Breaking Down Satire: Antithesis and Anticlimax

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Anticlimax, Antithesis, blood phoenix saga, Breaking Down Satire, deus ex machina, figure of speech, juxtaposition, parallelism, rhetorical device, The Girl with the Glowing Hair

First, allow me a disclaimer by saying that although these words have some similarities, they’re really not connected all that much. I clumped them together because I wanted to and for no other real reason.

Let’s start with Antithesis, which can be defined as a person or thing that is the direct opposite of someone or something else. It is often used to emphasize an idea through the perceived analogy and draw the attentions of readers.

Here are some examples:

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Neil Armstrong

“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Muhammad Ali

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them?” William Shakespeare

And one I use in class every semester:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…” Charles Dickens.

Each of these quotes is meant to highlight something specific about the topic in which they focus. Space travel indicates monumental progress for mankind, even if only a few men got to step foot on the moon. Boxing is a mix of peaceful floating—or dodging—and aggressive stinging—punching. We have to put aside petty differences and act like a family, even if dysfunctional, or the constant fighting will ruin us all. Life is struggle and death is peace, but if we choose peace, we choose nothingness. And turmoil amongst the French Revolution, accentuating the division and confusion of the people in that era.

Much like paradox, antithesis relies on juxtaposition to emphasize key qualities that are similar amongst the opposition. The parallel structure of antithesis sharpens the meaning that comes with specific combinations, as the repetition makes the contrast clarifies the intended message, which is not to say that it must ALWAYS be parallel, but it aids in the overall understanding. In fact, antithesis seems to be built around the “or” construction.

To sum up, we use antithesis for several purposes: to present a stark difference between two options, to express the magnitude of range, to express strong emotions, to create a conflicting relationship between two ideas, and to accentuate the features of one thing by placing in opposition to another.

I don’t think I’ve ever used it purposefully or not, but I’m sure going to be more aware of the option as I draft.

Now, anticlimax creates a disappointing end or conclusion to an exciting or impressive series of events. It often does not meet the expectations that the narrative has built, and the error occurs because the solution to a problem is so trivial or comes without the protagonist using any of their skills, like using a deus ex machina. Essentially, the anticlimax is not nearly as good or brilliant as the rest of the movie. This is not a plot twist but an obvious ending, an unrelated ending, or one that leaves the reader hanging.

Here is examples of an anticlimactic ending from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:

“I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta’s hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. “One.” Maybe I’m wrong. “Two.” Maybe they don’t care if we both die. “Three!” It’s too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth, taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare.”

What an excellent example of deus ex machina, although we see Katniss use her skilled logic to understand that either way, she’s defeated the system by not allowing a single winner. She probes us for an emotional ending. No survivors means usurping the hope it’s meant to create for the people via the lack of a real war, but two survivors provides too much hope and more drama for the society and the capitol. This, of course, was done on purpose to create a cliffhanger that sets up the rest of the trilogy.

Another example is the ending of Signs in which touching water kills the aliens that came to take over Earth. For the fate of the world, this seems like such a simple solution that garners a bit of a flat response because no real intervention was needed; however, for the characters of focus in the narrative, this has been set up nicely, and therefore, has a satisfying ending for them.

Also, anticlimax can be used as a figure of speech when it appears somewhere else in the story. These are statements that gradually descend in order of importance, arranging a series of words, phrases, or clauses in order of decreasing importance. For example, he lost his family, his car, and his cell phone. Typically, we like to accentuate importance by putting the most important at the end of a sentence for effect, but here, we begin with the emotional impact—his family—something that he cannot replace, and we leave with an object of little value that is easily replaceable, his cell phone. Although, I’m sure a great many young adults would argue its lack of importance if they could. Overall, this creates a humorous effect and produces great surprise, but readers may see it as an error unless the author intentionally meant to produce ridiculousness.

Here are a few more examples of anticlimactic figures of speech:

“In moments of crisis, I size up the situation in a flash, set my teeth, contract my muscles, take a firm grip on myself, and without tremor, always do the wrong thing.” George Bernard Shaw

“He has seen the ravages of war, he has known natural catastrophes, he has been to singles bars.” Woody Allen.

The buildup and the payoff here do not correlate well, but they do create humorous and unreliable characters.

This one is a tool I use loosely—more so in THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR when I’ve utilized a dues ex machina, but the character planned it. Does that make any sense? In the BLOOD PHOENIX saga, I also tend to have anticlimactic fights between Ria and Gene that always devolves into her and my coffee obsession.

 

Are you familiar with these rhetorical tools? Do you utilize them in your writing? Tell me how in the comments below!

 

 

Sources:

http://www.literarydevices.com/antithesis/

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/antithesis

https://literaryterms.net/antithesis/

 

http://www.literarydevices.com/anticlimax/

https://literarydevices.net/anti-climax/

https://www.quora.com/What-exactly-is-the-difference-between-the-climax-and-anti-climax-of-any-movie

 

Obnoxious Character Planning: INFERNO Character Personality Types

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blood phoenix saga, Blood Phoenix: inferno, character development, INFP, Myers Briggs personality model, personality types, writer planning, writing tools

So, I’ve been on a planning kick lately, showing the intimate details of how I prepare myself for a big project, like a book. I’m going to be honest, the way I prep myself changes each time, and this go around, I might have gone a little crazy with notes and etc.

But here’s a bit of my rationale. I’m working with a series. While I have limited myself to five books for Ria’s BLOOD PHOENIX saga, I do have a slew of other characters, books, and stories within this world, so I need to start keeping track of little things that will connect and manifest throughout.

Now, this is a little wild for planning purposes, but I thought it was so much fun to peg down each of my characters by personality type, so here’s my list:

One of the interesting things I discovered from doing this is that Ria’s personality, although remaining the same amongst most of her previous lives, did change on a few. Even with reincarnation, culture and genetics played a role in how they behaved. Since Ria’s past lives impact Ria’s present quite dramatically, I hope can keep them separated enough to do them justice.

Another interesting note about personality types is that even with the same four-letter determinations, their personalities are not precisely the same. For instance, Ria, Mark, Colista, and Layla have the same categorization—INFP, but each of their descriptors are different: the Spunky Kid, the Lost Soul, the Waif, and the Nurturer, which comes not from the Myers-Briggs model but from the character archetypes of heroes, heroines, and villains, although honestly, none of these four are villains in the slightest.

But INFP clearly fits all four: poetic, kind, and altruistic people, always eager to help a good cause. They are the most idealistic, have strong personal values, seek order and peace, are creative, non-directive, and reserved with people.

Anyways, I could devolve into a rambling about personalities and the types of how each connects, but I’m not going to do that. I merely wanted to share how assigning base personality types helped me differentiate characters and keep them true to their original dispositions, even as they evolve as people.

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So, I want to know what kind of categorization, notes, and tools do you use to develop and/or maintain your characters? Let me know in the comments below.

 

Plotting INFERNO: the Transition from Pantser to Plotter

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#100daychallenge, #100dayproject, blood phoenix saga, bullet journal, Harmon's Plot Embryo, panster, plotter, Rachael Stephen, three-act structure, writing journal, writing spreads

So, if you’ve had a chance to peek at my writing journal, you’ll know that I’ve recently invested more time on plotting elements of my novels and stories via plot embryos, the hero’s journey, and the three-act structure.

I have been a long-time pantser doing little planning other than major scenes that I knew I wanted somewhere relative to each other in a general arc, which is basically saying that I bullshitted my way through most of my writing.

Well, the last novel I wrote, THE GIRL WITH THE GLOWING HAIR, flowed out of me so much faster with a general guide for each of my chapters. I also developed them with a chart and the five-idea method from Rachael Stephen.

This worked so well that I implemented the plot embryos for my shorter works to gauge a general structure.

Then the year ended, and it was time to start my new BLOOD PHOENIX novel, INFERNO. And man, the embryo was a nice start, but I needed more to power through as many words as I really wanted to get through this year (~112,000 words), so I tried my hand at a three-act structure, and here’s what I came up with.

 

How I plotted BLOOD PHOENIX: INFERNO (some spoilers but no biggies).

Here is where I used the traditional Harmon’s Plot Embryo, below is a comparison of the  my use of the tool. The blue bits are major spoilers.

After I let that marinate for a little while, I created a list of all the plot points I could think of for each act, not worrying about an order. Like this:

 

This is when I used the three-act structure in a stricter sense, putting those on my list into the act where they belong. At the bottom, I had notes that came from looking at the story arc again and again.

Finally, I made the project its own notebook, listing each act’s plot points down the side before shifting them into appropriate chapters with other details to help me not get stuck between, which is where I typically struggle the most with writer’s block.

So far, this method has allowed me to hammer out 16,000 words last month and another 4,000 this last week with the #100daychallenge or #100dayproject.

But this little book I’ve slapped together has some extras that help me remember character motivations, keep secondary threads going, plan out the past to understand how it affects the present, and after the halfway mark, I’ve started gathering notes for a Broken World guide after requests from readers to explain all of the connections and cross-overs and research that builds the series.

And that’s the process I’ve been using. I’ve found quite a spike in my productivity since I started plotting more and writing more consistently.

I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if you have any suggestions for plotting or writing research, leave them in the comments below so that I can add them to my list!

Also, join me on Instagram or my personal page as I document my journey writing 500 words a day for 100 days!

Breaking Down Satire: Paradox

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Breaking Down Satire, contradictions in literature, dichotomy, exaggeration, good vs evil paradox, paradox, Pride and Prejudice, satirical analysis, satirical elements, the good guy complex

Paradox is a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory.

This is the definition I offer my students when we begin the satirical analysis paper—aka my favorite assignment to teach. And here are some of my favorite examples to help:

-“I can resist anything but temptation.” Oscar Wilde

-The more you try to impress others, the less they’ll be impressed.

-“It’s weird not to be weird.” John Lennon

-You must be cruel to be kind.

-It was the beginning of the end.

-“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

-“What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” – George Bernard Shaw

These are all used for situational or rhetorical effect to reconcile a hidden or unexpected truth with the reader. We also often refer to them as dichotomies, where a sharp contrast is required to create drama, cause conflict, or add depth to a character or situation. Think:

-There can be no pleasure without pain.

-You can only hate someone you’ve once loved.

More complexly, let’s look at Mr. Darcy, whom I love to compare my character Gene to. Mr. Darcy holds several opposing characteristics: he’s arrogant but bashful, tactless but generous, proud but broken.

Okay, that last one may not exactly be opposing, but they’re close enough for my tastes, as that’s something inherently infused in Gene’s personality. He’s so highly strung because he’s sensitive, and he’s had to learn to hide it in order to protect himself.

Another paradox presents itself in most of my stories, especially the longer ones, and more honed in on Ria’s story in the BLOOD PHOENIX saga, and that’s:

Good people must accept that, sometimes, they will have to do bad things to bad people to protect the ones they love.

For her entire story arc, Ria fights to be what she deems as a good guy, struggles to keep her humanity because she doesn’t want to become like any of those corrupt women in charge. But she slowly learns that she must act like them to defeat them and is willing to sacrifice her humanity to keep other, innocent people safe.

But so long as she continues to struggle with the decisions she makes and whether or not she’s done the right thing, she’ll stay on camped across that good line.

You may be asking yourself, how is this satire? Well, it’s subtle. Paradox and dichotomies help us focus on our satirical intent and gives us new ways to exaggerate or understand or otherwise highlight our main message and its parts.

What paradoxes are you a fan of? Let me know in the comments below.

 

 

 

Breaking Down Satire: Chekhov’s Gun

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blood phoenix saga, blood phoenix: claimed, blood phoenix: rebirth, Breaking Down Satire, Chekhov's Gun, false premises, foreshadowing, literary device, the broken world series, writing payoff

Chekhov’s Gun comes from the saying, “If in Act I, you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act,” although the version I heard was a bit different as it featured a table instead of a wall, and many variations exist. In any case, the lesson comes in foreshadowing and cohesion, and Anton Chekhov’s point was that every element introduced in a story should serve a function.

Essentially, Chekhov’s Gun means not making false promises or creating red herrings by introducing important details, elements, or themes without following through with a purpose for it. Why note it otherwise? Often mixed up with foreshadowing, which hints or makes a reader aware of a specific element or detail but doesn’t bring special attention to it.

But let’s clear up one more thing: Every single plot point or detail does not need to be massively meaningful. The blue curtains might not mean melancholy or depression, as I’ve heard so many students groan when we analyze stories in class. The elements or items must play a significant role when presented in a dramatic way or receives special focus.

 

More interestingly, Chekhov’s Gun does not have to be an item like a gun. Scenes, memories, and characters quirks, etc. can all be used in tandem to propel a story forward, and to keep from confusing readers, false guns should be eradicated. Even if they’re your darlings.

Personally, I come across these when I’m stuck writing. Details I don’t know are significant until I have a hurdle to get over often reveals a gun I didn’t know I placed on the wall—or table in my case—and my subconscious is far smarter than I like to give it credit for.

Okay, before I delve into my own uses too deeply (am I setting myself up here or what?), I want to show how this links to satire. Well, typically that focal point reflects the main cause for criticism. We take special note of facts, characters, and events in satire, so we highlight them in dramatic ways in order to make our arguments.

 

For instance, control is one of my big-hitter satirical notes as a sister to conformity. Once Ria wakes up as a vampire, she attacks her maker, drinking his blood and receiving a lecture about how his blood will not benefit her. Well, this serves two gun-like purposes.

One, control plays up throughout book one, but in a big moment, when Ria’s captured and held by the Assetato, they feed her a little girl. The on-going practice of wrangling her hunger, of maintaining control over the new animal inside of her, and trying not to hurt humans comes to a culmination when the child is offered to her. This also hits that satirical note of not letting what others do to her control her actions. She’s strong-minded and individual, and she will not conform. It’s a pretty consistent theme for me in each story I write, but it manifests in several, different ways.

And two, the emphasis on the benefits of paranormal blood becomes a serious issue in book two, CLAIMED, and if I’m being super honest, for the rest of the series, it grows into something that keeps control over her. See what I did there? Okay, cheekiness aside, her need for paranormal blood means a couple of drawbacks: she’ll need consistent volunteers—okay, maybe not a complete drawback given the three men in her life—and it also marks her as the anomaly she is. The scary bit is coming in book four, which I’ve just started drafting.

Much like the need and the control, this is a double-whammy gun moment. But Ria’s worst fears from the end of REBIRTH, book one, will finally come to fruition. Her secrets are going to be revealed, and she’s going to suffer the consequences of her birth. It should be an interesting and nasty experience.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a better handle on Chekhov’s Gun, but I wasn’t always so great at it. Naturally, writers seems to use this technique in some way to create twists and turns in a plot, but we certainly can generate more impact when we understand the usefulness of hanging that gun on the wall in Act I.

 

Let me know what you think of Chekhov’s Gun and how you use it in the comments below!

Happy reading and writing y’all.

Breaking Down Satire: Satirical Violence

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blood phoenix saga, Breaking Down Satire, derision, irony, sarcasm, sarchasm, satirical elements, satirical violence, vampires, wit

Often, when people talk about violence and satire, they’re discussing the violent acts within a text, especially video games.

Well, that’s not what satirical violence means. It’s when the subject is treated violently.

Since satire can have a wide range of tones and varying strengths of attack, violence can be considered one of the more cutting instruments in the tool box.

To clarify—or re-clarify—the purpose of satire is to ridicule human folly and vice through irony, derision, or wit, or my preference, sarcasm. So, violence takes that ridicule to an extreme.

One of my favorite examples of this is South Park: think “Raising the Bar,” how the present Barbara Streisand, “Taming Strange,” and “Go Fund Yourself,” amongst many, many more. The way they handle their subjects tend to be extreme to hammer their points home. Or so I assume. I may practice analysis for a living, but I will never claim to actually know the intent of an author. With that out of the way, let me provide an example where I do know the writer’s intent.

In nearly every one of my stories and novels, I make an attack on conformity. It’s my leading satirical note, and I hit it pretty viciously. One of the things I hammer is conforming to any group’s ideals—not just the leading ones.

Why? Because conformity means following without understanding one’s actions or behaviors. It eliminates original thought, which keeps people from analyzing messages completely.  Again, this is something I teach, and my favorite way to teach it is by presenting ideas that are not my own, playing devil’s advocate, and presenting interesting texts for examination since I don’t want to create twenty-four or forty-eight or ninety-six Alisha clones. Please, one of me is enough. I simply want individuals who can think for themselves and to seek out information on topics from multiple perspectives.

That’s the interesting thing about Ria, specifically, in my Blood Phoenix novels. Constantly, she’s reminded that the Assetato and the Celampresians are evil paranormal groups. One clearly claims good over the other, but both complete evil acts for the sake of their own goals. However, good and bad exist on both sides. The whole of one group cannot be defined by particular members of it.

The reason I call it satirical violence is because this lack of conformity gets her in a lot of trouble, and consistently. Most often, Ria’s right. Like when she refused to kill her victims, when she rebelled against those who kept her in a cage and fed her a child, when she refuses to show her fear of the queen vampire, when she helps a new renegade adjust, when she chose to surround herself with humans…I mean, I could list more, but I think I’ve made my point.

Violence is an important, and often misunderstood, characteristic of satire. It’s also one to be careful with as it can polarize more than the deftly crafted story will.

 

 

A Flip Through My Writing Bullet Journal

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bullet journal, character archetypes, dungeons and dragons alignments, myers-briggs personality types, plot archetypes, plot twists, writer's bullet journal, writing motivation, writing spreads, yearly projects

Hello, lovelies.

I wanted to share a flip through of my writing notebook.

If you’d like to watch my flip through instead, check out the video below:

So, I got this notebook for five dollars–well, my mom bought the notebook (thanks mom!)–and decided to keep writing spreads and notes in one place rather than throughout years of bullet journals.

First is my year’s projects at a glance:

Right now, I have all coral sticky notes for 2019. And already, I can tell you I’m behind on January in two places, but I should catch up with one by the end of the month.

This is the awesome thing about sticky notes, I can replace, adjust, and remove, etc., as I need. And I use this spread for that purpose–to visually revise after the year has started.

I got these next two spreads from Rachael Stephen‘s YouTube channel: The Harmon’s Plot Embryo and the Tragic Embryo. I find both of these helpful when brainstorming and the first stages of plotting. The tragic structure works better for short stories for me. I like happy-ish endings for novels and series, but I prefer to leave readers devastated at the end of something short.

Next, I begin the three-act structure notes from well-storied. I’ve only begun plotting and planning instead of a hundred percent pantsing since this has made it dramatically improved my speed in drafting and edited. Granted, I miss things in my outlines and have to shift for those pantsing moments.

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The next few spreads came from Boho Berry–a bullet journal YouTube personality–when she did her first round of NaNoWriMo. There’s probably some typos in here because, honestly, I take notes when I’m exhausted, and I copied them word for word. I’m all right with it.

These help for both planning and breaking through writer’s block, especially when I pair them with the Dungeons & Dragons alignments. Again, more typos with neutral. I know. I get tired. I’m not fixing it. We’ll all survive, right?

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I got another personality breakdown from Rachael Stephen since seeing them presented differently can jar ideas free.

Finally, I have a plot twists spread from greatstorybook.com

Welp, that’s what I’ve got. For now.

I’ll update y’all as I add things.

Stay tuned for my monthly update and review next week and tell me what kind of writing advice or tips you like to collect and how!

 

 

Plan With Me: January 2019

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breaking down goals, bullet journal, business planning, editorial calendar, Jacquelin Deleon, master task list, monthly goals, plan with me, publishing, writing goals

My planning style hasn’t changed much over the course of 2018, and I don’t see much need for changing the majority of it at the moment. Although, I am excited to see if any of my projects require new additions to my monthlies and weekly spreads. If you’d like to see me talk through the process and watch me mark up my journal with pen and markers, please check out my companion video.

 

I do still plan to include artwork at the front of each month, even though I didn’t have time for November and December’s coloring pages. But, since my mom is buying me a color printer for Christmas, I’m going to make it easier on myself—and give myself more options—and print art that I like for my bullet journal, which I got between filming and posting, so here’s what I have for my January cover art. This is a piece by Jacquelin Deleon, which I printed on sticker paper and stuck in my journal. She shows off a lot of her beautiful art on YouTube. Check her out.

First, I have my monthly calendar. This is to record holidays and birthdays and other important dates should I need them. Often, it remains pretty blank, like it is here, but December was full with five birthdays, the holiday season, and finals. But I also like the new addition of a word or phrase for the month. This month, it’s brave creativity. I chose this to remind myself not only to write and create, but to take chances and not miss out on opportunities.

Next is my master tasks list and monthly breakdown. Along the left, I have all of the projects I’m working on for January, pulled from my quarterly goals and plan. Within the boxes—business, author, and school/home—I give those actions that have specific dates their spot so that I can plan out the rest. Part of these are pulled from my editorial calendar on the next page, but only those posts that I need to draft for my own blog. I also decided to add my word count goals on each Sunday in my Author section to keep an additional reminder that I should be writing.

Finally, I’ve drawn out my editorial calendar. Notice, three calendars in a row. Seems redundant, but they all serve a different purpose. Hence, why I can’t use a regular planner. Too crowded. And talking about crowded, see how full this beast is? It’s going to stay that way for a while, too, as my business partner and I push to grow our business, which means more publications, more authors, and more marketing.

I used to keep track of all the videos and Instagram posts I wanted to complete as well, but I never got around to them. They took up too much time and space in my journal, so I nixed them this go around. Although one of my goals is to post more on Instagram, I don’t think this calendar is the right place for me to plan that out. I haven’t figured out what to include for this goal—or several of my others—but when I do, I promise to share.

 

I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.

How do you plan out your projects and busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!

Breaking Down Satire: Hyperbole, Exaggeration, & Understatement

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absolute equality, Breaking Down Satire, child slave labor, exaggeration examples, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., hyperbole explained, satirical elements, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K le Guin, understatement, writing process

Hyperbole is one of the best ways to create a satirical message as the majority of an audience can easily understand exaggeration. This is because it is meant to generate strong feelings or effect. And there’s a good chance that hyperbole will catch a reader’s attention.

Besides, readers are attracted to this type of language because we use hyperbole in our everyday speech, especially in our youth: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse or my mom is going to kill me.

And we all have the natural tendency to exaggerate as it makes our stories funnier and more dramatic. This is how we create characters that are larger than life. We can focus on particular causes or issues without needing to delve into the far-reaching complexities of the real world. If satire does nothing else, it certainly means to make a specific point, so hyperbole is supremely helpful.

One of my favorite examples is in “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., which is probably why I teach it every semester. The themes of equality and Communism are exaggerated to create an extremely oppressed society. Forced to be the same as the lowest-common denominator, progress stalls, people are tortured, and no one bats an eye at the live execution that takes place on television.

Even better is the depiction of Harrison as a character. A behemoth at seven-foot tall with super strength and smarts and good looks that would put Thor to shame. When he chooses his Empress—after prematurely claiming his rule as Emperor by stamping his foot and threatening those in the TV studio—the two of them dance and leap to the touch the ceiling, and defy gravity by hovering there for minutes, kissing.

Well, this exaggeration serves two purposes: one, to indicate how even in an oppressed society, evolution will still create strong offspring to advance a species. No dictatorship can squash this completely. And two, to show how when grace, intelligence, and beauty are suppressed, any hint at true talent will seem miraculous. This plays well into his overall message that absolute equality is not possible.

On the other side, understatement expresses an idea with less strength than expected. Again, we use these often in our daily lives: I’ll be there in one second or this won’t hurt one bit.

This creates a casual or offhanded message about something quite serious.

Once again, I gleam an example from the stories I teach in class, this time in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin. She goes to great length to establish a utopia. In fact, she takes half the story to convince us that this place, Omelas, can exist, which sets up her message well.

In one last ditch effort to make believers out of us, she casually gives us the image of a naked child in a basement closet, festering in his excrement, barely eating, and shown no kindness. He is the trade that the people make for their luxuriously happy lives. And he’s shown to us in an offhanded way that tells the audience how the people need to think of him in order to maintain said happiness.

The understatement comes in how much focus she imparts on the people and their needs and psyches rather than the child’s and creates a perfect metaphor for first-world problems verses third-world problems, how societies are built off of stomping on others, like the trend of companies utilizing overseas sweatshops and child slave labor to provide us with cheap and easily accessible products. (By us, I’m speaking personally as a lower-middle-class American). In fact, one of my favorite examples is Apple, who put nets around their Chinese factories to keep workers from killing themselves. I’m sure if you do a quickie internet search, you’ll find more examples of this than you can stomach for the companies you buy from, which is why I advocate for voting with your dollar.

Okay, that’s hyperbole/exaggeration and understatement and a great way to launch this year’s focus on satirical elements and tools.

I hope you join me next month for satirical violence.

 

In the meantime, leave me your favorite hyperbolic or understated expressions and examples in the comments below.

Planning for the New Year: business, writing, and life

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2019 planner set up, author planning, bullet journal, business planning, plan with me, project tracker, publishing press, quarter one goals, word count tracker, writing goals

I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally set up for my next year in my bullet journal. Y’all, I’ve been working on this since early November, trying to decide what I did right and where I went wrong in 2018, and what was purely out of my control that I could create allowances for next year.

And if you’d rather hear me talk about my process and watch me speed through writing in my journal, feel free to jump over to YouTube instead.

 

So first, I have my Level 10 Life. I do this every year, and I like to gauge how my work has filtered out into the different parts of my life. I love making circles with my moxedori stencil. Filling in circles makes me happier than checking off boxes for some reason. You can see, I’ve been pretty consistent trying to raise each of the areas in my life.

And I use the stencil again on my next spread, making circles for my project trackers. I’ve split them between my writing goals and my editing goals for the year.

They’re lofty, but so were last year’s. Here’s a photo of what I accomplished.

I’ve got three of the projects plotted out already and will fill in the AIR progress in my 2018 bullet journal and the rest of CONDUITS, which is scheduled for January.

Next, I have my overall goals for 2019.

As you can see, those circles from the last page only take up a little bit of my overall yearly goals, but like the visualization of my creative works broken down that way. Writing and editing is the fun part of running a publishing press, but I have a lot of goals that require more grueling research and administrative tasks, which fill out the rest of this page.

On the second page, I’ve listed my personal goals, like learning how to composite art for graphic design and cover creation, which have been goals of mine for a long time. I’m getting better. I also have some nice fitness goals, which I’m super excited about. I’ve just gotten my husband a power tower for his birthday, and he’s teaching me how to do assisted pull ups at the moment. Man, my back is sore from that, but I can’t wait to do a full pull up on my own. I’m also looking forward to pushing myself through a 5k—and I’m almost there—which I never thought I’d say with genuine enthusiasm. Seriously, had you asked me seven years ago when I first started lifting those heavy-ass five-pound weights, if I’d ever enjoy running, I’d have laughed in your face. Spittle and all. But now…the change is interesting.

For the next couple of spreads, I’ve set up the pages to outline and brainstorm my writing projects for the year. I have the novels in their own traveler’s notebooks, which I can crack open and share if anyone’s interested in seeing the whole project planning process for writing, editing, publishing, and marketing, let me know. I’d be happy to share.

I even have two pages for next year’s shorts, so I can plan or drop notes as I think of them.

Finally, I have a spot for some online courses that my husband as been advising me to make. We’ll see how this goes. I have some fun ideas for it to span amongst all of the writing levels I encounter now (remedial writing to polished creative writing).

Okay, yes, I’m a dork, but I feel that planning out at least five years in advance for my business keeps me more on the ball. (And you should really see my writing plan, which is scheduled out to 2031. Yes. Really.)

It takes me a long time to plan these out, and I have boards and sheets, and LOTS of color coding that goes into the lists here, which are quite bare and minimal, even though it doesn’t seem like it.

Here, I’m listing my personal and author blog plan. Again, I have a lot of other paper that got me here, and a year-long plan of marketing set up in its own traveler’s notebook.

Next, I have really simple set-ups for books I plan to read this year. I only have eleven, which used to be what I would read in a couple weeks, but now, I read so much for both of my jobs that it’s impossible to read for pleasure a lot of the time. Or maybe I just feel guilty for not being productive. I don’t know.

And beside it, I have a minimal spread for my yearly word count tracker. I plan to list my goal verses actual word count, and keeping a running total.

Then, I have a brainstorm spread for my website and book rebrands. I launched a new site last year with my new logo and need to add a LOT to it. I also plan to give my press website a revamp, but not an overhaul like my author site.

Now, I’m into quarter planning before my January set-up. I used these pages last year and found them helpful—when I remembered to fill them out. After I got sick, it just seemed like another task that took time I could be spending catching up. Now that I am, it will be useful to keep me on track.

Here are my stats and sales pages along with my future log. I track a lot of sites and online presence since I’ve made my mom a website and built her a store as well. She designs and crafts stained glass pieces, and her beautiful work made it easy to build an attractive site. Surely, this isn’t a shameless plug to get you to look at her work. No. I wouldn’t do that for my mom… (here’s the link).

Finally, I have my quarter one goals and project plans to set-up for the months ahead.

You can see that the same projects pop up a lot, and this is how I really break down the steps and keep myself accountable. Motivation has little to do with it sometimes. It’s planning well and sticking the nose to the grindstone. And that’s what I’m off to do!

 

I will be creating more plan with me blogs and videos for those who want to write more, read more, create more, self-publish, market plan, and the like.

How do you plan out your projects and busy busy lives? Leave me your ideas, tips and tricks, or questions below!