Guess who finished the first draft of her eighth book? THIS CHICK! Now all I have to do is perfect it…That won’t be too hard…

1) Get 5+ short stories into magazines.
2) Finish writing my book. (This needs to be done!)
3) Finish my fanfiction. (I’ve been writing this since the summer. It needs to be done!)
4) Write a screenplay
5) Get an INTERNSHIP!
6) Get a job (bleh)

Wait. Nope. That’s gunna be hard, but I like hard, so I’ll do it anyway.

Check in later,
Ariel Ceylan

I finished my Naruto fanfiction entitled The Wyrmling over break. I wanted it to be finished before I started this semester because it was time-consuming. I didn’t realize just how time-consuming it was until now. It’s not like I’m doing nothing, you know? I have six courses I’m taking this semester and my GPA is 3.72….I got into the Honors College and I want to stay there, so I’m busting my bum working my brain. But when I sit down at the end of the day, I find that there’s no pull. It’s like I need to come up with something to post online. I feel terribly about this because I’ve been blogging for years. Why is it that all of a sudden I can’t sit down on the computer?

Any thoughts?
Ariel Ceylan

1) Get 5+ short stories into magazines.
2) Finish writing my book. (This needs to be done!)
3) Finish my fanfiction. (I’ve been writing this since the summer. It needs to be done!)
4) Write a screenplay
5) Get an INTERNSHIP!
6) Get a job (bleh)

It’s a really great feeling accomplishing what you set out to do. I got a job as a dance instructor (jazz and hip-hop) at my college. I’m glad about that. I’m going to see if I can be a dance instructor at other local colleges or libraries. If you have any ideas, send them my way.

I have four more accomplishments to achieve before I complete my list of 2012 resolutions…then I’ll need to make up more!

Best,
Ariel Ceylan

I just finished one of the items on my list of resolutions!

1) Get 5+ short stories into magazines.
2) Finish writing my book. (This needs to be done!)
3) Finish my fanfiction. (I’ve been writing this since the summer. It needs to be done!)
4) Write a screenplay
5) Get an INTERNSHIP!
6) Get a job (bleh)

Yes, I finished writing my fanfiction, TODAY! It was hard. I have 46 chapters out in that story (it’s called Wyrmling and it’s a Naruto fanfic). The last five chapters I posted today. It was nothing short of intense.

This got me thinking about New Year Resolutions. Just about everybody I know say that they’re going to do something, start and two days later stop. I guess that those resolutions aren’t really resolutions, then. They’re more like…daydreams. It’s something that someone would like to do, but has no real plan of implementing or sustaining it. When it’s a resolution, that means that someone has a plan to do something and not stop until the task is completed.

Maybe I’m wrong….but then again, maybe I’m not…

Ariel Ceylan

1) Get 5+ short stories into magazines.
2) Finish writing my book. (This needs to be done!)
3) Finish my fanfiction. (I’ve been writing this since the summer. It needs to be done!)
4) Write a screenplay
5) Get an INTERNSHIP!
6) Get a job (bleh)

What do you want to do this year?

Ariel Ceylan

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 22 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Writing Prompts for December:
1) As I look back on my life, I learned…
2) Look at me and tell me, am I not human?

Remember when we used to read books and magazines? Remember when everyone got the newspaper, and sat down at the breakfast table, unfolding each paper page by page? Remember those days… maybe just a little? With things like the internet, online publications, blogs, tablets and e-readers, writing has taken a drastic turn from the writing we once knew.

1. Timeliness of News
At one point news only came to you from someone tossing a newspaper on your doorstep in the early morning hours or because you picked one up from the store or gas station. This meant that you received all your news from either the TV or the paper – and it was a thick paper with equally thick pages chock full of material. With e-readers, tablets, laptops and smartphones, though, the news is literally at our fingertips. Because we’re able to obtain news as it’s breaking, newspapers have shrunk in size and quality, they’ve become an outdated afterthought, unless you’re one of the few people that still likes to sit down at the table with your coffee and paper.

2. Writing Well
Because the internet allows us to access news as it’s occurring there is less focus on writing with grammatical correctness. Sure, we still hope that everything flows in a cohesive and correct manner, but the focus has shifted from who wrote it the best to who wrote it and published it the fastest. This has resulted in less well-refined and polished stories and more hurried content thrown up on a website so that they came claim bragging rights for “who broke the news first”. Writing quickly has trumped writing well.

3. Anyone’s an Expert
Blogging has transformed the way we look at so-called experts within certain fields. With enough time spent blogging about a subject anyone can call themselves an expert, whether they have any formal training in the subject matter or not. This is a huge contrast to the old-fashioned view of finding actual experts with credentials to validate articles, and has led to a lot of people relying on unqualified bloggers for information that should actually have been obtained from a qualified professional.

4. Publishing, what’s that?
With tablets allowing you to download books instantly, a lot of authors have switched from going through the whole publishing process to making books available in e-reader format only. This cuts back on the time and cost associated with getting a book printed, and allows instant access, as well as nearly eliminates the need for the more traditional methods of obtaining books such as libraries. And while convenience may win out in this instance, it’s a little sad that the feel of actually holding a book and turning its pages is slowly dying out.

5. Promotional Tactics
Before e-readers and the internet authors promoted their works by getting in front of the camera or going on book tours around the country. Now they send out email blasts, link to their book in blogs, and promote on websites. The actual face time that gives people that real-life connection to an author is eliminated.

While e-readers, tablets, and the internet have made it overwhelmingly easy to get written works in the blink of an eye, what has been lost is the connection that you get from picking up a printed book or paper. There’s a certain quality of printed works that is lost when translated onto an electronic screen. There’s no doubt writing will continue to evolve as technology does, let’s just hope that the quality doesn’t completely disappear.

Author Bio
Melanie Slaugh is enthusiastic about the growing prospects and opportunities of various industries and writing articles on various consumer goods and services as a freelance writer. She writes extensively for internet service providers and also topics related to internet service providers in my area for presenting the consumers, the information they need to choose the right Internet package for them. She can be reached at slaugh.slaugh907 @ gmail.com.

Strength
Endurance
Prosperity,
Ariel Ceylan

Today I celebrated something huge in my life. I hope you also celebrate the big things and respect the small things, for they all comprise life.

Loving life,
Ariel Ceylan