The Muse Waits for No One

~ Laini Taylor

You know how you're in the middle of charging through a scene and you don't really want to stop for any interruption in case the Muse decides to go play with someone else?

^ Current situation as I make the leap from act 2 to act 3 of Before I Remember You.

So I'm just sharing this inspiring TED talk by Lisa Bu before I bounce back to the manuscript. Enjoy!

QOTD:

"I have come to believe that coming true is not the only purpose of a dream; its most important purpose is to get us in touch with where dreams come from, where passion comes from, where happiness comes from. Even a shattered dream can do that for you."

This is incredibly important. Don't give up on your dreams no matter how shattered or bruised they may be! They are what make you stronger and more resilient. Find a way to fix that dream, and protect it with all your heart.


Joyce ♥

On Working and Over-Working

Today, just this:

Well, not quite. I've been encouraged to blog about this. This being what's been going on lately on the writing front.

I woke up last Thursday morning experiencing the strangest jitters and shakes. I was tremble-y and weak all over. My body was warm, but my insides cold. It turned out to be a result of stress. I know, who would have thought I'd be stressed out, right? I mean, I may seem antsy and highly-strung most of the time and have no patience for the waiting game, but I also do things to help de-stress, like swim or listen to Joe Hisaishi and Nell, or play a musical instrument. I promise I'm chill! (Except it's usually the neurotic ones who proclaim that.)

But no, apparently I was having an allergic reaction to work. Not just work-work, but the other work I do after office hours. In short, my writing. I was stressing myself out because of the thing I love most.

Accomplished writers always tell us aspiring writers that in order to make it, we need to treat our writing as our second job, one of equal importance as our official one that pays the bills.

I don't dispute that - writing requires discipline and effort. The only way through is to devote the time and energy necessary to creating the best possible story you can pull out of yourself. So after the nine-to-five (so to speak), I dive straight into my manuscript the minute I get home. No time for dinner. Just munch on some fruits as I pound out the words. Keep going until my eyes can't stay open anymore. Next morning, wake up at the crack of dawn to swim before going to work.

This routine seemed to work just fine for a while. I mean, I was hitting word count, getting shit done, living and breathing my story, doing what was required of me at work, and staying healthy. Right?

But it seems I might have been going about this the wrong way, if the recent bout of adverse physical reaction is any indication. Insufficient sleep, for one thing. And an all-consuming obsession to squeeze that story out and hating myself whenever I couldn't get it going.

This led to general frustration and resentment and other unpleasant emotions that, needless to say, made the problem worse. The stories stalled, and ideas spluttered to a halt. I kept trying to crank up the engine, but it just groaned and refused to cooperate. I made note-cards, drew three-act structures, tore down each manuscript to its bare bones, rewrote synopses, trying to get to the root of the problem and understand where I went wrong so I can pick up from there again.

When I wasn't writing, I felt restless and guilty. (Even right now, as I'm writing this blog post, there's this voice in the back of my head nagging at me to stop procrastinating and return to the manuscript!) But when I was writing, I felt stuck. Nothing was working.

 

My dad remarked the other day that my modus operandi is unusual and not very efficient. "You work in sprints, two-hour bouts of manic energy and then you crash," he said. "Regular people work at a consistent pace so that they can last longer. A slow-burning flame will keep you going further."

This is in line with what I overheard a swimming instructor tell his student the other day in the pool: "No one is pressuring you; only you are pressuring yourself. You just need to try. Trying and failing is how you learn." The kid he was coaching tried and failed gloriously, but managed a perfect length of backstroke by the end of the session.

I didn't realise that I was creating my own problem until that moment. I was burning myself out because I was too impatient to get what I want. No one is pressuring me; I'm just hurrying myself to get the next book published. And the thing about publishing is that it takes a loooong period of time - years - from conception to publication. If there's ever one job you need patience for, it's writing.

We think that, because we're in our twenties, we need to make shit happen already. It's been almost four years since I graduated. Why haven't I achieved something yet? (Okay, yes I published a book, but what about the next one? And the next? And the one after that?) When am I actually going to start living the life I always dreamed of?

But maybe our twenties is the time we lay all the groundwork for the career - and the life - we want in our thirties and forties and beyond. Maybe we need to work at our craft now with consistency and devotion, and focus on putting one foot before the other instead of staring off into the distance and wishing we were at the finish line at this moment. (Where is the finish line anyway? Don't we just keep setting new goals for ourselves?)

Because like Rilke said,

And like Hermann Hesse preached:

And when all else fails, like Elizabeth Gilbert said at her TED talk, maybe all we really need to do is simply return to the one thing we love more than ourselves, "put our heads down and perform with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from us next".

For all the dream-chasers out there, are you sprinting towards your goals or running a slow and steady marathon? Do you occasionally feel burned out? How do you restore equilibrium in your life? I'd love to hear about your writing journey!

[Related Story: How Wanting Makes Us Want More]

How Wanting Makes Us Want More

You know how sometimes you feel like you have a million and one things you want to do, so many things you want to learn and experience and do and write about, but you just don't have the time or freedom or capacity to? Is it just a millenial thing? Does this only plague twenty-somethings from First World countries?

Right now, there seems to be so much else I can and should be doing, things I should be pursuing that, for some reason or other, I'm not. And as a result, I'm stuck where I am.

This post isn't supposed to be all doom and gloom though. It's not a bad problem to have - who's complaining about having too much inspiration for stories, right? I should be happy the ideas are flowing copiously, and I can experience enough to know what I want to pursue / devote myself to.

But wanting makes us impatient and desperate and miserable. Wanting makes us want even more. It makes us realise how much we should be doing but aren't. How much we could have but don't because we're not doing what we should be doing. All the opportunities and experiences we're missing out on because of what we don't have.

Wanting makes us even greedier, hungrier. Not for money, but for the life we have always dreamed for ourselves.

Right now, I'm writing this as I:
- work on the first draft of Before I Remember You (YA magical realism),
- story-board - and essentially rewrite - Blood Promise (yep, I'm going back to this YA fantasy manuscript I wrote three years ago, purely because I still see the - ahem - promise in it and believe I can get it published ... okay, the very kind and positive feedback from literary agents helped too)
- write a short story for Before I Remember You (sort of a prequel that serves as groundwork for me when I write the novel)
- plan out Land of Sand and Song (YA fantasy), and
- send out query letters to agents for No Room in Neverland (YA contemporary)

That's not including my day job and other pursuits like reading, practicising my musical instrument, blogging, attending writers conferences, spending quality time with friends and family, etc.

(Who has time for a boyfriend? My single ladies and I were talking about this the other day - how everyone seems to think we're inadequate in some way because we're still single in our mid-twenties. Maybe there are other things worthy of our time and energy that we CAN control and actively pursue, other things that make us equally happy, if not more so, because right now we're still just finding and building ourselves into the people we want to become. My philosophy has always been: if it happens, it happens. Not shutting the door on this, just leaving it open while I focus on the work I need to do in order to achieve my dreams. Okay, single girl rant over.)

If only humans didn't need seven to nine hours of sleep daily. Think of how much more we could all do if only we had the full 24 hours!

A day away from the day job is hardly enough, but it's all I can afford now if I don't want the work to pile up.

A writing friend of mine shared an essay by Steven Pressfield recently, about how writers typically have a shadow career, which is basically a substitute for their true calling, your actual job. A shadow career is the B story in your life that feeds into the A story, which is to a writer is writing.

I guess what I'm trying to say after all this rambling is that wanting has made me more focused but also tired, purpose-driven but also ravenous. No one said this would be easy, and I don't expect it to be easy. Anything worth having should be too easily attained, after all. But what if all this wanting only sets you up for endless disappointment?

Do you think it's better not to want and expect so much in life so we can spare ourselves the torment of not having, or do you think we should hold on to our dreams and emerge battered but stronger after the entire experience? How do you know when you need to let something go? I've always believed that if you want something badly enough, you should do everything you can to acquire it. But what if what you want was never meant for you and your stubbornness is what's keeping your happiness (and sanity) at bay?

Wow, okay that turned mopey. I'm not whining, I promise. I appreciate the struggle ... sometimes. I just want to know if I'm alone in worrying about all this and hear your take on this, dear readers!

Special thanks to readers and lurkers who have left encouraging comments - be it via social media or this blog or a private email - as I forge my way through this writing journey! Your words have gotten me through the darkest moments of self-doubt, uncertainty, and defeat. I am immensely grateful to each and every one of you who took the time and effort to reach out with a kind message of support and love.

XO

5 Writing Lessons from Sound of the Desert

You know me. After watching a good show, I can't resist analysing it deeper to find out what worked so well for it so I can apply that to my own stories. (That fangirl-y post I wrote previously doesn't count as an analysis!) So here are some lessons about writing a swoon-worthy story Sound of the Desert has taught me:


1. Backstory give your characters depth

... and makes your readers/audience more empathetic to your characters.

All the main characters in the show - particularly Xin Yue and Wei Wuji - have fully fleshed out backstory that isn't served to the audience in huge doses (the equivalent of rambling expository passages in a novel).

Xin Yue herself is a very compelling protagonist. Her past is complicated - when we first meet her, she is living among wolves. Her adoptive father was killed, and she's roaming the desert, lonely and lost. It is only when she decides to travel to Jian An, of which her father had always told her wondrous stories, that she is filled with purpose.

You immediately want to root for this brave, free-spirited girl from the desert.

Wei Wuji, too, is an illegitimate child who rose quickly among the ranks of the military to become a general at a young age and win every battle he ever fought. As the emperor's favourite, he has to contend with gossip and people waiting for him to fail.



In a way, those two are similar in that they are outcasts, underdogs. They don't quite fit in where they are. Xin Yue neither fully belongs in the desert (she was roaming freely but aimlessly with her wolf pack), nor in the city with all its social hierarchy and rules and palace politics. Wuji distances himself from everyone because he doesn't know whom to trust, and focuses on winning every battle because that's the only way he can shut up the naysayers.

When two lonely souls meet, you know that's a love story waiting to blossom.




2. Everyone has a flaw

... and how they regard that flaw determines who they are and who they will become.

Xin Yue's most notable flaw is that she chooses to stubbornly turn a blind eye to Wuji's love, instead choosing to chase Jiu Ye and demean herself to the extent of begging him to love her and getting herself drunk when she is rejected over and over.



Many times, I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Get over it, you idiot! But I'm sure we all know what it's like to to be in a one-sided relationship. Moving on is easier said than done, but we are SO MUCH happier once we decide and manage to - as Xin Yue is when she finally accepts Wuji and lets go of Jiu Ye.



And as mentioned earlier, Wuji has trust issues because he feels that everyone around him in court is a fucking two-face. As such, he appears cold, arrogant, and aloof. But it is only when he's around Xin Yue that he can be entirely himself and reveal his warm, romantic, playful nature. Even so, at the beginning, he is wary of her and didn't give her his real name, which would eventually become his biggest regret because Xin Yue couldn't find him when she reached the city and he thus couldn't be there for her in her time of need (Jiu Ye found her instead).



Jiu Ye is indecisive as hell. Which makes him one of the most frustrating characters to watch in the show. Make up your mind, for crying out loud! Here's a girl confessing to you time and again, and if you're going to reject her harshly then make a clean break and stop leading her on. Also, the fact that he keeps her at a distance and doesn't tell her the truth about why he's unable to accept her love is a recipe for heartbreak down the road. So we can all safely conclude that his wretched ending was entirely his own fault.




3. Supporting characters bring out different facets of the protagonists

Where would Xin Yue be without her sister-from-another-mother, Hong Gu, who first took her in when she entered the city and had no job or connections? And how would she come to appreciate her father's parting words for her to always look forward with hope in her eyes instead of remaining stuck in hatred in the past had she not met Qin Xiang, who enters the palace just to exact revenge on the royal family?

And if it weren't for Jiu Ye, she would not have grown into a strong, confident woman whom Wuji regards as her equal. She blossoms under his love, and is free to be herself unapologetically.

That look of longing hits a brick wall.

With Jiu Ye, she always has to second-guess herself, and is uncertain of what he's thinking even though she tries to read the books he reads and bond with him over flute-playing. Jiu Ye was a necessary part of her life that let her figure out what she needed and wanted to be.

For Wuji, his uncle plays the father figure in his life (after his actual father deserted him and his mom married another man), so a large part of his upright, loyal and honourable personality, unsullied by greed for power or money, is because of his uncle's upbringing. Meanwhile, his uncle's son is a snivelling little weasel who plays underhanded tricks and serves as a stark contrast to Wuji's character.

That powerful gaze! Eddie gives life to the character.

4. Scenes need to vary in intensity and length

Pacing is everything. Or at least, one of the most crucial factors that can make or break a story. A well-told story balances long, introspective or intimate scenes with punchy, high-octane ones expertly.

Between Xin Yue and Wuji's cute banter and Jiu Ye's mopey staring out the snowy window and flute-blowing, other subplots unfold. Scheming court officials, battles with the fierce nomadic Xiongnu tribe (Jolecole explains the history a bit more here, and also lays high praise on Eddie), et cetera.

Subplots are a great way to break up the main narrative, which can grow tedious on its own. If woven skillfully in, they can and should also further the main plot and add more dimensions to it while teasing out more character dynamics.


5. Character growth is one of the most gratifying journey

Xin Yue had been adamant about having Jiu Ye right from the start. She only had eyes for him, and didn't give a shit about Wuji always being there to comfort her when she gets her heart trampled upon by Jiu Ye, to protect her from the people from her past she is hiding from, or just there when she needs a friend in a new, foreign city.

Xin Yue is touched when Wuji told her she's not alone in Jian An.

It was only after she decided to let go of her past - her hatred for the people who killed her father and her unrequited affection for Jiu Ye - that she manages to bravely move on to a new chapter in her life.



As the audience, we grow together with her. We empathise with her predicament, understand the struggles she goes through to make her final decisions, and experience the same catharsis when she chooses to embrace a new life with Wuji.


And lastly, this lesson isn't about writing, but love.

6. Love is about timing

As Dreaming Snowflake said,

(Sound of the Desert) has always been a story that tells us that love is about timing, however, also that love favours the brave and those who fight for it and never give up and Wei Wuji is the epitome of never-say-die attitude be in it love or in war.



Gotta love a man who would fight valiantly for what he wants.


So while appreciating a mighty fine specimen like Eddie Peng, these truths are what I gleaned. Writing lessons can be derived from anywhere and everywhere, especially in the stories that move you. And the best lessons come unexpectedly, like from a drama like Sound of the Desert that I never thought I would ever watch.

What did you derive from Sound of the Desert, or any other stories that moved you?

yet another Shiny New Idea ... set in the desert!

Shiny New Idea: a new idea for a creative project that takes root while you are in the middle of a work-in-progress, and doesn't let go until you devote time and attention to it.

Sometimes it just hits you out of nowhere starts sweeping you away. It would whisper of tantalising characters and settings in your ear, keep you up at night with vivid scenes, and basically distract you from what you're working on at the moment to steal your attention and enthusiasm. Write me, write me! it will scream, until you are no longer able to resist it and you put your WIP on hold to go work on the Shiny New Idea.




Nooooo! Bad writer. Finish your shit before you move on to the next book!

But ... but it's so pretty. Look how shiny!

NO. You are almost halfway through your WIP. Do NOT abandon it now.

But this is sooo much better! And exciting! And shiny!

You get the gist. So yes, I caved in eventually.

The Shiny New Idea I've been obsessing over for days was birthed from this book:

And this drama, Ballad of the Desert:

(It stars Eddie Peng, too - yummm)

These are typically not up my alley at all - I'm not a period-drama person, or big on novels set in exotic settings I know nothing about - but there's something so alluring and unusual and fresh about the desert that allows for so many possibilities. I'm getting starry-eyed just thinking of it! *__*

The idea took root in my head before I even realised it. I began dreaming of a lone princess in the desert and found myself figuring out her story. I dreamed of a stranger with eyes like danger and skin the colour of sun-warmed sand.

I started seeking out "desert music" like this:

I started scribbling ideas into my notebook and plotting the opening scenes.

I started creating characters and diving into their backstory.

I started doing research.


5 Things Googled for Land of Sand and Song (yes, the story has a title already):

1. Atlas Mountains

Credit: Educational Geography

Image from Wikipedia Creative Commons

The Atlas Mountains is a mountain range which stretches across northwestern Africa extending about 2,500 km (1,600 mi) through Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines from the Sahara Desert. The population of the Atlas Mountains is mainly Berbers.

2. Berbers

Credit: Samia Dib Benkaci

The Berbers or Amazighs are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. The Berber identity is usually wider than language and ethnicity, and encompasses the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity and they encompass a range of phenotypes, societies and ancestries. The unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language, belonging to the Berber homeland, or a collective identification with the Berber heritage and history.


3. Numidia

Numidia (202 BC – 46 BC) was an Ancient Berber kingdom in what is now Algeria and a smaller part of Tunisia, in North Africa. Numidia was originally divided between Massylii in the east and Masaesyli in the west. During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), Massinissa, king of the Massylii, defeated Syphax of the Masaesyli to unify Numidia into one kingdom. 

The kingdom began as a sovereign state and later alternated between being a Roman province and a Roman client state. It was bordered by the kingdoms of Mauretania (modern-day Morocco) to the west, the Roman province of Africa (modern-day Tunisia) to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Sahara Desert to the south.


4. Mauretania

Mauretania (also spelled Mauritania) was in ancient times a part of North Africa corresponding to the Mediterranean coast of what is today Morocco.

Mauretania originally was an independent tribal Berber kingdom from about the 3rd century BC. It became a client state of theRoman empire in 33 BC, then a full Roman province after the death of its last king Ptolemy of Mauretania in AD 40.


5. River name etymologies

And we are just getting started.

BRB, getting lost in idea-land!

Oh, and if anyone has read that fantastic book or watched the show, I'd be happy to spaz over them with you. I am happily stuck in those worlds, and hope I never have to leave! :0)

The Write Life - Staying True to Your Craft

I've been hooked on TED talks by writers and creators lately. It was this particular one [Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating] given by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love that got me started. I come back to this speech every time I need a pick-me-up while lost in the wilderness of creation or in the pits of despair when things are out of my control.

In her speech, Gilbert talked about the struggles every writer faces: rejection, failure, feeling stuck in the same spot for years, being powerless in the publishing arena and facing things that are out of our control, like market forces and book sales.


On rejection and pushing through:

I failed at getting published for almost six years. So for almost six years, every single day, I had nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. And it was devastating every single time, and every single time, I had to ask myself if I should just quit while I was behind and give up and spare myself this pain. But then I would find my resolve, and always in the same way, by saying, "I'm not going to quit, I'm going home." 

And you have to understand that for me, going home did not mean returning to my family's farm. For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego, which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that's how I pushed through it.

On "going home":

... the remedy for self-restoration is that you have got to find your way back home again as swiftly and smoothly as you can, and if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint: Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.

On staying true to your craft:

The only trick is that you've got to identify the best, worthiest thing that you love most, and then build your house right on top of it and don't budge from it.And if you should someday, somehow get vaulted out of your home by either great failure or great success, then your job is to fight your way back to that home the only way that it has ever been done, by putting your head down and performing with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next.

I'm a born worrier. People around me always tell me to stop overthinking. So it's no surprise that I drive myself crazy going in circles in my head, thinking about potential outcomes (most of them not very pleasant) and obsessing over what I'm doing wrong to remain stuck where I am.

But I often find that losing myself in the story I want to tell not only takes my mind off these worries, it also reminds me of why I'm even doing this in the first place: because, like Gilbert, I love writing more than I love myself. It's something I would do even if I weren't getting paid for it; it's something I do when I'm happy or down or troubled or angry; it's something I will always do and can't help but doing because making up stories is already a part of me -- it's in my blood.

I think there are some people who wander in life for years, not knowing what their purpose is, and lucky the ones who find their calling early in life and therefore have years to work on it. So when you do find your calling, you need to hold on to it, nurture it, and keep in mind why you love it even when there are moments - many of them - when you feel like giving up.

So onward, storytellers. May you always manage find your way back home to what you love, and not waver in the face of failure.

mid-Jan - should we be worried now?!

Mid-month.

Two weeks into January, and things are taking shape.

Still too early to tell what that will finally settle into.

Still too early to be hopeful.

So baby steps. We'll get there.

Meanwhile on the writing front, I'm still plodding my way through Before I Remember You, and it is NOT PRETTY. Typically, I get about a third into a novel (about a hundred pages) before I start losing steam. But I'm only at page 30 and already I want to rewrite the whole thing. I probably should, right? Minimise opportunity cost and all that? Save it before it's too late? Or maybe I should just push through and emerge on the other side with a story actually figured out? I don't know! Where's the writing manual when you need it?!

But maybe this is the answer for everything in life:

Have a great weekend! :0)

hello, 2016

Funny how quickly years just pass once you start working. Ever since I started working in the fashion e-commerce industry, time has been measured in sales campaigns, and season by season, festival by festival, we reached the end of 2015.

And really, all things considered, 2015 has been pretty kind to me.

2015 was the year I travelled with my dad to one of the countries I've always wanted to visit.

2015 was the year I was tasked with bigger challenges at work that made it all the more satisfying and engaging.

2015 was the year I made new friends and became closer with existing ones. Friends found in unlikely places, and friends who made the workplace a lot less dull. Old friends I didn't see as much as I would have liked, but remained in touch despite our busy schedules. Thank you for being in my life - you know who you are.

2015 was the year I had (in a long time) that butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling whenever I saw someone. It's a feeling that makes you smile whenever you think of a person, and realise you aren't actually dead at heart.

2015 was the year of Neverland, where I spent a good part of it slaving over the manuscript that I'm pitching to agents now.

2015 was the year I got invited to my first ever panel at Singapore Writers Festival and met other writers, accomplished and aspiring. They made me go more confidently in the direction of my dreams, and the young ones in particular reminded me of that budding passion for writing that I might sometimes have lost sight of in my hurry to get published.

2015 was the year I met fans and made new writer friends who counselled, inspired, and encouraged me whenever my confidence and passion wavered.

2015, however, was also the year I experienced the loss of a family member. It was the year of rejection letters and more moments of despair and thoughts of giving up. It was the year of second-guessing myself and wanting to do more to live up to expectations. It was the year of having a lot yet wanting more. And I don't see that as a bad thing, because it's only when you strive for more that you actually get closer to where you want to be.

So in 2016, I will want more. Do more, see more, experience more. And hopefully, I can keep going forward in the direction I choose.

And I wish the same for you, dear readers. Thank you for your constant (invisible but palpable) presence. May 2016 be a year of serendipitous encounters and discoveries for you. I wish you more - I wish you passion and hunger and lofty dreams to chase. May you have more gratifying experiences that are fulfilling but also leave you wanting more.

So here's to new beginnings and all that. Let's hope this fuel keeps burning till the end of the year.

post-christmas state

Reading this:

Image from Goodreads

This book makes me want to delve into another fantasy project! Leigh Bardugo has a knack for creating vividly imagined worlds, endearing characters with fully fleshed out back-stories, and quiet tension that keeps you flipping the pages way past bedtime. It's not hard to see why she has such a passionate fanbase, or why Six of Crows debuted at number one on the New York Times Bestseller List.


Watching this: 

Image from Drama Fever

My Lovely Girl (starring Rain and Krystal) came with mixed reviews. Some said the plot was too slow, and some loved the character development. But it's surprisingly engaging, with the sort of K-drama moments that I love (you know, the ones where the characters don't say a word and the music swells and you just feel all the feels and hear all the unsaid words? It's those moments where you feel yourself falling for a show and start rooting for the characters. Those are the moments I want to create in my stories.)

Plus, Krystal is always a joy to watch.

Girl crush!

Missing this:

Discovering this: 

His name is James, and he's the bass guitarist of the Royal Pirates. You're welcome.


Listening to this:

It's been two years since they debuted. Can we please start appreciating this under-rated band more already! I've raved about them here on ZALORA Community (yes, unabashed plug here), so I won't say more. Just give them a listen.


Writing this:

Receiving this:

Sigh. Into the Rejection folder this goes. But I am still beyond grateful for the feedback, even if this isn't quite the result I was hoping for.

Nothing like some heartwarming fan mail to lift your spirits and spur you on!


And lastly, finding strength in this:

Happy holidays! :0)