Say, Sara- Successful?

Wow, I have definitely neglected my Say, Sara page for a while but it’s great to see that a few of you have sent in great questions! For those who have no idea what Say, Sara is you should click the link on the navigation bar and shoot me an email if you feel so inclined. The question that I  will be answering today has to do with blogging in general”

QUESTION TIME!
When did you first realize that your blog was successful?
(To me, a successful blog is one that has at least 50 followers/members, preferably ones you don't know.)
~Chynna

When I first began writing my blog I was so excited when I was able to say that I had five followers. Gaining followers to a blog is much more difficult than gaining followers on Twitter; therefore, it takes a bit more patience and time to know that what you want to say is being heard.
I considered my blog successful when I received an email from a reader that said something along the lines of how my words had inspired them. This made me feel amazing! Knowing that my words could reach even a single person was a fantastic achievement for me and still remains one of my greatest motivations in my life. That one message, and the many others that followed it, made me realize that I had something that could be considered valuable to some. I love reaching out to younger audiences as well. It makes me feel as though I have been able to help them through some of their bad days when I write something about being bullied or standing up for what’s right.
With all of that being said, I consider my blog an achievement on the basis that if I could make a difference for a single life, then I have done something worthwhile.

Thank you for the question!
Peace, love, and optimism,
Sara

If you would like to ask a personal question, ask for advice, or find out why my favorite food is sushi check out the Say, Sara page and hit me up!

Say, Sara- On Rumors

Say, Sara
How do you stay so strong!? Your so committed to your blog, and your music. I don't even know you, and your like my ideal! I check your blog almost every day. Just to see what you have to say! I hope you continue your blog forever! It makes me cry, and laugh (sometimes at the same time)! :). So, I was wondering, There is this nasty rumor going around my home town about me... I don't even want to show my face anymore! :(. What do I do? How can I stop it!?


A lover of your work,
Melia 

Thank you for saying those things :) It makes me extremely happy to know that someone understands what I'm writing about.
I only consider myself strong sometimes. No one can be strong all the time because at some point in all of our lives something will break us. The only thing that really matters is how we put ourselves back together.
As for my blog and my music, I look to writing (both music and stories that I can never get quite right) as a way to think. When I write, I never know exactly what the outcome might be, I just know that I have to get my thoughts onto paper.

Now, to answer your question.
I wish that I could tell you the exact solution to stopping a hurtful rumor. Sadly, there isn't a real way.
What I can tell you, is that you are stronger than the words of people who don't know what they're talking about. I've been the victim of rumors in the past and it is definitely not a fun place to be in.
People are so quick to assume that whatever they hear from someone else is true. People are also quick to judge you based on these things.

When I was in middle school, people were not very nice to me. I was (and still am) a weird kid.
I got called awful names, and if you might recall from an earlier post, a particularly hateful girl spat on my shoes.
Later, just last year, someone told me that they were only mean to me because they had heard something about me from someone else. Needless to say, that person is not my friend anymore.

So how do you beat the rumor?
Be so much better than the idiots who are spreading it around.
Be strong, be wise, and most of all, be brave.

People who spread rumors do it for attention. They do it to single out someone they might label as weak.
But guess what? You aren't weak.
You have more strength than all of the people who believed in and spread that rumor.
Why? Because you heard those things being said about you, and you kept going.

Never let anyone's idea of you define who you are. Rise above their ignorance and make them regret the things they've said by setting an example of epic coolness. :)

Peace, love, and battle scars,
Sara

The Girl in the Mirror

Originally, this was going to be posted on Elizabeth's blog, but I decided to keep it :) I promise that I'll still give you a post, Cap'n!


When I look in the mirror, I see a pair of tired gray eyes staring back at me.
I see unremarkable features that are splattered here and there with freckles.
The girl in the mirror has bitten lips from times of either deep thinking or anxiety.
Her hair isn’t soft, it is coarse and brown.

The girl in the mirror doesn’t smile back at me; she only stares, as if asking the silent question, “who are you?”
I don’t say anything because I’m not sure how to answer that question.
The simple answer is Sara.
“I am Sara,” I might say to her. But that answer would not suffice.
There are so many other girls who share my name. So many girls named Sara or Sarah who each have different hopes for their futures.
“I am a dreamer,” I might say to her. But that answer is still too vague.
There are plenty more dreamers in this world. It is not a quality that defines an entire person’s spirit.
If I were to answer her with such a simple observation, she would only continue to stare blankly at me.
But I don’t know how to answer her. I don’t know what words to use, because I don’t know what makes me who I am.
Is it a collection of memories, strung together in a complex pattern?
Is it all of the countless dreams of mine, compounded into one?
Is it the trillions of individual thoughts and conversations that I have had over sixteen years that say, “This is me. This is only Sara.”?
I doubt that I will ever know.

And then, I know what my answer would be.

To the girl in the mirror, with the gray eyes and the bitten lips I would say,
“I am both younger and older than I should be. I never understand the injustices of this world and of this society, but I am almost calloused to them. I am as strong as I am weak.
I am as brave as I am a coward. My voice is both loud and silent.”
“My life is a collection of moments. It is cold grass on my bare feet, and breeze from the river on my face. It is the feeling of being alone in a very dark place. It is lanterns filled with candle light and cool blue water. It is the melancholy that accompanies the reappearance of winter.”
“I am a collage of favorite things. I am a blank paper notebook that waits to be filled with words. I am old, yellow paged books and rusty keys. I am lockets and I am pocket watches. I am dog eared pages and crumpled paper fortunes.”
When I look at the girl, the side of her mouth quirks up to reveal laugh lines from many days and night spent with good company.
She looks as if she’s not convinced, that she wants me to go on, but I do not.

I simply smile back at her, and leave the room.

I do not need to explain who I am to her.

She already knows.

Say Sara, Saturday on Monday

First of all, sorry for not having Say, Sara Saturday...I know all of you were sooo excited about that. Ha..I make myself laugh. Anyways, those of you who were gangsta' enough to send me a message had some pretty good questions. And I shall answer two of them now :) Why two? Because that's all I got this past week. 
My mail box is lonely people, it needs your questions and comments. 
So here goes nothing! *cracks knuckles* Let's do this thing!


Question: Zebraunicornasiss writes, "Say, Sara, what's the weirdest thing you've had a random stranger say to you?"


Answer: Oh wow, that's a tough one! People say strange things to me a lot... Does it count if they had a wrong number? Well that's what I'm going with. Some lady called my phone one day, screaming and cussing me out because apparently, I'd been at "the club" the night before and I went home with her boyfriend. 
Because of the fact that I did not wake up with a strange man in my bed, I was about 54% sure she had mistaken me for someone else. If you factor in that I've also never been clubbing and I'm also not a "dirty skank ho" then I'd say I was about 56% sure I was the wrong person. 
That insane woman called me back at least five times after that. I also get random calls from time to time from this one particular lady. She lives in an apartment and for some reason, thinks I'm suppose to come and fix her screwed up appliances. At least she always says sorry when she realizes she has the wrong number. I put her in my contacts, actually. She's filed under, "The Apartment Lady". :)


Question: A writer... writes, Say Sara,

I'm trying to be a writer, and I have the prologue and a third of the first chapter of my book written, and I have the ideas for some parts of the book, but I can't think of filler parts, like how my characters are supposed to meet each other... or team up :( any advice?

Answer: What a great question! I used to run into this problem a lot, but now I have a much easier time fixing it. When you feel like whatever idea you have is good enough to write an entire book about, then you really have something special. If you're going to invest a large portion of time focusing on bringing your characters to life, then the last thing you want is to run into problems. But, of course, problems are always just bound to happen. When I got the idea for the book I'm currently writing, it was weeks before I actually wrote any of it. I just had it stuck in my head until I finally just had to write it! 

The first thing that has to happen, is the story idea has to make sense to you. You can worry about making it make sense to everyone else later. Because you've just started writing your novel, I suggest that you take a step back and really think about where you want it to go. It took me a long time to realize a major point in my book. I had to go back and change a whole lot of things, but that's just how writing is. You are your biggest critic.

When it comes to filler parts (this is just my opinion, please don't hunt me down and kill me if it doesn't work for you) I usually try and think of things that inspire me. If you get frustrated, go out for a walk and just look around. Inspiration strikes in the strangest places... It is really hard sometimes to have characters meet for the first time. 

Because you have ideas for other parts of the books, go ahead and write them! 

The scenes that you feel compelled to write right off the bat are usually some of the best. 

Don't think that you just have to write things down the way they would happen, you can come back to the gaps and ill them in later :) 

I hope that helped! I know I have a rambling problem...

Peace, love, and awesome questions,

                                                     Sara

Answering thoughtful questions

When I get bored I find random things on the Internet. Here's a list of questions that I decided to answer and post :) I really loved everyone of these questions, but there were fifty of them. So I'm only answering 26 of them right now. I'll put the other half on here later.

1. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are? I'd be 19, in college and working on my psychology degree.
2. Which is worse, failing or never trying? Never trying, because if you don't try, how will you ever know how a situation might have turned out?
3. If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do? I think a big part of that is because at certain times in our lives, we've all tried to fit in with the wrong people.
4. When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done? Probably, people talk really big about what they're going to do and then do something completely different.
5. What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world? What an easy question! I would give everyone the gift of understanding others. You can't have peace without understanding why other people do what they do.
6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich? Psychology :) A psychologist is someone that helps other people work through their problems so they can be happy again :)
7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing? This year, I'm doing everything I believe in.
8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently? I wouldn't have a computer for one thing, or video games. So much of our lives are wasted by doing stuff like what I'm doing now. I would live pretty on the edge also and I wouldn't have any kids. If I had kids and knew I would die before I could see them grow up, what would be the point?
9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken? I left my old group of friends who were awful to me and found new ones :)
10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? Doing the right things. There's no right way to do much of anything is there?
11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire.  They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend.  The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do? This is a hard question because situations have happened like this before only I was the victim. No one came to my rescue did they? Which is why I would have to stand up for her.
12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? Firstly, I don't think that a newborn would actually remember the advice to begin with, but assuming they would, I would tell them to live without limits and chase their dreams. That in itself is pretty much what everyone should do :)
13. Would you break the law to save a loved one? Depends on what they did. If they robbed a house and murdered someone for no reason, then no. If I believed that they were falsely accused then probably.
14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity? Best question so far! I think that you have to be somewhat insane if you're creative anyway :) I usually see creativity now when I think something strange, but a few years ago, I thought I was losing it.
15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people? Considering I have OCD and Anxiety, I do a few things a little differently, but all of that aside I'd say that I tend to get lost in deep thoughts more than most people. I question a lot of things.
16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy? Because we're all different people! When I get excited over seeing a shooting star or a new notebook, I don't expect everyone to have the same amount of enthusiasm.
17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do?  What's holding you back? Finishing a novel. That is my one biggest dream that still hasn't been completed. I'm my own worst enemy in that case. I keep telling myself that what I'm writing isn't up to other people's standards.
18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of? Figuratively speaking, yes. I'm holding onto quite a few things that I should let go of.
19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why? Another great question! Australia :) Because it's another big dream I have and because I've always wanted to live there. My friends think I'm crazy for this (besides Dylan because he understands the way I think the best haha) but I think that it's crazy to stay in one place forever.
20. Do you push the elevator button more than once?  Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster? Nope, I press it once then quickly hit the "close doors" button, if there's no one else in the elevator, I do a dance :)
21. Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton? Worried genius, because simpletons don't think about the same sorts of things. I don't think I could ever let go of my crazy imagination haha
22. Why are you, you? That, is a tough one. Why are any of us the way we are? I think that our personalities are shaped by both the events and people that we meet early on in our lives.
23. Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? Not as much as I should be.
24. Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you? Losing touch with a friend who lives close by. It's happened to me before, and I hope it never happens again. You have to dwell on your mistakes more than you'd like because you're faced with it every single day.
25. What are you most grateful for? My parents without a doubt. They have raised both my brother and I to be pretty good kids, if I do say so myself :) We're the farthest thing from spoiled and don't expect anything to be handed to us. I'm closer to my mom than my dad, but I think that's because we're so much alike. Since we have similar personalities, we fight more than I'd like, but it never lasts very long and we always say we're sorry.

That's it for part one of the deep and thoughtful questions! :) I'm making a new page to store these sorts of things so that you don't have to scroll through such long posts!

~Sara