Q&A with Ellie
Q&A with Ellie
By Ellie Kim
Finding the answer to life is a bit hard. Nevertheless, Ellie is determined to get a headstart. Tackling four vital questions that many young adults have expressed their concerns over, she utilizes her own life experiences to put a stopper on our fears of conflict, idleness, and newness.
How to Tackle Conflicts in Friendship
As someone who’s had their fair share of friendships gone wrong, drama-filled school years, and more conflict than necessary, believe me when I say there isn’t much you can do. Besides maintaining loyalty, the key to overcoming the pain of a complicated friendship is to realize and remember your priorities with people — think of your acquaintances in a hierarchy of who is most important to you. While making alliances with anyone and everyone can have its perks, it is never ideal to decide you just want to be everyone’s friend. By making this decision, all your friendships will slowly turn shallow, and you will only be able to find this kind of connection. I’m not saying that you need to gossip or anything to become close to a person, but if you maintain friendships that are all on the same level of simplicity, people may start to realize that you aren’t truly loyal to them, that you will choose no side, which can further cause isolation or betrayal. So instead of finding reassurance in your quantity of friends, work towards becoming confident spending time alone or with a small, qualitative group of friends before delving headfirst into friendship after friendship, trying to resolve conflict after conflict.
How to Form Hobbies
In the midst of endless hours of studying, finding new, engaging hobbies can be hard. As someone who barely studied up until my freshman year of high school, I’ve picked up quite a few manageable pastimes that have both bettered my academic life and left room for the time needed to do my other work. If your schedule is slowly clearing up, one fun hobby is reading. It can be both educational and fun, and it is easy to tailor to your liking. You can switch up genres, immersing yourself in other worlds outside of academia, and if all else fails, you can even read graphic novels and cartoons. Alternatively, if you have the focus for it, you could listen to audiobooks while doing a project or going to school. This allows you to keep track of your academics while engaging in extracurricular pastimes.
If you need a more mindless hobby, try drawing, diamond painting, or knitting. Things like these take time, but even just 30 minutes a day will help you form a routine and habit, establishing a relaxing hobby that you enjoy as you destress from academic life.
How to Get Out of a Writing Slump
This is a tough one. We all struggle with burnout and writing slumps, it’s all a part of the process. For me, I tend to either work on a different project, read, or just take a month or two away from my project completely. Taking a break, though scary, allows you to return to your novel with a fresh set of eyes, improving your writing because you have to jog your memory and re-engross yourself into the world you’ve created. Just remember that even writing a sentence or two a day counts, and writing slumps happen to the best of us, it is not a reflection of your ability!
How to Write Creative Nonfiction
Personally, I don’t write non-fiction unless it’s for school. But, and this goes for fiction as well, it’s important to always have a sense of who you’re writing to. Who’s your target audience? What is the message you want to send with your story? Even though you may be writing nonfiction, you still need to tell a story, so make sure you have a clear outline of the story you want to tell, the cast of characters you’ll be using, and the moral of the sentiments you provide.
Another thing to note is that sometimes people are just not inherently nonfiction writers. Oftentimes writers can be better at writing one genre over another, or they can be drawn to a specific genre, making their works outside of that class fall flat. When writing, make sure you know that nonfiction is the route you want to go down, and if you are not necessarily comfortable writing within that category, try to reroute your creation to fit what you are inherently good at.
If you are new to the genre but confident in your pursuit of it—be vulnerable in what you write, connect to the writing on a personal level that only you as the writer understand, and use personal anecdotes. Be brave and try it out! It doesn’t have to be perfect. Everyone has to start somewhere, just give it your best shot!
