My Experience in 'Dee's Coaching Clinic' with Dewi Dee Lestari

Awesome! I've got to meet a famous writer from Jakarta who is...Dewi Dee Lestari! Yay! She's the writer of the series of her novel 'Supernova', in case if you don't know.

Today, on the 29th of April 2015, my aunt Riska and I were on our way to BI library which was placed on the corner of Darmo & Diponogoro (sorry for the misspelling) street. The 'Dee's Coaching Clinic' event was on the second floor of the building where we rent for events or parties...you know which one, right? Okay, good.

Anyway, after we signed our names in the guest book, we chose 2 seats and sat down next to each other. Besides, I don't wanna get lost or talk to strangers whom I've never heard/seen before. It took quite long to wait for Miss Dee, because she told us that she was excused 'cause she had to go to the toilet. LOL.

So, once she finished going to the toilet and apologized to us for the wait, Miss Dee started her speech which answered questions we've sent her by Gmail. I listened carefully to her speech as I wrote them down on a notebook with a pen which were given at the first place where we signed up...for free. Well, I guess that's normal for all talk show events.

Here's what she said along her speech (written in my own language):

"Hi everyone, so I've read all of the questions you've asked me in Email, now, I'm going to answer them all. From my experience of writing short stories, I tried to offer them to magazines and newspapers, but they always rejected me. And from what I've read in those magazines & newspapers, the stories written in them are the ones which I believe we can also write. It's really normal...

"So why can't my stories be published in there too? Well, ladies & gents, being rejected for the first time is normal. Everyone gets rejected at first, even famous and best-seller authors outside and inside country. Don't you ever be disappointed when someone rejects your work of art, keep trying and trying as you continue updating or editing your stories until it began to be more interesting...

"I don't have any supporters from any companies or communities back then. The only ones who supported me were my Mom, my sisters and the rest of my family. So, back then, usually, when I finish a new short story, I always come up to my sisters' door and knock, saying. 'Hey! I finished my new story!' Then, they read them until the end.

"Your parents or family don't need to say you're good or amazing at your talent over and over again. They just need to say it once, like the first time when my Mom read my first ever story. 'You've got talent.' She said to me. I was like: Wow! Someone likes my story! And that was enough to make me continue doing my favorite hobby; writing.

"I actually never planned to be a writer, I wanted to be an architect and a scientist, but every time I go to a book store, I pictured my own book being displayed on that very shelf. I just wanted to, not plan to become a famous writer like now. I don't care if my book becomes a best-seller or not, the only thing I wanted most is just to see my book displayed on one of the shelves.

"Okay now, I've read all of you asked about 'How to write a good book?' Well, that depends on how good you write. If you can write really well, then you won't need a very long explanation. Okay, first of all, if you are beginners, you have to write a book that you've always wanted to read in bookstores with the genres which you like.
Don't follow trend, because it will only make us completely confused and hard for us to write which will only make our story unruly. Just write what you like and what you would like to read in bookstores.

"Second, we must have a verisimilitude. A verisimilitude is a research that makes a fiction story much more stronger and feel realistic. Like example, we want to write about a magical talking mushroom ((I'm totally making this up XD)), you need to know where it lives, where does it get its food and nutrients, where's its habitat, and etc. Once we know all of those facts about it, then we can finally add some fantasy/mythical/unrealistic things into it.

"Third, think creative; how to make a normal thing which already exists in our present time to something which doesn't exist today. It also helps us to expand your awareness. As a writer, we must need good observation, so we must observe or investigate our main capital of the story and its complements. To be a great writer we must be a good observer.
Thinking creative doesn't mean we have to think different than other people, because it will make more weight for us. Everyone has a unique voice that we have to dig through a tall pile of dirt & mud to find out. The more we write, we are actually doing the digging process.

"Now let's not use 'first', 'second' or 'third' anymore. The rules to be a great writer are to:
1. Think creative
2. Always practice*
3. Know what book that we want to write*
4. Know about Dead Line* ((Nope, it's not about zombies))

"(2) We have to practice our writing skills very often. Write in a place you're comfortable in, at day or night whenever we like it, in something which you enjoy writing in like your blog, diary, journal, etc. Whatever thing, place or time that you enjoy and comfortable with.

(3) By knowing what kind of book you want to write, your story's plot can flow down your mind slowly and calmly so that you won't be confused or stuck in the middle of your story.

(4) Dead Line will 'force' us to get out of our lazy zone and idea confusion. Dead line is really useful for ourselves, use dead line as a tool; a tool to motivate us... One of the benefits of dead line is creating something concrete.

"If you want to write by doing something fun in between, you can try making 'Story Boxes' ((I'm making this up too XD, but the ideas for making these are all from Miss Dee)). First, you have to have 4 cardboard boxes, some sticky notes and a pen or pencil or marker. Then, we mark each boxes with numbers; number 1, 2A, 2B, and 3. The 2A and 2B are for conflicts & solutions of how to solve the problems. We only have to write short scenes like example: 'Alfa will meet Gio.' Just short scenes, then in your computer, you can expand and add more stuffs into each scenes.

"So, number 1 is for the introduction which tells about the characters and their life interests, etc. 2A is when the characters go out of their comfort zone which is where the conflicts start to show. 2B is where the conflicts turn hot, like there will be a huge fight in this scene or emotional stuff. Usually, 2B is really fun for me to write. Last but not least, number 3 is where the questions from 1, 2A, & 2B are answered, it doesn't have to be too long, because it's the ending of the story.

"I hope you will have some fun with those tips of hand-crafting while you write. These are some more tips for you to write a great story;
1. Narrative which is too long makes the story messy and the writer or reader may be bored, confused or frustrated.
2. We must know our character well:
(A) Habits
(B) Specialities
(C) Weakness
(D) Actions/Sacrifices 

"If you want to write comedy/humor scenes - even though the reader doesn't laugh - the important thing is that for us, it is funny. At least laugh when you think it's hilarious. Same for emotional scenes. What we think is funny/sad and we really laugh/cry at our story, that's good enough to make some readers entertained or sometimes laugh and cry like we did. 

"Failures are normal.They always happen. Even best-seller or great writers came through failures at first. Like me; at first time, I offered my stories to magazines, publishers and newspapers, they rejected my offers. That's because every year, favorite genres always change. But that doesn't mean we have to follow the genres or we have to wait for the year of our story's genre to come. Just write what you like. 

"Daily habits aren't really attractive and interesting for fiction stories. The first sentence of a story is very important to attract readers or publishers. Like: 'That afternoon, the clock tolled its bells 13 times.' Make the first sentence of your story as interesting as possible. 

"Don't make a title that tells the readers straight to the topic of the story. And don't write in slang (a.k.a 'bahasa gaul') words, use some literature language too, so that the story won't be so slang, just to make sure the story you're writing can be read for all ages. 
When we write, we don't need to get an excellent label of 'best-seller' or 'best book of 2015', but to dig in our uniqueness and show other people our creativity & uniqueness. Labels are only bonuses.      
"One more thing; being a newbie or freshman in writing is a bit hard because once we publish a story, BAM! people, journalists and others critic or praise our work. They will ask us many, wait no, LOTS of questions. Please don't take the critics too badly. But also, don't focus only on praises or you won't learn from you mistakes. But if we only focus on critics, we will be sensitive or stress. 
So, it's better to take both. Everyone has haters and lovers... It's all yin and yang. 

"Thank you for all of your useful questions and also for coming here... Good afternoon." Miss Dee finally finished her speech and I was already finished writing them all down in my notebook. Ah, finally... Then, the host announced that there will be 2 people who will get a free t-shirt of 'Perahu Kertas' which was also one of Miss Dee's novels. 

Miss Dee gladly gave me a blueish-green t-shirt one meanwhile another woman older than me, but younger than my aunt, got a sky blue one. I was so happy! Miss Dee said she gave me a t-shirt because I was the youngest of all people who came to the event and the youngest to have a big interest in writing. I said 'Thank you' to her as she returned a smile back to me. 

Once the event's done, I stood in line with the others to ask Miss Dee if she could sign her autograph in our book collections of the novels she wrote. It took quite a long time, but I was satisfied when I left there. We also took a picture, but when I got home, the picture was gone! Ugh... It's okay. Maybe we can meet each other again. :D 

If you want to know more, visit:
www.dee-interview.blogspot.com

This summary is using my own language and way to write. But the speech points are all from Miss Dewi Dee Lestari. See you next time, guys! :)  

The Siberian Cat

The Siberian is a very adorable and playful cat. They’re very affectionate and social with family, kids and pets. 

They are also cute and cuddly! Their fur is soft and silky, but unlike Raga Muffins, they are quite hard to take care of. But their fur is healthy and protective from the outdoor environment, they also love the outdoors. They’re very adventurous cats. They most enjoy big fields, yards, or forests. Also enjoys playing, running and catching.                                                                                                                           

PERSONALITY:

The Siberian’s heart is as warm as her homeland is cold.                                    
She loves people and wants to be near them, so expect this affectionate cat to follow you around, including to the bathroom, and to “help” you with all of your reading, TV viewing, computer work and meal prep.                                                                                                                                

She’ll probably sit beside you or on your desk when you’re still studying or reading while listening to you reading. And she’ll also probably sit down on your lap while you’re doing your homework in your book or listening to the music in your computer.

Sitting in your lap while you comb or brush her fur may well be the highlight of her day. When you come home from work or school, she will be pleased to tell you all about her day in quiet, pleasant trills and chirps, with a few meows and purrs. Guests will find her to be a genial host; this is not typically a cat that is shy in the presence of strangers. So, she’s quite social. 


Besides being loving and attentive, the Siberian is also active and playful. She will instigate games of fetch by bringing you a favorite toy to throw. Any item can become a plaything for this clever cat, so keep jewelry or other fragile and precious items out of her sight. Teaching her tricks is a fun and easy way to challenge her agile brain.The Siberian’s thick triple coat should be combed or brushed a couple of times a week to prevent tangles or mats. The coat will shed seasonally in the spring and fall, and you may need to groom more frequently during that time. A bath is rarely necessary, which is a good thing because the coat is highly water-resistant. It can be difficult to get a Siberian wet enough to shampoo her.
WITH KIDS AND PETS PERSONALITY:
The Siberian has a bold temperament, and nothing much ruffles her composure. These characteristics make her an excellent choice for a family with kids. No nighttime monsters will get past the Siberian on guard at the foot of a child’s bed. She is happy to live with other cats and cat-friendly dogs; too, as long as they recognize that she’s in charge. Introduce pets slowly and in controlled circumstances to ensure that they learn to get along together.


Because of her heritage as a forest dweller, she likes playing with water—perhaps it’s a genetic memory of going fishing for her supper. Don’t be surprised if she enjoys splashing you in the tub, drinking from a fountain or faucet, or making puddles by batting her paw in her water dish. Isn’t that cute?  

As befits a working and hunting cat, she’s highly athletic and you may find her balancing atop a doorway or propelling herself to the highest point in the room. In fact, Siberian coaches may well be the secret to the success of Russian gymnasts. Activity and noise won’t bother her a bit. Her calm nature gives her the potential to be a therapy cat.                                                                                                                                                
If nothing else, she will be happy to snuggle with you when you’re down with a cold or other illness. And although she loves attention, she’s not needy and will wait patiently until you have time to play and spend some time with her.

You probably won’t get bored of their active and fun personalities. 

 HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HER:

Brush the teeth to prevent periodontal disease to make it white as snow, so the Siberian Snow Tooth Fairy would love your excellent work!                                                                   

 Daily dental hygiene is best, but weekly brushing is better than nothing, so you wouldn’t let some fur drop or fly around the room.

Just trim the nails every couple of weeks. And wipe the corners of the eyes with a soft, damp cloth to remove any discharge. You have to use a separate area of the cloth for each eye so you don’t run the risk of spreading any infection.                                                                                                                   
Just be careful when you do these activities. You’ll need a grown-up to help you with it.
Check the ears weekly. If they look dirty, wipe them out with a cotton ball or soft damp cloth moistened with a 50-50 mixture of cider vinegar and warm water. Avoid using cotton swabs, which can damage the interior of the ear. Friend, please be careful when you clean its ear. You won’t like a cat that is deaf.

Most of the Siberian’s growth occurs in his first year and a half of life. Your kitten’s breeder may recommend that you feed her kitten food during that time to make sure she gets enough nourishment.
Keep the litter box spotlessly clean. Cats are very particular about bathroom hygiene, and a clean litter box will also help to keep the long coat clean.
It’s a good idea to keep a Siberian as an indoor-only cat to protect her from diseases spread by other cats, attacks by dogs or coyotes, and the other dangers that face cats that go outdoors, such as being hit by a car. Siberians who go outdoors also run the risk of being stolen by someone who would like to have such a beautiful cat without paying for it. If possible, build your Siberian a large outdoor enclosure where she can jump and climb safely.                  

                                                                                                                                         
So if you enjoy outdoors, like to come into the forest and like to play outside, a Siberian cat is the most wonderful pet for you!

My Vampire Diary

Welcome to the Vampire family!

Hi! Let me introduce myself! My name is Valaryne Vexfang, everyone calls me Vala. I’m 11 years old and I am also the Princess of Vampires. I have got 1 sister she’s 9 years old , her name is Vinky Vexfang and 1 brother he’s 8 years old, his name is Victor Vexfang. Victor’s kind of a book boy, that means he loves loves loves to read, unlike my sister she’s not always in a good mood to study, always playing and watching television.        

So I guess she is kind of lame (stupid), even when we go to school she’s always talking, not listening and not paying attention to the teacher. Sometimes it sucks doing home works with Vinky. But I still love her. 

We live in Grand Ghost Hideout (GGH), it’s the safest place for monsters, vampires, zombies and other spooky things to live in. Everybody needs to stay hidden from the Humans and everybody never goes near to the Humans or their place. Our taxi is the Pumpkin taxi, it’s a taxi that’s made from a Pumpkin. You know, just like Cinderella’s carriage. 

We also study in the greatest school ever!                                                                     

It’s called Royal Spook University, it is the most monstrous, most beautiful, cleanest, cleverest and  safest school in the Grand Ghost Hideout.

Oh! How I love this place! 

WELCOME TO OUR WORLD, READER! 

               ------------------------------

The Royal Approval Test

It has been a long weekend full of vampire tears since Vinky failed the Royal Approval Test. That’s the test when every Royal monsters have to prove that they have the ability to be a Royalty in their family, if someone fails the test, she/he has to be a part of other royal families. But thank goodness my mom and dad signed the One More Chance Letter at school, it’s the letter which parents sign for not to let their children move to another family. I’m so relieved. 

The next day, I tried to take Vinky to the Cemetery Library to study. But she refused.                                                                                                                                           

”Why do I have to study? Mom & dad already signed the 'One More Chance' Letter!”. She replied as she stuck her fangs out. Then I answered with a soft sound.

”Vinky, you’ve failed the test. You only have one more chance, if you fail the next test, you’ll be moved to another family. I’ll be sad to let you leave”.  But she shouted to me.          

”No! I don’t want to study! I’ll just play with my Best Friends, Millie the Princess of Mummies & Felicia the Princess of Frankenstein! You Jerk!”. How dare she! Well now I don’t care of Vinky’s test anymore, I don’t care if she fails or not. I’ll just study for my own test then.

So I went home bringing some books to study from the library without Vinky. We’ve fought really bad, I wish there was something that I could make it up to her. Ting! I have found a great idea! I can make a Scrapbook full of our sweet memories and fun scraps! Just in case if she fails the test again & moves to another family. Fang-tastic! This is going to be the best gift ever!

I’ve got some things to make the Scrapbook, I’ve put:

      More than 21 photos of our family and BFs ( best friends ).

      1 piece of broken glass that we’ve broken when we’re drinking Ice Blood.

      3 Lollipop sticks from the time Me, Vinky & Victor were eating Lollipops at the sweets shop.

      6 beautiful fragrant Monster flowers.

      I’ve wrote 8 poems & 6 quotes on little cute pieces of paper.

      The first fang of Vinky that was loose 2 years ago.

      And more happy stuffs and thoughts. 

Done! I’m so glad I’ve been thinking of this for a gift! I hope she would pass the test. Because I’ve been worried about her since the test started. After finishing the Scrapbook, I brushed my fangs and got ready for bed. As I cuddled my little vampire doll, I thought how sad tears drop from my family’s eyes when Vinky leaves our family.

It was hard to have such a pretty and funny sister just like her. But she’ll still be a part of our family. We have so many special & wonderful times together, until now. I frowned and smiled at the same time as I thought of those happy memories. We’ve been doing fun times, I’ve remembered we ate all the Cotton Blood Candy at the Count Fair, Vinky accidently farted Victor’s face 2 months ago, and Me, Vinky & Victor exploded the school lab by accident. Boom! Hihihihi!

“I’m so sleepy “. I yawned with a small giggle. So I went to bed and slept cozily. 

The next day was the final Royal Approval Test, which I’ve been worrying so bad about Vinky failing the test before. Well I hope she would pass the test.

The test was quite hard, Only a few of the students passed the Royal Approval Test, including me and Victor. It was a relief. Well, except Vinky, she failed the test again. And my mom and dad didn’t have any more One More Chance Letters, they’ve used all of it for defending Vinky in all the tests. It was hopeless. The Principle gave a letter to my parents so they can sign it to agree on Vinky's moving, caused by the failure of her test. My parents can't stand it, but, rules are rules. So they signed the letter that the Principle gave them and returned it to him. 

After the test, we went home, helped Vinky pack up her things, then I gave Vinky a big hug & the Scrapbook that I’ve made for her and finally we drank my mom’s famous Blood Tea in the living room while waiting for the taxi to pick her up.             

Until the last drop of Blood Tea, we waved goodbye to Vinky as the Pumpkin Taxi drove Vinky to another family. Tears dropped on our cheeks and my mom’s cheek became red as a rose as she cried.

“We will never forget you Vinky, We’ll miss you“. We whispered together. But sometimes, Vinky visits us and send postcards & letters to us. I know Vinky is far away, but her heart will always stay close to us. 

THE END

THE WORLD COMES TO LIFE: THE FUTURE

Usually, in the past people used to throw away trash on the street or paths, but not now… 

Welcome to the future world people! I’m Katherine Hazelwood, but you can just call me Katniss, and I’ll be your tour guide in the ‘Future Touring’! So, nice to meet you!!

Anyway, back to the tour! 

In the future, there are enchanted forests, wizards & witches, mythology animals… and others. There are Dragons and Hawks which rule the skies and help us hunt for food, Unicorns which heal people in hospitals for only some who has fatal sickness, and Mushrooms & Toadstools which light our way, like the stars.

People are saying “Hello” to mostly everyone they meet or pass by. And if someone needs help, the person always help them up while some other rich people don’t. Even animals which usually attack humans today, are greeting humans and animals as well.

If you want to ask questions, please raise your hands.

*then a girl rose up her hand* “Can I ask?” she asked.

“Of course.” Katniss answered happily.

“Are animals still hunted now?” the girl asked again.

Animals are mostly unharmed.                                                                  
Elephants that are endangered in the past are now not endangered anymore, thanks to our Elephant Foundations. And if you know these animals; Pileated Gibbons, Amur Leopards, Pygmy Hippos, Sand Cats, Egyptian Tortoises, and Sea Otters are also not endangered as well, but the Black Footed Ferrets are still endangered but its population is still well but not normal as the way their supposed to be.                                                                                                                                        

All of the products that contain animal belongings are officially banned by the government and the president. Now, the Earth is beautiful, fresh and clean…

Anything else you want to ask?

“……………………………………….” Everyone is silent, not knowing what to ask.

O-okay… Let’s continue…

As you can see, magical things are happening now. But at the same time strange things are also happening. It’s not what it’s expected to be. Like, trees are now moving its branches and it gives punishment to those who does bad or cruel things. (I know cruel and bad are almost the same, but its okay) And it is under the command of Allah.

There are also some new subjects now, it’s all made out of Sorcery; Pixie Dust Alchemy, Guardian Defense, Wizard Defense, Charms, Dragon Training, Herbology, Potions and History of Magic (I hate this one).

Pixie Dust Alchemy is a subject to learn about how to make different kinds of pixie dust to form different colors of pixie dust and each color makes different kinds of talents. Example: Purple; Wind. Orange; Light.

 See?

Okay, next is… Guardian Defense! My favorite!

Guardian Defense is kinda like defending, but with your powers. My powers are fire and arrow bombs; so I have to shoot the arrow with my bow and the thing will blow up into smokes. Isn’t that cool?! What powers do you have? I hope it’s amazing! Anywho, back to the tour!

In Guardian Defense, we also have a rematch. So the ones that have fire powers or their cousins, like Lightning are together in a team and the other team has ice powers. It usually is like that. Then, they fight, but that doesn’t mean the team has to kill the other team. That would be creepy! Last year, a girl named Jamie loss her blood because of the other team killed her with their dagger powers.

Okay, next is Wizard Defense or in the Harry Potter’s film it’s called Defense Against the Dark Arts. It is also defending but the wizard style. So, we use wands.                                                                                                              
Each wand has different materials. My wand is made from Phoenix feather, willow tree wood, a bit flexible and 14.1 inches long. There are different kinds of spells, so I don’t remember much. I didn’t pay attention last year. Hehe…

Okay, Charms! Yippee!! My favorite!! Charms are like spells but they’re cooler.

Dragon Training next! Also my favorite! Dragon Training is to train dragons from vicious to loyal. I have a Night Shadow dragon called Dauntless, because he’s very fast.                                                                                                                                              
Night Shadow dragons are one of the fastest dragons of all, and have really good aiming at shooting fireballs, lightning and plasma, and they can find their way in the dark, also can hide swiftly in the night clouds. And next to it, Star Gazers are also speedy, but not very good at aiming, but they’re also really good at star maps and can find their way out if lost, and if someone got hurt, it has the ability to heal.                                                                          

Dauntless is very loyal, funny, and adorable, acts like a dog when happy, acts like a cat when angry, caring, protective, brave, friendly, and lovable and likes to fly out with me in the morning & evening. I’m so happy to have him!                            

I hope you’ll have one loyal, good dragon.

Next, Herbology… Ughh! I hate this one. It’s so boring! Sorry, but I don’t wanna explain. Herbology is only Plant Science.

Potions! Worse! The teacher is so creepy that the students never dared to interrupt or make one crackle. *I shivered*

Last one, History of Magic. Ugh! So lame and my teacher is very boring… I always sleep in History class. And once I tried to drink coffee from Starbucks to wake myself up before school. But, once I noticed that History of Magic was the last class of all, the coffee energy ran out. And I slept again…

Note to self: Never drink coffee before school and always drink it when you go in to History class. 

We (me and my friends) go to the best magic school ever! It’s called Candor Academy. We’re born half-blood and some are pure-blood.                                       

Well, we go to this school because this is the only wizard school. And the other schools are muggle schools. So, the education is worse there and in Guardians Academy it’s awesome!!

Okay! That’s enough of the education, school and stuff now, back to the tour!

Anybody wants to ask a question?

*an old man rose up his hand*

“I would like to ask a question please.” He pleaded.

“Of course, sir.” I answered politely.

“How is the technology now? And how are the nature?” he asked.

 

Okay, let’s answer the first question:

There are solar-powered transparent sci-fi tablets, I-Pods still, flying cars and some others. Why do we use flying cars?

Well, because we made it as a solar-powered flying car, and if we use it on ground, the trees and buildings will keep away the sunlight, and the sunlight won’t reach the cars, right? And also, flying makes journeys shorter and faster than on ground. 

Also, the roads will be clear. There’ll be no traffics. Bicycles, people and scooters will be able to ride safely without any cars around and there’ll also be no tight spaces. The air will also be green and fresh!

The second question:

Nature is really good now. No more hunting or capturing poor animals, no more cutting trees out of control, no more Styrofoam & insect sprays and no more burning wood or forests. And no more non-organic farmings.

We use natural fertilizers now and all our vegetables and fruits are natural and fresh. All insect sprays are now ozone-free! The Ozone layer is back on track, because of us caring for nature and the environment. The Earth is now warm, not hot like in the past.

Farms are kept away from Factories and dirty cities. Farms are only near the clean and fresh parts of the land. There are a few of dirty cities now, and the government is still working on the dirty city to make it cleaner. Forests are now not de-forested, that means not cut or destroyed.

Fishes are not fished too much right now, and animals that are useless for people’s needs or innocent are un-harmed.

People and animals and plants are all living things. If you can’t respect each other, it’s the same as not respecting Allah, because Allah made all of us. We are the same but also different. We have to learn to bond a friendship between us and stop the hunting and destroying.                                                                                                        

Just like what animal scientists did in Nat Geo Wild. A person and an animal together, being best buddies. Just imagine if you did that. It will be the most amazing thing that every people will just follow you to do it, then, you can keep the planet safe, green and beautiful, and followed by love & friendship.

Thanks, guys for joining my Future Tour. I hope you can keep the Earth clean and green and friendly forever… See you later!!  

This is Katherine Hazelwood, the ecotourism of The Future Eco Tour. Over and out.

“Actually, a lot has changed from the past to the future. And I hope that this story will become real. I hope it will come true. But I’m still glad that I live in this time, because I have the best friends ever!”  – Fairuza Hanun Razak

Sorry, this is just an opinion of how I like the future more than my time. But I still l LOVE my time.

BYE! THANKS FOR READING!!

To Reach The Cloud of My Dreams

Why do people need to have dreams? Having dreams is important. Sometimes, people do not know what are their dreams, what they want, and what will they do in their future. It is ironic!  

          When people have many dreams about their future, sometimes it can last, and sometimes it can change. Dreams can be carried as a vision. A vision is what you see in the future and what you want it to be.

            Dreams and Visions are a bit different; Dreams are only a 50 percent positive, but Visions are 99 or 100 percent positive in a focus way; how unique you are in your profession, which university will you go to, what actions will you do to enter it and who will you collaborate with.                                          

            As what I’ve said before, dreams can change any time. And that happened to me; I change my dreams for most of the time. When I was 6 years old, I wanted to be a Doctor. It was quite interesting, but a bit creepy – imagine if a dead body walks out of the hospital – that was my cousin’s silly tale. They used to tell me that learning how to be a doctor is fun, so I thought maybe I could be a doctor one day.

            Then, somehow it changed when I started to read many books and watch designing & science programs in TV channels.

            From every knowledge that I’ve got, I want to be a great writer that writes cool stories and a great Animal Scientist with a hobby of interior designing. Time after time I’ve realized that this wasn’t  just a dream, but a vision. And I’m very sure about it.   

           

            All that I did to reach those visions are my passion. A passion is something that you really love to do all the time. I’ve been reading lots of books like novels, encyclopedia, and biography, surfing the internet and watching some TV shows of knowledge to reach them. Those are my true passion.   

            Doing those stuffs is my everyday life to fill in my spare time. I enjoy most of my time doing them. Sometimes I go with my Mom to the places I love most after she finishes her work in her office, like; the book store, the library, the movie theater, and go to the National park on holiday weekends.                              

            I don’t really enjoy most of the libraries here, because they only have a few literalists. The book store is my most sacred place. Without a book in this world, makes my world, and I think other people’s world will be narrow.

           

            Books spread our imagination and dreams wider; they fill up the blank pieces of paper with ink which I’ve always imagined that each drop is a thought or memory that you share to the world. Writing a book is to write down your feelings and clear your full working mind into a calm one.                                                              

            It’s like writing poetries and letters to your family or other loved ones.                         You would share your feelings to your Mom, wouldn’t you?                

Well, writing a book is like that too. 

            I hope you now know that reading and writing is an important thing…

Well, now, back to the topic.

           

            A dream is like a cloud, a cloud that floats way up in the sky. And under that big cloud, there are some small clouds which form your life steps. You must walk step by step up to the stair clouds to reach the big cloud. Those steps can help you to reach it, like the stairs that leads to your favorite room in your house.   

           

            What I’ve done in my life are my steps, like entering this speech contest is my opportunity to be a famous entrepreneur. And I’ll do my best to make my family proud of me.      

            When I grow up, I want to have college in a foreign country. But I don’t know where, because I’m still considering it. I realized, I have to search some information

for a college. Some of those became my judgment; among others are Juilliard University, Reed College, and Cambridge University. I think I’d prefer to go to Cambridge.  But, how can I get a scholarship to go to that university? I have to do that by doing actions.

           

           

My actions are searching information of each university, study hard and study smart on subjects that I love most, ask other people who has an experience of studying there for more information, surf the internet and read lots and lots of books.

            Study hard is to focus on the subject that I love and that’s connected to my dreams. And Study smart is to find a way to reach my dreams faster. Choose an effective way and decide how creative/unique I am in that profession.

           

            After I’ve done the three of them; vision, passion, and action, I think I’m already near my dream cloud. So when I go to college and then graduate from it, I need to collaborate with someone that has the same dream as I do, also a kind hearted & truthful one, because none of the professions can stand alone, but they need to synergy with each other.

           

            Example, if you want to make a movie, you don’t just need an actor or actress to do it. You’ll also need a camera expert, anime/cartoon maker, sound man and some musicians, right? If they work together, they could make amazing movies, don’t you think?    

            Who knows, maybe you and your partner can make a company together and make a success. Finally, you’re in the cloud of your dreams! J

Thank you for reading,

Fairuza Hanun Razak 

MOVIE QUOTES ABOUT DREAMS

“Go, live your dream” by Hookhand in Tangled

“I have a dream, I just want to see the floating lanterns gleam!” by Rapunzel in Tangled.

“I can live, I can fly. Chase the wind and touch the sky!” by Merida in Brave

TEA

Tea is likely in China as a medicinal drink. It was first introduced to Portuguese priests and merchants in China during the 16^th century. Drinking tea became popular in Britain during the 17^th century, then the British introduced it to India. Tea was a healthy and enjoyable beverage for people, Tea has lots of good benefits for health and people. People can cure sickness with tea.

Recent studies suggests that Green Tea can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers, it can also promote oral health, reduce blood pressure, make you calm, help with body weight, provide protection from solar ultraviolet light and increase bone mineral density. Wow! J Cool!

Consumption of Green Tea is associated with a lower risk of diseases that causes functional disability, such as “ stroke and osteoporosis “ in the elderly.

Ice tea and Warm tea are experimented with bacteria and when the scientists put some bacteria, the bacteria were vanished and killed. The scientists say that Warm and Cold Tea can destroy all of the bacteria and parasites in our body.

Black Tea are known as a Red Tea in China.

There are at least six kinds of tea: white, yellow, green, oolong, black and post-fermented tea.

Tea are packaged as Compressed Tea, Tea Bags, Loose Tea, Instant Tea, Bottled and Canned Tea.

Tea that are packaged in an Instant package are dangerous, it may have sodium and food coloring.

SO BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU CHOOSE A TEA! LOOK AT THE FOOD NUTRIENT TABLE.

Now, I’m going to show you how Tea plants grow. Enjoy!

It takes about 4 to 12 years for a tea plant to bear a seed, and about 3 years before a new plant is ready for harvesting.

Wow! That’s a long time!

In addition to a warmer climate, tea plants needs 127 cm ( 50 inches ) of rainfall a year and prefer acidic soils. Many high quality tea plants are cultivated at elevations of up to 1,500 m ( 4,900 ft ) above the sea level.

While in these heights, tea plants grow more slowly and they acquire better flavor which costs higher price.

Better tea are made with smaller leaves, which teas are very famous in China while in Cambodia people drink tea with bigger leaves.

Tea trees can grow until 16 m ( 52 ft ) tall if its left undisturbed. But Tea plants bears more shoots which provide new and softer leaves that increase the quality of the tea.

Pests of tea like mosquito bugs, eat the leaves so we have to spray the plants with insecticides.

If the place where tea plants grow is polluted and full of bugs, the tea will be dangerous for human health. Also, if the people use non-organic fertilizer, it will also be dangerous for health.

So, if we want better and healthy Tea, we should care for the environment.

GO AND SAVE THE PLANET!

How To Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method

The Snowflake Method For Designing A Novel

Writing a novel is easy. Writing a good novel is hard. That’s just life. If it were easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction.
Frankly, there are a thousand different people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. There are a thousand different methods. The best one for you is the one that works for you.
In this article, I’d like to share with you what works for me. I’ve published six novels and won about a dozen awards for my writing. I teach the craft of writing fiction at writing conferences all the time. One of my most popular lectures is this one: How to write a novel using what I call the “Snowflake Method.”
This page is the most popular one on my web site, and gets over a thousand page views per day, so you can guess that a lot of people find it useful. But you may not, and that’s fine by me. Look it over, decide what might work for you, and ignore the rest! If it makes you puke, I won’t be insulted. Different writers are different. If my methods get you rolling, I’ll be happy. I’ll make the best case I can for my way of organizing things, but you are the final judge of what works best for you. Have fun and . . . write your novel!

The Importance of Design

Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. You can do the design work before or after you write your novel. I’ve done it both ways and I strongly believe that doing it first is quicker and leads to a better result. Design is hard work, so it’s important to find a guiding principle early on. This article will give you a powerful metaphor to guide your design.
Our fundamental question is this: How do you design a novel?
For a number of years, I was a software architect designing large software projects. I write novels the same way I write software, using the “snowflake metaphor”. OK, what’s the snowflake metaphor? Before you go further, take a look at this cool web site.
At the top of the page, you’ll see a cute pattern known as a snowflake fractal. Don’t tell anyone, but this is an important mathematical object that’s been widely studied. For our purposes, it’s just a cool sketch of a snowflake. If you scroll down that same web page a little, you’ll see a box with a large triangle in it and arrows underneath. If you press the right-arrow button repeatedly, you’ll see the steps used to create the snowflake. It doesn’t look much like a snowflake at first, but after a few steps, it starts looking more and more like one, until it’s done.
The first few steps look like this:






I claim that that’s how you design a novel — you start small, then build stuff up until it looks like a story. Part of this is creative work, and I can’t teach you how to do that. Not here, anyway. But part of the work is just managing your creativity — getting it organized into a well-structured novel. That’s what I’d like to teach you here.
If you’re like most people, you spend a long time thinking about your novel before you ever start writing. You may do some research. You daydream about how the story’s going to work. You brainstorm. You start hearing the voices of different characters. You think about what the book’s about — the Deep Theme. This is an essential part of every book which I call “composting”. It’s an informal process and every writer does it differently. I’m going to assume that you know how to compost your story ideas and that you have already got a novel well-composted in your mind and that you’re ready to sit down and start writing that novel.

The Ten Steps of Design

But before you start writing, you need to get organized. You need to put all those wonderful ideas down on paper in a form you can use. Why? Because your memory is fallible, and your creativity has probably left a lot of holes in your story — holes you need to fill in before you start writing your novel. You need a design document. And you need to produce it using a process that doesn’t kill your desire to actually write the story. Here is my ten-step process for writing a design document. I use this process for writing my novels, and I hope it will help you.
Step 1) Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Something like this: “A rogue physicist travels back in time to kill the apostle Paul.” (This is the summary for my first novel, Transgression.) The sentence will serve you forever as a ten-second selling tool. This is the big picture, the analog of that big starting triangle in the snowflake picture.
When you later write your book proposal, this sentence should appear very early in the proposal. It’s the hook that will sell your book to your editor, to your committee, to the sales force, to bookstore owners, and ultimately to readers. So make the best one you can!
Some hints on what makes a good sentence:

• Shorter is better. Try for fewer than 15 words.
• No character names, please! Better to say “a handicapped trapeze artist” than “Jane Doe”.
• Tie together the big picture and the personal picture. Which character has the most to lose in this story? Now tell me what he or she wants to win.
• Read the one-line blurbs on the New York Times Bestseller list to learn how to do this. Writing a one-sentence description is an art form.

Step 2) Take another hour and expand that sentence to a full paragraph describing the story setup, major disasters, and ending of the novel. This is the analog of the second stage of the snowflake. I like to structure a story as “three disasters plus an ending”. Each of the disasters takes a quarter of the book to develop and the ending takes the final quarter. I don’t know if this is the ideal structure, it’s just my personal taste.
If you believe in the Three-Act structure, then the first disaster corresponds to the end of Act 1. The second disaster is the mid-point of Act 2. The third disaster is the end of Act 2, and forces Act 3 which wraps things up. It is OK to have the first disaster be caused by external circumstances, but I think that the second and third disasters should be caused by the protagonist’s attempts to “fix things”. Things just get worse and worse.
You can also use this paragraph in your proposal. Ideally, your paragraph will have about five sentences. One sentence to give me the backdrop and story setup. Then one sentence each for your three disasters. Then one more sentence to tell the ending. Don’t confuse this paragraph with the back-cover copy for your book. This paragraph summarizes the whole story. Your back-cover copy should summarize only about the first quarter of the story.
Step 3) The above gives you a high-level view of your novel. Now you need something similar for the storylines of each of your characters. Characters are the most important part of any novel, and the time you invest in designing them up front will pay off ten-fold when you start writing. For each of your major characters, take an hour and write a one-page summary sheet that tells:

• The character’s name
• A one-sentence summary of the character’s storyline
• The character’s motivation (what does he/she want abstractly?)
• The character’s goal (what does he/she want concretely?)
• The character’s conflict (what prevents him/her from reaching this goal?)
• The character’s epiphany (what will he/she learn, how will he/she change?
• A one-paragraph summary of the character’s storyline

An important point: You may find that you need to go back and revise your one-sentence summary and/or your one-paragraph summary. Go ahead! This is good–it means your characters are teaching you things about your story. It’s always okay at any stage of the design process to go back and revise earlier stages. In fact, it’s not just okay–it’s inevitable. And it’s good. Any revisions you make now are revisions you won’t need to make later on to a clunky 400 page manuscript.
Another important point: It doesn’t have to be perfect. The purpose of each step in the design process is to advance you to the next step. Keep your forward momentum! You can always come back later and fix it when you understand the story better. You will do this too, unless you’re a lot smarter than I am.
Step 4) By this stage, you should have a good idea of the large-scale structure of your novel, and you have only spent a day or two. Well, truthfully, you may have spent as much as a week, but it doesn’t matter. If the story is broken, you know it now, rather than after investing 500 hours in a rambling first draft. So now just keep growing the story. Take several hours and expand each sentence of your summary paragraph into a full paragraph. All but the last paragraph should end in a disaster. The final paragraph should tell how the book ends.
This is a lot of fun, and at the end of the exercise, you have a pretty decent one-page skeleton of your novel. It’s okay if you can’t get it all onto one single-spaced page. What matters is that you are growing the ideas that will go into your story. You are expanding the conflict. You should now have a synopsis suitable for a proposal, although there is a better alternative for proposals . . .
Step 5) Take a day or two and write up a one-page description of each major character and a half-page description of the other important characters. These “character synopses” should tell the story from the point of view of each character. As always, feel free to cycle back to the earlier steps and make revisions as you learn cool stuff about your characters. I usually enjoy this step the most and lately, I have been putting the resulting “character synopses” into my proposals instead of a plot-based synopsis. Editors love character synopses, because editors love character-based fiction.
Step 6) By now, you have a solid story and several story-threads, one for each character. Now take a week and expand the one-page plot synopsis of the novel to a four-page synopsis. Basically, you will again be expanding each paragraph from step (4) into a full page. This is a lot of fun, because you are figuring out the high-level logic of the story and making strategic decisions. Here, you will definitely want to cycle back and fix things in the earlier steps as you gain insight into the story and new ideas whack you in the face.
Step 7) Take another week and expand your character descriptions into full-fledged character charts detailing everything there is to know about each character. The standard stuff such as birthdate, description, history, motivation, goal, etc. Most importantly, how will this character change by the end of the novel? This is an expansion of your work in step (3), and it will teach you a lot about your characters. You will probably go back and revise steps (1-6) as your characters become “real” to you and begin making petulant demands on the story. This is good — great fiction is character-driven. Take as much time as you need to do this, because you’re just saving time downstream. When you have finished this process, (and it may take a full month of solid effort to get here), you have most of what you need to write a proposal. If you are a published novelist, then you can write a proposal now and sell your novel before you write it. If you’re not yet published, then you’ll need to write your entire novel first before you can sell it. No, that’s not fair, but life isn’t fair and the world of fiction writing is especially unfair.
Step 8) You may or may not take a hiatus here, waiting for the book to sell. At some point, you’ve got to actually write the novel. Before you do that, there are a couple of things you can do to make that traumatic first draft easier. The first thing to do is to take that four-page synopsis and make a list of all the scenes that you’ll need to turn the story into a novel. And the easiest way to make that list is . . . with a spreadsheet.
For some reason, this is scary to a lot of writers. Oh the horror. Deal with it. You learned to use a word-processor. Spreadsheets are easier. You need to make a list of scenes, and spreadsheets were invented for making lists. If you need some tutoring, buy a book. There are a thousand out there, and one of them will work for you. It should take you less than a day to learn the itty bit you need. It’ll be the most valuable day you ever spent. Do it.
Make a spreadsheet detailing the scenes that emerge from your four-page plot outline. Make just one line for each scene. In one column, list the POV character. In another (wide) column, tell what happens. If you want to get fancy, add more columns that tell you how many pages you expect to write for the scene. A spreadsheet is ideal, because you can see the whole storyline at a glance, and it’s easy to move scenes around to reorder things.
My spreadsheets usually wind up being over 100 lines long, one line for each scene of the novel. As I develop the story, I make new versions of my story spreadsheet. This is incredibly valuable for analyzing a story. It can take a week to make a good spreadsheet. When you are done, you can add a new column for chapter numbers and assign a chapter to each scene.
Step 9) (Optional. I don’t do this step anymore.) Switch back to your word processor and begin writing a narrative description of the story. Take each line of the spreadsheet and expand it to a multi-paragraph description of the scene. Put in any cool lines of dialogue you think of, and sketch out the essential conflict of that scene. If there’s no conflict, you’ll know it here and you should either add conflict or scrub the scene.
I used to write either one or two pages per chapter, and I started each chapter on a new page. Then I just printed it all out and put it in a loose-leaf notebook, so I could easily swap chapters around later or revise chapters without messing up the others. This process usually took me a week and the end result was a massive 50-page printed document that I would revise in red ink as I wrote the first draft. All my good ideas when I woke up in the morning got hand-written in the margins of this document. This, by the way, is a rather painless way of writing that dreaded detailed synopsis that all writers seem to hate. But it’s actually fun to develop, if you have done steps (1) through (8) first. When I did this step, I never showed this synopsis to anyone, least of all to an editor — it was for me alone. I liked to think of it as the prototype first draft. Imagine writing a first draft in a week! Yes, you can do it and it’s well worth the time. But I’ll be honest, I don’t feel like I need this step anymore, so I don’t do it now.
Step 10) At this point, just sit down and start pounding out the real first draft of the novel. You will be astounded at how fast the story flies out of your fingers at this stage. I have seen writers triple their fiction writing speed overnight, while producing better quality first drafts than they usually produce on a third draft.
You might think that all the creativity is chewed out of the story by this time. Well, no, not unless you overdid your analysis when you wrote your Snowflake. This is supposed to be the fun part, because there are many small-scale logic problems to work out here. How does Hero get out of that tree surrounded by alligators and rescue Heroine who’s in the burning rowboat? This is the time to figure it out! But it’s fun because you already know that the large-scale structure of the novel works. So you only have to solve a limited set of problems, and so you can write relatively fast.
This stage is incredibly fun and exciting. I have heard many fiction writers complain about how hard the first draft is. Invariably, that’s because they have no clue what’s coming next. Good grief! Life is too short to write like that! There is no reason to spend 500 hours writing a wandering first draft of your novel when you can write a solid one in 150. Counting the 100 hours it takes to do the design documents, you come out way ahead in time.
About midway through a first draft, I usually take a breather and fix all the broken parts of my design documents. Yes, the design documents are not perfect. That’s okay. The design documents are not fixed in concrete, they are a living set of documents that grows as you develop your novel. If you are doing your job right, at the end of the first draft you will laugh at what an amateurish piece of junk your original design documents were. And you’ll be thrilled at how deep your story has become.
Over the years, I’ve taught the Snowflake method to hundreds of writers at conferences. I’ve also had this article posted here on my web site for a long time, and the page has now been viewed over 2,400,000 times. I’ve heard from many, many writers. Some people love the Snowflake; some don’t. My attitude is that if it works for you, then use it. If only parts of it work for you, then use only those parts.I write my own novels using the Snowflake method. Make no mistake — it’s a fair bit of work. For a long time, I did it the hard way, using Microsoft Word to write the text and Microsoft Excel to manage the list of scenes. Unfortunately, neither of those tools knows about the structure of fiction. Finally, I realized that it would be a whole lot easier to work through the method if the tools were designed specially for fiction.
So one day I decided to create that software. I wanted something that would automate every step that could be automated. The result was a commercial software package I call Snowflake Pro. It makes my own Snowflaking incredibly easier, and it’s now doing the same for zillions of other writers.

Source from: wikihow