__word crimes by weird al yankovic

Tags

animation, comedy, funny, grammar, humour, mistakes, music video, spelling, stories, weird al yankovic, word crimes, writers, writing, youtube

I’m not a grammar nazi. Maybe it’s because I know I make mistakes all the time? I’m sure there are mistakes in the post. I think in professional work, it’s necessary to write well. I like when I see well-written status updates but to be honest, I don’t think less of people because of their ability to spell or use grammar. Some people don’t care. Some people hated school. Some people didn’t get the same educational opportunities. For many people in my social circle, English is their second language. In casual social-media settings, as long as I can understand you, I’m happy. But I sure do appreciate someone who knows how to write English properly.

I found this video by Weird Al Yankovic hilarious (he’s been making a whole bunch of new songs recently, it’s great!) and had to share. We may have some readers who hate word crimes with a passion and can relate. Even as someone who is relatively lax, I found myself laughing.

Warning: the damn catchy tune of ‘Blurred Lines’ is the musical backdrop. So you may have that tune stuck in your head for a while! I’m just glad I can enjoy this song without thinking about the original horrifying lyrics.

What did you all think? Did you find it funny? Do you hate word crimes or are you pretty chill about it all?

– Ermisenda

__ermi reads her old HP fanfiction

Tags

funny, harry potter fan fiction, humour, nostalgia, reading old fanfiction, stories, writer on youtube, writing, youtube

YES! Okay. I wrote a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction back in the day. And it was so fun. But finding my old stories has proved both nostalgic and cringe-worthy. I think all writers go through this. We slowly improve (hopefully) and when they look back at our old writing, we shudder at how many mistakes we’ve made, how cliche our stories and characters were, and find oodles of things we would fix if we were to rewrite it.

But rather than just experience the pain and embarrassment by myself, I decided to take the opportunity to make another YouTube video for those who would like to hear one of my old Ron/Hermione romance fanfics.

Have you read one of your first writing pieces recently? What did you think? Were you laughing or cringing or impressed? Was it a fun experience or full of too much embarrassment?

– Ermisenda

 

__reasons why you should(n’t) read YA

Tags

adults ashamed of reading ya, books, don't read ya, embarrassed to read ya, genre shaming, reasons to read ya, ruth graham, slate article, writing, YA, young adult, youtube

If you haven’t heard already, there was an article on Slate that was titled, ‘Yes, Adults Should Be Ashamed to Read YA’. It has caused quite the fuss. And rightfully so in my opinion. As a big advocate against genre-shaming, I disagreed with much of what the article had to say. There have been some great responses here, here, and here.

I made a little video with me expressing my thoughts. Please share your opinions on the blog and/or beneath the video. Let’s get a discussion going. 🙂

My thoughts in a nutshell: Read what makes you happy. Read what you want. Read YA if you want to read YA (regardless of age).

– Ermisenda

__the wolf among us – fairytales!

Tags

character rich games, fairy tale games, gaming, gaming on youtube, modern day fairy tales, stories, story rich games, the wolf among us gameplay, youtube

Hey everyone! Those who watched my video about spare story ideas, should remember that I really want to read/watch/play a great, gritty, dark, mature fairytale retelling. More than the TV series Once Upon a Time.

Well… I was watching a favourite YouTuber of mine (PewDiePie) and he played a game called ‘The Wolf Among Us’. Guess what? It’s a great, gritty, dark, mature fairytale game.

The premise is that the fairytale characters have been taken from their ‘homelands’ and brought into ‘Fabletown’ which is set in modern-day America. The actions of the player (me in this case) affect how the story progresses. There’s quite a lot of crime in this game. As the main character we have to figure out which fairytale character did the deed.

I bought it immediately and started to play. As you know, I love playing games as much as reading books. I love all kinds of games but there’s a special place in my heart for games that tell great stories with great characters. I’ve recorded the first part of Episode 1 so those who want to watch can. I need to get a better microphone but I don’t have too much commentary anyway. I’m thinking of uploading the rest of the episode in roughly ~20 minute chunks. Let me know what you think!

__write what you don’t know

Tags

books, discussion, elif shafak, international writers, politics of fiction, ted talk, video, write what you don't know, write what you know, writing, youtube

I watched this video about a week ago and I just loved it so much that I wanted to share it on Ermilia. There are so many interesting points Elif Shafak raises about books and writing. One of the most interesting ones was ‘write what you don’t know’. I feel like writers are often encouraged to write what they know. I don’t think that’s bad since writing what we know increases the likelihood that we are more accurately writing the event/characters etc. But I’m a writer who keeps wanting to venture out and write what I don’t know. Is that bad? I want to explore other races, cultures, and worlds that I have had little or no contact with. Although I will add that I believe in these circumstances the author has a greater responsibility to do their research.

I also found her point about multicultural writers being pigeonholed was interesting and I had never paid much attention to it before. International writers shouldn’t just be famous because of a novel that is perceived to represent them or their culture in some way. Why can’t their interesting novels be promoted in English-speaking countries, even if they have nothing to do with the author’s home country. How many interesting stories are we missing out from international writers just because the stories aren’t “international”?

What spoke to you the most from this talk? What do you think about writing what you don’t know?

– Ermisenda

 

__take my spare story ideas!

Tags

booktuber, community, creative, inspiration, sharing ideas, stories, video, writetuber, writing, youtube

I think as writers we can get protective over our story ideas. And that’s fair. After all, creating an imaginative, unique story is often a core part of making a successful story that people want to read because its different. But what happens when you have so many story ideas that you know you won’t be able to turn them all into stories? Well, I’m going to share some of mine!

So some of my story ideas (characters, settings, inspirational lines of thoughts) that I have written on my electronic post-it notes include:
– Writing a modern-day story based on a fairytale
– Writing a fantasy novel with hugggeee powerful snakes instead of dragons
– Including a prominent character with a lisp
– Comparing character personalities/beauties to planets and moons

I also decided to take the opportunity to finally attempt a YouTube video to add an extra something-something on my behalf for Ermilia. Let me know what you think. 🙂 Hopefully I’ll get better at the camera focus stuff and learning to refrain from using repetitive phrases. 😛 It’s not easy!

__the the impotence of proofreading

Tags

comedy, editing, essays, funny, hilarious, humour, joke, reading, taylor mali, the the impotence of proof reading, video, writing, youtube

The The Impotence of Proof Reading

I cannot recall if I have ever posted this on Ermilia Blog. I thought I had but I can’t seem to find it through the archives. Regardless, one can never have too much Taylor Mali. An amazing video for all those writers, readers, and anyone who enjoys a good laugh.

Always remember to proof-read! Read up on some funny writing quotes to see what spurred me to post this video. 🙂

– Ermisenda Alvarez

The World According to Willow

Tags

books, chimamanda adichie, culture, Dae Luin, danger of a single story, perspecive, role play, Willow, youtube

Even having two stories sometimes doesn’t give you the full picture.

This post is a continuation of the “__danger of a single story” post by Ermisenda. I’ll repost the video we are discussing for those of you who have not read the first post and watched it:

Willow has grown up in a secluded community. The product of a one night stand born to a nymph mother, Willow has a skewed sampling of the world.  She has watched how the older nymphs interact with humans and watched as some of them grew fat.  They turned into trees and stayed that way until after many months, they return skinny with a baby in their arms and pass it off to one of the elderly who no longer goes out to play with boys.

This was her single story.

Her second story is told to her by her father whom she hunts down after her mother dies.  She asks him where babies come from and since he had no idea he had a daughter until she was twelve years old and went looking for him, he was ill prepared to answer the question.  Awkwardly, he tells her that the woman provides the soil and the man supplies the seed and leaves it at that.

This was her second story.

Combining the two, the following is where Willow thinks babies come from:

A female scoops up some fertile soil and presents it to her chosen mate.  He puts a seed in and they go plant it somewhere safe.  The female eats too much because she is anxious or excited about their baby since they are away from it while it grows out of the ground.  Unable to take the suspence, the to be mother becomes a tree and guards the baby plant until it has matured.  The mother then plucks her favorite baby from the plant and returns to the colony.

Even with a second story, more accurate than the first, our view of the world can still be warped by the unknown.  In our first book, Aniela and Leocardo both interact with the character Theodore and have drastically different opinions of him, but even with two sides of the story, book 2 shows him in yet another light.

~

If you’re interested in reading more about Willow, she is an RP character I play on the site Dae Luin (account name Willow Tree) For more of her story join the site (no experience required and you don’t have to make a character to join and read) daeluin.net