Tenses

Past or Present? I looked through my old writings and find that there are quite a number of Past tense ones, but the Present dominates them. Not by much, more like 55% and 45%. My opinion, they're both equally nice. But then again, when I read, all tenses fly out of the window.

I find that I can write just fine in both present and past tense. Sure, there are things that sounds fine in past but not present, but the same thing works other way. Look, I just wrote in present. I'm writing my NaNovel in present, and a Beta reader pointed it out to me. So I'm here.

Yeah. To me tenses are matter of the writer's style. And I happen to like writing in present. So unless the tense really bothers people, and they keep getting jarred off it, I probably won't change. It's not like I'll publish the stuff.

I took a look through my folders, and I found a pretty recent oneshot, in September. It was more of those reflective ones, with Luisa having a chat with Arve about life. Apparently I stopped at "he stopped."
Coincidences are strange.

More ideas

I've been keeping a notebook of story ideas, even if it's unlike that I'll write it.
Right now I like several of them, although my old Camp NaNo and another new one stands out.
"Giving Life a Second Chance" has its plot slightly altered, nothing too noticeable, other than a clearer plot and change in characters. Keith becomes an Achromat later.
The other one, well, involves some of my oldest characters. Hikari! Except genderbent and not Japanese-name sounding.
A Wild Goose Chase
  Luther Timesworth was dead. Alton Nicholls was a family friend, Luther's arch nemesis and hired private detective. As reluctant as he was, he was intrigued.
With physical evidence that spoke nothing, theories going nowhere, Alton might have to rethink and maybe, things didn't go the way they thought it did.

A murder mystery, ha! I love those. A Wild Goose Chase and Giving Life a Second Chance has been going back and forth, but they have to wait some more because November's 2 days away.
Anybody else ready to explode?

Evening song

[Song] of the day: Der Mond ist aufgegangen (The moon has risen) - Traditional German Folk Song

Today I am decidedly happy.
I've been procrastinating, I know that, with writing. I'm rather lazy with writing sometimes, I mean like doing longhand. Most people recommend it, but really, I love a clean white sheet so much I hate it when the eraser goes sadistic on me and leave ugly grey marks. Back to topic, I feel strangely more content writing on my laptop. It's just... nicer, how I can type and erase and not leave a mark.

Ahem. So, earlier today, I tried to just write spontaneously. You see, I'm the perfectionist sort of person, and cannot start these things without a base idea that I deem good enough. While I do go spontaneous when brainstorming, I never do it anywhere else. Everything had to go through my mind filter, because I'm both artistic and logical.

I know I'm queer.

The thing I wrote is nothing short of embarrassing, because it's a story that has been going for a while but never seen the light of the day. It sorts of sits inside my mind like a chalked water-- the chalk slowly settles down after being shaken like margaritas. The thing I'm embarrassed about is that, while the words flow down without problem, the story is pretty much yaoi. It's barely explicit, or even show anything other than interest. So, while I'm not continuing it other than inside my mind (I know I'll continue pairing up the characters, that's how I am), it's a good head start for me. I'm starting to feel confident about writing on papers. So, starting from tomorrow, I'll try to fill up some papers as I snatch words during small breaks. I could always count it as practice for NaNoWriMo.

Today is going along swimmingly.
I had a good laugh. I was on the cram school. Despite its name, no, it's not cruel. Indonesia has high academic standards anyway, and it's getting higher each year. So it was... History, about how Indonesia has to fight to keep its status as a free country.
There's a city in Java named Surabaya that is often dubbed "Kota Pahlawan", or roughly City of Heroes. Apparently the city endured many battles, even if Bandung was the one burned down. There's a song for that, Hallo Hallo Bandung. Anyway, there's this quite well-known statue of a fighting crocodile and shark in the city. The teacher was talking about the Battle of Surabaya, when a girl asked if it had anything to do with the statue of crocodile and catfish.
I pretty much doubled over laughing.
The legend said that the shark and crocodile fought for the title of the strongest animal. To think about a catfish fighting a crocodile was too much for me. Made my day.

And there's something I wrote a few days ago. It's just a short thing I've been wanting to expand, but I have yet to do so. It's pretty dreary for me, but the real reason is that I want to write it in Indonesian. The setting is Indonesian, and it's set in WW3 with several Islamic understanding of things. In Islam, WW3 is believed to be the Great war that is one of the signs of coming of (Big) Apocalypse. It will be a war between Jews (I think) and Muslims, and is relatively short (Only months) compared to the previous two, but it'll be the deadliest.

One thing I like about Indonesian language is that "You", "He", and "She" is all packed into one word that is "Kamu". I want my main character to be vague, and I don't want someone's dialogue identify him as male or female. Sadly, I'm bad at Indonesian prose so I'll stick with English until I learn enough Indonesian or finish the story. If the latter happen, I'll take it and talk to a friend to see if she could help me choose my words.

Anyway, a snippet of it...
Kulihat ia.

'Ini bukan perangmu.'

Dia tersenyum padaku.

'Perang ini memang bukan perang agamaku, tetapi ini perang negeriku.'

Kami pergi menghadap kematian, dan dia tidak kembali lagi.

He smiles at me. His gaze is understanding, wise. I can see that he is worn by age, but it only serves to teach him.

   'This war is not my religion's, but it is my country's.'

I feel a deepening respect for the man. During the ride to our post, we talk. We both then come face to face with death, and he does not come back. 

I fall to my knees.

The story is coming to an end. The war will continue, but this is the end of my story.

The war has taken its toll on me.

Blinded, I can only grasp around. I cannot even walk. Everything is ending.

Far away, I can hear birds trying to rise with their broken wings.

  The English parts are more developed than the Indonesian one. The Indonesian one is important, though, since it serves to be the foundation of everything. By the way, the bird part is, in fact, important. The name of the story is Sayap Sayap Patah, aka Broken Wings. Kahlil Gibran was on my mind when I started planning the story.

I suspect the main character is only stumbling around suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Spontaneous characters tend to do that. Heck, even the ones I know do that to me; acting strange and demanding me to change their labels. They grow up so fast.

Umm, before I forget, the climax is Israel announcing they will drop atomic bombs on Indonesia. I read somewhere that WW3 will be countries bombing each other with atomic bombs, and thus leading the world into destruction. Then Dajjal will come out and... Okay, I'll stop there. I'll never stop if I don't do that.
It's 10 in the evening, and I have to wake up before 5.15 for school, so Guten nacht!

Plot ideas and such

Despite my lack of experience in the world of writing, I truly love developing plots. (I also love writing short descriptions to interest someone. I have a flair for dramatic writing?)
These two are set in the same universe, with same characters, although they have little relation to each other.

Things Not Seen
The story starts when the protagonist, a 14 years old girl who goes by the name Aeval Nazumi, is transferred into a new private school. She is told that that is the will of her deceased mother. She rediscovers her unique ability-- to see aura with naked eyes.
Aeval then befriends Toshiro, a quiet and troubled boy. As she tries to pry him out, she meets Akihito and her old friend Sayumi.

Artemisia is the only heir of a well known family. She never had a problem with her clairvoyance, but sick of the fog of depression veiled over the other worldly beings, she begins to investigate the cause.

Toshiro disappears.
His mother died and he left behind a flashdisk.

Accompanied by anonymous messages, Aeval and Artemisia investigates the case, if only to satisfy their curiosity.
Artemisia could never have guessed that something so beautiful could destroy the Laws of Nature. 

Before I Sleep

It is not long after Leia disappeared. Things changed, perhaps for the better.
In the peace, someone wakes up to seek revenge.

A voodoo bomb ticks, 72 hours to destroy it, and it ticks for Artemisia. No one really knows who did it, but they're willing to look. Artemisia is finding herself running against time in the lane of memories, old allies in tow, to find the culprit.
With the help of Aeval, Toshiro, Akihito, Sayumi and the ghosts, hopefully they could destroy the bomb in time.
Or Artemisia will have to say her last goodbyes.

And despite her past wrongdoings, is murder really the answer?

Desiderare

"You don't know what you've got until it's gone."

Everyone wants to be cared for

Because we are like little flowers

Who need a hand to

Nurture us.

We are like flowers

Decorating the world

With splashes of colours

And scent of spring.

But some of us

Needs a little more effort

Blooming later than others

But they are special.

But what of us?

We are not the most beautiful,

Nor smell the nicest,

But we still like attention

And a little bit of love.

Those hands stroke them,

Singing whispered encouragements,

As we watch them

Showered by things we covet.

Please,

Notice us!

We are trying our hardest,

Doing our best.

Will alone, coming from the heart

Will only sustain for so long

Until we slow down and look back

To see that nothing had changed.

Flowers will die someday.

Such is life, only a blink in the eyes of eternity.

So easily wasted,

Unappreciated.

We are trying to live,

To appreciate,

To move on and see the world,

And one day we will break away

From the hand that feeds us.

And from that moment on,

You'll notice what you have done.

Once it happens, would you change the past? We regret not doing something-- neglecting instead of caring, restricting instead of letting go.
We never cherish what we're supposed to.
We neglect them, and yet never let them go-- and that is the worst mistake.