So recently joined another writing group. It’s a group that focuses on 5 less-popular literary genres in Indonesia: fantasy, action, mystery, thriller, and science-fiction (abbreviated as FAMTS). They mainly write on Wattpad, and they seem to have weekly activities such as games, reviews, and discussions. The thing is, it’s a closed group. I had to go through a week’s worth of activities to be admitted as a member. But I’m not complaining.
Continue reading “Into the Fold”
In one of the writing groups I’m in, a question was asked, “How are the lives in your stories going?” Now, I personally interpret “lives” as characters. So without giving anything away, some lives are figuring out their place in my fictional universe.
Continue reading “Play Beget Stories”
I’ve personally set a schedule to write blog posts twice a week. The plan is to post at the start and the end of each week. So I told my wife about it, and she subtly wondered why I intend to do that.
Continue reading “For Whom?”
I have a friend who’s been hyped about Cyberpunk 2077 for months. And despite not having preordered it as he did, I was also hyped.
Continue reading “Hey Chooms!”
Watching a video of this girl who lives in her car makes me realise that we can adjust our personal notion of creature comforts. This is especially true after having a kid. Mind you, I feel guilty when I use my toddler as a crutch when it comes to my latest shortcomings. But having been the beneficiary of a wife who listens to many great self-improvement audiobooks, I reckon that I should be able to make do with the ad hoc arrangements in our home.
Continue reading “I’ve Just Learned That There’s a Restaurant Named Ad Hoc”
I’ve been staring at a blank page for many moons. There was an itch, but no actual words coming out, bleeding unto the page. It seems that there’s this invisible wall that held me back from transmuting my soul into words on but digital canvas.
Sometimes it’s the lack of flame: that burning desire to construct coherent thoughts, and at times, arguments, the presents itself well to whoever will read my two cents.
Now mind you, I don’t consider myself a blogger. I don’t consider myself a professional writer. But merely, an aspirant.
Then, I came across two things.
I didn’t think there was a deep rabbit hole if I look up the fourth wall as a trope. So I bravely looked it up on TV Tropes. As it turns out, it’s quite deep. And not only that, it’s wide. Basically, it’s like a flowchart; a hydra with multiple heads—some even intersecting.
Continue reading “Knock Knock, You’re There!”
Fiber optic by the end of the month, they said. Industrial grade internet, they said. But what we got was shitty hallway Wi-Fi.
Continue reading “What the Frickety-Frack, Wi-Fi?”
I’m swimming in frustration
Between the latent whirligigs outside and the nagging inside
I’m swimming in frustration
Between the voice I acquired then and the voice I’m acquiring now
I’m swimming in frustration
Between the hourly highs and lows of the see-saw that I bear
I’m swimming in frustration
Between the solace of darkest night and the dread of dawn
There is a space where the world is mine oyster
Then I look at my phone
It says, “Expect Rain at 8 AM”
There are so many excuses as to why someone stops writing or take a long hiatus. In my case, at first, it was marriage (or rather, the bliss of it). Lately, it has become my toddler
There were so many times when I wanted to write but couldn’t because I had to look after my baby. I had to keep him from not only injuring himself but also from being dirty and generally keep him from being a further nuisance to me and my wife than he already is. I think most parents know that having a kid is taxing and the fatigue keeps them from writing. But then, I found a solution which I hadn’t thought of using before. And the thing is, it’s been there for quite some time! That solution, dear readers, is voice recognition.
As with any other method of writing, there are so many Kinks to iron out when using voice recognition. For instance, I might say one thing and the phone picks up another thing and there’s also the issue of speaking punctuations because as much as technology has advanced, speech recognition still can’t pick up on intonations as cues for certain punctuation marks. That being said, it still feels more intuitive. At least it does for me, withstanding my situation.
So After figuring out how voice recognition work, I set out a production pipeline. First, I try to speak as much as I can on the phone (yes, I write on my phone because of how sucky windows recognition is on my Windows laptop). Then, after I finish editing the text, I add punctuations and whatnot (thank heavens for Grammarly!).
It’s been working great so far!
In fact, this blog entry is a product of phone dictation. As I’m quite happy with how this turned out, I might keep doing this in the future.
