Sunshine and Rain

I know I don't have a quote today. But I wanted to write. Not a novel, just a short post.

My day went up and down today. One second it was the highest it could be, and the next it fell beneath my feet. But I came to realize it was just me most of the time. I made it high and low. That's why we admire people who don't care if a day is sunny or rainy, hot or cold. They don't live in yin and yang. They enjoy its harmony. Of course, this is all very difficult to do with fifty things on our desk or a boss screaming down our necks. But we can all live happily and with contentment if we want to. Because when we do, we become those people who don't care if there is sunshine, rain, snow, or wind. They care that there is another day to have.

Relationships: Real and Ideal

Lust is easy. Love is hard. Like is most important.

~Carl Reiner

As a writer I've never really written about "relationship love" because it's not something I've never actually experienced. Of course there's that little boy you stare at when you're in kindergarten, and freak him out when you say, "We're going to get married!" Then there's that cute guy in math class you tap on the shoulder for a pencil, when you know fully well there's a whole box of them in your backpack. And then as you get older, there are more complications.

There are people of both genders who play mind games and manipulate. There are people who are simply out to have a fun date or whatever and never call again. And there are people who are so focused on everything else they don't bother to look up and see someone is standing in front of them, waiting.

Being a girl, and an introverted one at that, my list of imaginary relationships is longer than my list of real ones. Girls are different because after talking to a boy once they imagine a long date watching the sunset, running through the fields, sleeping under the stars, etc. etc. etc. The next time she sees him, butterflies flutter throughout her stomach until it threatens to burst. The next time he sees her, he thinks, "she looks kind of familiar, I wonder if I know her . . . "

But there are real relationships. And sometimes I kind of prefer the imaginary, ideal ones. The real ones don't have kisses in the rain or the sunset all too often. The kisses of real relationships are usually in the hallway at school, or in the movie theater. Ideal relationships have never-ending happiness. But Real relationships usually have an end at some point.

In an Ideal relationship, your first kiss is on top of a flowery hill, and your hair is flowing, and a smile is on your lips. Most people I know remember their first kiss as being a foreign, awkward experience, and I can guess that their hair was in a messy bun and they were wearing old, ripped jeans.

The reason I brought this topic up is, even though I think relationships and kissing and imaginary relationships should be private matters, because one of my best friends is having a pretty good time in a very comfortable relationship. Maybe I'm jealous, or maybe I'm being reminded that I'm lonely. No, at the time I don't have anyone "special" in my life.

But I keep my day alive with those occasional Ideal relationships, where the prince sweeps me off my feet and we fly out of that magical castle on a dragon. I'm a writer. My imagination flows like a river. The problem with a river is that it empties eventually.

And yet at some point that dragon has to hit the ground. That prince has to dump you for the scullery maid or remind you how meaningless it was to him. So you proudly punch him in the face and carry yourself proudly. Because at some point, you find someone who blurs between ideal and real, and you can't tell which was better: the fantasy or the reality.

Finishing a Piece

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

John Jakes

Today (or, actually yesterday but I finally got Internet access to write on my blog) is a partially momentous day. One, because I got a new laptop which is VERY nice. And two, because I finished a piece of writing. An actual piece.

Don't get too excited, it wasn't much. It was just a chapter of a book I've been working on. But, it's a great feeling. Most of the pieces I've already finished were essays for an english professor, poems for my grandmother's birthday, or journal entries for a half-filled notebook I end up throwing out anyway. And I think I've found my method for finishing.

We all have trouble finishing. That's why we're writers, why we're human. We procrastinate, we sit around, we forget. When I write a story, I write the whole thing in my head, and write two sentences on a word document. Why? Because there's something about that blank white page that seems to threaten us, or make us doubt ourselves. I don't really know why.

For most of my life I've had thousands of story ideas fall into my head like autumn leaves. Some escape me, some resurface, and some make it onto paper. . . before being sent to the trash bin. I keep a lot of them, but I start writing and then wish I was writing something else and then I move to that and then I get bored and move back and then I wish I had never started this because I'll never be a good writer and the Internet becomes much more interesting and before I know it the day is over. Yes, it happens a lot.

So, I had an idea. A novel idea, a series. A fictional story about a young teenage maid in the 1700s who becomes the captain of her father's pirate ship. I went right to my computer and began to type, working a prologue, and then a first chapter.

The entire time I was writing this, all I wanted to do was write a certain chapter I had planned, one that I really could imagine fully in my head. But I kept writing, all the way through without looking back. Because looking back is detrimental. If you keep doing it, your writing can never move forward.

Then I wrote the chapter I had planned. All the way through, no stopping, not even changing a word. I wrote during my vacation, and in the car on the way home. And then, it was done. It was all done.

I couldn't believe it. I had a chapter. An actual chapter I was proud of. Can you believe it?! Some of you reading this are probably saying, "Oh, big deal!" It's a big deal for me!

So my thoughts on finishing something are to go all the way through, like living life. Don't look back until the end. Just keep going until you're done. Live in the word you're writing or typing at the time, not the one you typed five minutes ago, or an hour ago, or four days ago. It leaves a good feeling inside you, whether what you just wrote was a piece of crap or if it was the next pulitzer prize-winning novel.

In the end, it's not the masterpiece you're holding that matters. It's the sense of completeness in your head and your heart that defines you as a writer.

My Friend, Brooke

. . .but for God in heaven, 'tis but the dawn

The above quote isn't by a famous author, philosopher, or person. It wasn't said in a private interview or into a microphone before a crowd of people. It was by my friend, Brooke, and it was never said. It was written.

Some of the most beautiful things in life are seen. Some are felt. Some are heard. Some are smelt. Some are tasted. And some are read. But what these beautiful "things" have in common is that they are found in the most unlikely places.

Brooke's father died when she was ten, but I hadn't known that until a few months after we had met and become friends. She was telling me a funny story about her mother going on a date, and I asked, "oh are your parents divorced?" and she said, "oh, no, my dad died when I was 10." Then she joked, "That was when I got a little chubby. You know, overeating and all that."

I didn't think about it, but a little while later she showed me a poem she had written when her father had died. It was dirty and ripped in a few places, but it was typed up very neatly. I can't remember most of it, because I only read it once. But I can remember my reaction. I can remember hearing the words in my head and being totally immersed in that ripped up piece of paper.

I told her it was amazing, and I wasn't lying. I've had friends who showed me their writing and I've gone "wow, that was good" when it really was totally bland and unoriginal. But this, what Brooke wrote, was something else. It was so beautifully written, and perfectly formulated, that I couldn't believe she had actually been capable of writing something like that.

I told her she could go places with writing like that, but she said it was a one-time thing, something personal. I don't think she's written anything like that since. At least, none that I could see.

So we're all writers. Even when we don't see it in most people. Okay, so maybe not all of us are writers, but we really are. When we talk, when we feel, when we live, we are writers. Our lives are pages of notebooks just ready to be written. The people who are defined as writers, by newspeople, by the public, are the ones who wish to share their notebooks with the world. Maybe some of us don't want to. Maybe the best of us don't want to.

The best writing in the world is found in places you didn't expect to find it in. I found it in my friend, Brooke.

Writers' Discouragement

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
Ray Bradbury

Well, it has been a while since I've written anything. And it wasn't because I was busy or lazy or depressed. And it certainly wasn't out of writers' block.

I don't believe in writers' block. I believe in writers' discouragement. We writers have moments in our lives when the writing seems pointless. Why? It's not steady work. There isn't an office or a clinic to go to, a set time to work. There's just the steady flow of life for motivation.

Sometimes the most talented writers can't get anything published, because they can't write that great novel in their lifetime. Sometimes those great novels get lost in time as scraps of notebook paper in a smelly desk drawer. Sometimes life just takes us away before we can get anything out there. Sometimes great moments elude us.

But sometimes we find our motivation. J.K Rowling, author of the famous Harry Potter series, started out writing on bits of napkins at a cafe. Maybe it hit her that the napkin scraps could really help get a better life for herself, outside of the poverty she lived in.

At times I've thought that my "big break" would come if I had something happen in my life. Some traumatic event, some setback. I have read the biographies of several writers, and I am yet to find one without an unfortunate event in between the lines. It's as if having the passion to write isn't enough. You need to have some motivation, some inspiration, or something along those lines.

But do we really need it? Maybe, as writers, we can find something in our lives to motivate us. Maybe there isn't something painful or life changing, but there is something. Or maybe you don't need anything. Maybe it's just the joy of pushing the last key, or writing the last letter, of a masterpiece, that's enough for any writer.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, I am my Mother After All

A mother understands what a child does not say.

Author Unknown

To all you mothers out there, Happy Mother's Day! As for writing about my own mother, well, sometimes the best things in life can't be put into words.

Mothers are not biological (I always hated science). An abusive, neglecting mother is simply the person who gave birth to you. An adopted mother, who took you into her home, loved you, and did absolutely everything to stand by you is your mother. My aunt and uncle have adopted two children, because my aunt cannot have children. Those two kids love her more than anything, and, when they see her face, they say "mommy".

Mother-child relationships aren't science. There's no math (I always hated math too). There's love. And love is enough to make any computer explode. It's incalculabe, in-exact, indestructible. You can't break love down.

Love is what threads the entire family, not just mothers. But mothers and fathers constantly throw it away. Mothers, what if your child was disabled? What if they were a murderer, a sociopath? What if they constantly displayed ingratitude and hatred towards you? Could you still love them?

It's moments like those that define who mothers really are.

I used to think the mother I knew wasn't a thinker like me. I was the writer. The original. I crafted pieces of art, decorated our house for the holidays, planned vacations, drew up dream houses. My mom cooked. Cleaned. Did the wash.

I kept every little thing, from toilet paper rolls to Barbie Mansions. My mom took everything and threw it out. I thought she didn't have any things of sentimental value because she wasn't like me at all. I was nothing like my mom.

But then I grew up and, for the first time in my life, got a backstage pass to what my mom really went through. Constantly paying bills, going to work to pay for my education because I had my own problems at public school. Doing load after load of wash while my friends' moms, who I sometimes envied, paid for cleaning ladies to do the housework. I was still a dreamer, a thinker. But in my mom's desk drawer, I found some things I would have expected her to throw away like everything else: an invitation to my brother's graduation, old pictures, and some paper Mother's Day gifts.

So, I am like my mother. I'm her daughter. Because that's the payback she gets from all those years of unconditional love. All that love pours into one glass, and that glass, in turn, pours out the same exact unconditional love. With that love, she gives us part of herself. Moms will say "no he's nothing like me, he's like his daddy" or "you would never guess we were mother and daughter the way she acts". But there's so much more than personality. There's teachings, there's mannerisms, traits.

Mirror mirror on the wall, I've become my mother after all.

May is the Most Tired Month of the Year

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too short a date.
William Shakespeare

May. It's the blooming month. The lazy month. It's that month when students sit in class and stare out the window at blooming flowers and the beginnings of hot summer skies; when cafes set up their outdoor tables and turn on the air conditioning; when every day is like Friday, because it's just one more day until summer every day.


To me, it's taunting. Even when I was younger. I wait in school all day, feeling like it's the last day of school all the time, when really we've got 30 days left. Even the teachers are so lazy that they don't bother to lecture, but rather give us a lot of busy work. And it's still that way now.


Come on, how many people have waken up every morning the past two weeks to feel like it's Friday, only to realize that it's Tuesday and that stack of papers isn't anywhere near finished? Ugh. May is tired, boring, and it reminds me of sitting in a stifling classroom listening in the distance to a lecture on Evolution while looking longingly out at the clear blue sky.

May is like a sleepy month. But it's like that sleepy month that you can't sleep in. Work has to be done, the beaches aren't open yet, blah blah blah. Everyone just wants everything to be over and summer to start. Forget the blooming flowers and the fact that the sun is coming out after about 3 months of sitting behind gray snow-clouds. I just want to sleep.

Aspiring writers who can enjoy the beautiful month of May, that's great. You're my hero. Me? My head's too deep in a book right now to do anything else but count down the days until June.

What's in a Name?

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who
living makes a name.
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson. One of my favorites. Up until about an hour ago, when I decided that I was going to look up famous quotes about names, I had no idea she had ever said this. But I loved it on sight. So I decided to use it.

A name is like the only pair of pants that will fit us our entire life. Come on people, how many of you have found the perfect fitting jeans in your lifetime? Our name defines us, it shapes us: Marilyn Monroe, a glamorous name. George Washington, a bold name. Ringo Starr, an original name. Even when we detest the names our parents give us, it can still be hard to imagine another name for ourselves.

Or maybe it's not hard. Meryl Streep, Vivian Vance, Sigourney Weaver. Maybe they thought their new names fit them better than their original names.

For some time I've hated my name. I have even discussed this with my mother and father, "I hate it, it's too childish, it's too this, it's not cool-" blah blah blah. So, being the intelligent parents, they would always reply, "Fine, you can change it."

That's when I realize, I don't want to change it. I like it. And, even though I don't admit it to them, I think, wow, my parents are geniuses. So I haven't changed my name yet, even though there are days when I want to.

One of my favorite pieces of literature regarding names is Juliet's in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.

Translated to modern-day English: Juliet is saying that a rose, would still smell as sweet as if it were called by another name, as would her beloved Romeo. A rose could be christened a dandelion, but it still smells like a rose.

But, what she failed to realize, was that if we called the rose by another name, and it still smelled just as sweet, we would still recognize it as a rose that changed its name. If I changed my name, my parents would still call me by the name they gave me at birth. Our names are our identities. They define us. Look at Romeo and Juliet. Montague and Capulet. They both died because their name defined them.

But the world isn't Montague and Capulet. We make our names. Romeo and Juliet aren't Capulet and Montague because they made their own names as the play went on. We know them as Romeo and Juliet. Just like we know Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, and so on. We make the names that define us.

Too bad we don't make the jeans that fit us.

Everybody Loves Being Recognized

Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of
recognition.

-Abraham Lincoln

As a writer, I find it hard to sit in front of a computer and type what comes into my head, because half the time most of my pages end up in the virtual recycling bin (which I recently had to clear out because it had filled to capacity). I used to think it was because I wasn't inspired. Then I thought that it was because I wasn't a good writer. Then it recently came to me that it was because no one was reading it.

Well, to solve that problem, I went and started a blog. But my recognition by others remains a problem.

The animated show Family Guy, as crude as it can be, once featured a short clip that parodied the many writers who sit with their laptops at Starbucks to write. The pun was pretty short, but entertaining all the same:

First Writer: Writing has no point unless other people are watching me.

Second Writer: You should totally write that down!

First Writer: Okay! Will you watch me?

I personally called it a "story of my life" moment, mostly because I'm not a very modest person. I like my hard work to be recognized by other people, and I can get slightly envious when others are recognized ahead of me. It is very frustrating in life when another person is noticed and we are not. Maybe your mother-in-law prefers the other daughter-in-law over you, even though you're the one who is constantly putting up with the mother in law's (excuse me) crap. Maybe your boss frequently recognizes or favors another employee who, you know, spends most of their time twiddling their thumbs and going on facebook while you sit in your cubicle working with your nose pressed up against the papers all day. Maybe you didn't get to be the employee of the month when you know for sure that you worked 200% harder than that other guy.

Well, for aspiring writers, we can have a hard time getting recognition. It used to make my blood boil when another student was dubbed "the best writer in our English class" as I sat in the back digging my pencil into my desk with fury. We're writers. We write. We don't get on a screen and entertain people usually. We're not in the spotlight. So it's hard to even be recognized, and it's hard when you want to be recognized but know that the slacker next to you is probably more likely to be than you. It's frustrating sitting in your room, knowing how capable you are of writing the next big thing, when Stephenie Meyer of the Twilight series is making money and getting book interviews.

Or maybe it's not frustrating. It depends on what kind of person you are.

I'm the kind of person who observes a lot of unfairness in recognition. We recognize the student with the highest grades, but what about the student with the most contribution to the class? the strongest desire to learn? We recognize the most efficient employee of the month, but what about the worker who truly and deeply enjoy what they're doing, day in and day out? who takes agonizing time on each customer or patient just to satisfy everything they need?

Well, that's life. My mother tells me all the time: "You can be mad or jealous at anyone in the world, and if you are, they don't know. And if they know, they don't care." I keep telling myself that she's right. Recognition is never fair, and the wrong person is almost always recognized by everyone else. But getting angry at them only makes you the bad guy. What if that disgruntled, hardworking employee walked into the manager's office and went berserk about the unfairness he believed he witness? What kind of consequences would there be?

We can look at President Lincoln. In his time, he wasn't considered one of our greatest presidents yet. He wasn't exactly recognized. But he did fullfill his own words, striving to become worthy enough of recognition.

Well, I think he's a pretty recognized figure now.

Why is there so much "unfinished writing" in the world?

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing

Benjamin Franklin

I think all aspiring writers can agree that they all have a notebook filled with possible story ideas, suggestions, notes, newspaper clippings, song lyrics, poem stanzas, sketches, and anything else we can possibly fit into a single notebook. If you look in mine, you won't find a lot of writing, but you will find a lot of random, unnecessary writing snippets that are probably the reason my writing takes forever. But don't judge! I'm sure a lot of you do too.

For example, last summer I had a sudden inspiration to write a story about a school student. So, I had one paragraph in my notebook, and about four versions of a school acceptance letter, a mile long list of character names, colorful sketches of school uniforms, and twenty five redone copies of school schedules for each character.

Why did I do this? Well I don't really know why, but I think it was a sign that maybe I wasn't really ready to actually write the story. I loved taking notes, making sketches. But when I sat down to right, I just really hated the words that ended up on the page.

I don't have anything against notes. After all, the famous rags-to-riches J.K Rowling spent her time taking notes on napkins at a cafe that later turned into the lengthy Harry Potter novel series. But I think there are times when the notes are more fun than the writing. When the idea of drawing medieval peasant skirts or making maps of hidden islands in the pacific ocean seems more appealing than writing two pages a day.

So, to all those aspiring writers out there, who probably have bubble-gum wrappers and masquerade outfits between the lines of their writing notebooks, keep the story on your mind. After all, our sketches are meaningless without the first draft.

Of course, this doesn't apply to writers who have better concentrations than I. That's admirable.