blue plum blossoms decoded

a home for the blue butterfly whenever she tired and needs place to rest. visit me at my other site here site @ bpbdecoded wordpress fansite @ cnboice wordpress @lanhudiee twitter tara lee Facebook

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There's something different about writing in Bahasa Indonesia. It sits in my chest differently. wrote about why I can't fully explain it, and why I think that's the point. link below if you're curious

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Fiction and copywriting are closely related disciplines, both centering on character, tension, voice, specificity, and impactful endings. By treating readers as characters, copy engages more personally. Maintaining tension keeps readers invested, just as distinct voice and specific details make writing memorable. Strong conclusions invite action and reflection, enriching the reader’s experience.

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Still and Fill: Malang Beyond the Postcard

Photo courtesy of Gunung Banyak Instagram Some cities introduce themselves loudly. Malang never had to. My memory of Malang begins with quiet. Not the curated kind of quiet people now chase on weekends, but the ordinary quiet of daily life, the sound of wind brushing through trees, the faint clatter of dishes from a neighbor’s kitchen, the smell of damp earth after afternoon rain. Long before…

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Morning Pages, Evening Stages

How Daily Writing Rituals Transform Your Creative Process The coffee cup sits cooling beside my laptop, steam no longer rising in lazy spirals, while the cursor blinks patiently on a blank document. It’s 7:23 PM—that golden hour when the day’s responsibilities begin to loosen their grip and creative possibility whispers in the quiet. I pause, fingers hovering over keys, and ask myself the…

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Story Maps and Chapter Gaps

A Gentle Guide to Outlining Without Losing Magic The blank notebook lies open on my desk, its ruled pages catching the morning light that filters through my window. I can almost feel the weight of expectation pressing down on those empty lines, the pressure to create the perfect outline that will unlock my story’s secrets. My pen hovers uncertainly above the page, paralyzed by a familiar fear:…

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Plotter or Pantser?

The Great Writing Debate (And Why Both Paths Lead Home) The cursor blinks at me from a blank document at 5:47 AM, that precious stolen hour before the world wakes up and demands my attention. My coffee steam rises in lazy spirals while I flip through pages of handwritten notes, the character arcs mapped out in different colored pens, plot points connected by arrows that look like a conspiracy…

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Finding Inspiration in Everyday Echoes

The soft scratch of pen on paper cuts through the coffee shop chatter as I scribble down a fragment of conversation from the table next to mine—something about “forgetting to water the dreams in the basement.” The woman speaking has no idea she just handed me a story seed, wrapped in metaphor and dusted with melancholy. My Google Docs app has become a graveyard of these moments: “Actually,…

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Rest and Reset

Why Writers Need Pauses The cursor blinks expectantly on an empty page, its steady rhythm matching the flutter of anxiety in my chest. My hands hover over the keyboard, but the words feel stuck somewhere between my thoughts and my fingertips, like trying to pour honey through a straw. Earlier this year, I made a resolution to complete as many rewrites and re-edits as I could. Yes, rewrites and…

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The Mess Behind the Magic

The steam from my morning coffee curls around the edges of my laptop screen as I scroll through a document labeled “Dazey Dreamy – Draft 1.” The margins are cluttered with comments like “This makes NO sense” and “Delete this entire paragraph,” while highlighted text screams in yellow across half-finished sentences that trail off into ellipses. My first drafts often look like spilled coffee on…

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When Life Rewrites Your Script Mid-Chapter

The familiar weight of my laptop sits abandoned on the kitchen counter, its screen dark and silent. Instead, my thumbs move across the small glass surface of my phone, crafting sentences between phone calls about inventory and invoices. This wasn’t how I imagined writing my first contracted novel. The Contract That Changed Everything Sometimes life has impeccable timing, and sometimes it has…

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Finding Your Ideal Reader

When You’re Still Looking Too The Honest Truth About Reader Avatars Here’s what no one tells you about finding your ideal reader: sometimes you’re both searching at the same time. For months, I’ve been getting advice to “create your reader avatar”, you know, give them a name, an age, favorite coffee order, weekend habits. But every time I sit down to sketch this imaginary person, I feel like…

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Why Some Stories Never Leave Us

What makes a story so powerful that you return to it years later, even when you know every single words by heart? Some stories vanish from our minds the moment we close the book. Others burrow deep into our consciousness and set up permanent residence, becoming the books we recommend, reread, and remember when life gets complicated. What’s the difference? It’s not always the most technically…

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Stories We Tell on Bad Writing Days

The Hook That Every Writer Recognizes Ever stare at a blank page and feel like a fraud? Last Tuesday, I wrote exactly one sentence in three hours. Not a paragraph. Not a scene. One measly sentence. And by the end of that session, I’d convinced myself I was lazy, untalented, and probably should have chosen a different career entirely. Sound familiar? Here’s the truth every writer needs to…

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Premise vs Plot: Which Should You Write First?

The Problem Every Writer Faces You have a brilliant story idea burning in your mind, but where do you actually start? Every writer has been there, sitting with an exciting concept, knowing there’s a great story somewhere inside it, but feeling paralyzed by the question: Should I develop the premise first, or jump straight into plotting? This confusion isn’t just beginner’s anxiety. Even…

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Truth to Pen, Courage Within

The art of writing what scares you—and why that’s where the magic lives. Ever feel a story bubbling inside that makes your palms sweat? Good. That means you’re onto something real. What if I told you those very stories—the ones that make you hesitate—might be the ones worth writing the most? The “Freak-Out” Factor Back in an interview, John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls shared how producer Rob…

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Why I Don't See "No" as Failure

What if I told you that my biggest writing breakthrough came not from winning, but from losing? Every writer knows the sting of rejection. That email that starts with “Thank you for your submission, however…” or worse—the deafening silence that follows your carefully crafted pitch. But what if rejection isn’t the end of your story, but the beginning of something better? My Journey Through the…

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Dusty Drafts, Fresh Starts

When Old Manuscripts Deserve a Second Chance Have you ever stumbled upon an old manuscript buried deep in your files, wondering if it’s worth revisiting? You’re not alone. Every writer has a graveyard of unfinished stories, and sometimes, the best treasures are hidden in the oldest graves. The Manuscript That Time Forgot Picture this: It’s 2015, and I’m staring at a blank document titled…

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