Dialogue: Writing Banter

Can you imagine floating down the river and seeing something like this? Majestic and potentially terrifying all at once!

Alligator eyes shining in the sunset, Myakka River State Park, Florida

Hopefully I’ll be able to whip up a few story responses, those are always a treat! Looking forward to it!

Welcome to the First Spectober! A writing and art prompt filled October! Think Spooktober, but Paranatural themed. 

There will be daily prompts, both for writing and art. These will be separated into two separate lists. However, if you ever want to use a ‘writing prompt’ for art, or vice versa, you are absolutely welcome to! While they are listed day to day, you can skip as many as you’d like and do them out of order if you’d prefer to. It’s creativity, no need to restrict it. :D

We’ll be using the #spectober2020 for the event and be reblogging them to this blog. Word of advice: make sure the tag is within the first five, or it won’t show up. If we haven’t reblogged your submission within 24 hours, feel free to message us.

Writing Prompt List (Pending)

Art Prompt List (Pending)

1918 Two women sharpening an axe. From My Vintage Dreams, FB.

This is freaking awesome!

day 17- back from my two day break from inktober! for today i did nightmare for @spectober​, based on spender’s quote “you should definitely worry about getting your head bitten off” in chapter 3

(art without dream overlay under cut)

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An excellent way to help others and progress research at the same time!

Want to contribute to citizen science projects?

Yeah? Then have I got a list for you!

Places to find citizen science projects:

NASA’s Citizen Science section – NASA maintains a page here with links to all their citizen science projects and initiatives—and they have a LOT. All projects are helpfully color-coded by category/domain.

Zooniverse – Very good website, LOTS of projects. “The world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research”.

SciStarter – Another good hub for finding projects. SO, SO many projects available!

A list of citizen science projects that have you playing games

Wikipedia

National Geographic – Nat Geo always maintains a list here of a lot of good ones.

This list on Gizmodo that I LOVE, 10/10

Society for Science – Not only do they have a lot of great citizen science projects linked, they also have sections to help you start your own citizen science projects too.

Smithsonian Institution – Come on, who DOESN’T want to help out the SMITHSONIAN?

Citizen science projects with iPhone apps:

iNaturalist – Take pictures of plants, fungi, animals, insects, etc. around you and contribute to scientific data repositories for researchers!

budburst – Help scientists find and monitor plants in your area and improve their research on plant conservation!

eBird – If you love birding or just want to contribute to research on bird populations and migrations, this is the project for you!

Spotteron – There are a LOT of apps for a variety of ongoing projects here, both at global and regional levels.

Globe Observer – Help NASA by providing data from down here on Earth!

Insight – Give scientists data they can use to help understand and save pollinators by snapping pics and tracking ones near you in observations!

River Survey/Ocean Survey apps – The Ocean Cleanup has put out two different apps for helping track the pollution in our water! River Survey asks citizens to help by going to a nearby river and starting to count the plastic they see. Ocean Survey asks anyone who goes out on the ocean to record any plastic debris they spot floating on the ocean.

Have fun, be safe, and happy researching!

Hi! Thank you so much for all the time and help you provide, can't think of a better writing blog to go to. So my question is, what do you think are the most important elements to take into consideration when creating a timeline? How do you make a timeline I guess I'm asking lol :)

Making a Timeline for Your Story

I’m not sure if you’re asking about figuring out the timeline of your story’s events or creating an actual timeline as part of the planning process, so I’ll address both. :)

Figuring Out Your Story’s Timeline of Events

1. First and foremost, figure out a general span of time for your story in terms of the year/s it takes place and the months. If you’re not sure what month your story should begin, consider what needs to be happening then. For example, if there’s going to be snow falling in the first scene, you know your story begins during a winter month.

2. Create a calendar for your story covering the months/years in question. You may just want to download a blank calendar template and print out several that you can fill in by hand. 

3. Once you have your calendar printed out, fill in the days of the first month. Then you can choose an appropriate “day one” for your story and jot down what scene or event happens on what day. Remember there will be blank days and that’s fine. Those will be “time skipped.” Doing it on a calendar like this allows you to get a bird’s eye view of the story so you can figure out a likely timeline of events.

Creating a Reference Timeline for Your Story

If you want to do a physical timeline for reference, all that’s really important to include are the date and the actual event.

If you want to, however, you may consider doing a scene list instead. A scene list will include: chapter, scene (I do two scene numbers, the scene within the chapter and then the total scene), the date, and what happens in the scene. So, ultimately, it would look something like this:

This not only helps you keep track of when your scene takes place, but it helps you map out your story so you’re never lost. You can also add other data to the table if you want to, like setting and characters present. You can modify it in any way that works for your story. :)

I hope that helps!

————————————————————————————————-Have a question? My inbox is always open, but make sure to check through my FAQ and post master lists first to see if I’ve already answered a similar question. :)

Reblogging for the sheer amount of information (and the link inclusion!) in the last post, discussions like these are so fun to see.

Honestly the biggest disappointment I had researching ABC was that medieval authors did not, in fact, see the creatures they were describing and were trying their best to describe them with their limited knowledge while going “what the fuck… what the fuck…”

Hooray! It's always a blast to discover more jurassic species! And this one's a crocodile ancestor!

Jurassic-Period Crocodile Ancestor Unearthed in Chile

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/burkesuchus-mallingrandensis-09929.html

Some of these are inviting, in their own odd way. Some of these faces seem as if the person is turning to you with the words "can you believe what's going on here?" about to leave their lips. The gentleman staring gives off a "sitting on the subway train longingly gazing out the window, thinking of love" vibe.

I fucking hate James Tissot’s paintings because in ALL OF THEM there is ALWAYS someone staring right at you, but it’s not always immediately visible. You just feel watched by this mf. Sometimes the little shit is right there at the centre, but others the bastard is just gazing from the distance, it is CREEPY, my guys

Here’s some prompts for Spectober! I can’t wait to see all the different spins on these prompts!

Alright, the art prompt is out! Remember, the event is planned for October, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start planning ahead :) And as one last reminder, we’ll be using the #spectober2020, which I’ll be looking out for on here, twitter, and instagram.

Prompts listed again beneath the cut

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