Pounding The Keyboard

     Here’s a little reminder to writers and writer-wannabes. After you’ve finished plotting your story, and after probably fleshing out your characters, and you’re ready to write it now, the first thing you decide on is your narrative tense: will it be in present tense or past tense? Past tense is more common (and some say it is the only way a story should be told and that most readers are more comfortable with it), so let’s say you choose simple past tense for your narration, the first rule here is: you have to make sure that your whole narrative is in past tense.   (Meaning, your verbs, action or linking, should always be in past tense, e.g. was over is , talked instead of talks, sat over sit, had over has or have , could over can , did over do or does , would instead of will , and so on., except in dialogues, of course.)      Here's an excerpt from the “classic” vampire novel Twilight:      At that...

     So he got curious and looked at this People You May Know section in Facebook, you know that part where FB recommends some people you can add as friends.   No, he wasn’t thinking of adding friends, he thought his nineteen FB friends were more than enough.      There were people in that section which owner he didn’t know from Adam and yet they had more than fifty common friends. Then, he stumbled on this profile account which he quickly recognized. He was already friends with this account, he was sure. He went to his own account for proof and there, he saw the owner of that account liking and commenting on some of his posts, some of it just a year ago.      Yes, indeed, they used to be friends. But now, she’s only someone he may know. Lol. She had unfriended him. Why, he doesn’t have any clue. He hasn’t seen her and hasn’t talked to her for probably two years now and her account   is still the same...

     I watched Mandy (which starred Nicolas Cage), and my mind was blown. The plot is simple and probably overused: a quiet man and his book-loving wife were abducted by thugs (crazy cult members in this movie). The wife was sexually molested and was set on fire while the husband was left to die. He survived and armed with a chainsaw and an axe-looking weapon he himself made, he started hunting and killing the evil culprits one by one.      But how this story was presented is weird, brutal, gory, horrific,   trippy, hypnotic, exquisite and very entertaining. It’s like a long, hazy, colorful, surreal dream. Almost every scene is framed like a dark painting and splashed with neon colors, the cinematography is really   good and the musical score haunting, foreboding and psychedelic. My only complaint is that the main villain easily crumbled and didn't put up much of a fight at the end.      And yes, Nico...

      I don’t know what to call it: karmic justice? what you sow, you reap? poetic justice? what goes around , comes around? Live by the sword, die by the sword thing? Or just a simple unfortunate incident caused by unhealthy eating and drinking habits. You see, there’s this man in our neighborhood, he’s in his fifties, a tricycle driver, quite harmless, always ready to help when there’s some helping needed, isn’t troublesome,—except that he’s a loudmouth. He loved to talk and engage every one in a conversation but he couldn’t speak in a normal voice. His voice was always loud and booming, you could hear it even when you’re a mile away. The people in our place had grown tired of admonishing him to turn his voice a bit down. Worse, he’s an early bird, he’d be up around five or six in the morning and would start engaging people in a conversation, or worse, in an argument, while waiting for his regular passengers, in effect waking up people   sleeping ...

     Today is Roger Waters’ birthday so I would listen to nothing but his solo songs all day. First on my list is his brilliant first solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking . Released in 1984, it's a concept rock album based on his series of dreams one night—he dreams about picking up a beautiful and sexy female hitchhiker and thinks of having an affair with her despite him being a married man. I love this album because Roger here is often angry and screams quite a lot. His powerful (and blood-curdling, lol) vocals is at full display in some songs here. He always sings passionately and emotionally and I love it when he screams.   It is probably due to all these screaming and wailing, and of course his age, that his voice is sort of shot now.       It also should be noted that Roger Waters presented the concept and demo tapes of  both this album and The Wall to Pink Floyd then, and made them choose which one they’d...