ram-da.

chances are, the steam engine boils all the water away the propeller stops you halfway

the moonless, windless.

and now you’re a little lost and everyone’s in a big hurry and somehow you just have to weather the oceanic storm.

distance was never a problem, but a different world to live, a different view how to live, is all that it takes to disarm 

G: A lot can change in a year. Even a second.

He saw that winter thaws overnight, just like a turbulent flight that was abruptly ended by pavement that cut the blurred landscape.

He finally understood that it was mere fondness of a celestial body too far and too faint to observe.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Three cups of coffee and now I miss you.”

“What, usually you had two and didn’t?”

“Two, and wondering whether you ever miss me.”

“Sometimes.”

“Good enough for me.we’re not good at ‘always’ anyway.”

“I’m always good at waiting for a simple ‘hi’.”

“From someone that you’re supposed to forget?”

“Can you forget someone who never really disappear?”

“Maybe. but you know we merely tried to.”

“And yet we knew it was a magic trick.”

“And yet we knew it was real.”

“It is.”

“Is it?”

“It’s harmless to feel sure of something, sometimes.”

“I wish i feel that merely feeling is enough.”

“Since when you need to be sure of what we had?.”

“It’s just a harmless wish.”

“I wish we’re harmless.”

“We haven’t really tried.”

“Tried to escape from our own illusion?”

“I guess we all lose track of what is real.?”

“It’s not about which one is real, it's about which one you’ll accept.”

“I’ll accept a simpler past of you being here.”

“...”

“...”

“No tricks?”

“No tricks.”

“...”

“...”

“Will you say hi, sometimes?”

why is it becoming so much harder to stop for a while, to let the storm wind dance through the fabric, to gaze at the passing crowd without envy, and appreciate where you are among the noise?

why is it becoming so much harder to make sense of everything that you firmly grip on your hand for reasons you don't fully understand? why is it becoming so much harder to let in to let go to restraint to decide?

a quarter century is one of many ways of how people describe their twenty-fifth birthday. a quarter of a hundred elapsed, months passing by like a blurred landscape outside the foggy train window. clickety-clack, clickety-clack, a stop here and there.

but counting to a hundred is easy. twenty-three. twenty-four. twenty-five. a hundred is an end for few, a milestone for some, and an unimaginable burden for many. a lot of people didn't even make it past eighty, so what's the significance of twenty five? it's just a quarter to yet another number. something expressed in notations, something rational.

how about a state of content?

of not worrying too many things at once, not reading too much to the tea leaves, not painstakingly tiptoe from one desire to escape into another?

Hi.

It's a sunny Saturday and I should have been outside to enjoy the blue sky. Not today, though. Today, I'd like to write.

So how are you, dear readers? 

I miss the past times where people reply each other in blog posts. Where trackbacks and linkbacks are the things that brighten my days. Imagine that, someone is dedicating his/her time writing for me, and my name is mentioned in it! 

Sure, with that "past times" being me before 20, it might be a list of 10 favorite books. 25 most important people. 5 dream trips. Things that seems....shallow today. Things that are replaced with endless notifications breaking the silence of the night. I don't know, I don't know how should I feel about that. I recently lost my smartphone, and being without it for a day doesn't feel liberating either. Are you supposed to feel that way? To feel the need of being connected yet distant at the same time?

Perhaps the ground beneath my feet is shifting. Perhaps it always is, it's just suddenly you looked back at things that you loved, and there they are disappearing over the horizon.

Up ahead, life. Adult life. I groaned to my mom this morning that my savings from my first real salary will be gone towards paying the installment for my laptop and buying a new phone. That's life for you, she said. That'll keep you moving.

So far it's kinda disorienting. I dropped out two and a half year ago, and then starting it all over again in Singapore, getting better at some things and decided not to pursue the others. I move back here in the incredibly stressful Jakarta, worked in a small magazine for a while and here I am meeting incredible people from World Bank and government. Here I am, being in a really rewarding relationship for two years already.

Here I am, reminiscing the old times while at the same time constantly excited on what tomorrow brings. Embracing the shifting ground. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive, Bill Watterson said. 

I'm not a good story teller. I'm not good at finding insights and meanings behind things around me. I don't feel the urge of captivating a specific audience anymore. Hell, I prefer wondering what my future child name will be and what wooden floor color that I'd want for my future house.

So from now on, I'll write and quote simpler things around here, with bad grammar and broken english and all.

So how are you?

In six seconds, you’ll hate me.
 But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.

From this point forward—at least for the next half year—you may not 
use “thought” verbs.

These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands,
Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred
 others you love to use. The list should also include: Loves and Hates, and it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those later.

Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: "Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”

Instead, you’ll have to in-pack that to something like:

“The
 mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d
had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking
 sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d
 only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”

Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present
 the details that allow the reader to know them.

Instead of a character 
wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader
 wants it.

Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have 
to say: “Between classes, Gwen had always leaned on his locker when he’d
 go to open it. She’s roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, 
leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the
 smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her
 butt. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”

In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.

Typically,
 writers use these “thought” verbs at the beginning of a paragraph (In 
this form, you can call them “Thesis Statements” and I’ll rail against
 those, later). In a way, they state the intention of the paragraph. And
 what follows, illustrates them.

For example: 
“Brenda knew she’d never make the deadline. Traffic
 was backed up from the bridge, past the first eight or nine exits. Her
 cell phone battery was dead. At home, the dogs would need to go out, or
 there would be a mess to clean up. Plus, she’d promised to water the 
plants for her neighbor…”

Do you see how the opening “thesis statement” steals the thunder of what follows? Don’t do it.

If nothing else, cut the opening sentence and place it after all the others. Better yet, transplant it and change it to: Brenda would never make the deadline.

Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your
 story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions
 and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking
 and knowing. And loving and hating.

Don’t tell your reader: “Lisa hated Tom.” Instead, make your case like a lawyer in court, detail by detail. Present each piece of evidence.

For example:
“During roll call,
in the breath after the teacher said Tom’s name, in that moment before
 he could answer, right then, Lisa would whisper-shout ‘Butt Wipe,’ just
 as Tom was saying, ‘Here’.”

One of the most-common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, 
you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your
 character should spend very, very little time alone.

Because a solitary 
character starts thinking or worrying or wondering.

For example: "Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take…”

A better break-down might be: “The schedule said the bus would come
by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see
all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No
 doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the
 line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was
 going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up
drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic
 accident…”

A character alone must lapse into fantasy or memory, but even then
 you can’t use “thought” verbs or any of their abstract relatives.

Oh, and you can just forget about using the verbs forget and remember.

No more transitions such as: “Wanda remembered how Nelson used to brush her hair.”

Instead: “Back in their sophomore year, Nelson used to brush her hair with smooth, long strokes of his hand.”

Again, Un-pack. Don’t take short-cuts. Better yet, get your character with another character, fast.

Get them together and get the action started. Let their actions and
 words show their thoughts. You—stay out of their heads.

And while you’re avoiding “thought” verbs, be very wary about using the bland verbs “is” and “have.”

For example:
“Ann’s eyes are blue.” “Ann has blue eyes.”

Versus: “Ann coughed and waved one hand past her face, clearing the cigarette smoke from her eyes, blue eyes, before she smiled…”

Instead of bland “is” and “has” statements, try burying your details
 of what a character has or is, in actions or gestures. At its most
 basic, this is showing your story instead of telling it.

And forever after, once you’ve learned to Un-pack your characters,
you’ll hate the lazy writer who settles for: “Jim sat beside the
telephone, wondering why Amanda didn’t call.”

Please. For now, hate me all you want, but don’t use thought verbs. After Christmas, go crazy, but I’d bet money you won’t.

For this month’s homework, pick through your writing and circle every “thought” verb. Then, find some way to eliminate it. Kill it by Un-packing it. Then, pick through some published fiction and do the same thing.

Be ruthless.

“Marty imagined fish, jumping in the moonlight…” “Nancy recalled the way the wine tasted…” “Larry knew he was a dead man…”

Find them. After that, find a way to re-write them. Make them stronger.

"Can you send the proposal draft by next Tuesday?"

Yesterday, my mind warped back to March 30th, year 2011. It was a rainy afternoon in Bandung, and I tried to finish my cold food in a cafe near my old campus. 

It was my last day of college, and I didn't finish it.

There were simply too many painful emotions that would eventually haunted and punished me for the next two years. Two years, three months, and three days, to be precise. Eight hundred and twenty six days ago, I admitted failure and my dean told me to just give up and go to some random college just to at least get some random degree. 

I admitted failure, but refused to follow her advice.

Yesterday, I felt that shadow finally receded back and for the first time in eight hundred and twenty six days, I saw a chance that things will eventually goes well. 

"Sure, Sir. I'll send you for review by Monday evening."

    and hopefully, as time goes by, becoming even better.