One writer's block

There's this YouTube video I recently saw about a science fiction writing class delivered by a lecturer at BYU. He spoke about a lot of things, about components of a story, promises, progress, payouts, and plots. From many things he said, one line stuck with me. How long do you think an editor can recognize a writing result, whether from a seasoned writer or a new writer? The answer is almost always right away. A reader may be more forgiving because they may tend to keep reading even though it sucks, but an editor usually is not.  Like many things in life, when you want to be good at something, small progress done consistently is better than big chunks of work intermittently or even ad hoc. Hence, I would like to revisit once again my younger self's dream job, which is to be a writer, which is how this post came to life. It's been years since I last wrote on this blog. Life has taken its toll on me. Writing is no longer an outlet for me to escape from daily mundane work, n...

My state of mind these days is amazingly random and volatile. I often overthink about things I usually never think about. I was bothered by things that normally wouldn't bother me at all. I snapped out often, and thanks to the life coach training I took years ago, I am very much aware of the different emotions passing through my mind, even at present times. I can feel my blood is rushing, my heart is beating faster and the cold dark vengeance is running through my vein. Whenever I feel a bit stressed out, I am acutely aware of how I breathe. I can feel the way I inhale and exhale, and sometimes the sound of it soothes me. I am also more aware of how my stress triggered my gout, or how it made my head ache. I can feel the panic attack whenever it started to rise, and how I just breathe and think of something else to take my mind out of it. I got upset over immaterial topic and not even a valid source of concern. Once I had doubts about my leadership skill and whether I can lea...

A couple of months ago (seemed seriously like YEARS ago), I was involved in an engagement, nope, not the one prior to any wedding ( I wishhhh! ), but a project engagement. The time period was typically short, one month and extended into another month. But hell if that was the first time (in a really long time) I felt like jumping out of my 35th floor office cubicle.. not to the ground, mind you, but rather jumping into an embrace of a gentleman ( halahhh ). Yeah, anyway, in this so called time-period of the project, semangat nasionalisme gw sangat membara dan I ended up staying at office real late, mostly at 11 PM, but it is not rare that I went home nearing dawn ( okeh, lebay ). It's all up to my wallet situation, really. When me having no shit, I insisted to go home at 11 PM since it was the last train to catch up. Standard conversation with the cab driver Supir: Malem, Mba. Mau dianter ke mana? Gw: Malem, Pak. Ke stasiun Sudirman ya. Supir: Loh? Malem-malem gini masih ada...

Happy New Year, kawan! Masih dalam semangat blogging dalam bahasa Nusantara, saya masih akan mengusung posting kali ini bertema drama dan pertemanan *halah* dengan mayoritas menggunakan Endonesia. Kapan itu yah di social media saya pernah ngomong kalo, " I need drama in my life " saking basi dan plain -nya hidup saya kala itu (kek kali ini ngga ajah). Tapi sejujurnya, saya tidak suka drama. Sebisa mungkin saya menghindar jauh-jauh dan mengucap kata, "pahit, pahit" kalo sedang ada drama di sekitaran saya. Mengapa? Karena kapasitas memori saya terbatas. Itu aja sih. Hahahaha. Percayalah kawan, saya adalah orang terbaik dalam menyimpan rahasia (mostly) soalnya pasti langsung lupa besoknya. Kekekekekekeke. Drama paling menyenangkan yang saya sukai adalah yang ngga drama-drama amat. Misalnya, kemarin waktu jalan-jalan ke Makassar dan Liukang, tiba-tiba saya mengidam ingin makan pisang goreng. Ih, pas sampai di pulau, beneran looohhhhh disediain sama yang punya pen...

The big question of letting go bugged my mind around these last couple of months. Some things.. are they worth to keep, or should I let them go. Think I'm pretty good of letting things go, but when inputs and comments started to coming in, I'd have to reconsider my decision.. hence the state of dilemma I've been dwelling in. Uhm, so.. not so much on progress.. but last week someone told me something, things that I would usually shrug off my shoulder, things like, "Well, you should try praying, perhaps miracle would happen.." Aww, very nice of you to say, and to think that we hardly know each other.. So yay.. big decision.. big decision.. to just f*ckin do it or to put it on hold. I'm big at making decision, which of course that's just one pretty fat lie. To tell or not to tell, that's also one big decision to come up with. It's not that I won't tell, but more like when will be the right time to deliver the lovely message. Now or the upcom...

On my last visit to Jogja (seriously this city has something captivating), I happened to visit Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat aaaand Kraton Surakarta in one-day-trip to Solo. Both Kraton is interesting, but Jogja's has something more delicate about it. I dunno, maybe it's just me. Or maybe because by the time I visited Jogja, the city was kind of in hype for the royal wedding, hence the increasing number of activities inside Kraton. The tour guide when I visited Kraton Surakarta was paying more attention to 'soul-searching-inspiration-seeker-meditation' bunch of guys so he neglected my seemingly college kids group. I know, we're less interesting. So at every stop, they sat down and meditated. Seriously. No kidding. Geez. At first, it was interesting, but soon after that I found it so freakin boring waiting for 'em so we browsed the Kraton by ourselves, that's why we missed most of the story-telling from the guide. And maybe that's why I think the...

... that there are things that were not supposed to be said or done, but yet there are lots of things that were not supposed to be regretted. I always tried not to left my wish list things unattended, err.. I mean.. not accomplished. But these days, I kept forgetting my long-lost-wishes and thrown back to doing mundane things every day every week every friggin year. So here I am, trying to fulfill one of the biggest wish of my life, becoming a writer. ...Eh, ternyata susah ya, bok! Ya menurut lo? Hahaha, okay I'm not a strong-willed person apparently, but the idea kept bugging me over the years. And by the way I do know there are even people that are far more talented that I am, even within my friendship circles. But that's okay, I learned a lot from 'em. And by learning I mean copying their styles x) Speaking of which, this is actually why I wrote this post in the first place. I found glimpses of words in my Ipod, written a couple of months back, and I never.. NE...

1. Spoiler 2. Got bitten by mosquito at my feet palm 3. The phrase "We need to talk.." and "Whatever.." 4. Intrusive, annoying and highly egoistical cats 5. Goodbyes 6. Being used and/or being taken for granted 7. Unpacking

Hurrah for taking a sick leave for two days. Now I know how much it hurts when your body suffers from lack of water. Thank you very much -__-" These last couple of days I was basically, well, stranded in bed, although not as romantic as it sounds. Can't sleep well, can't sit well, always had this tendency to throw everything up, and pretty much in dilemma. To eat or not to eat. Funny thing is, I managed to distract my mind from my pain and suffering *halah* by doing my office work. Yeah, go figure! I stayed up late trying to finish the goddamn interest accrue calculation that REALLY REALLY starting to get on my nerves. I mean, I didn't realize I was actually /that/ stupid not to know how to calculate interest accrue. Dude, by the time I finished this assignment, I'm so not gonna work in a bank. Ew. Ew. Ew. But then, I grew obsessed with this string of numbers, this matrix of formula, this magnificent data that is trying to tell me something. Kekekekeke. I suddenly ...

Okay, the title is just some catchy phrase I caught from Gossip Girl episode. Epic, eh? Recently I experience mid-life crisis, ha-ha, as in fut-the-wuck am I doin here? This is so boring and exhausting and no longer exciting as I thought it would be.. hence the all traveling plans I made.. for the sake of making some refreshment out of my life. Like a candy box. But then, I face another dilemma. Here comes new engagement, considerably different from my old assignment, and it grab my interest right away. I work with different people, I work with self-motivating coach-wannabe, I work within alien culture (which is totally clashing with my day-to-day working habit) and yes I discover new excitement. Alas, I grew this signature-of-stress-disease, pimples, oh-nooo.. that is one ultimate sign that I have been stressed out too much. So I self-reflected (again) and I got confused. Do I wanna do this or not? Please wucking made up your mind, girl! Making small talks with friends always ended up...

Last week I got a side project, which is to make an offering to someone's spiritual teacher. This offering basically sum up all the good deeds she did during the last couple of years. Kinda cool, huh? One of the considerably good deed she did was this one particular orphanage which she maintained and cared for along with her friends. And I was one of those people that used to visit that orphanage. Those were incredible moments. Making this side project reminded me again of that orphanage. The lil devils and annoying brat, cutie children and really-really adorable one. Aaah, I missed them. The location of that orphanage is amazingly far far away in la la land. So it's been a privilege visiting them with my office mates, actually. Which I don't get to do very often nowadays, given the distance. Anywaaaay... those kids in the orphanage, they tend to consider strangers as someone they should reaaally not to pay attention to. Not to say that they're wrong, since people do co...

I usually never give a crap about where the food I ate came from. I largely enjoy meat, especially beef. Yes, whenever possible, I chose beef rather than chicken. And not to mention, I rarely eat vegetables. So I’m a big ‘fat’ carnivore, I guess. Then, we might say, yesterday’s dining experience was a bit new to me, since I had a discussion with my friends about the reason they chose the vegan lifestyle. As it turns out, the world has changed so much that the need to consume the meat endangers whole population. At first, me and my simple-minded brain found it ironic regarding the restaurant’s slogan (which is, Be Veg, Go Green and Save the Planet). How could you go green if all you eat was greenie thing? Hmm, okay, that was seriously ignorance of me. It was never about consuming the ‘tree’ but more like stopping the growth of livestock. This centuries, people’s demand of a livestock has increased so much, the livestock started to overgrown the demand itself, which made me wonder about ...

Granted, it’s still this year , but I felt very much like the year has passed. So many things happened in this lovely year, and yeah, given that I don’t have that much of a good memory, something might’ve slipped away from my mind. I got my very own passport this year. After much struggling in the immigration office *duh* finally I could get hands upon it. So yay! I travelled abroad for the first time. And Bangkok how I miss thou. Swear to God I’m gonna visit that place one more time. Phuket? Not so much. I had lots and lotsa fun with my office mates these days, I counted those as blessings. I travelled to Sulawesi for the first time in my life. And yeaaah, I miss those people, the lovely lake, the crazy demonstration, the cute guys, inspiring friends, and so on and so forth. The project? Not so much. At last I stepped my foot on Jogja, the city of antics, and met up with one of my oldies friend. A blast from the past indeed. I got my own laptop. THAT is surely a blessing. Tha...

Hihihihi, finally I made it, I actually watched musical show here in my home town, not in some strange countries with foreign cultures. Onrop Musikal! is a performance mainly intended to insult criticize our current government and mainly the whole gang of community. It’s about defining what exactly the real important norm is, not some pre-defined morale in some sort of ridiculous so-called Law. It’s about tolerance, and my personal fave quote, “Di pulau kami ada norma yang berlaku. Namanya toleransi. Di pulau kami semua orang punya agama, hanya saja tidak ada yang memaksakan agamanya masing-masing.” Or something like that. The show was pretty much entertaining, and despite the nonstrategic placement of viewers bench (hello, I think they could do better than that 45 degrees of viewing experience, say enlarge the theater perhaps?) I could see the choreography and the singing tune is also clear. The jokes is splendid, given that you’re up to-date with the news, that is. I couldn’t help bu...

Okay, that was one awesome experience! It started with tweet-talks, you know, the kind with no-action-tweet-only conversation? HAHAHAHAHAHA, so I’m pretty impressed with the result. It gathers six different people, from different working hours and different working places and from different crowd, with only one tiny history-relationship.. college mate. Persiapan traveling paling parah seumur hidup, secara yaa even pas H-1 aja masih ngga jelas siapa jemput siapa di mana naik apa. JRENG JRENG! Paling banter yang udah dibeli adalah tiket bus Jakarta – Lampung seharga IDR 150.000 untuk periode embarkasi *halah* jam 9 malem. Juragan Arab di Lampung sana udah wanti-wanti, kalo jam 9 malem berangkat dari Jakarta, paling jam 5 pagi dah nyampe Lampung, so there’s plenty of time to spend to have (early) breakfast and berangkat ke teluk Kiluan. Alas, the damn bus got lost in translation (._.) Instead of following the normal route as usual, he decided to sharpen his skill in driving through extrem...

Okay, I’ll admit, ever since I cut my hair, I’m obsessed with shorty hairstyle. So damn light, so damn practical, and so much cheaper.   Basically I only copied this particular kdrama character’s hairstyle, showed it to various hairdresser in my town, but as it turned out, they gave me so many MAJOR DIFFERENT results -_- Bah, so much for a guidance picture.     See? Is it really too much to ask to give me such simple haircut?   Anyway, lately I’m enjoying the initiative and creativity of those hairdressers when they giving me the cut. I mean, I waited patiently while looking at my face blurry in the mirror (due to the inexistence of my glasses during the cut) and wondered briefly about how will I look like after this session.   It was fun. They are hair, anyway, so if I did get the wrong style, they’ll eventually grow back. Thus, no need to freak self and others by the end of the cutting session.   One of my fave short hairstyle belon...

Okay, this is the very first time I’m using Windows Live Writer 2011, sooo.. so far it's a bit weird coz it downloads my blog template, and I’m not used to it.. but yeah.. not so bad… considering that you no longer need to login into browser anymore. Anyway, this couple of weeks (‘kay, let’s face it, only the last two weeks) I’ve been visiting Sulawesi, one stranger island that I’ve never set my foot upon. And it’s in Sorowako, anyone ever heard of it? Mixed feelings when I heard that I actually gonna go there, you know, weird thoughts flying around inside my head.. wild tribe, cannibal ethnicity, creepy bugs, dense rain forest, no asphalt road.. scary (and super hyperbolic) thoughts. Since apparently it’s not feasible to fly straight from Jakarta to Sorowako, I need to take another flight using Fokker 550 airplane which is a small airplane that could carry only 26 people in it. Ihiy! Cool, huh? First time arrived in Makassar (used to be called Ujung Pandang AND I just found ...

Finally, my first stamp on passport, and it's not even for overseas study, so yay for me! Day 1 - Silom + Patpong Arriving in Suvarnabhumi in one piece, extremely awed with the interior, and headed up to the 4th floor right away. Folks in the internet said to get easy cab with no additional charge fee, go to the departure gate and grab a taxi from there. So I did. And it worked. It cost me only 320 Baht to reach the guest house in Silom road. All you need to do is learn the useful Thai phrases. Like "Sawatdee khaa/khab - Hello", "Khorb Khun khaa/khab - Thank you" and numbers. Hehehe. The Sun Flower was a tremendous lil guest house and it's very clean. I strongly recommend that place for you who wanna stay in cozy yet strategic location. First time I saw that place, it's like lotus blooming out from a dark and mysterious pond. Very impressive. In the evening, a leisure walk through Silom - Patpong road is a must. There's so many souvenir shops there,...

Recently, I took lots and lotsa cabs for a home ride. In result, can't argue that sometimes you indeed would prefer one cab than the other, and in my case, it would be Trans Cab. Okay, I admit, I used to be in love with Taxi Putra cause.. I dunno.. they sorta suited my mood, not too expensive, not too color-bright and it's pretty secure. Blue Bird. Hmm, next. Express taxi, standard choice, but ever since they promoted (?) new line of car, that new Limo or sumtin, (somehow) I always end up in the old version one. I had trouble distinguishing the old and the new version of Taxi Express /plus/ I got this bad sighting (and hearing actually, but that's totally unrelated) /and/ there are only three types of car for me (Kijang, Sedan, Kotak).. so yeah.. Express is not really my favorite. Trans cab, in the other hand, is this cute orange taxi, with its cable TV and stuff, and (my personal favorite) that lil screen showing your name on it (only when you order one, though). So cute...

I think I should have known that I always fond of cards, birthday cards, Christmas cards, anniversary cards, bereavement cards, get-well-soon cards, baby cards, encouragement cards, thank you cards, any cards. I like them since I was such a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 just then, moment where I changed my school and moved away to a foreign place where I knew no one and the only friend I got was just the one in my class. So they gave me cards, and I gave them mine, promised each other that we will write as often as possible, let the others know what's going on in one's life. So I began to collect cards, and letters, and like any other young girls at that time, I started to /hunt/ pretty envelopes and letter kits. I adored those little stickers that you could put in your letter to emphasize your words, and I loved to beautify every package I sent to my friends. I think that was when I realized my interest in art. Hahaha, at such a young age. Unfortunately, most of the collection sin...