to admit their undying love for them before they move away. Or it could be surviving one last night of a terrible storm before crawling out of hiding to assess the damage. Whatever it is, the culmination of that moment is achieving or failing to achieve their goal.

The dust settles…

Whatever crazy chain of events was set off by the inciting incident, they’ve come to an end now thanks to the actions of your protagonist and their friends. Or, if they haven’t come to an end, they’ve at least been waylaid for now, or things are at least moving in a better direction. Now your characters can clean up, rebuild, mend wounds, tie up loose threads, and get back to life as normal. Or, in the case of a series, they can re-group and figure out what happens next. And that’s the end.

… But some stories happen on the inside.

Some stories are more about people and their experiences than about any big crazy thing that happens to them. Stories like these are more emotional and are more about dealing with the inner conflict than an outer one. But even in stories like these, you’ll still have a similar structure to what I laid out above. It’s just a lot looser and tied up with an emotional journey rather than the physical one. Which isn’t to say they can’t have a parallel physical journey, but the important stuff is happening on the inside.

Whichever kind of story you’re writing, if you make sure you’re hitting the important points I’ve laid out above, whether they relate to an internal conflict, an external conflict, or a little of both, you can be sure you’re writing a story that is moving forward and will keep your audience engaged. Everything I’ve outlined above is the “something” that needs to happen to make your story interesting.

Good luck! :)

Key to Learning and Forgetting Identified in Sleeping Brain

Distinct patterns of electrical activity in the sleeping brain may influence whether we remember or forget what we learned the previous day, according to a new study by UC San Francisco researchers. The scientists were able to influence how well rats learned a new skill by tweaking these brainwaves while animals slept, suggesting potential future applications in boosting human memory or forgetting traumatic experiences, the researchers say. 

In the new UCSF study, published online Oct. 3 in the journal Cell, a research team led by Karunesh Ganguly, MD, PhD, an associate professor of neurology and member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, used a technique called optogenetics to dampen specific types of brain activity in sleeping rats at will.

This allowed the researchers to determine that two distinct types of slow brain waves seen during sleep, called slow oscillations and delta waves, respectively strengthened or weakened the firing of specific brain cells involved in a newly learned skill – in this case how to operate a water spout that the rats could control with their brains via a neural implant.

“We were astonished to find that we could make learning better or worse by dampening these distinct types of brain waves during sleep,” Ganguly said. “In particular, delta waves are big part of sleep, but they have been less studied, and nobody had ascribed a role to them. We believe these two types of slow waves compete during sleep to determine whether new information is consolidated and stored, or else forgotten.”

“Linking a specific type of brain wave to forgetting is a new concept,” Ganguly added. “More studies have been done on strengthening of memories, fewer on forgetting, and they tend to be studied in isolation from one another. What our data indicate is that there is a constant competition between the two – it’s the balance between them that determines what we remember.”

Some Sleep to Remember, Others to Forget

Over the past two decades the centuries-old human hunch that sleep plays a role in the formation of memories has been increasingly supported by scientific studies. Animal studies show that the same neurons involved in forming the initial memory of a new task or experience are reactivated during sleep to consolidate these memory traces in the brain. Many scientists believe that forgetting is also an important function of sleep – perhaps as a way of uncluttering the mind by eliminating unimportant information.

Slow oscillations and delta waves are hallmarks of so-called non-REM sleep, which – in humans, at least – makes up half or more of a night’s sleep. There is evidence that these non-REM sleep stages play a role in consolidating various kinds of memory, including the learning of motor skills. In humans, researchers have found that time spent in the early stages of non-REM sleep is associated with better learning of a simple piano riff, for instance.

Ganguly’s team began studying the role of sleep in learning as part of their ongoing efforts to develop neural implants that would allow people with paralysis to more reliably control robotic limbs with their brain. In early experiments in laboratory animals, he had noted that the biggest improvements in the animals’ ability to operate these brain-computer interfaces occurred when they slept between training sessions.

“We realized that we needed to understand how learning and forgetting occur during sleep to understand how to truly integrate artificial systems into the brain,” Ganguly said.

Brain Waves Compete to Determine Learning During Sleep

In the new study, a dozen rats were implanted with electrodes that monitor firing among a small group of selected neurons in their brains’ motor cortex, which is involved in conceiving and executing voluntary movements. Producing a particular pattern of neural firing allowed the rats to control a water-dispensing tube in their cages. In essence, the rats were performing a kind of biofeedback – each rat learned how to fire a small ensemble of neurons together in a unique new pattern in order to move the spigot and get the water.

Ganguly’s team observed the same unique new firing pattern replaying in animals’ brains as they slept. The strength of this reactivation during sleep determined how well rats were able to control the water spout the next day. But the researchers wanted to go further – to understand how the brain controls whether rats learn or forget while they slumber.

To manipulate the effect of brain waves during non-REM sleep, the researchers genetically modified rat neurons to express a light-sensitive optogenetic control switch, allowing the team to use lasers and fiber optics to instantaneously dampen brain activity associated with the transmission of specific brain waves. With precise, millisecond timing of the laser, the scientists in separate experiments specifically dampened either slow oscillating waves or delta waves in a tiny patch of the brain around the new memory circuit.

Disruption of delta waves strengthened reactivation of the task-associated neural activity during sleep and was associated with better performance upon waking. Conversely, disruption of slow oscillations resulted in poor performance upon waking. “Slow oscillations seem to be protecting new patterns of neural firing after learning, while delta waves tend to erase them and promote forgetting,” Ganguly said.

Further analysis showed that in order to protect learning, slow oscillations had to occur at the same time as a third, well-studied brain wave phenomenon, called sleep spindles. A sleep spindle is a high-frequency, short-duration burst of activity that originates in a region called the thalamus and then propagates to other parts of the brain. They have been linked to memory consolidation, and a lack of normal sleep spindles is associated with brain maladies including schizophrenia and developmental delay, and also with aging.

“Our work shows that there is a strong drive to forget during sleep,” Ganguly said. “Very brief pairings of sleep spindles and slow oscillations can overcome delta wave-driven forgetting and preserve learning, but the balance is very delicate. Even small disturbances in these events lead to forgetting.”

It’s not yet known what tips the scales between delta wave–driven forgetting and slow oscillation–driven learning, but it’s clear that better understanding the process could have profound impacts on the study of human learning and memory, Ganguly said. “Sleep is truly driving profound changes in the brain. Understanding these changes will be critical for brain integration of artificial interfaces and may one day allow us to modify neural circuits to aid in movement rehabilitation, such as after stroke, where previous studies have shown that sleep plays an important role in successful recovery.”

Hopefully I’ll be able to whip up a few story responses, those are always a treat! Looking forward to it!

Welcome to the First Spectober! A writing and art prompt filled October! Think Spooktober, but Paranatural themed. 

There will be daily prompts, both for writing and art. These will be separated into two separate lists. However, if you ever want to use a ‘writing prompt’ for art, or vice versa, you are absolutely welcome to! While they are listed day to day, you can skip as many as you’d like and do them out of order if you’d prefer to. It’s creativity, no need to restrict it. :D

We’ll be using the #spectober2020 for the event and be reblogging them to this blog. Word of advice: make sure the tag is within the first five, or it won’t show up. If we haven’t reblogged your submission within 24 hours, feel free to message us.

Writing Prompt List (Pending)

Art Prompt List (Pending)

Procrastination via uqiz is always fun.

i made a quiz for what your final act as a villain would be, and it would be very cool if you wanted to take it B) 

some amazing art by Kevin Hong! I love the way the dragons are drawn!

Kevin Hong  -  http://www.kevinhong.com  -  https://www.behance.net/K141?  -  https://twitter.com/Taijuey  -  http://taijuey.deviantart.com/?rnrd=194005  -  http://k141.tumblr.com/tagged/k141  -  https://www.instagram.com/kevinhongart

Oh! This is such fantastic work! I adore how each member of Johnny's Gang are depicted in their battle introduction (for the snowball fight) and Johnny's panicking over the shades is so well done! I love every bit of this, thank you so so much! <3

Hello @gatortavern​ ! I was your Paranatural Secret Santa this year! I had so much fun with your prompts, so I really hope you enjoy it! 

@paranaturalsecretsanta

AO3 info under the cut!

Keep reading

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.