You need a mood board. #visitNoriannd

Welcome to Noriannd! Ruled by King Corran the third, plagued by famine, inhabited by a brutal, strong-willed (and dying) bunch called Norians, covered by snow most of the year and barely warm even in the summer!

Noriannd is the middle kingdom of Nelserin, and is the  one that suffers the smallest amount of attacks from the rest of the seven kingdoms (mostly because it's such a cold, poor and miserable place that nobody cares about ruling that speck of land inhabited by corpses and skeletons.

 (images not owned by me, taken from my novel's pinterest board)

Another thing that keeps strangers away are the Aruels, with magic given to them by the god Aru  to secure humankind's survival in the Era of Hunger.

See, Norians hate Aruels and want to wipe them off the face of the earth, while the Aruels are trying to rise against the Norians to take back what once was theirs: the throne of horns.

So you probably shouldn't come to Noriannd, unless you want to die by sword, hunger or burning alive...

  #visitnoriannd  #pleasedon't

Hope you liked those little facts and that sneak peek of my own mood board, but now let's get to the real blog post :D

A mood board is something I used to not have for a really long time that I can't survive without now. It's a daydreaming tool, a writing tool, a procrastination tool... It's a way for you to return to a project after a long time without losing sight of your initial vision. It's a way for you to gather idea seeds into one place so that you can look at it when you're not that inspired and suddenly be filled with ideas.

The absolute easiest way to make a mood board is using pinterest. It's super quick to create a board, get some pins there and start gathering inspiration. There are no rules, except:

1. Keep it aesthetically pleasing.

If you hate your novel when you look at your mood board, you need to fix your mood board. Stick to the same colors, themes and feel, choose pictures that look good next to each other and just have fun!

But be firm with your vision; if something looks cool but doesn't fit the color, theme or feel, it doesn't belong in a novel. Think of your story as a movie. If the overall feel is gloomy with lots of blacks and reds, lace gloves, gleaming wine glasses and an occasional pair of shining white fangs (don't know why a vampire film was the first thing I thought of, but whatever. You know what I'm talking about), you simply can't throw in a scene with a baby blue dress and an orange hat.

Unless it's a really experimental project, but in that case the dress and the hat shouldn't be the only weird things, because experimental has a mood too, you know. Even weird things need to be weird and consistent. Consistency is key.

If you have done any world building at all for this novel, you know what the mood board should look like.

2. That's it.

Keep looking for photos that inspire you, that surprise you and that confirm the ideas you already have for this novel. Happy moodboarding! :))

Creative people are dumb

My day has been awesome. We made documentary style shorts in the lights and filming workshop, and it was super fun. I feel like I'm learning more now every day than I did during all of high school.

My parents and other relatives have always told me that I'm really smart. I believed them until high school, when I realized I don't have the slightest bit intelligence--meaning the type of intelligence people in our society are supposed to have.

I nearly failed all my math, chemistry and physics courses. I got the worst grades in finnish in my class (try learning finnish grammar. Even natives can't do it). I read the textbooks many times before exams, but couldn't remember a thing. I did all I could, but it wasn't enough, and I felt so stupid.

Somehow I managed to graduate, and applied for university. I didn't believe I'd actually get accepted, because I still thought I was stupid. So I spent all spring preparing for a gap year... Well, seems like I wasn't stupid enough.

I am actually not stupid at all, because now I'm getting excellent grades, I understand everything my teachers say and I don't feel lost, frustrated or dumb anymore.

Because intelligence isn't that simple.

Did you know that there are actually NINE different types of intelligence?

"So wait, all people are not the same and can't be good at the same things? Whaaat."

I love school (well, now I do). Education is important and everyone should try to learn as many things as possible.

But school also makes us think that some skills and types of intelligence are more important than others, which isn't right. School made me insecure and forced me to believe there was something wrong with me and that I needed to change to be accepted and liked.

I don't want anyone else to go through that. "Just be you" is something we hear all the time, but most of us don't follow that advice, because even though we want to, it's hard.

Sometimes we don't even know who we really are, because that's not something the world encourages us to. Get to know yourself and don't listen to the voice inside your head telling you that you should be more like this or more like that.

If you are creative, be creative. If you learn languages fast, do that. If you're amazing at math, do math.

Don't ever let yourself think that what somebody else does is more important than what you do. We're too different to be compared. Do what you love and what you're good at. If you aren't sure what that is yet, then make it your mission to find out.

I love film school and learning about storytelling, and although I was extremely unsure in the beginning, I'm learning to become more confident and show what I can do. Because I can finally do stuff! I'm not failing! Yay!

So trust yourself and strengthen your strengths. Life's too short to feel stupid and be frustrated because you aren't doing what you're meant to do. :) ♡♡

Have a happy day of running like on fire toward your dreams!

Em