Category: Writing challenges

Contains of both Daily Writing Prompts and RagTag Daily Prompts.

I AM a night owl

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morninglight
©Mia Salminen, April 25, 2015 at 4.11 am

Don’t you just hate getting up early in the morning? You don’t? Well I do. Even though waking up early does have it advantages. I did wake up early yesterday (Wednesday) because I had a job interview (for an internship) at 10 am across town. And that’s early for me. Recently I’ve went to bed really late and slept late. When you do that, you don’t see the daylight. It’s getting dark already at about 3.30 pm. The same if you wake up at 8 am, it’s still dark.

When I studied photography in Helsinki Design School, I had to get up really early. In the spring and in the summer the daylight comes quicker. It’s really beautiful when you see the sun coming up in the horizon. That’s something you don’t see during the day. Of course there’s the sunset but that’s doesn’t beat the sunrise. There’s a special feeling when you wake up early. But if you’re an night owl like me, that’s something you don’t see that often.

My most productive time is late evening. Especially when it comes to writing fiction. The best ideas come up at night. When you start writing, you can’t stop. You’re on a roll and it’s already past your bedtime but you don’t want to miss the idea. The next morning you have to start again. I prefer writing things down straight away.

The same with being productive in daily things. Mornings are just boring. I just want to sleep as long as I can. If I could I would sleep until nightfall. But sometimes I want to wake up early too. That’s a bit of a dilemma. I want to stay up late but I also want to wake up early. You can’t have it both ways though. I need my 8 hour sleep or I’ll be tired all day. No matter how much coffee I drink. I don’t even want to drink more than 2 cups a day anyway.

In a way I’m bit of both, night owl and early bird. It depends on the day. If I have nothing planned the next day, I don’t bother going to bed early. I’ve been unemployed for so long, it had become a routine. Maybe I’ve become too used to it. My mother suggested once, maybe a night job would suit me better. But then I would feel blue if I get to work when everybody else would go home. Either way, I’ve always been and always will be a night owl.

Handwriting is golden

Mia4 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Handwritten.”

handwritten
©Mia Salminen

Sometimes writing on the computer is not a good idea. I for example can’t concentrate on writing fan fiction if it’s not written on a paper. Ideas come better if it’s handwritten first. I written a few fics on the computer but I still prefer handwriting. Mine is not that pretty. I always thought other people have better handwriting than me.
I have a lot of handwritten papers and there will be more. I re-use papers so I think about the environment at the same time. I have at least 3 fan fiction I’m writing right now. Sometime I write for hours. When ideas come, there’s no stopping. If I didn’t write them on a paper first, good ideas would disappear before I could even get the computer on. Times when I don’t handwrite, is this blog.

I think it’s sad cursive handwriting is not taught in school anymore. I hardly use it anymore though even if I still know how to. I write faster with block letters. Handwriting in general is a lost art. It’s only because of modern technology. Soon kids don’t even know what a pen and paper is. They won’t experience the feeling seeing your own handy work. Holding a pencil in your hand and a paper in front of you. That’s something you won’t get from typing on a device. Even if writing on them brings another feeling. But nothing beats the feeling of seeing your own handwriting. No matter what it looks like.

I will always use handwriting. That’s an everyday thing for me. Writing on the computer is fun once in a while but even that gets boring sometimes. Handwriting is golden and it will stay with me as long as I live.

I feel so…helpless

Mia4 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Helpless.”

so helpless
Scene from Star Wars Revenge of the Sith

Last time I felt really helpess was when my mother became sick. That’s something you don’t wish to anyone. Especially a family member. Cancer is a bitch. It takes all the strenght out of a person. Worse thing was that she wouldn’t survive of it. The day when the doctor told her there were nothing they could do, I realized how helpless I was. Seeing her getting weaker was the worse thing I’ve ever experienced.

During the treatment, it looked like she was feeling better. There was hope. But then when no one can make the disease go away, you wish there was something you could do. In reality you can’t. It’s not a movie where anything is possible. You never know how the person who is sick really feels. But you can be there for them. Help them as long as you can. That’s what I did. But when she couldn’t even walk without help, I knew I couldn’t do anything about it anymore. She lived at home for a week until she was so weak, she had to move to the hospice. One day she could sit in a wheel chair and talk but the next laying in bed difficulties to breathe. That was my most helpless moment.

When you feel helpless like that, it’s just a weak moment. It’s normal when you see a person you love suffer. But if you’re helpless doing daily stuff, like switching a light off, then you have a problem. It’s alright to be helpless for a while. But it should not affect how you function in life. Like my mother used to say (in Swedish of course) “Pull yourself together”