#i watched a whole video on passive voice because my writing tutor at the time (intro to creative writing worst workshop of my life btw!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iwantyoursexmp3 · 6 months

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does anyone else get writing "advice" posts on their fyp (usually from blogs that promote themselves as solely a writing advice account) that is all very neatly laid out but when you read it is actually like. nothing-advice? like i got a "how to plot a book" post and all the points where incredibly vague, "start with an idea" "consider themes and message" "create well defined characters" and i don't think even a beginner writer would benefit from this because what does a "good" idea look like? how do you define characters well? how do you consider and approach an idea thematically? at first i thought maybe i need to remember that im not a beginner writer and dont need things laid out like that, but then i remember the times i was a beginner writer and and would watch similar videos on youtube and just feel overwhelmed by all the steps being laid out in a whistle stop tour with nothing about how to tackle each step, or reassurance that you dont have to a follow a set line of steps in the first place. feel like there's a whole genre of writing advice content, typically marketed at beginners, that's like, the advice isn't bad but it's so surface level and presented in a easy to digest way that it can look helpful but when it comes to actually being helpful you'll realise it's actually saying nothing. coincidentally it's also the easiest content you could make re writing LOL

#it also had outline your book and the basic inciting incident rising action etc like not the freytags pyramid on MY fyp!!!#i think about this a lot with the authortubers i watched when i was just starting out and a teen #the advice wasnt bad it was just so. stripped of all its complexity and nuance?#and i would watch these and TAKE NOTES like i was in a class or smth but could never figure out how to apply it to my own work #and i think that's because the advice was so low effort lol #i watched a whole video on passive voice because my writing tutor at the time (intro to creative writing worst workshop of my life btw!!!#who wants tea!!!)#said i used too much passive voice and then left me to my own devices about that #and yeah that video taught me what passive voice looks like and how to switch it to active #but it didnt teach me at all what passive voice actually was beyond that. what effect it CAN have #which is why im a big believer in writing theory over writing advice #explain passive voice in a neutral way so beginner writers know how to discern when its effective and when its not #cause all that video did was basically teach me how to robotically edit random sentences of my work into 'active'#basically tldr the advice isnt bad but they never really present effective advice on how to apply it #actually i may move this whole post to my main but i have more shit i want to say abt other things today

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yoolee · 6 years

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Ye Massive Tag-back Post

I have been tagged in stuff. I am slow. Apologies for anyone tagged in this XD

5 facts about me that literally know one needs to know

(tagged by @saizoswifey)

I get weirdly nervous in grocery checkout lines: I have no idea why. I don’t know if it’s like, the feeling of being trapped in a narrow space (if there’s someone behind you and ahead of you), or the like, awkward social chitchat that I am SUPER BAD AT or what but I get weird. I HAAAATE that the nearest grocery store to me does not have self check-out, and I put off grocery shopping to the last minute. I can improvise a speech in front of a crowd of hundreds, I can jump off high ladders, like, I’m not a naturally nervous person I swear I’m not. But grocery stores...

I once broke into an Irish autorepair shop: Sort of. It’s kind of a long story, but when I was a student in Cork like…8 years ago, they told me to stick to the flatlands and I took a wrong turn and got lost up in the hills and I kinda felt like these two guys who kind of showed up behind me were following me. I did the whole ‘take a couple of right turns’ and it went from two to four guys and I was getting more and more lost and just like NOOOOPE. And then there was trash can on fire and so I like, half-slid down a little cliff, and snuck through/over a chained shut fence and into what turned out to be a repair shop. There were three older guys sitting there eating pizza, and they just blinked at me so I burst out that hey, there was a trash can on fire (like that’s a reasonable reason to bust in, right?). They asked me if I was the one who set it on fire, I said no, they gave me pizza, we waited for the fire brigade. GOOD TIMES. That was the start of a super, super weird 72 hours.

I despise bananas in smoothies: DESPISE. They POLLUTE them, CONTAMINATING everything with awful, horrid, banana-ness. They are smoothie-ruiners. RUINERS. AWFUL, HORRIBLE, TERRIBAD INGREDIENTS OF EVIL. I like banana bread, and my mom’s banana cake, and can sometimes tolerate a banana-nut muffin, but they have no place in my strawberry-raspberry smoothies and they are intolerably smushy on their own. SHUDDER.

I have done a lot of super random jobs at least once: I’ve been a chemist, taught ballet to 6 year olds and figure skating to teens with special needs, charity auctioneer, corn shucker, lighting booth operator, teaching assistant, princess, storyteller, tutor, dining hall worker, medical transcriptionist, editor, corporate recruiter, automated tutorial/phone recording voice, corporate trainer, historical docent, term paper writer, contortionist, martial arts event coordinator, bookseller, video game voice, snake venom analyst (really that and perfumer were subsets of being a chemist, but, worth the callouts), there’s more but like, the list is long and random.

Last time I was in the airport a kid told me I was eating string cheese wrong. I told him that’s how string cheese is eaten on Mars. I recognize none of this make sense, it was 5 AM.

I’m gonna tag @han-pan, @karalija, @mylittlecornerofotome aaaand @jane-runs-fast! No obligation >>;;;

2017 Creator Tag

(tagged by @dear-mrs-otome and @wonky-glass-ornament)

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you’ve created this year (fics, art, edits, etc!) and link them below (say why if you want) to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2017. Tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original!) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works. <3

Six Wins and Draw This mostly gets to be here because it had a bunch of characters I had never written before! It was fun to write just a quick few paragraphs (if that) for them. I’d like to do something like this again, because it was much easier than trying to force something standalone for a group I’m not as comfortable with the characterization on.

Compliments I really like fluff. I like communication, and silliness, and sweetness. @juniperotome helped tremendously with this piece, but it really turned out to be one of my favs. I actually prefer this to Burn Down, which was fun and which I do like and was the other contender for this slot, but when I put them side by side, I like this one.

THE WAFFLE COTTAGE CHRONICLES (there’s more) This had been rattling in my head since 2016, but I didn’t post this until January 2017. This was my first headcanon shoving ALL OF THE LORDS into a single story. I recognize that it is very American-mindset-centric, but the sheer satisfaction of brain-dumping the beast was cathartic.I wrote 5000+ words in bullet point form in One Single Sitting and just, it was fun. I still think this is hilarious, even if it has issues.

Lick Your Wounds I still have lingering problems with this piece. And there’s a sort of dual fact thing going on - it could be so much better, but it is also the best that I have done, imo. Those are both facts to me. At this point, it’s a very frustrating piece to deal with XD but even when I am not entirely happy with it, I am very happy and very very touched by the response it has gotten, and so it gets a place. #makepuppyhappy

Scraps UGH THIS FIFTH SLOT. I mean. There’s no question this goes to a Kai group piece. I love writing the Kai group, it’s the most comfortable and it comes the most easily. I don’t like writing modern aus but they just sort of vomit out with these characters in a very love-hate way (I love that they have the opportunity to be happy without the specter of history looming, that’s about it – it’s complicated to explain).

IkeSen Tag

(tagged by @dear-mrs-otome)

Top 3 Warlords in order: Sasuke Nobunaga Kenshin

Favorite Moment in the game so far OH MAN. HMM. I am going to be unoriginal and echo Mrs O – Nobunaga being a matchmaking troll is A+, but I do also love KEnshin and Shingen’s letter to Nobunaga in the ES where MC starts with them but falls in love with Nobu and they are basically like, be nice to her and let her come visit or DEATH TO YOU

Who has the best hair Masamune (Shingen & Hideyoshi have the worst /sigh)

Which voice do you like the most? MRS O I SWEAR I AM NOT COPYING but Kenshin/Mitsuhide are flat tied. Whispery and low, swoooon

Who do you think you are most compatible with? None of ‘em. I enjoy watching their romance unfold with story MC, but as actual self, there are zero combos that would work out favorably for both parties based on what I’ve seen so far.

Which warlord appeals to your aesthetics? Sasuke. Dude. Sasuke.

Which warlord makes you the most frustrated? Hmmm! Tough to say. Maybe Kennyo? Only because it’s seems from what we’ve seen that he is very much going against himself for some reason, and it’s hurting him and that is silly. Don’t do that.

Who would you swear loyalty to, the Oda forces, the Uesugi-Takeda forces, or Third Party forces? NNNNNGH. Oda. If I HAD to. Only because there’s a stronger sense of long-term stability and history. But ideally, none of the above. I would be NEUTRAL TERRITORY opening up a little seamstress shop somewhere in the middle that also serves tea and everyone is welcome to come have snacks, tea and fittings but only if they don’t fight XD (or at least take it outside, and no one dies)

BONUS: Mrs O’s Q: If you had to tell one warlord what happened to them in your own original timeline, who would it be and why? Nobunaga. Because what happened to him can’t yet come to pass in his timeline, so it’s moot. He’s shown to accept knowledge with aplomb so I don’t think it would send him into an existential spiral. He could handle it.

My question for anyone who does this – Which lord would make the best roommate?

Music Tag

(tagged by @skullbygloy100 @dear-mrs-otome @wonky-glass-ornament)

I only have two ways of enjoying music – passively not even noticing what’s on in the background and actively listening to the same song for literal and actual hours on repeat

Passes by Helen Jane Long – I literally listen to this on repeat for hours. HOURS.

Blood // Water by grandson

Cows on the Hill by Jay Ungar

Nowhere to run by Boga

Todo Comienza En La Disco by Wisin ft. Yandel & Daddy Yankee

Dusk Till Dawn by Zayn ft. Sia – but basically, anything with Sia

Shark in the Water by VV Brown – this is my Yukkin song lolol

Waterbound by the Fretless ft. Ruth Moody

Wait for It by Leslie Odom Jr

Clair de Lune by Debussy – performed by literally anyone

ANYONE WHO WANTS TO DO ANY OF THE THINGS just tag me <3 And those of you who tagged me - thank you thank you! This was fun

#about lee

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endevia · 6 years

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Helping My Daughters Prepare for the ACT Exams

A few months ago, I got an email from Nancy Lin. She’s a freelance writer, editor and former tutor, and mother of two teenage daughters. She’d read my articles about preparing for SAT/ACTs and had a story of her own detailing how she helped her children prepare for their ACT. I think you’ll enjoy her experiences!

As spring approaches, my eldest daughter Katherine, now in her junior year, is bracing herself for the upcoming ACT exams, while my youngest, Elizabeth, a sophomore, is getting ready for next year. I am a former tutor and for almost 10 years, I helped students prepare for both SATs and ACTs, relying heavily on tech tools and games to keep them motivated. Somehow, even students who needed the most help weren’t quite as challenging as my own daughters, and the lines between tutor and mom were often blurred, as is to be expected.

Different Learning Styles

Katherine and Elizabeth are just about as different as two people can be when it comes to their attitudes about school and their interests. Katherine, who wishes to be an actor, always took to her studies almost instinctively, since she was a child. She took great pride in handing in her homework neatly, took great pains to finish all her tasks, and was more of a rote learner than Elizabeth, who is more into writing, and who always took a more critical, analytical approach to her studies.

Elizabeth is naturally bright and quick, and has an enviable memory. She has always loved reading and has amassed quite a collection on her Kindle, yet is reticent to complete homework and has always had a strong aversion to maths. Because things tend to come easier to her, she is easily bored and far less disciplined than Kathy when it comes to homework and creating a study strategy. She also struggles with time management, often getting lost in a book or musical album and arriving to school without having completed home tasks.

Practice Makes Perfect

Because Elizabeth will be doing her ACTs next year, I try to include her as much as possible in Katherine’s study sessions. As soon as they come home and have a snack, we do one section of the ACT exams, tackling Math, Reading, Science, or English, depending on the day.

I chose to download free ACT exams and focus on them for two reasons: first of all, regardless of how studious Kathy is, she needs to grow comfortable with using her watch to answer all sections of the exam in time. Because the exams effectively test the same general areas, she knows that some parts, say of the math exam, will involve longer calculations that need checking; this revision also needs to be factored in when she is calculating the amount of time she has.

As for Elizabeth, the exams tap into her love of competition. She likes to use an alarm to divide the test into sections, delighting on the occasion that she scores higher than her sister.

Their scores have improved significantly since they started, and the results are interesting to me, considering that Kathy still hasn’t covered many of the subject matter covered by the tests.

In essence, both daughters have said that they see a kind of ‘formula’ they can identify; that although the questions themselves change, the area of knowledge being testing doesn’t.

They almost know how many questions will cover punctuation, how many conditionals, how many reported speech, and the like. Funnily enough, Elizabeth nearly always outscores Kathy in English, clear testimony to the basic truth that doing well at English boils down to the vocabulary and punctuation rules you passively pick up by spending a great deal of time reading.

Of course, Kathy always does better at Math. To some extent, this is because she is a year ahead in terms of key mathematical concepts, However, the mistakes Elizabeth makes help me greatly as her tutor, since I see which areas she lacks a solid foundation for. I can then hone in on plane geometry or trigonometry, and the result is that she is beginning to find the material covered in class easy.

Getting Kathy Ready for the ACTs

I try not to pressure either of my daughters, being especially careful with Elizabeth, who does not take kindly to being told what to do or study. We try to keep it fun for now, and I admit to ‘bribing’ her with treats for ‘helping her sister study’. These treats involve time – doing something they both love, such as going to the movies, ice skating, or enjoying dinner at their favorite restaurant.

Because Kathy is getting ready for exams, I have also encouraged her to use time management to lighten her load. That is, by tackling a chunk of work every week and reviewing on weekends, by the time exam time rolls around, she won’t find that she has inordinate amounts of information to process and retain.

Tools and Games

When we have time or when the girls encounter a stumbling block, we use resources such as Khan Academy, which has short videos we find particularly useful for explaining math concepts, or tech tools such as Kahoot, which uses a highly addictive format that enlightens them on how much fun math can actually be.

I try to keep their motivation in English and Science high by researching and suggesting books that cover core subject matter in an entertaining format, often with online tools and games that aid in memory retention.

If you are a tech teacher or tutor, you may find that teaching your own kids is a whole new challenge. In my case, it has paid to ‘put the cart before the horse’ by starting with practice exams and identifying any knowledge gaps I can help out with. Time management is important from the world go, and not just when a child is actually preparing for exams.

— Nancy is an enthusiastic teacher, author, editor and blogger based in Kansas City. She earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology at St. Petersburg College and has been educating high schoolers for over seven years. Technology has always been her second lifelong passion. After getting her master’s degree in Technology and Learning at Western Governors University, she participated in “The Impact of Digital Technology on Learning” research. That’s when she first realized that every teacher can transform the daily classroom routine into engaging and exciting experience. By this time, she had accumulated many stories, personal teaching tips, and daily workflow lifehacks that she shares through blogging. You can find her articles on ed tech educational sources like teach.com, teacherswithapps.com, students.org, and collegelifestyles.org.