Author: H.G. Bells

H.G. Bells writes around the intersections of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. She has several short stories in print, and is repped by Beth Campbell for her novel Sleep Over, coming soon from Skyhorse Publishing.
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10 Overused Words in Writing

A great list!

preciseedit's avatarPrecise Edit's Blog

All words are good words. Some, however, are overused without adding value to what you write. As a result, they reduce the readers’ interest, make text seem redundant, and cause the writer to appear amateurish.

We have created a list of 10 overused words, based on the documents we have edited over the last 5 years. We don’t recommend that you remove these words from your writing. Instead, we recommend that you become aware of how often you use them and that you revise your documents to limit their use.

1. There
When writers are not sure about the subjects of their sentences, they will often use this word as the subject. This results in weak writing. (For advice on correcting this problem, see our article “Where Is There?”)

Example: “There was no one at home.” This can be revised as “No one was at home.”

youfingerpointing12. You
Writers often…

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How I Started Reading More: All it took was a change of font

I have been wondering how to read more.  It sounds silly, I know.  I have bookshelves of books I would like to read.  They’re all right there.  My nightstand has a few books on it to remind me to read.  But there they sit, unread.

Being a writer means being a reader, right?  Reading is a necessity in honing your craft, seeing what else is out there, and has the side benefit of being immensely enjoyable if it grabs you.  That’s how it’s supposed to be.

But for me, it wasn’t.  It was like pulling teeth.

Graphic novels are another story- those I would devour.  I can spend hours reading graphic novels.  So why was it so hard for me to read books which were text only?

I thought maybe if I switched up the format it would help.  My husband got me an ereader for my birthday, and I was excited to play around with it.  It’s a fantastic piece of technology, and I think its portability, size, and weight, will go a long way to helping me read more.  I can actually hold it in one hand and the thumb of that same hand can turn the page!  This leaves my other hand free to be clamped over my mouth in horror, or languidly propping my head up while I relax and read.  It really lets e sink into the story.

It was all that.  But I still wasn’t really reading as much as I’d like.  It was still hard.

I’ve written dozens of short stories and five novels; it can’t be something to do with reading.  I am editing a novel right now, and I can spend hours at a time focussing on it.  I know, it’s a different mechanism; reading and editing are not the same.  So what gives?

I played around with the text settings on my ereader.  (It’s a Kobo Aura, if you’re wondering- there’s some really great YouTube reviews that compare ereaders if you’re wondering which is right for you!)

Changing the line spacing was a blessed relief.  I write and edit in double-space, so there’s tons of white on the page.  I also write and edit in the full-screen, composition mode of Scrivener, which is nothing but the words on the page (no menus, no sidebars).

Then in the fonts, I was playing around to see what was on offer.  Pretty standard fare.

But then: some font called Dyslexic Open.  I switched to it, and it was like a being slapped in the face.  It was initially very odd looking; the symmetry is all messed up, the look of letters has them leaning and weighted all over the place.

But I started reading.  And let me tell you, I‘ve never read so fast in my life.

I never went back.

Here’s what it looks like.  Don’t be too put off; it’s one thing to look at the pieces individually, but entirely another to have your eyes dance over them in a sentence.  Entirely another thing to have the font melt away so all you see is the story. 

Now, I don’t think I have Dyslexia.  But this new font makes it much easier for me to read, so I’ll go with it regardless of who it’s for.  If you’re having trouble staying attached to the business end of a book, I suggest you give it a shot!  Here’s their site, where you can download it for free.

As an aside, we’re still in the “waiting excitedly” phase with my book; hopefully I’ll get a wonderful phone call from my wonderful agent soon, and then I will The Best Post Ever to share with you, my dear readers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers.

Heidi out.

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Right On Track!

The thing about being rejected NOW, with an agent, is that it feels like nothing at all.

At this point we’re looking for the publisher that wants the book, that thinks the book will be the right fit for their brand.  Ultimately I want a publisher who thinks Sleep Over is perfect for them, and will put it out there with enthusiasm.

I’m not phased by rejection at this point.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s all going.  This being my Birthday, it’s a good day to take stock and see how all my plans are shaping up.  I’m happy.

Google doodle surprised me today.  How sweet!

Want to know some cool stuff?  You can go to the url at the end and find out the same (and more) about you, based on when you were born!

Since I was born, I (read: our galaxy) have travelled nearly 600 trillion km towards the Great Attractor.  The population of humans on earth has grown by 2 billion, 422 million and change.  (World population is now at 7 billion, 288 million and change…)

My heart has beat one billion, 95 million, 841 hundred thousand, and change times. Mmm, good ol’ heart.

The moon has only orbited the earth 401 times since I was born???  For some reason I am surprised.  I think I need to learn more about the moon I guess.

Anyway, find out all this and more, about you!

So that’s all for now!  Just didn’t want to have complete radio silence until the BIG NEWS that will come (soon hopefully).

I’ll leave you with this image of what Andromeda, our closest neighbouring galaxy, would look like in our sky if there wasn’t light pollution.

Doesn’t look so far now, does it.  Oh wait what?  We’re going to collide with it in 3.75 billion years‽

Cheers!

Heidi out.

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Sleep Related Research, Glass, Prop Hunt

Well dear readers, I hope you are well.  I have had the flu for the past several weeks!  For a few days, it was that kind of sick where you can lay on the couch in silence and not even feel bored.  Your body wants you to be laying down and it makes you not care that you don’t even want to watch Netflix.

When I got better (after a solid week of eating like a maniac and napping every afternoon), I got Prop Hunt.  I have played it for the past 5 days (not all day… not today anyway haha), and it is incredible.

Prop Hunt is the modern day video-game-age equivalent of Hide-and-Seek.

The “Hunters” are “it” and they are blind for 30 seconds while the “Props” take their preferred form (or hastily-chosen-in-a-panic-form [A CABBAGE NEXT TO THE TOILET OH HOW INTERESTING]), and hide.

Once released, the Hunters must find the Props and kill them.

Hunters have health, and every time they attack an innocent object (I swear that lamp looked suspicious) they take damage.  An ill-placed grenade can be lethal.

Props have health directly correlated to how big they are.  That honkin’ vending machine is sitting pretty at 200 health, but is way out in the open.  A tiny pop can is able to hide in small spaces, but only has one health.  A nearby grenade can take one out, even if they weren’t the intended target.

So for the past few days, I’ve been a filing cabinet, a bottle, a lamp, a hula girl figurine (the hardest thing in the game to shoot!), various boxes, all sorts of junk.  It’s been a lot of fun.

When I get sick, I watch Youtuber “Seananners” play Prop Hunt, so I already knew what it was all about.  I’m glad this time I was able to play it myself.  Here he is in action.

Seananners. Pretty fun.
Onwards!

There is sleep research showing up on my feed nearly every week!  I always get excited to see how interested people are in it.  I think my novel will strike at just the right time.

Here’s some neat things, if you’re interested:

Discovery of a sleep node in the brain could lead to treatment for people with sleep disorders, such as insomnia.

How your brain actually makes decisions while you sleep

Scientists find evidence that narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder, may in fact be an autoimmune disease.

So yeah, interest in sleep and sleep research is high right now.

Here are some amazing things made of glass. I may have posted a few of these before… they continue to amaze.






Source is the very talented Paul J. Stankard.

I’ve always loved watching glass blowing.  Some day I’ll have a setup to play around with.

So that’s all for now!  Everything publishing-related is still hush-hush.  Though I can say, I have another manuscript waiting to be looked over by my fabulous agent, Beth Campbell, and as soon as she can give me notes on it I can get to work.

I’ll leave you with these: pictures of ink dropped in water.  Cheers!

Full album here!
 

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You Will Never Know as Little About _____ as You Do Now.

Hello dear readers!  It’s been a while, mostly because I can’t really talk about things in the exciting phase.  I can say that my agent has begun the first round of submissions with my novel, and that it’s going extremely well.  I just need to wait on editors to get back to us about… things.

Hurray!

Mean time, I volunteered at SiWC again this year, and I gotta say it felt different.  Being there knowing an agent is hard at work for me was such a different feeling than being there searching for representation.  It was much nicer.

I got to time appointments with authors, called Blue Pencil Appointments.  It’s where writers sit down with published authors and get the first few pages of their work critiqued.  It was neat to be a part of from a distance; I like to think I’m familiarizing myself with stuff like that now because hopefully soon I’ll be in the author’s seat at conventions like SiWC!

Many writers got tons of good advice over the weekend.

I’m starting a new project, a comedy western.  Need to do something fun.  But you know how much I know about westerns?  Near 0%.  So I had an interesting idea; record everything I think I know about westerns.  Like, before I start my research.  Because I have a perspective that I will never have again (and it goes for just about anything):

I will never know as little about X as I do right now.

From here on, I will only know more about westerns.  But I’d love to know what someone who knows nothing about westerns knows about westerns.  So I might as well write it down.  All the archetypes I know, all the plot devices, all the tropes etc.  And then as I do my research I’ll get a better idea of the genre, but still have a record of what “no-knowledge-Heidi” knew.

So, when you begin learning about a thing, take note of what you know before you begin learning, so you can look back and see what a layman knew about the thing!  A highly useful perspective that you won’t be able to have once you begin your quest.

That’s all for now!  I’m working on a list of common mistakes writers make when they’re starting out, and I’ll have that set to auto-update once I get the first entries few finished.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heidi out.

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Eye Makeup from Gotham

So I’m loving Gotham, the new show about the origins of Batman and all the characters we know and love from that franchise.  I dig the cast and how they’re tackling the characters so far, particularly Ben McKenzie as Detective Jim Gordon and Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot (AKA the villain tied for first place on my list of “favourite birds in the superorder Aequornithes”- the Penguin!) It just got picked up for another season, hurrah!



And this week’s episode (watch for free legit style right here!) had me going gaga for the eye makeup.

Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) is one dangerous lady running a nightclub, and she has some killer eyes for sure. On this week’s episode, she was auditioning new talent, and it made me sit up and take notice of the luscious lids being crafted for the show.
I got some screenshots, but they are not the greatest quality… you get the idea though- someone in the makeup department is rockin’ it.




Let’s get a little closer shall we?


It’s just extremely eye catching. I have been having fun experimenting with more and more outrageous eye makeup lately, so it was nice to see something inspiring like this.

I found this tutorial if anyone’s interested.

Here’s some additional photos for a static look at how to get a similar effect. There’s a ton of tutorials here.



Link to full album!

So there we go. Pretty eyes with pretty makeup. I want to go to there.

…Though the way is perilous:

That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Juxtasubbing: Watching a movie with another movie’s subtitles

So during one of our long-distance-friend skype calls, my friend told me about a happy little accident which set me on this new hobby.

She loaded up an episode of Top Gear, famed British car show, but accidentally got the subtitles for Disney’s “Mulan” over top of it.

It produced some hilarious results, which the Top Gear subreddit loved.

She watched the whole episode like that and took screencaps throughout.

It brought a totally new meaning to the show of course.

So as she was telling me about this, my runaway brain began working on intentionally recreating this effect.

After some thought, I figured I’d need something to call it.  Juxtasubbing: watching a movie with another movie’s subtitles.

You load up the film and manually use another film’s subtitles- you play them together from the start, sit back, and take screenshots.

My first experiment with this was to juxtasub Scott Pilgrim and Fight Club, that is to say, I watched Scott Pilgrim with the subtitles for Fight Club overlaid.

It was quite challenging, as I was essentially watching two films at the same time (I know Fight Club so well that I was seeing it in my mind’s eye and hearing the dialogue as I read the subtitles).  This was exhausting for one not practiced in this strange new form of movie watching.  I’ll get better at it, I’m sure, but for now, I had to watch it in fits and starts.

I hit play, and looked for places where the subtitles created different meaning to the visuals on screen, or where they lined up in serendipitous ways. I didn’t jump around or alter this in any way; if you play Fight Club and Scott Pilgrim at the same time, you’ll get these same results.

Also, SPOILERS! If you haven’t seen Scott Pilgrim and/or Fight Club, this juxtasub will spoil parts of them for you! I’ll keep them to a minimum in this blog post, but I’ve included a link at the end to the full album and that is spoiler city!

And also this post is NSFW for language.

Onwards.

Pleasingly, the dream sequences lined up.

Then things started to make crazy sense.

And sometimes just little things would be brought together, like foreshadowing relationship problems between Scott and Knives.

Sometimes the fight scenes matched up, including the first one of each film.

And then this little sequence was too perfect (extra good because Wallace is gay, Scott Pilgrim is not):




There are tons more of course.

Full album is here if you want it.  (Like I said though, SPOILER CITY!)

So that’s Juxtasubbing. I am going to experiment with it some more. If you do, I hope you’ll share the results! The possibilities are endless. Mash any two films together and see what happens. We’re bound to find some delightful matchups.

If you’d like another movie-related thing to read, check out my post Aspect Ratio Madness!

Have fun!  Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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My X-Files Message in a Bottle Reply in the News

So last week I posted on reddit about how I used to throw messages in bottles over the side of the ferry, and when I was 11 someone from the X-Files responded to one.

Well maybe I can find the kind-hearted person who wrote to me from my favourite show!

BuzzFeed did an article about it, and today I’m in the Province!



And just for you dear readers, a bonus pic. The photographer from the paper didn’t even notice it (or maybe he did and just kept on walking).

It’s the photo on Agent Mulder’s badge when he and Scully make an appearance on The Simpsons, in case you’re wondering, and in case that makes it less weird that this is virtually the only thing on the walls of my apartment.

In writing news, the last of the revisions are off to my fabulous agent, Beth Campbell, and maybe I can start sleeping properly again, now that I’m not having to tinker about in a world where the insomnia apocalypse is ravaging humanity.

That’s all for now folks!

Thanks for stopping by.

Heidi out.

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How To: Stop Your Cat From Peeing on the Carpet

Pet post ahead.

I just went through the ordeal of getting a cat to cease urinating on my carpet. The question comes up often in the Pets subreddit, so I thought I’d share my method (which seems to be working, about a week after my solution!).

See also: How to get your cat to stop scratching all the things!

So when someone asks “How do I get my cat to stop peeing on my carpet?” this is what I will now tell them.

I *just* went through this. I know how frustrating it can be! Like, bring-you-to-tears frustrating.

It’s a lengthy guide, but hopefully it has everything you need to know in it. BTW be prepared to shell out some dough to solve this problem. Bonus: you only have to solve it once, and then you and your cat are sitting pretty.

If you are having this problem, stop and do this before you read onwards: Take your cat to the vet. Tell them what’s going on and make sure it’s not a medical issue. $30 exam can save you a world of trouble and bring peace of mind.

And as I said, the solution to this problem is not cheap. I’ve just spent about a hundred bucks on everything I needed to do this. But you know what? It’s part of having a cat. If only every major problem in my life could be solved with a hundred bucks. Man. So you’ve been warned.

Onwards!

FOR ME, it was a combination of two things happening:

1) the cat smells the pee in the carpet and instinctually wants to keep peeing there. You can’t fight instinct, but you can learn to work with it.

2) the cat had problems using the litter box.

For #1, here’s what I did (and it’s only been a week, but it seems to be working, ie no cat pee on the carpet since!). You have to get the cat pee out of the carpet. And not just like, “oh it’s much better” like you have to make it your muffin lovin’ mission in life to make sure that carpet it cleaner than when it came of the factory production line.

To do this:

Step one is make sure there are good litter box options FIRST before you do anything to the carpet. If you start messing with the carpet and there’s no where for the cat to go, guess what buddy you’re just going to have another patch of carpet with pee on it to deal with.

The Happy-Feline-Making Litter Box Equation: # of Cats + 1 = # of Litter Boxes Needed. For me, this means 3 litter boxes (2 cats). I live in a small apartment and having three litter boxes is a drag.  What makes it worth it?  That I have two happy kitties who PEE IN THEM and not on my floor haha.

Make sure the boxes are not near each other. Make sure to clean them every day. (My litter box life changed when I got a Litter Locker so I cannot recommend them highly enough!)

Take all the litter out of the boxes, WASH THEM, dry them, and put fresh, new litter in them. Just start from scratch basically.  If your litter box is old, you may need to replace it.

My three litter boxes are different designs, so the kitties have some options.

So now that there are several clean litter boxes to choose from, let’s get down to the business of that patch of carpet. It’s going to take some time, so hunker down and know that you are an amazing pet owner for even attempting to solve this extremely difficult problem. Bask in the knowledge that your hard work will pay off and your cat might even understand how dedicated you are to trying to make a good environment for it to thrive in.

I know, a cat- appreciating you? Seems farfetched, but it’s happening to me right now so I know it can happen toooo yooooouuuu!!!

Let’s get to it.

There’s no way around this: you’re going to get your hands dirty and it’s going to smell bad. Get over it son, because you are awesome and your life is about to get better.

You have a carpet cleaner, right? Get one. Best $50 you can spend when you have pets that make messes (the same cat has stomach issues and pukes randomly).

Get the pet stain and oder remover solution that goes with said carpet cleaner.

1) Saturate the carpet with the as-directed diluted solution, and use the carpet cleaner to suck it up. Do this several, several times. Like fill that tank up with that gross looking water (and flush it down the toilet!) as many times as you can stand. Around the whole area. Go big or go home. Put on a podcast and just sit there cleaning.

2) Wait for it to dry. Put a fan blowing over the area to help deter the cat from going there. Put a towel over it, or some tin foil. You do not want any cats going on the area until you have become Master of Carpet Cleaning.

3) Once it’s dry, put some carpet cleaning powder on there. Use a bristly brush to work it in there. I used the whole damn bottle of the powder, one half, then the other.

As per instructions, wait for it to do it’s thing, then vacuum it up. (I did this twice. HG don’t mess around.)

Now for the important part, the part which will make or break this whole shebang.

4) Get an enzymatic cleaner. They have simple instructions on the bottle, but let me tell you, none of them worked until I did all that other junk I just told you. Use it as per directions, which for me meant emptying half the bottle onto the carpet. Let it sit and do its work. (This takes a whole morning. Bask in the knowledge of how awesome you are for trying to fix this. Bask in it while you wait.) Then use the carpet cleaner to suck it up. Then I emptied the other half the bottle on the carpet and let it *dry* as per directions. This took a few days (again with the towels/tin foil and a fan on it!).

Vacuum the whole area.

There’s still a residue of that powder cleaner/deodorizer on mine, and I think I’d recommend putting a little sprinkling of something like that on the whole area.

You should now have 1) a patch of carpet that is much cleaner than any other in your house and 2) zero urine smell there.

Now: watch your cat.

If your cat is “looking for a place to pee” clean the litter box in front of your cat. Show them that it’s clean.

*Do not put your cat in the litter box!* This causes stress, and associates the litter box with being stressed.

When your cat goes near the litter box, give them treats. Make the litter box such a happy area- like entice them there and pet them and give them treats, so it is a safe place. You want them to associate the litter boxes with truly good things so they love being around it.

If your cat shows interest in the pee carpet area: don’t freak out. Just watch them. They’re used to going there right? They’re going to want to smell it a bunch. They need to scope it out.

This is when it will all be decided: can your cat smell any urine there still?

Hopefully not. Hopefully it’s as clean as the day it was made, and now it doesn’t force the cat’s little cat brain to think of it as the place they pee.

Praise your cat when they leave the pee carpet area. Give them treats. If they head to the litter box: leave them alone! Give them some space. When they use the litter box and jump out baby you’re in the clear! Give them so many treats and love and play with them.

You did it.

Keep on associating the litter boxes with good stuff for a while.

Generally play with your cat more.

Build them some cat shelves if you can (you have WALLS, right? Then you have room for cat shelves!). Your cat needs options to feel safe, and high up perches can help accomplish this.

(I had to put my ‘problem’ cat up on the shelves for the first three times, but now she lives on them and loves them and is generally happier).

I also recommend getting Feliway: my problem cat has been much, MUCH better since I got the diffuser.

A bit about how that works: you know how cats rub their faces on your legs, on your furniture, on everything? They’re rubbing the ‘territory’ pheromone on stuff, to mark their home as a safe place.

Feliway is that very pheromone (it’s not specific to an individual cat apparently) and it saturates the air with it. So now your whole house should smell like a safe and wonderful place. It really did wonders for my previously skittish and pretty terrible cat. She’s happy and friendly now.

OK so that covered the bases I think.

To recap:

1) Good, clean litter box options.

2) Clean the heck out of that carpet so no urine remains.

3) Reward the behaviour you want to see.

4) Feliway.

5) Cat shelves.

6) Bask in the knowledge of your awesomeness.

Got it? Good luck. I understand how frustrated you are right now if you are reading this, but know that it is a solvable problem. Good on you for trying. I hope you and you cat are better off after you undertake this task!

*Edit on March 29th 2015*

Full disclosure: my cat relapsed.  Even after all that work, she started peeing on that spot again.  I had to clean the heck out of it and try something in addition to all that.  It seems to be working.  I cleaned with this enzyme cleaner and then used some carpet freshener powder. THEN I got this “SHOO!” deterrent so she wouldn’t want to smell the area at all. I spray that stuff on there every day. Hopefully this will do the trick to keep her from wanting to smell it! I will update if any further problems occur. As I have learned, it may take more than one shot to fix this problem. Good luck!

*Edit on July 16th 2015*

I’ve been in the clear since my last edit. I do occasionally sprinkle a pet odor eliminator powder on the area just to be sure that it’s not something she wants to smell and start the cycle all over again.

Heidi out.