Random Thoughts About Music and Writing

I'm a little anxious right now because I can't eat anything without throwing up. I think it's because of the caffeine in the tea that I drank that the banana in my system ended up in the sink. Thankfully, I made it to the bathroom before any of it got on my shirt. I didn't need a repeat of one summer day when I threw up on the staircase which is CARPETED.

My sleep schedule is also out of whack AGAIN meaning that I was struggling to sleep around 8 when these jackasses were jackhammering right outside my window. Sigh. I mean, why didn't they give us a notice? Lee Soo Young's soft voice (she is the Korean singer, most likely mispronouncing the opening song when you first come onto this blog) and ballad songs covered most of the jackhammering noises.

I'm listening to Yousei Teikoku to calm down my nerves. I've been listening to a lot of them ever since I came back from their concert at Anime Boston.
This is one of my favorite Yousei Teikoku songs called Filament.

After that, I found another band similar to Yousei Teikoku called Denkare. YT's leader singer, Yui-sama sounds awfully similar to the leader singer, Karen. This is one of my favorites of Denkare called Melancholy Rhythm. Isn't the album cover cool?

Then after that I found this J-rock duo called Asriel. Their music is so beautiful and so is their lead singer's voice.

Check out this song called Cartharsis

Putting aside my apparently growing admiration for Japanese rock/metal/symphonic metal, I've actually been writing bits and pieces for my debut novel (at least I hope it'll be my debut novel because I'm well aware of how sometimes your first manuscript won't be published). Unfortunately, my ideas for this novel come when I'm trying to sleep.

You know what is weird? I can't write while listening to music. Most authors have their own playlist for certain scenes like fight scenes but I easily get bored of the music. Then I want to change the music. Although, there was that one time at 3:00 A.M. when I was writing the scene where Lena, the MC who is dressed in a hanfu on her way to find her boyfriend and I kept playing traditional Chinese and Korean music.

I've outlined most of what will happen. There is the matter of the romance between Lena and her missing boyfriend. Guess what? The boyfriend won't be brooding and mysterious. ^_^;;;

The main bad guy will be surprising (I hope!). One of the antagonists will be a good-looking pain in the ass.

While I was daydreaming about this novel, I thought how cool it would be if this (finished) novel were an RPG video game! O_O! I would faint!

One of the struggles of writing is when you're writing something that might seem out of place. For example, Lena is a Chinese-American who is wandering around a European fantasy world in the first part of the book. I was worried if people might react negatively to that or whether I might be asked to change Lena to a Caucasian girl. I'm also struggling in writing parts of the journey when she's going through a fantasical forest. I am a lazy person who has never hiked or went camping before. -_- 

 

 

Even when my mom forced me into a summer camp, it was in Chinatown where you just get divided into classes due to age and go around a school building. Even at the end of the summer camp, we went to a place near a beach but we lived in a rented house so no actual camping was involved. Boring! 

Enough of my memories! I might come back next week to ramble on more.

Bye! Have a nice day!

The One With All the Flowers

I finally edited this blog so it's no longer humdrum looking. 


Found this on one of my Facebook posts.

So beautiful and calming especially on days when the world's gone crazy. 

Sometimes you just want to stop where there is practically nobody and check out flowers like these.

The defiant bloom

Some of these were taken on a rainy day. I had walked all the way to the nearest mall to get these heels just to find out they were sold out. I was soaking wet by the time I got home but couldn't resist taking pictures of these pink roses. 


Regarding my stories, I got a flash of inspiration this morning when I thought of making my main character, Karena play a Guzheng. It's a Chinese zither. It was an idea that came to me in the past though it was for a different story with the same characters. ^_^ 

A scene of a Chinese woman playing the pipa on the porch initially then it evolved into the guzheng. When you watch a lot of Chinese fantasies, you see a lot of characters play the guzheng to accompany a beautiful scene featuring long hair blowing in the wind, the woman or man being smitten by the player playing the guzheng. For some odd reason, the guzheng has always made me think of the piano, which is my favorite Western instrument.

a fictional story of how friends deal with each other during a car trip

Warnings: Foul language 


8:00 A.M.
Jessica, Nathalie, Khoa and I crashed into a tree. The three of them were still hungover from last night's party. That meant I was the one having to drive the rented van. They stirred and wondered what was happening. I didn't bother to answer. I just backed up and accidentally crashed into a pole. Well, they won't be happy once they're fully awake. At last I managed to go the right way and continued on grouchily onto our destination.

Someone was calling Nathalie's phone. I unwisely answered and thankfully didn't crash into anyone's car.

"Hello, Elisabeth."

"Hello, Kay. Is Nathalie on her way here?"

"Yup. Poor Nat. She's sleeping off her hangover in the back. Shouldn't have had those two bottles. She's becoming an alcoholic."

"Oh, is Jessica driving?"

"Fuck off, small dick!" I shouted at a jerk cutting me off. "No, no, I am." I said calmly as a crossing guard had no other choice but to abandon her station and jump on the hood of the car. The schoolchildren looked green as I pass by them.

There was a pause.

"What was that scream? And didn't the mayor ban you from driving?" A different voice asked me.

"I didn't mean to drive into that retirement home. Anyway, I'm almost halfway done paying for the damages."

"You scared that one old man so badly that his teeth fell out his mouth."

"And a good number of people pissed their pants." Another voice added.

I didn't have a defense for that one.

From the rear view mirror, I could see Khoa stirring in his sleep. He said morning to me then shifted himself to a more comfortable position. I smiled, thinking how nice it was that I was being so helpful today. It was time that I gave back for all the nice things they do for me.

"We'll be praying for their safety." Elisabeth said. I hung up on her.

The guard flew off the hood and safely onto a sidewalk. I'll have to make a note to replace her glasses that flew away.

Half an hour into our trip, Jessica was the one who woke up first. I told her to grab a snack from the yellow bag. She reached for a wrapped pastry then her eyes widened.

"What are you doing!" She screamed.

Khoa and Nathalie were woken up by the banshee scream. The three of them launched themselves on me and wrestled the wheel from me. Luckily, I made it out of the city before anybody could be hurt from that stunt. They forced me to stop the van.

"I was just trying to help. You guys are meanies."

"What does it mean when the entire city bans you from driving?" Jessica asked sternly.

"Any of you could've gotten us killed. It's illegal to drink and drive." I said, trying ketchup flavored chips.

"Oh, my g-, did you do a hit and run ?" Nathalie indicated a large stain of red on the window.

"Some kids threw their ketchup at the car...after leaping out of the way. All I know is that kids shouldn't be playing out in the street." Or rather congregate near the street waiting for the light to turn green, carrying McDonald's.

"I'll wipe the stuff off before we move on," I got out of the car then used the wet wipes that Khoa gave me. I don't know how the hell I will be explaining the three dents on our rental.

"There. It looks shiny and new." Well, the window does at least. Nathalie ends up driving us for now. Those of us in the back began to snack and talked about what we planned to do at the cabin. Everything was cool then something unforgivable happened, the worst absolute thing that could happen during a car trip.

"Oh, not cool," I groaned, pressing the side window open.

Some of us feigned throwing out the windows. Nobody owned up to the misdeed. Needless to say, all the windows were open all the way.

"Did somebody have tacos or something this morning?" I asked.

To be continued

我覺得我總是假裝。當我告訴我的真實反映嗎？什麼是真正的我的一部分？它是貪婪的一部分，或者是它的一部分，我覺得想你的時候？當我聽到這些經典的作品，我總是想起你。有沒有其他人的想法，但你。會不會有另一個你的未來？將其他你是為我一個人嗎？或者他會不會是另外一個人，我不喜歡的人嗎？
最後，我希望我仍然可以對你的看法。也許這些傑作將引發我對你的記憶。也許是他們給我靈感。
如果我做的話，我會看到你在人群中嗎？
我會窒息或將我微笑嗎？
請問你對我笑？

Hello! Welcome to the blog that nobody reads! 

I haven't been able to write much for my first novel. I think it's partly because I've been reading too much of those damn 'what to do or what not to do when writing' type of articles. I find myself disagreeing with a lot of their advice or sometimes I find myself dreading making a mistake. When I was thinking about my story idea, I was thinking that I should just make my stories interesting by inserting names of people I know. This method might make me feel more relaxed.

Now that I am just rambling on for my first post. I was reflecting on how I had always wanted to write a novel since I was in 7th or 8th grade. However, it wasn't my main goal until I was a junior in high school. It seems like I am still a 16 or 17-year-old teenager who desperately wanted to be noticed for writing. 

 I don't have much to say now. It's 5 A.M. I'm exhausted.