IT'S DONE!

Well hey guys! My TED talk is finally over, and to be honest, I could not be happier right now. Over the past few days, I
I was informed by a bunch of people in my class that I'm supposed to grade myself here, using the rubric etc and then give myself a grade out of thirty. First, I don't really like that idea, I mean I feel really uncomfortable giving myself a good grade, but to be honest, I really feel like I put in a ton of work, and did really well.  So I figured since I am going to do so, I should probably explain myself.

First, my talk was 4-5 mins. in length, so woohoo! In addition, I had a great visual aid, a Prezi, that I
worked really hard on. I wanted to make sure that it flowed smoothly and had everything that I needed on it. The Prezi had to be edited afterwards to fit with my script, and it took a really long time to work out all of the kinks. All in all, I was really proud of it in the end, and it turned out well.
Speaking of script, during my talk, I didn't just focus on my project itself. Instead, I had a bigger purpose to the talk, giving the audience something to take away from it. I had an interesting hook/ conclusion that sought to engage the audience.

I practiced this talk for several days over break and this week so that I was very comfortable with the subject material. By the time I was actually due to present, I had memorized pretty much all of it. Because of this, I was able to present with confidence and eye contact (despite harsh lighting from the stage... blank faces much?). I also did not rely on crutch words, and stumbled only once or twice.

Now to review based on the "Ted Commandments"
(Whoever wrote these is actually the greatest. Seriously, they are freaking awesome. (I can say freaking can't I????))

1.This TED talk was much different from my "usual schtick" in that it was serious, but I was passionate about what I was saying. I had lived the experience and therefore gave a superior, more intellectual reflection on the process than I would normally.
2. In addition, the idea that passion is key in achieving goals was a "wondrous thing (or in this case idea) that I showed to the audience. The talk allowed me to not just tell them, but show them as well.
3. I explained my passion for writing and explained it several times over.
4. In addition, I told the story of my progress and how it was accomplished in both times of good ideas and bad (aka awful).
5. I found that this was not necessary for me to do, as it did not fit in with the context of my speech.
6. I expressed my failure, and fluffed the audience's ego up during the talk, not my own.
7. I didn't sell from the stage at all. Clearly, I want too avoid that whole "utter darkness" thing...(However, you know if you want to give me money now, I'm not complaining.)
8. My speech, while serious quite often, was also lighthearted at times, especially in the beginning.
9. I had practiced dozens of times, and so posture and eye contact were not that hard to maintain.
10. My speech was within time requirements I believe.

Overall, I am proud of the work I did, and I have received much positive feedback from fellow peers, most of whom were not prompted or bribed. Kidding. ;)

Judging from the rubric and my own belief, I think I deserve a 27.5-28/30
I hope this explanation provided insight, because I swear I am not just giving myself an A. Thanks! :)

Some More Advice

As many of you may know, I'm not one to sugar coat things, and if I like you, I'll probably make fun of you. A lot. Don't take offense to it, it happens to everyone. However, I've found that being nice to people, especially the ones that you don't know, can get you far. Just something to think about, and remember.
Okay, back to business! I can tell you straight up, The Stephanie Plum series is a must read. Also, YOU WILL NOT SEE MY BOOK DRAFTS. YET. At my TED Talk, I will bring in my "final product" but I beleive that until this book is finito, I will not have the true copy of what this will look like. It is for that reason that I have not published my book online as I had planned. Instead, I will offer you a glimpse of it... Maybe. What I can promise you is... MY TED TALK! Below is a script of what i will say, and pictures of the final cover and story map for my book. Thanks for reading, this has been incredible, and I will continue to update over time. Also, I'll try not to eat as much pie. Oh, and Happy Easter (and a not so happy passover, am I right? Like, WHERE IS THE BREAD? Stupid matzo(h)?)

TED TALK:
First, I will play this video:


My Ted Talk Video from Ally Abramson on Vimeo.
Then... the magic begins! 

We all have high expectations for ourselves. When we were little we all wanted to become a sort of superman, someone who helps others or does incredible things such as become a spy. As we get older, our goals become more realistic, but we also gain ambition and purpose.  

Over the past few weeks, I have found that anyone can accomplish their goals, to win a race, to become a doctor, to pass their finals.

You see, there are three things that must occur in order for someone to successfully accomplish their goals. These three things are as follows:

Number one: The process of achieving the goal must be interesting. If the process is not interesting, it will become tedious and eventually discourage someone from moving forward, pushing themselves toward success.

Number Two: The process can not be too difficult. If it becomes too much for one person to handle, they might become discouraged and give up on their dream.

Number Three: The end result must be fun, enjoyable for the person who has created it. After all, there is no point in reaching a goal if the goal does not benefit the person in some way, (unless it is to help others).

The steps of goal achievement can be daunting, thats for sure. However, I have found that with one single quality, anything is possible. That quality is passion, If you find passion within yourself towards your goals, you can complete them. 

Passion causes self motivation, self motivation gives you drive, it makes you work hard, and it because of this self imposed hard work that the three aspects to finding success are possible in one person.

Recently, I was assigned an amazing project. I was told to think of my goals, find my passions, and follow through with them. This project, the Genius Project gave me the push I needed to discover my passion, and complete my goals. I looked to myself and I found that I had passion for writing. Ever since I was a kid, I have been fascinated with reading. I would read all the time, day and night, and it really influenced my actions and daily life. As I grew up, I wanted to influence other people in the way that other authors had before me, and so I took to writing my own stories, expressing my passion.

Without passion, the process of writing a book could have been daunting, but I was given a push to move forward by my personal love of writing, and incredible influence to move forward. I began to take this project seriously, I made a timeline of what I wanted to do and when, and I followed through. First, I did a little research on writing and editing books to lay a foundation on which to build. Then I created profiles of the main characters to fully understand them. This made it easier to write their reactions to the situations around them. I then figured out the style of the book, and created a cover and made an in depth story outline. Lastly, I wrote and edited the story dozens of times over, getting the opinions of others and rewriting everything. Overall, the multiple step process was hard work, but I found that it was worht it. I was finally realizing my true potential as bota  writer and a person, and my passion for writing became even greater.

I want you to think about something that you have passion for. You don’t have to be incredible at it, in fact, you don’t even really have to be good at it. Now think of a goal that you want to accomplish that deals with that. You might think it is impossible, but it isn’t. As long as you have passion in what you do, everything else will fall into place. 

During the presentation of my TED talk, I will use this Prezi that I have created. 

http://prezi.com/hgcl9yxojvyv/ted-talk-aid/

Now that I have finished with all of the things I was supposed to do, I am looking for volunteers who would like to continue to edit my story. If you would like a copy to edit or read, please email me at beary1021@yahoo.com or thisisforschool11.12@gmail.com (SO CREATIVE RIGHT?) 

Oh, and one more thing! I know a lot of you still have yet to present, so here is a few sites that helped me practice confidence and speech giving. Good luck!

http://www.presentation-pointers.com/showarticle/articleid/92/ For if you are having trouble identifying the audience and what they would like to hear/how to present it to them.

http://www.hightech-women.com/presenting.html Although the title boats confidence inspiring tips, the article is much more and provides tips on improving overall, through speech inflection, voice, and even posture.

The Best Advice

Through the process that I've encountered this week, I learned something. What I learned is something that will stay with me for a long time, hopefully throughout my career as a writer. All that I really know is that by writing it here, maybe I won't forget it. 

First, don't eat an entire pie. Bad idea. Even if it's key lime, and ESPECIALLY if it is chocolate peanut butter. Each are beyond amazing, but come on. You can't do it. 

Secondly I learned that it is up to you to find inspiration. The things you surround yourself with give you drive and effect what you WANT to write about. When writing something, it is important to surround your work with the influence of similar novels and movies, anything along the same page of what you are writing. That way, ybegin to develop ideas that are similar to these influences and you can gain inspiration. In addition, a previous source that I read said that it was okay to borrow ideas from other writers, it's a cycle really. This means that when others write, it is expected that people may have similar ideas who will then look to that book and get inspiration. By looking at other similar works, you can better yourself and your story. By bettering the story you can aid others like previous authors did you, a main goal of mine in this project.  This week I have finished my story and it is being edited. I'm really proud of it so far, and I know that even when this is all over. I will look to continue writing. By the next blog post I will hope to have my story edited so that I may add the finishing touches . If you return to this blog, you will find the final draft of my story in a new page, entitled, well I don't know yet. As I begin to prepare my Ted talk ive looked to my fellow peers for advice and we found several resources to aid in the process of doing a Ted talk. The following: http://teachingwithted.pbworks.com/w/page/23101042/How%20to%20%22Do%22%20a%20TED%20Talk is a comprehensive list of several materials that I have found helpful. However, in the process of creating my Ted  talk I have relied heavily on my own creative will and I am glad to say that it has paid off. My final blog post will include my presentation aid, a script of my talk, and a video of my completing it. Thanks for reading! :) Also, I can't figure out how to fix the font on this... sorry! 

Hey Look At This Cool Person...

MY VLOG IS AMAZING. MY HAIR...NOT SO MUCH from Ally Abramson on Vimeo.

Hey guys look!!

I FEEL LIKE DOC BROWN

IT'S HAPPENING! I HAVE AN IDEA AND I AM ROLLING WITH IT! I STARTED THE STORY DRAFT OH MY GOSH IT'S HAPPENING TO ME! BE HAPPY FOR ME! I MEAN OH, YAY!

HEY LOOKIT!

So as you probably know I've been using the website goodreads for a while now. (If you don't know, it's on the side bar and I talk about it all the time... http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15185462-ally and you should join it.) On that site is a bunch of giveaways that you can enter for books, along with other cool things, but come on, free stuff? Hello, AWESOME. Anyway... I WON! THREE TIMES! And I've gotten all three books in the mail as of today! Woohoo!

Flow... Oh how wonderful this story is not.

I HATE WRITING!!!!!! IT'S SO DIFFICULT! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE ANYMORE. GEEZ, I MEAN SURE I CAN OUTLINE BUT ACTUALLY WRITING? ESPECIALLY A CRIME NOVEL. WHAT THE HELL DID I GET MYSELF INTO WITH THIS?

I mean, hi. As you can see, I'm a bit frustrated with this process... Not for lack of trying FYI. I've been reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich for inspiration, or rather I was at the beginning. Now I'm just reading them because they are amazing... but in all seriousness they help a little. In addition, I've been reading some websites online from bloggers and authors. What I'm trying to say is basically, I'm a desperate fool in terms of writing a book. It's like I have all of these ideas in my head and I can put the vague premise down on paper, but once it comes to actually writing? BOOM! Nothing.
So obviously I took to the internet to help me, because, why not? The internet=everything. Someone out there was bound to have the same problem as me!
So I mean, I guess I have what could be called writer's block. Or some form of that... Maybe? I don't know it's annoying though I can tell you that.

The following sources had much information on writer's block, several ways to get over it and tips on how to write a novel that I found helpful. That is... until I started to write again. So I'm going to keep trying, but for now, I'll let you know when I've got pages for you. Until next time, I'll leave you with this: I hope you never get writer's block. It SUCKS royally.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/567/1/
http://flavorwire.com/343207/13-famous-writers-on-overcoming-writers-block
http://io9.com/5844988/the-10-types-of-writers-block-and-how-to-overcome-them
http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php