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...

There are always those little bit of moments that reminded us that life is sweet. Like a couple of days ago, colleague of mine asked about some Sentinel stuff, and someone responded swiftly because he just went through the exact same thing. When I teased him about it, since he ended up not going with the client he's checking the Sentinel with, he said, "This is why I believe everything in life happens for a reason." It made me stopped, and smile, and felt that little reminder that yeah life mysteriously works that way.  Yesterday, I watched a movie called All The Bright Places, starred Elle Fanning. I watched her YT video on Variety channel -Actor on Actor- with Jenna Ortega and I was impressed by how she carries herself throughout the talk, so young yet so mature. Jenna Ortega also did the same, with more vulnerable emotions displayed and I can totally feel her. But "Wednesday" is already my favorite Netflix series, so I've seen Jenna. But Elle Fanning? Hav...

I missed traveling bad. It's been 1.5 years without traveling and sightseeing to new places I've never been to. My furthest spot was Bandung and even that brought so many nostalgic feelings, like when I attended work-related meetings, or when my team had a short getaway trip, or my past dating venues. Sigh. I wish this blasted pandemic get over soon, and everyone treat Covid19 as meh as any other influenza variants. Just rest in bed, drink Vitamin C, pop some pills and you'll be alright. No ICU, no breathing trouble, no damaging internal organs. I mean, who knew right? Who knew we can go to Banks or supermarket wearing any type of masks and not get arrested or even eyed suspiciously.  I have some progress over life, well, not sure if I can really call it a progress. I have been dating my SO for quite a while, had some turbulences, undergoing some 'oh-i-didn't-know-that' moments, doing that marry-or-not-to-marry type of dance, had some fights, major apologies and...

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...