What the heck does NaNoWriMo stand for? If most of my readers are writers, they will know that this stands for National Novel Writing Month. My friend Amy joined in 2014 and a lot of our texts consisted of, so how's your word count coming? She's been trying to get me to do it ever since, and this year I finally decided to do it.
NaNo (as I shorten it to) is the challenge of writing 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. YIKES! Some days I say I can do it and other days I freak out about what I've gotten myself into. Never mind the statistic that says 89% don't finish the challenge. And it's going to be hard to balance this with three college classes, choir, drama, senior leadership, swim practice, and everything else going on. But I want to challenge myself to finish something because I've never finished anything other than my one novel. (however, that was a great accomplishment. It was 118, 000 words, ok.)
So, as I see it, here are the benefits of NaNo:
1. It forces you to make goals. In order to reach 50k, you have to write a little over 1,600 words a day.
2. It forces you to write when you aren't "in the mood." I always think I need to be in a certain mood to write, but I don't and in this challenge I won't have the time to be.
3. It forces you to actually finish something. I cannot tell you how many unfinished projects I have lying around in my room. Most of them could probably really good if I just kept going.
And the best thing is that these are not only essential writing skills, but good life skills as well.
Okay and now for the good part: the synopsis of the novel I'm writing in 3 days!
Lila Osweil lives in a city full of shadows, but she has never bothered
to learn what they hide. All she can focus on is how to escape her
abusive father and run away into the arms of her childhood sweetheart
Jacob. When Jacob tells her of the government's offer to give her
freedom if she becomes an agent for them, Lila accepts. But frightening
visions that begin after her father nearly has Jacob killed haunt her,
and as she begins her training, everything and everyone she knows begins
to twist around her until Lila can no longer determine what is real and
what isn't.
To 50,000!
~Clarissa
Friday, October 28, 2016
Friday, October 21, 2016
Dear Diary
We've all heard the cliche "dear diary" and then what follows is some stupid thing that happened between you and your best friend that day. I will confess two things: I do start off my entries with "dear diary" and sometimes I do have something stupid that follows it. BUT I believe that there are benefits to diary writing and I want to convince you of them.
I decided to do this post today because last night was the 100th night in a row that I've written in my diary. When I first started, it was a challenge sometimes to remember to write in it. Now it's become my nightly habit and it's really helped me unwind from everything that's happened that day. So that's the first benefit: it helps you unwind. I know I'm a writer, and that probably makes writing more meaningful to me, but I'm pretty sure that writing out your thoughts helps you process them better. Sometimes trying to put what you're feeling on paper can feel like trying to smash through a brick wall but keep trying! It has happened to me, but I keep pushing, and eventually my feelings make themselves onto the page.
I've been keeping a diary on and off since I was 9. I don't read my old diaries very often, but when I do, sometimes I laugh and sometimes I groan. (just a tip, if you did something stupid that you regret within the last 3 years- don't read your diary from then. You have to get over it first, and that process takes longer than you think). That said, another benefit of diaries is the memories. I have gone back and read stuff from two years ago that I no longer remember, but when I read it in my diary, I laugh and get all warm inside. And another awesome thing- you can see how much you've grown. I went through a rough patch in freshman and sophomore year and I wasn't writing that much. I know I've come really far from that person, but I can't remember what it was like exactly back then and I wish I'd written about it.
I hope you'll consider starting a diary if you haven't already or writing more often in it if you already do.
~Clarissa
I decided to do this post today because last night was the 100th night in a row that I've written in my diary. When I first started, it was a challenge sometimes to remember to write in it. Now it's become my nightly habit and it's really helped me unwind from everything that's happened that day. So that's the first benefit: it helps you unwind. I know I'm a writer, and that probably makes writing more meaningful to me, but I'm pretty sure that writing out your thoughts helps you process them better. Sometimes trying to put what you're feeling on paper can feel like trying to smash through a brick wall but keep trying! It has happened to me, but I keep pushing, and eventually my feelings make themselves onto the page.
I've been keeping a diary on and off since I was 9. I don't read my old diaries very often, but when I do, sometimes I laugh and sometimes I groan. (just a tip, if you did something stupid that you regret within the last 3 years- don't read your diary from then. You have to get over it first, and that process takes longer than you think). That said, another benefit of diaries is the memories. I have gone back and read stuff from two years ago that I no longer remember, but when I read it in my diary, I laugh and get all warm inside. And another awesome thing- you can see how much you've grown. I went through a rough patch in freshman and sophomore year and I wasn't writing that much. I know I've come really far from that person, but I can't remember what it was like exactly back then and I wish I'd written about it.
I hope you'll consider starting a diary if you haven't already or writing more often in it if you already do.
~Clarissa
Friday, October 14, 2016
Priceless
Last night I went with my best friend to see the Christian band for King and Country's movie Priceless. To give you a quick summary of the plot- a guy is driving a truck across the state, no questions asked. But when he's run off the road, he inspects his "cargo" which turns out to be two Mexican sisters. He delivers them to a man and despite the bad feeling, lets them go. He soon realizes that he has been involved in one of the most horrible practices in our country: human trafficking. He spends the rest of the movie getting them back. At the end, he takes a prostitute into his room and the older sister (who he is now engaged to) comes in and they tell the girl that she is not worth the $100 he paid for her, but priceless.
I'm going to confess that the movie made me cry. They played the song in the movie and these lyrics: "Irreplaceable, unmistakable, incomparable" made me cry. I also cried in the end, where they explain to the prostitute that there is a God who sees that worth in her. I was crying because I don't see myself that way and I think every girl struggles to see themselves that way. But what they said is true. There is a God who sees each girl as a beautiful creation that is absolutely incomparable to any other girl and whose worth is so great that it cannot be measured.
There are two steps to learning to see ourselves as priceless. The first is to stop comparing ourselves to other girls. We do it a lot. We look at so-and-so and think, her hair style is so much better than mine or her body is so much more curvy than mine. We need to stop doing that. Everyone was created differently and there is beauty in our diversity. There are many different kinds of beauty. No one else can be that stunning mix of you that you are.
The second step, at least for me, is the harder one. Girls, we need to stop letting guys tell us how much we are worth. One of the things that is so touching about the Smallbone brothers is that they challenge guys to treat girls with chivalry and to love them extraordinarily. I love that, but ultimately guys are human too. They're going to fail us. This movie came at a point where I was struggling to think of myself as being beautiful and having worth because I was letting a guy tell me how much I was worth and he wasn't telling me I was worth much. And sometimes we can even feel like we aren't worth much just because guys always flirt with our best friend and never with us. Or maybe your friend has a bunch of guy friends who listen to her talk about her problems and you have a grand total of zero of those. That doesn't mean you don't have anything attractive about you. It means that you respect yourself enough to wait for the guy God has for you and that you're so special God wants to keep you from anyone but that guy. On the other hand, perhaps you're in a relationship with a guy who makes you feel like you are just the bomb. That's wonderful, but at some point, he is going to let you down. And in those moments, we have to remember that God still loves you and sees you as beautiful and worthy.
~Clarissa
P.S. I promise to write about actual writing soon.
I'm going to confess that the movie made me cry. They played the song in the movie and these lyrics: "Irreplaceable, unmistakable, incomparable" made me cry. I also cried in the end, where they explain to the prostitute that there is a God who sees that worth in her. I was crying because I don't see myself that way and I think every girl struggles to see themselves that way. But what they said is true. There is a God who sees each girl as a beautiful creation that is absolutely incomparable to any other girl and whose worth is so great that it cannot be measured.
There are two steps to learning to see ourselves as priceless. The first is to stop comparing ourselves to other girls. We do it a lot. We look at so-and-so and think, her hair style is so much better than mine or her body is so much more curvy than mine. We need to stop doing that. Everyone was created differently and there is beauty in our diversity. There are many different kinds of beauty. No one else can be that stunning mix of you that you are.
The second step, at least for me, is the harder one. Girls, we need to stop letting guys tell us how much we are worth. One of the things that is so touching about the Smallbone brothers is that they challenge guys to treat girls with chivalry and to love them extraordinarily. I love that, but ultimately guys are human too. They're going to fail us. This movie came at a point where I was struggling to think of myself as being beautiful and having worth because I was letting a guy tell me how much I was worth and he wasn't telling me I was worth much. And sometimes we can even feel like we aren't worth much just because guys always flirt with our best friend and never with us. Or maybe your friend has a bunch of guy friends who listen to her talk about her problems and you have a grand total of zero of those. That doesn't mean you don't have anything attractive about you. It means that you respect yourself enough to wait for the guy God has for you and that you're so special God wants to keep you from anyone but that guy. On the other hand, perhaps you're in a relationship with a guy who makes you feel like you are just the bomb. That's wonderful, but at some point, he is going to let you down. And in those moments, we have to remember that God still loves you and sees you as beautiful and worthy.
~Clarissa
P.S. I promise to write about actual writing soon.
Friday, October 7, 2016
Stress and Its Relationship to Self-Worth
If you ask my best friends about me and stress, they'll tell you I get stressed out a lot. Very stressed out sometimes. I have a dominant personality trait of wanting to please people, to live up to their expectations, and not wanting to burden them. It's a good thing to want to make other people happy. That feeling that you get when you cleaned up the kitchen super-duper well and your mom comes home and she loves it? That's a good thing.
What isn't a good thing is when you sacrifice your emotional and mental well-being to live up to someone else's expectations. It isn't good when you come to define your self-worth on whether you made your parents happy or not. I'm not saying that you shouldn't obey your parents or not try to live up to their standards. The Bible tells us to honor our parents. But feeling stressed out and unworthy is not healthy. And most of the time, it isn't your parents fault either. You have to decide how you're going to handle yourself.
For me, stress comes from school. I'm an A student in almost every subject. Why the heck would I get stressed out then? First of all, I push myself- perhaps too hard. I remember beating myself up about getting a low A or a high B on a test. A couple of the girls at my table were like, oh shut up, you don't have any room to talk, your grades are fine. I shut up. But in my head I was thinking about the questions I missed and why I missed them and if I could have studied more and if I had gone with my first instinct, and on and on. I will admit that sometimes I could study more. Then I deserve to chastise myself, but just a little. I see the consequences, and determine to do better in the future. Beating myself up about it is not going to change my test score! However, I remember one time I studied so hard for a health test and received 93%. I had thought I was going to score higher than 95%. I remember my mom not being thrilled about that score and I immediately felt horrible. I had studied so hard and she wasn't happy with my score? It was health, guys. In like 8th grade. Obviously though, since I remember it, it hurt.
I have come to realize that how well I do on my test does not define how great of a human being I am. But I was defining my self-worth by my test grades. That's not okay! And it doesn't have to be grades. It can be how many goals you scored in your last soccer game or what place you got at the science fair. It does not define you. God made you beautiful, unique, and special. Nobody else can be me. Somebody else might get better grades, but are they Clarissa? No. And I love who I am. That should be enough.
I would be grounded from emailing on my tablet if I received grades lower than a B. That has happened multiple times in math (ugh!) and Spanish. Each time, I would cry. I felt like such a failure. Every time I took a test, there was this twisting knot in my stomach. Would I get a high enough score?
I still struggle with stress. This year has turned out to be especially busy and there's all these things that both my parents and I want to accomplish and excel at and some things just they want me to, and then I have my stuff too and I feel overwhelmed.There are days when I want to just give up- go to sleep and not wake up for a very long time. I have to remember that I can't do it by myself. That's why I get stressed out- because I'm trying to do it on my own. Only God can get me through this.
There are situations when you can overdo it, however. It's okay to say no to something (even if your parents think it'd be a great opportunity!) if you are already committed to a lot of things. And it's also okay to say no to something if doing it would cause you to lose the time that you use to recharge and de-stress. That is also vital to your well-being and you shouldn't disregard it even if it seems selfish not to. It's just as important to sing your heart out in choir as it is to study to get a good grade on your English final. God has given each of us gifts and talents. Remember that you are loved and that you are worthy!
~Clarissa
P.S. Sorry that was so long!
What isn't a good thing is when you sacrifice your emotional and mental well-being to live up to someone else's expectations. It isn't good when you come to define your self-worth on whether you made your parents happy or not. I'm not saying that you shouldn't obey your parents or not try to live up to their standards. The Bible tells us to honor our parents. But feeling stressed out and unworthy is not healthy. And most of the time, it isn't your parents fault either. You have to decide how you're going to handle yourself.
For me, stress comes from school. I'm an A student in almost every subject. Why the heck would I get stressed out then? First of all, I push myself- perhaps too hard. I remember beating myself up about getting a low A or a high B on a test. A couple of the girls at my table were like, oh shut up, you don't have any room to talk, your grades are fine. I shut up. But in my head I was thinking about the questions I missed and why I missed them and if I could have studied more and if I had gone with my first instinct, and on and on. I will admit that sometimes I could study more. Then I deserve to chastise myself, but just a little. I see the consequences, and determine to do better in the future. Beating myself up about it is not going to change my test score! However, I remember one time I studied so hard for a health test and received 93%. I had thought I was going to score higher than 95%. I remember my mom not being thrilled about that score and I immediately felt horrible. I had studied so hard and she wasn't happy with my score? It was health, guys. In like 8th grade. Obviously though, since I remember it, it hurt.
I have come to realize that how well I do on my test does not define how great of a human being I am. But I was defining my self-worth by my test grades. That's not okay! And it doesn't have to be grades. It can be how many goals you scored in your last soccer game or what place you got at the science fair. It does not define you. God made you beautiful, unique, and special. Nobody else can be me. Somebody else might get better grades, but are they Clarissa? No. And I love who I am. That should be enough.
I would be grounded from emailing on my tablet if I received grades lower than a B. That has happened multiple times in math (ugh!) and Spanish. Each time, I would cry. I felt like such a failure. Every time I took a test, there was this twisting knot in my stomach. Would I get a high enough score?
I still struggle with stress. This year has turned out to be especially busy and there's all these things that both my parents and I want to accomplish and excel at and some things just they want me to, and then I have my stuff too and I feel overwhelmed.There are days when I want to just give up- go to sleep and not wake up for a very long time. I have to remember that I can't do it by myself. That's why I get stressed out- because I'm trying to do it on my own. Only God can get me through this.
There are situations when you can overdo it, however. It's okay to say no to something (even if your parents think it'd be a great opportunity!) if you are already committed to a lot of things. And it's also okay to say no to something if doing it would cause you to lose the time that you use to recharge and de-stress. That is also vital to your well-being and you shouldn't disregard it even if it seems selfish not to. It's just as important to sing your heart out in choir as it is to study to get a good grade on your English final. God has given each of us gifts and talents. Remember that you are loved and that you are worthy!
~Clarissa
P.S. Sorry that was so long!
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