Leaving Things To The Last Minute

I will freely admit that when it comes to this, I am your number one culprit, and so, in fact, would be most people. Nobody likes to do things a month in advance when they could be doing so many other things. So, they let the work sit, and they wait for when they really have to do it.

So, in the past I would have thought about work, decided I have ages to do it, and then end up doing most of it within a week or a few days of the due date. Granted, this isn't as bad as leaving things until midnight the night before, or other things one might do, but it's not ideal. The reason why is simple.

The more time you leave yourself to do something, the more time there is to address any problems. So, in this, my second ever semester of Uni, I have decided to get things done as soon as possible.

When you think about it, two or three weeks is really not that long, and if you leave something alone, you might not have a clear idea of what you have to do in the last week. This applies in terms of exam study especially, when staying up the night before might actually be detrimental rather than beneficial.

However, the number one area of application to this problem for me recently has been writing. In my recent blogs I keep telling whoever reads this that I will write something, and get away from the other things I like to do in my spare time, like youtube, gaming, crafting, and so on. But, as much as I tell myself that, I end up doing nothing. This is a problem, because as it happens today is the last day of Camp NaNoWriMo. My saving grace is the fact that I did an average of about 3k words a day for the first half of the month, making my life for the last part easy.

Having less to do, however, doesn't mean I should have left it. I could have done much more than 50k words this month, and that would mean more of my novel would have been done. The point is, I'm lazy and I feel bad about it.

So, I'm off to write now. And you who reads this, go off and do what you've been putting off.

Byee!

What To Do When You Think You've Fried Your Brain

ENB120. Electrical Energy and Measurements. This is something my head is finding very hard to deal with at the moment.

Normally, I can understand new concepts quite quickly, but in this particular subject there's just too much to collate, mostly because of the number of different units in electrical engineering. There's Joules and Coulons, Volts and Amps, as well as Watts and Ohms. Now I could very easily give up here and fail the subject, but I won't.

Why not? Because I have a desire to learn more, no matter how hard it is, but that doesn't mean my brain can keep up. So, I decided to blog about it because I have an idea.

This idea is simple: use lots of time. If I spend an hour going through things on my own, it's probably many times more valuable than having someone regurgitate information at me. So, I'm going to use that optimism that I cultivated in my last post, and use it to study.

Yeah. Study. Something I'm very bad at, but this time, I'm determined to do it, because I know I'll fail without it.

So, without further ado, I shall go do just that, and keep this blog post rather short and sweet. And then, I'll write some more of my rather neglected novel, and life shall be sweet.

Byee!

Keeping Motivated

Now here is a post which I think could become quite relevant to myself in coming months, and not just all you lovely people out there. This is because in study and other things, I'm not always the best at keeping motivated if the goal is far away.

First off, however, I should say that if you're doing something you hate for whatever reason, reconsider it. For example, if you're writing a certain kind of story because you think it would be more publishable, the chances are it won't be nearly as good as what you'd really like to write.

Anyway, with this type of thing, what I relate to with it best is maths. This is because currently I'm studying Electrical Engineering and IT at uni, so obviously maths is a core component. Now I've always been decent at maths, not brilliant, so I wasn't too worried about my first maths subject, but I did know that whatever happened I would have to study.

With this in mind, the time to study for final exams rolled around and I thought to myself 'study time'. In high school my studying habits were bad at best, and nonexistent at worst. So naturally I wasn't sure if I'd be able to change that much now that it mattered much more. However, I needn't have worried, because motivation, when you think about it, is easy.

It's as simple as this; if you're in the mindset that what you're doing is pointless or boring, or even both, you will not succeed. Similarly, if you really want to do well, and you channel that enthusiasm towards study or work, you will do very well.

What this means is that optimism it quite important, while pessimism will get you nowhere. If you think to yourself 'I'll never pass this subject', then the chances are, you'll find studying pointless. Similarly, if you think that what you're writing is pointless and 'I'll never get published', then you may keep writing, but you'll never actively edit and seek to be published, which is the most important part in becoming a writer. There are many famous writers who got rejected by publishers many times.

With the paragraph above, it is also useful to note that things which are badly written can become famous and well-loved. cough cough *twilight* cough cough (sorry twihards)

So, keep optimistic in all that you do. If you find yourself thinking 'I can't do that', stop and purge that thought. Stride through life, knowing that whatever you want to do, you can do. Because then you'll have enthusiasm and energy to channel towards it.

Youtube, Writing, and Common Colds

Hey Everyone, welcome to my blog and stuff. Right now, my head feels heavy and I feel like I need to sleep, but I'm also at Uni. So, don't expect this post to be coherent, but at the very least it should be entertaining, I hope.

First things first; I haven't written anything on my story since my last blog post, and I feel bad about that. I also feel like I'm way too tired to even attempt that, so... Ugh. At least my nose isn't blocked; that would be the icing on the cake. Wait, that doesn't make sense. The... chili powder... on the cake? 

With this in mind, I want to hypocritically take this opportunity to encourage every writer out there to try and write a little every day. Unless you're feeling like you need to hibernate for a month, in which case, give it a rest. 

Anyway, the second thing I want to say is that I have a Youtube channel now. And here's the link. It also has no views but my own and people I know, so understandably, I'm feeling a little apprehensive. But, humble beginnings.

I'll now lead on from that with something completely unrelated to do with the Uni lecture I've just endured. I just want to comment how demoralising it is to be sick and have the lecturer say 'you have to work much harder for a seven in this subject than the preceding one.' Also 'the failure rate for this subject last semester was 35%'. But, I won't let that get me down; it's only week 1.

And so we come to the end of that incredibly disjointed blog post, which I'm not particularly proud of, but whatever. It takes energy to write things which make sense, and my energy is currently being occupied by my body trying to fight my common cold. So, keep writing, Minecrafting, keeping healthy, and keeping on top of work/your studies/whatever.

Byeee!

Writing: Breaking the Genre

This post is for all budding writers out there. I have been participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, and after seeing that other participants like me had been given the opportunity to write pep talks, I thought about what I had to contribute. The result is this post.

This Camp, my goal is a standard 50,000 word goal, which is well on track, although I haven't done any today yet... anyway, the point is I have a large amount of a novel. This novel is about a female elf whose home gets attacked by centaurs, after which she decides to fight them and eventually take back her home.

You may be wondering at this point, what this disjointed introduction had even slightly to do with a pep talk. But, what I realised when thinking about pep talks and my own novel, was how steeped it was- and still is- in the genre of fantasy.

Now, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this. My point of difference in this was the fact that my novel is in the point of view of the elf, which was something I'd never seen before. Now, yours may be similar, or different, or maybe you might even have a bog standard thriller. I will add that if you want to write a bog standard thriller, it's up to you. What i want to encourage now is stepping into the grey areas of genre.

When deciding on what my current novel would be, I thought it would be nice to try out a different genre. I thought I've done fantasy, I want to do something completely different. But in the end, I wrote another fantasy anyway. It was because I didn't know how to do a completely separate genre.

There is a simple solution to this, however. What I want you to think about it taking your favourite genre, and editing it. What i mean is, take an element of thriller or sci-fi and throw it in. Add in a character that is a one-eyed talking bat, or create an eccentric inventor who solves murder mysteries.

I blog this in all seriousness. Because if one day you deliver me a book where the protagonist is a six-eyed giant demon or one where the main characters are dragons who use sci-fi-esque technology, you will be my hero.

Underwater Building in Minecraft

This post will deal with my method of building things underwater in Minecraft, but it should be noted that I use Creative Mode. I suppose you could also use this method in Survival, but that would require methods of breathing. For this purpose, ladder creates a bubble of air, as do slabs.

So, without further ado, here's the method:

Step 1: Resource Packs

It should be noted that in this, resource packs, or as they used to be called, texture packs, are not essential. I prefer how underwater looks in texture packs as opposed to normal Minecraft. In the image above, the top image is that of the normal Minecraft textures, and the bottom image is that of the 'Dokucraft, the saga continues' texture pack available here.

Step 2: Build a Box

Here i just built an underwater box of materials out of wood and glass. In this step, you should note that you can't place ladder, torches, levers, doors, or beds on glass. This could be a problem, seeing as there's not point building an opaque box underwater, but you just have to make sure that for certain parts there is a wooden floor, as in the above image. Also, instead of torches, you can have glowstone either as part of the wall, floor or ceiling, or even outside the box where it will shine through the glass, as in the above image.

Step 3: Fill it in

A box filled with water isn't much use, so the next step is to break your way in, and fill it in with an easily recognisable block. You will have to break your way out in the end, but you'll just end up with a solid box anyway. Then, you have to go in the proper way (through the ladder down into your underwater building) and break all those filled in blocks, leaving behind a dry box.

Step 4: Fix the Ceiling

See those water droplets? Not ideal at all, are they? Luckily, they are easy to fix. This is because if you have a glass ceiling, there will be not water droplets at all. So, all you have to do for wood or other materials is build a layer of glass on top and your ceiling is fixed.

Movement:

Note that if you break a hole in your floor, as above, you can leave or enter that way without flooding your interior. This is a lot easier than going the proper way each time, especially if you have a very deep complex. 

You should also note that redstone underwater is very difficult, but if you build any redstone above ground first to determine the size of the box you have to encase it in, it can be done. Any spaces, however, will have to be two high so you can walk around.

Final Thoughts:

I hope you enjoyed my first (well, not technically first, but the first one wasn't much) blog post, and I hope it helps you build underwater in Minecraft, because the results can be very cool.

Welcome One, Welcome All.

So. I have a new blog. It's interesting, because I never thought I'd write one before two minutes ago. The whole reason is because my twin sister has a blog and... I thought it would be a good outlet for my thoughts. So, to begin with, an overview of what I will be posting:

What I Will Post:

I will post anything I feel like to do with knitting, sewing, cosplay, writing, reading, movies, TV shows, music and games. Yeah. I know.

When I Will Post it:

Whenever I feel like it. I really don't have any idea how much time I'll spend on this, but I'll try to post once a week or once a fortnight about interesting things.

Anything Else?

I think not. There's nothing more for me to say, but I think I'll post a bit about Minecraft to begin with, because that's what's been consuming my life, as well as my twin's, who is, by the way The Fantasy Intellectual.