#personal tips

(…I’ve realized I need while writing…)

(For my writing style and interest: cinematic, emotional, philosophical, symbolic, whiplash-heavy, but others can use these tips too.)

1. Trust the reader more. Don’t over explain everything. Subtext and foreshadowing are there for a reason. Don’t undermine that reason.

Don’t tell the readers why it matters, let them discover it through your writing.

(Tip: if you feel like you’re over explaining, or even while editing, ask yourself: can the reader understand the story (eventually) without this? If so, then trust them more. If not, keep it or edit it to your desire.)

2. When you have lots of good ideas in one story, don’t stray from the emotional, grounding characters and idea(s). Everything revolves around these characters (not in the story sense) in the emotional, symbolic, philosophical sense.

(Tip: have complicated lore, character history or philosophy? Try to remember how it’s important to your characters. If it’s not, consider cutting it.)

The world (in my story since that’s what I’m going for) doesn’t always revolve around the characters. Politics and people in their world move on without them. It’s the idea(s) you’re trying to communicate that should revolve around them, not their physical world itself (unless that’s what you’re going for).

3. Emotional intensity shouldn’t stay at one level for too long. Too much emotional intensity can create numbness, which makes other emotional scenes harder to conceptualize and appreciate. Too little emotional scenes, mundane ones, can make the reader forget what you’re trying to convey. These scenes aren’t bad, but too much of them can make the general idea(s) of the story feel odd or alien when you bring them up again.

(Tip: let the emotional scenes you want to “hit” shine. You don’t have to make your other scenes “less”, just make it so you don’t make your reader numb. Let the story breathe. Let your reader breathe. Heck, let yourself breathe! But remember to bring back your original ideas.)

4. Branch off your main emotional, symbolic, philosophical, etc. ideas. The more you keep adding, the harder it gets to stay attached to any one idea. Return to a saying, a character, a memory. Adding new ideas isn’t bad, just be careful with how any you add. Don't let every new idea demand that the story become about it.

(Tip: ask: does this new idea add to my older ones? If it doesn’t, why is it important to my story?)

5. Look at your earlier chapters, recognize that your writing has changed, laugh at some of the old stuff, appreciate what you learned, and still be proud that you wrote it.

Don’t try to erase the writer you used to be.

Build off them.

(Everything is a balance, you just have to find yours. These are my tips and they help me, but it’s different for everyone.)

My most important tip to any writer:

And the main thing, something I have taken to heart: I write for myself. No one else.

Do I want it to be good? Duh. Do I fantasize about it being famous. About all the fugging time.

But I know, right now, in this moment, if I wrote what I wanted to write, and no one paid much mind to it, that fact wouldn’t lessen the story I proudly created. I would love it just as much. I would have loved creating it just as much.

This post is especially for a very loving mutual who asked me about it, (And now that Lauren will do a live IG on meditation). @kbcamrenfiles I hope this works for you buddy. It is a little longer than what we discussed before privately. I have not been a stranger to meditation because I used it a lot in my adolescence and to help my mom with her panic attacks. My adolescence was not easy either, but this thing to meditate on was a piece of advice that I received when I was sixteen years old and that helped me a lot for a while and sometimes today it also does. My way of meditating was simple. And the main thing was to have a quiet space, if possible, free from external noise. If you don't have that quiet space at home, you can stay in your room and focus on the music. This aids concentration and suppresses external noise at the same time.

* A recommendation for the YouTube page, try to use an ad blocker on the page, because it will not help if you listen to the music in the middle of your session and an ad appears, it would spoil your concentration and you would have to start zero. Now that you are in your special place to meditate, I think we can talk about the position. It is important because they will have to take into account that they will spend a lot of time in that same position. The ideal is the Indian style, on a mat and the body at rest. If you already have the music and everything else we have left the most important thing, focus on your breath. In meditation, breathing helps release bad energy. If you believe in chakras, breathing also opens those chakras and creates an energy balance that frees you from what is hurting you. My method of liberation was also important to me while I meditated, I do not remember well who taught it to me but it helped me a lot when I needed to liberate myself from some pain, or emotional problem. That helped my mom too. Something simple but effective. Imagine that you are in a white room, completely white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. And that white floor is full of trash, trash translated into fears, pains, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, and everything that may be bothering you both physically and mentally. And you have to clean that dirty room imagining that you have a broom in your hands. Now that you have the broom in your hands, you have in front of you a door that opens in the white room. It is a door to your favorite place in the world, a place where you feel peace every time you think of it. You are only one step away from that place but you have to clean your white room first. You focus on the broom in your hands and start sweeping. You can do it at your own pace that your favorite place will be there waiting for you. When you are sweeping, mentalize that each thing that you are moving away from you will not hurt you again because you have the power to drive it away, to sweep it from your life and to heal what you need to heal. That is a personal process, folks. They will have to focus on that. Once the white room has been metallized and cleaned, you will be able to access that special place in your mind where everything is at peace. Where each one of you will connect with their minds and their souls and they will know that they are stronger than they think. Stay in that place until you can feel light and come out of meditation in your own time, there is no before or after. Listen to their breaths and their bodies. They will know the moment when they can wake up.

That was basically my technique. It is not a big deal but it helped me in my time with my favorite song that for some reason made me focus even more.

I find meditation music works much better for me! For guided meditation I found myself trying too hard to catch up with the instructions so I dropped it. Currently I’m listening to singing bowls meditation music which has been great or sometimes just no music at all, simply closing my eyes and let my mind wanders ✨ So perhaps you can try looking for visualization advices online and listen around and see which ones work for you!

During meditation, I tend to visualize moonlight cleansing and charging me (and my energy) just like how it cleanses my crystals and decks. Then I visualized silver light protecting me and silver light expanding within me to around 1.5 arms length. It gets bigger as months goes by. I also visualize the sea in my astral space as it get cleansed by the moonlight and myself, I let pour all over me, from the top to bottom, cleansing and balancing the seven coloured balls within me (you can say my chakras?). Then I end the session visualizing green light from the ground and holding me still while another round of silver moonlight pouring all over me!

I would also silently pray during meditation when times get rough for me and see what messages I get in return too. After my meditation I would end the whole session with a divination to validate and assured the message so if you do divination perhaps this helps too! ✨

Make your best friends a playlist~!

Buy your favorite book, read it, highlight your favorite passages and gift it to them~!

Take pictures of them when they aren’t looking~!

Make outrageous Snapchat streaks with them~! (Currently at 208 with @haleyxrubes , and 26 with @complexsomeone)

Divination through cards - especially tarot - is probably the most common form of fortune telling. I started in June (2018), I think, and even though I haven’t practised every day, I can now (Nov 2018) say that I got really better and can interpret cards with accuracy- although I obviously have to keep practising and learning.

Here are a few tips of what helped me!💓

1) Keeping your deck close- whether it’s a tarot deck, oracle cards or a set of playing cards, keeping your deck close really really allows you to bond with your deck even though you’re not actively using it. Carrying it with you in your purse, laying it under your pillow before sleeping, etc. seriously helps to ‘get more familiar’ with each other.

2) Everyone says this, I know, but pulling a daily card will make your cards involved with your day-to-day life + you will know what the day has in store for you + you’ll remember the meanings of the cards more easily.

3) I don’t know about oracle cards since I haven’t used those yet, but tarot and playing cards tell a story. For example, take the Cups cards out of your tarot deck or the Hearts from your playing cards set, look at the meanings and try to tell a story from 1-10. This makes it soooo much easier to interpret those cards. Also, try to see King, Queen and Knave & Knight or Jack as real people (not for a reading, they don’t always represent actual people, I mean just for practising the meanings!!). What are they like? What are their qualities? Which are also most likely the meanings of the cards.

4) Pick 5-10 cards you feel positive about or give off a happy and positive vibe, and 5-10 cards that seem rather negative to you. Look at them and write down whatever comes to mind when looking at the cards. Why do you feel good/bad about them? Why would you want the ‘happy’ cards to pop up in a reading, and not the other 5-10? Check with their meanings afterwards.

5) Speaking of trying to interpret the cards on your own, do the same for all the other cards! It’s fun! You don’t have to do them all at once though, just a few every day or whenever you feel like it! It can be overwhelming otherwise.

6) This one’s especially great for the Minor Arcana in tarot and playing cards, but try to figure out the connection between the 1’s, 2’s, 3’s,... For example what do the 4’s of Chalices, Pentacles, Wands and Swords have in common? What about the 8’s of Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades?

7) Of course a few small readings always help to get used to your deck and its way of telling. Just do a 3-card spread (past, present, future is a common one) for yourself every once in a while, for example, that way you can see how accurate it is yourself. Also, personal readings are always easier than those for others.

8) I could only do this after a while, when knowing my deck better, but write down what vibe your deck gives off or how you think it gives you advice. Kind of the ‘personality’ of your deck. For example, the tarot deck that I have the deepest connection with gives answers in a mysterious way, very symbolic, but not too difficult to figure out. While another one seemed simple but is actually complex and needed me to bond with it quite some time before opening up and giving clear answers, and my playing cards, well... those are just hella straight forward. Always jump out as well. As soon as I think of something for one second while shuffling, 2 or 3 cards jump out to tell me their view on it, lol. See? Try to find out more about your deck’s personality, that’s my point.

•

These are some tips from my personal experience, of course there are a lot more if you look at other tarot reader’s posts! Hopefully it was a little helpful!

@angel-sobs 👼🏼💧

•