Reflecting on my beloved country, the Philippines... Part 2

It hurts to watch the news.

It hurts that I want to pluck my eye balls and plug my ears.

Truth hurts, they say.

The biggest question is.... who is telling the truth?

Reflecting on my beloved country, the Philippines...

Did our Filipino ancestors die in vain?

They fought a bloody war against the Spaniards, the Americans and the Japanese for Independence. 

They fought hard. They fought for independence. 

Lives were lost. Lives were defended. Lives were betrayed.

Is this how we repay the blood they shed?

I ran out of buffer blogs

Lol.

What am even doing?

(Breaking the routine. Making fun of myself)

How to kill whatever activity you're doing.

I'm pumped. Super, duper, pumped. 

The next day, I proclaim to the world how happy I am, how my life has amazingly changed after doing what I'm doing.

Sounds good, right?

There's nothing bad about sharing what makes you happy, right?

I thought so too....until I noticed this pattern.

After sharing my joy, my interest in the activity begins to fade. 

THEN MY INTEREST IN THE ACTIVITY FADES INTO OBLIVION. AND I END UP ABANDONING IT.

No, I'm not kidding!

I've started to feel it with my fanfics, you know, the Final Fantasy 7 story I'm writing. There's this force that suddenly appeared inside me. You must write it perfectly. Write it perfectly. Damn it, write it perfectly! 

Sometimes, the pressure can be so overwhelming!

Sigh. Have you experienced this as well?

You can't build Rome in a day

My head hurts.

I just realized it. You can't build Rome in a day.
If you do, you will burn out. You will get tired. You will get irritated.
I'm working on the second chapter of "The Flower from Midgar", and it is not an easy task.

I'm churning what to include, what to exclude. I want to work on the next chapter, but my heads tells me it has enough.

It tells me to pay attention to other matters.

Work. Other hobbies. Tidying. A life other than writing. Relaxation. Fun.

You can't build Rome in a day.

Where can I find my inspiration?

Everything is a material.

Pain. Happiness. Sadness. Grief. Despair.

When I'm stuck in a rut and my creative well has dried out, I take time to restock it.

I purposely distract myself and indulge in sensory activities.

Everything is a material.

To process my experiences into materials, I transform it with the power of art.

Pain becomes a story.

Happiness becomes a comic.

Sadness becomes a painting.

Grief becames a visual art.

Despair becomes a poetry.

Everything is a material.

It doesn't hurt to appreciate a Review

Seeking people's opinion on your work is an act of hierarchy.

That's what I learned from Steven Pressfield.

To act in a hierarichal fashion is to like commit an artist suicide.

Pressfield advises to act territorially.

In my case, to act teritorially is to create.

You know... write the story you always wanted to read.

After finishing "Your Love, My Undoing" or YLMU, I dedicated my mental faculties on developing "Magdalen from Midgar", or MFM.

MFM's story has been around my head for a while, when I decided to prototype it as a fanfiction. Nothing bad right?

With MFM, I'm inching out from my comfort zone: I'm taking my time to learn how to write using the 5 senses. I'm reading books, tutorials and tips how to improve my creative writing skills.

I'm acting teritorially.

After a tiring day at work, I was about to pack my laptop into its bag when I briefly checked my inbox.

"Oh, I have a review."

I read it, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Wow, had me on the edge of my seat. Very compelling and well-written. Just hope you can carry that same energy for other chapters.

I'm happy someone cared to leave YLMU a review. I know how much effort I poured for the 1st chapter. I doubt the succeeding 5 chapters met the same intensity.

Nevertheless, I'm happy how that story turned out to be.....even if it's filled with grammar mistakes and syntax errors :D

I lost my focus. Now what?

Work can be monotonous. 

To escape its deathly grip, I took a peek at my Facebook account. Yes, I still have and use my FB from time to time, despite my disdain for it. 

Someone asked me whether I experience moments when I want to stop and start everything from scratch.

My answer is simple. Yes. A big fat yes. 

One day, I find myself happily writing, wanting the experience to last forever. Sadly, it doesn't. The moment I wake up a few days later, I find myself moody and a changed person.

It's the kind of experience that insidiously creeps and catches you off guard. 

I, however, accept that this is part of the rhythm of life.

Life has a series of ups and downs. 

Have you seen the performance of the Philippine Stock Market?

It's depressing to see a correction, and exhilarating to see it climb!

A lack of focus, is like that ugly correction in the stock exchange. 

It’s depressing. It’s frustrating.

It makes me want to forget my dream of a great physique and binge on a creamy, delicious and mouth-watering chocolate ice cream. It makes me want to forget, and pray that everything will be alright.

The situation will get better, I tell myself.

Just… live.

Depending on your perspective, to live is either a blessing or a curse.

Once our mother has expelled us from their womb, we’re expected to course through life with an indefinite number of years. Indefinite, because we have no idea how our life, or how the candle of life will run out.

Nothing is permanent, and so is focus. 

Likewise, it’s good to know that this moment of sadness… this lack of clarity, is also not permanent.

The flow and ebb of the waves by the shore reminds me that this is part of life, and that my worrying is also normal.

The best next thing I can do is to try to calm myself down, and make a decision when my irrationality doesn't cloud my mind. 

My best therapy is writing. It is my territory. 

One of the lessons I learned in life is to identify what’s territorial act--- something you will do even if you're the last person on Earth. 

Writing is the act to pause, think and reflect.... to cry out my fears and pain. To convey what I feel is wrong.

I expect no reply. An inanimate object cannot tell you what must be done, but this notebook can tell you what’s occupying your head, and with its infinite silence, helps you to probe; think deeper, to search for solution, to listen.

The turbulence seas of life is a fact. Nothing stays or lasts forever.

My only saving grace is to cope with life.  

Writers block

Oh no.

Just the other day, I was happily praising how the words flowed through my mind as I write a story.

Today's a different case.

It's a struggle compounded by "I need to write this perfectly".

Oh, what do I do with you.... writer's block

Hey, I can actually write!

The series that prompted me to start writing fanfictions wad Harvest Moon: Back to Nature.

I was 8 years old back then, and I was really embarrassed when my teacher read it.

How could I be not? It was a horror story where the Town pastor, Carter, had a horde of zombies buried underneath the catacombs and graves of his church.

It only shows that at a young age, I was into macabre and gothic fiction.

My passion fo fanfics rekindled when I was 12. I discovered a bunch of Wild Arms 2 fanfictions which I absolutely loved. The sad thing is that I can no longer find the fics online :(

That prompted me to pen my own stories. Actually, I've been penning stories as early as I can remember. I've dabbled in comics, and that's a marriage between visual art and story writing.

The first time I penned an original story was a vampire romance. I was 14 and I wrote it on a pink precious moments notebook.

That story and notebook are eternally burned in my mind because my ex-bestfriend, Valerie, managed to discover and read it. To my immense horror, she actually asked me what was going to happen next!

Those were good times.

There were stories I penned with my mon's Windows 95 PC, and I printed a bunch of them. Once, I accidentally discovered one in a heap of papers. I just read it and I was blown away. Why didn't I finish it?

I have a handful of stories scattered around the house, and I am really suprised when I see one again.

Hey, I can actually write!

Last Februrary, I wrote a story called Your Eyes on Me, and I reread the early chapters I wrote.

Hey, I can actually write! 

I'm waiting for another year before I read my second fic again... but hey, I'm curious to what my reaction will be.

Now what?

...I ran out of ideas to write for this daily blog.

Looking back at my previous posts, I've written a bunch of topics on creatimg, on writing, and on mundane things that bother me.

Seeing them made me realize, "oh! Look at the shallow things I'm worrying about! Am I really spending my time, worrying?"

Okay. Maybe "shallow", is inappropriate.

The sad thing about writing fanfiction

Writing fanfics has given me this feeling I've never felt in a long time.
I'm suddenly transported to my earlier years, the period where I sincerely believed that I could plan something and make it happen.

Yet I'm guilty because another voice inside me tells me, "Why are you wasting your time and sweat to create stories based on another company-owned people? You could actually create your own original, sell it online, and make profit!"

Whatever satisfaction I feel vanishes, and I fall back into a slump.

I wonder how many fan fiction writers, or writers even, feel the same way as I'm feeling right now?

Writing is easy

I used to fear the blank canvas. I still do. 

Flashback to my elementary days, I dreaded writing for my Formal Theme Book. 

I had no idea how to write. 

"Get the core. write in 5 paragraphs." my teachers would instruct me. 

Perhaps it was the rigidity that frightened me. Ha, the irony! (because I can be rather rigid with rules)

I had no idea how to write. But I wrote. I was pressured to write. I had to write. 

or else, I would fail. 

I had bad experiences with writing. I would get lazy and ask my mom to write it... only to realize my mom, too, wasn't good with her grammar. I asked my friend to read it and she told her how awful the grammar and syntax was (sorry mom!). 

But that didn't stop me from writing. I liked to write stories. Even if people couldn't relate to them or the characters I created. 

Then in 2010, in the midst of a heartbreak, I discovered Julia Cameron's Morning Pages. 

I followed what she preached. I found myself writing 3 pages everyday. It was a grueling routine. I would wake up at 5 AM and write for 3 pages. 

2010-2012 were years dedicated to heartbreak, Acne, Board Exam, and my webcomic dreams. 

I was never consistent in this practice. I'd forget about it. Really. 

A few days later, I would find myself really cranky and I would turn to my notebook and pen to write. The effect was therapeutic, and I have not looked back since then. 

Last year, I discovered James Altucher and I tried his "10 ideas a day". I experimented and was consistent in doing to for 7 months. By the 8-10 month, I became inconsistent. The experience taught me something valuable. 

It's easy to generate ideas. The only question is, Is it Good or Bad?

The practice also taught me how to be comfortable with bad ideas.

Now, wow did this practice affect my writing ability?

I ignored the proper punctuation marks I learned in my formal school years. 

I chose to write in my voice. If my writing actually had a voice. 

After 6 months of writing, I discovered that writing was easy. You can write anything. As long as you don't judge it. 

The moment you have judged yourself, you have rendered your writing ability a death sentence. 

I'm speaking from my personal perspective though. 

Blogging daily helps me. Even if I don't actually blog everyday. 

Two reasons I started to blog daily were to instill discipline and to be proud that I had produced a body of work. I would have never created 30 plus blogposts in 2 months if I followed my usual routine of "I'll just write and post when I feel like it."

It didn't work for me. 

But "I'll write 2 or 3 posts today and schedule them. Then maybe tomorrow I can write another 2 or 3 more entries and schedule them again." worked. 

It works for me, and that's why I'm hammering my keyboard, churning out for ideas. 

The contents of the blog are a different matter. Looking over my published posts, it's a salad of ideas. I envy bloggers who have found their niche, and who can monetize their niche.

Me? I'm still wondering how I can do it. 

Everyone has their own pace. 

Web Fiction Part 2

August 12, 2016

As of writing this post, I have created 3 blogs dedicated to my planned fiction. 

I have created three posts for The Oath. Good. I'm going to abandon that project for awhile.

I fell into the trap of the Shiny Pebble Syndrome. 

Starting fiction sites are, well, shiny. 

It's sparkling. It's beautiful. It's distracting. 

Nevertheless, it's allure is potent that I couldn't help myself but create those sites on blogspot. 

Today, I decided to abandon The Oath. 

The story has potential, but I have to let it incubate first. I'm focusing on my book right now, 

Today, I wrote on my morning pages. I wrote and wrote, trying to decode why I felt unhappy for the past few days. 

One of the things that popped was that I felt my life was a mess, or my room also felt like a mess. 

And my room was actually a mess!

I wrote and wrote again, trying to search for a solution. Something popped out. 

Start a Routine.

Oh great. A routine. 

Routines are a hit-miss for me. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. 

Like writing fiction. Sometimes I get it. Sometimes I don't. 

One thing I did get right was blogging daily (or more like blogging my personal woes to the personal world). I got it right because I set myself a simple goal: Publish a blogpost daily. That was my goal. I used a different strategy. I create buffer posts and schedule when it'll be posted. Does that count as cheating? Maybe. I didn't say, "I will write and post daily."

Let me tell you this. Writing is a chore. It drains my mental capacity to think. Sometimes, I get a flash flood of ideas, and my only choice is to write them. Sometimes, it's a really bad drought, and I face the blank paper not knowing what to write. 

But I still manage to write. After all, my goal is to publish a blogpost daily. It doesn't matter how I do it. As long as I hit it, I will definitely hit it. 

I want to create another fiction. A storybook-like webfiction, where storybook-like is defined as, having a page for who the characters will be, illustrations of the map, a glossary of the characters.... something like that. 

I know I can't devote a lot of time to create webcomics. I don't have the luxury of time as I had when I was younger. Drawing is time consuming. Writing is time consuming. But I can always try, can't I?

I want to create a storybook-like webfiction. It's a dream of sorts. It's a big, courageous dream. Right now, I have a different priority. 

Dreaming is okay. I tell myself. 

Work on your dreams, one step at a time. 

Shiny Pebble Syndrome Part 2

I think I wrote in another entry how easily tempted I am with starting new projects.

I started another blog, inspired by George M. Frost's The Zombie Knight.

It's titled, The Oath . (Yes, sorry for the cheesy title)..

I planned to archive it and use it as another project in the future.

But you know... when you feel that creative urge, my only choice is to act on it.

I created a blog for it, wrote a couple of posts.

Well, I started it knowing how it would end.

Yet I have totally no idea what will happen in between (I do know what important key points will be).

And I'm just writing.

Writing and writing.

Nothing is fixed in stone, of course.

Bold Visions for my Fanfics

Bold Projects.

I definitely want to publish the fanfictions I write (E.L. James Style).

But not right now.

I want to publish the fanfictions I write... for free.

I don't own the characters, after all.

But I do own the scenarios I crafted. I do own the roles they had to play for the story.

Today (August 5), I had a crazy idea.

Publish the compiled fanfictions on Amazon, Smashwords, or even, in this blog site.

Publish it in .Mobi, .Epub, or PDF files.

Make a book.

Distribute it for free.

Web Fiction

I discovered this webfiction called The Zombie Knight. (I'm still in chapter 6. Downloaded the ebook version. It's actually great!)

The serial type.. well, inspired me again.

My only problem is the market.

Where will I find them?

Would it be better if I went to Wattpad or Smashwords?

I hold Sara Blakely's inspiring words to my chest.

“Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, 

because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” 

Applying the Three Act Structure, as taught by Steven Pressfield

I changed my writing approach.

(All hail Steven Pressfield!)

Okay, that was just a joke.

But yes, I changed my writing approach.

How?

For starters, I went back to the basics.

I understood in 30 minutes what took me 14 years of education tried to teach me.

(All hail Steven Pressfield!)

He simply made me understand what Theme is. What the Inciting Incident Is. What Climax Is. What narrative device is. What the Three Act structure is. How to Use the Three Act Structure.

He made everything so simple.

Like, for example. Here's how I applied what I learned from him:

========================================================================

Act 1:  Julia decides to move on with her life without the ghosts of her past

Act 2: Her attempts to become a better wife and mother.

Act 3: Julia’s confession that she loves her husband and their child and is happy that she is with them

Inciting Incident: Cradling Rinoa and Caraway waking up to change the diapers

Climax: Confession to Caraway that she loves him.

POV: Julia

Theme: Creating a new life without letting the ghosts of your past haunt you. 

================================================= 

Okay. It's far from perfect. 

But I was finally able to write Chapter 14. 

I knew how it would start. I knew how it would end. 

A far cry from my previous attempts, wherein I would just dive into the chapter with a vague idea how to write the chapter. 

There you have it!

Thanks Pressfield!

Story Theme

Every story must have a thing. Every protagonist must embody that theme. 

- Steven Pressfield

For years, I've toyed with a Wild Arms 2 Fanfiction. 

No not with the main protagonists. 

They're not interesting. 

But the Villains are. Even if their dialogues were poorly translated.

That was the reason why I became attached to the characters. 

Because they were interesting. 

Antenora, for instance. 

RPGenius wrote something about her, and I couldn't agree more. 

The character is the type you'd typically find in Shakespeare Plays.

It was a character that appealed to me. 

For years, I toyed with the idea of creating her backstory. 

I don't own the character, but I needed to scratch my itch. 

It took me 12 years to finally put a finale to her backstory. 

I was contented with how I wrote it, despite with its flaring flaws. 

I took a step back. 

What is her story all about? What is it trying to point out? What is the theme?

How the pursuit of revenge changes you as a person. 

What you are willing to sacrifice for that pursuit.

 How willing are you to do the dirty stuff, just to see the realization of a worthy ideal?

It's not just Antenora's story. 

It's also the story of her comrades in Odessa (A terrorist Organization) and their financial backer. 

I dunno why I'm so invested into these types of stories. 

It's probably because I've also worn the same shoes.