30 Things I Learnt From Finishing My 100 Pages Idea Book in (Almost) A Year: WIP Update #3

1. It took me the entire 10 months to think about at least 20 different ideas that have no depth at all.
2. It took me only 26 days to dig into one focused idea. 
3. I don't do tables. 
4. I do graphs. 
5. I draw rough sketches.
6. I don't need a neat hand-writing. 
7. I forget what I wrote.
8. I need to re-read (like.. thousand times) to go deep. 
9. I never really running out of ideas.  
10. I'm a hard-core plotter.
11. I outline better with a wooden pencil.
12. I don't do word count goals. 
13. I do focus-on-the-goddamn-idea goals.
14. Writing made me have nightmares. 
15. Writing made me cry.  
16. Writing 24/7 is not healthy.
17. My brain doesn't work at night. 
18. Coffee is a life savior. 
19. Coffee stops period!
20. Watching other writers' struggle helps.
21. Sharing to other writers about my struggle helps. 
22. Sharing to non-writers about my struggle increases anxiety. 
23. The 15-minutes-deep-work method works.
24. I don't need music. 
25. I need a raiforest background music.
26. I don't write in public. 
27. OneNote is better than Word (for though-dumping).
28. I say out loud ideas when I have too much of them.
29. When in public, I pretend like I'm on the phone, to record ideas. 
30. Imitating the writing structure of best-seller helps (a lot!).

Letting Her Go

I've been in a battle. 

Turns out, it's never been really a battle. 

It was just her, demanding my attention. 

Once I granted her request, 

she did leave for good. 

It was that simple.

But for some reasons, 

I couldn't see it back then. 

Another Home 2

She spent another five years living in Another Home. She wasn't too excited for coming back, nor too sad for leaving Hometown. She left her school in Hometown, when she was in her senior year of elementary school. Leaving her friends was never been a big deal for her. Mainly because she's never been so into making friends.

One Fine Day

Today, everything was perfectly fine. Just like any other days. I stayed in my room all day, wrote stuff, watched movies, had meals, had a coffee, replied mom's text, drank a lot of water, paid for the room rent, talked with my next-door mate. Everything was fine, but not until my chest told me I wasn't. I felt something heavy inside. Something I didn't know what to call. I cried before I knew it. 

"Is it all worth it?" I asked myself. I saw myself sitting in front of my laptop, along with my black book, pencil, eraser and a cup of coffee. Then, I saw myself on other days. I did the same thing, in the same place. 

"No, it is not," someone answered. 

My mind flew to days when I was younger. I was seven. I saw myself smiling while writing a story about a birthday girl. 

"Why didn't you tell her before? Why did you even let her have this silly ambition in such a young age? Why did you let that little girl believes on an arbitrary dream? Why didn't you warn her that she might regret having this desire?"

No one answered.

I cried louder. 

The next thing I know, was this someone inside my head, telling myself about how worthless I am. 

"You're not even worth the life you live," that someone said. "You've been telling lies in your whole life. You told yourself you can do this, while you know you can't. You're not good enough. You're a failure. People will make fun of you. Ooh, maybe they won't even bother making fun of you at all, because they just don't give a shit to you. They don't even know you're exist. 

"You're not a daughter your parents proud of, you're not a friend your friends care about, you're just not a human any human gives a shit to. 

"Maybe it would be better if you don't exist at all. Your mom will only have your sister and she'll be fine. Your ibu kos will have another tenant for this room and she'll be fine. Your best friends will have another person to befriend with and they'll be okay. Your crushes will have another girls to have crush on and they'll be good.  

"You can't do anything. You can't be anyone. You're nothing and you're no one. Your struggle is worthless, your tears, heavy breath and self-sabotaging mind is such a waste. Your life is such a waste.  

"Why do you even live? You shouldn't have even lived at all."

I shut it up. I couldn't breath. I gasped for air to fill my lung. My tears was all over my pillow case.

Then, the voices stopped. My head was back in silence. I was breathing again. I stopped crying. 

I know that someone is still there. She's in my head, waiting for another fine day to emerge, sabotage my mind, fill my chest with heavy stuff that I didn't even know I kept for all this time.

Another Home

A long time ago, there was a little girl who lived in the most memorable place on earth. People named that place Jogja. She named it Another Home. She lived there with her mother and little sister. Sometimes, her father came to visit. He would came along from a place called Hometown and brought her another piece of happiness. Whenever her three precious people was around, she knew that it couldn't be any happier. Until it was not.

Pantsing: WIP Update #2

Dear, you

It's been two weeks since my first WIP update, so I'm not gonna tell you my day-to-day update, it will just be my overall update. So, I read about a novella competition that was held by an online writing platform and I got so excited by this, in the several few days I spend my days, sitting in front of my laptop and just write a lot of words.

The first chapter was published and I was so happy about that. I planned to get my second and third chapters, by the next couple days but it was just seemed impossible until last Friday. So, I didn't really outline a lot for this novella, because I was so sure that I'm gonna finish this without having to outline every single thing. And the fact that I was able to express more about myself through the way of pantsing, have made me so encouraged and discouraged at the same time.

I would say that most of the days was me writing garbage words, knowing that I'll ditch them right away. But I was just so frustrated if I write nothing, so I was just convinced myself that it'll be okay to write garbage. So I did it. And what's magic from writing thousands of garbage is that at the end of the day, at the end, it's almost guarantee that I'll find this magical thing, where I just could see where this heads to and get so surprised by the story that just flow after I rewrite those garbage. More or less, I think, it's really like me writing a blog post like this.

I always just write everything in my head and at the end, I'll rewrite everything. And for most of the days I didn't feel good about by day, because I mostly write in the morning before work, and because of that didn't feel good feeling about my work, felt bad on myself for the entire day. I can't even get track of my wordcount.

Yours,
Kalista

Girls and Their Make-Ups

"You look good."

That's what you, and other billions of people say whenever I wear make up: liquid powder, lipstick, blush on (most of the times), mascara and eyeliner (sometimes).   

I wasn't really sure if that was a compliment though, because what you see was not the real me. It was me covered by a mask. But I smiled and thanked you anyway.  

That scene was repeated over and over, until I strongly hold this believe that I do look good when I put on make-up. No make up, no look good. Like Pavlov's dog who salivated when a bell rang. No bell, no saliva. Association between make-up and looking good is supposed to be as irrelevant as saliva and bell, but thanks to Pavlov's conditioning theory experiment, which has proven that it is possible to manipulate human's (and dog's) behavior through a made-up condition. 

By nature, dogs only need food to salivate. No bells needed. The same case happens for me. By nature, I am just as good as I already am. No make-up needed. So, who made me associate looking good with make-up? Your words did. Just like what the bell did to the food. You've successfully manipulated my believe about my look through your conditioned stimuli. 

Unfortunately, this conditioned stimuli has spread to all over world. I told you that I started to feel anxious about my look and started to loose track of things I matter the most, after being conditioned by make-up. I wanted to go back to days when I didn't need a conditioned stimuli to feel good about myself. But I just couldn't, because you (and other people in the entire world) keep on telling me that: I look pale without make up; I look prettier with make up; I look more presentable with make up; I look more put together with make up; and the lists goes on (things that you don't say to boys though they don't use make up, which is not fair).   

Finally, I came to a conclusion. If you could manipulate my behavior, why couldn't I manipulate my own behavior? I'll create my own stimuli (to go out without make up) and create my own conditioned response (to feel good about myself). It does not just reverse myself to the unconditioned response, but also gives a new conditioned stimuli to you, that I do look good without make up. But if that theory does not apply in this-already-massively-spread-conditioned-stimuli, then, there's nothing I could do more than changing my own believe about my own self. 

Because at the end, it's not that you-look-good comment that I'm begging for in life. It is my passionate work that I'm striving for, and value to others that I'm serving for. My truest life goals will definitely be good without me having to be manipulated by your irrelevant words.