Try to find some that would come up to your knee, so that when you wear them as puppets it doesn't look as if half the puppet is your arm. Stay away from ones that have stains or holes. Choose colors that match your character's personality. Stripy socks make the character seem bright and happy, while plain black makes them look mysterious or criminal. If your sock is taking on an animal persona, use the color of the sock as the color of their body. When you're wearing the puppet, poke some fabric down into the hollow between your thumb and index finger. This will make a mouth. Also hold your wrist perpendicular to your arm, so that the audience can tell where the head ends and the body begins. This is the quickest way to make a sock puppet. If you're looking to get a little more creative, take a gander at wikiHow's Make a Sock Puppet for a few more intricate varieties. You can find a variety of types of eyes at your local arts and crafts store. Choose big 'googly' ones that will make your characters look slightly unreal. Be sure that they suit the character as well. Attach each one with a dab of glue. Pom pom eyes are also a cute addition. They add a bit more shape to the normal sock silhouette. They're also easier to rest glasses on! A sock puppet can be the bare minimum or it can be dressed to the nines. Add a felt tongue, a clump of string for hair, a ribbon, a necktie, or whatever your sock character might wear.

Summary: Choose the sock. Put the sock over your hand and arm. Add the eyes. Add any additional features.


Emotions are reactions; they have causes.  You'll only be describing emotions in a vacuum if the feeling is due to some hormonal imbalance or repressed memory. Go through the details of the situation. What part of it is your character reacting to? What parts are they even aware of?  In these cases, observable phenomena such as pacing or snapping at innocuous comments can convey the mindset and build to an emotion just fine. Use these as jumping off points for grander displays – or you can even let them speak for themselves. Stick to visual or tactile imagery. It's not what the situation is presenting, it's what the character notices. Only minute details should be laid out if the character is, for some reason, hyper-aware. If you have felt the emotion you're trying to describe, this is the best raw material.  Where did it come from? Think of what made you feel the emotion. As you felt it, you weren't thinking, "Oh, I'm sad." You were thinking, "What am I going to do with myself?" You caught yourself feeling no urge to partake in your environment. You didn't notice your trembling hand; instead, you felt so unsure you couldn't stop yourself from shaking. This raw experience will give you details imagination never could.  If it was the cumulative effect of a particular situation, you may want to describe that situation as you subjectively experienced it, either as practice, to pin down what led to the feeling, or as an end in itself. If it was a single moment or a single item that struck you, use details from that image to recreate the feeling.  If you haven't felt the emotion, try to approximate it from related feelings or less intense instances of that emotion. Emotions are abstract concepts that different people find and experience different ways. While one person might deliver a Shakespearean sonnet to convey their personal torture, another might say, "I don't want to talk about it" through gritted teeth and an averted gaze. Really, the two could be saying the exact same thing. So, in some situations, you need not describe the emotion at all. You can describe the scene, another character's face, or the next thoughts, which may do the "emotion describing" for you. A sentence like "The world faded away, drained of all color but him" exactly states how the character feels without explicitly saying it. In your work, you should be painting your audience a picture. They should be able to emerge from your words with an image burned onto the backs of their eyelids. It's not enough to tell them what's going on – you've got to show them. Let's say you're talking about the perils of war. You wouldn't give dates and statistics and talk about the strategy each side is employing. You mention the burnt socks littering the street, the heads of dolls piling up on the curb, and the stream of screams getting extinguished day by day. This is both an image and a visceral feeling your reader will emerge with. This article will riddle you with insistence that you shouldn't state an emotion explicitly, but there are shades of grey.  Only novel and pertinent information should be communicated in this way, but a rare, simple statement can be much better suited to some descriptions than a whole paragraph.  Don't be afraid to say less sometimes. A character having a dawning realization, thinking to themselves, "I am sad." can be a very moving thing. That moment of emotional awareness could strike them and it could be surmised in those three words. Some characters may experience emotion in soliloquies, some in three short words, and some not at all. No way is wrong.

Summary: Define the situation. Use your own personal experience. Know how your character would and wouldn't respond. Show, don't tell. Don't shy away from simplicity.


You can get pre-mixed concrete at home centers, lumberyards, and at hardware stores. Once you get the concrete, read the directions on the back of the bag so that you know how much water you need to mix with the concrete dust.  An 80 lb (36.28 kg) bag of concrete will fill up .6 cubic feet of space.  You may want to rent a small powered mixer. Place the bag of concrete into a wheelbarrow and use a hoe or a shovel to cut the bag in half. Lift off both sides of the bag and empty out the contents into the wheelbarrow. Instead of a wheelbarrow, you could use a concrete tray. Fill up a bucket with the amount of water that you need according to the instructions on the back of the bag. Slowly pour the water into the mix. Use a hoe, shovel, or powered mixer to mix the concrete mix with the water until it’s the consistency of peanut butter. Work out any lumps until the concrete is as smooth as possible. Once you’re done mixing the concrete together, it’s important that you hose off anything that has concrete paste on it. It will be harder to remove the concrete once it dries.

Summary: Purchase a bag of pre-mixed concrete. Empty the bag of concrete in a wheelbarrow. Slowly add water to the concrete mix. Mix the concrete together. Clean off your mixing tools.


It can feel a little awkward rejecting someone online; however, it is better to be clear about your feelings, rather than to ghost them and leave them confused. Simply write a short message thanking them for their time, explain that you’re not interested, and wish them the best. For example, “Hi Hannah, thanks for your interest; however, I don’t see us having a romantic relationship in the future. You seem really kind and I wish you all the best!”. The best option is always to be honest. However, if you feel uncomfortable, use a polite excuse to quickly end the conversation. Keep it brief and then avoid replying to any further responses. For example, “Thanks for chatting, but I have recently met someone else” or “I’m taking a break from social media at the moment, as I have taken on extra hours at my job.” If the person continues to message you or you feel nervous that you might contact them during a weak moment, don’t feel shy to delete them. This is the most effective way to ensure that you don’t continue to talk to them. To delete someone on Tinder, go to the person’s profile, click on the wheel in the top right corner, and then select “unmatch.”
Summary: Write a short, direct, and kind response to end contact. Make up an excuse if the person keeps responding to you. Delete the person from your online platform.