Live Journal!!!

Yeah, after much thoughts I have finally decided to open up a LJ account. Mainly just for escape purposes. Some of the entry would probably be rant or just personal stories, like a diary maybe, and perhaps I might just want to post my stories there. Who knows.

I finally decided to open up an account because AFF is becoming more pressuring lately. I don't blame anyone, perhaps it is just me.

I started writing, mostly because I love dreaming. Sleeping and having dreams (like literally dreams okay, not something I want to achieve in the future 'dream') are both a big part of my life and something that affected me greatly. I started writing to memorize my dreams, at least some or most that I found very interesting and odd and memorable. That is when I was in elementary or middle school. It helps my imaginations a lot, but I have never finished any of my stories before. Oh wait. I did finish one, but when I read it, it just big time. I was undeniably very much embarrass. I'm glad my mom still encourage me though. She even told me to finish my stories and she will take those to her friend, who coincidentally worked in a publishing company. Have I told you that I really love my mom?

Any who, I'm getting off course. I realize I do that a whole a lot of times lately. Well, back to the story. Where am I? Oh yeah, writing. I have only started to do 'professional' writing and using English because of my IELTS test. My writing skills are HORRID! And I honestly don't know how to improve at the time. Reading, well you can improve it by reading more. And I actually love reading, so it's quite okay (Actually my best score is actually in reading, I got 8! Hahahhaha.... I need to brag sometimes). Listening and speaking, well those can be improve by watching a lot of movies and all those stuffs. And since I had already watched American shows and cartoons and all that since pre-school, my listening and speaking skills are great. I think. I used to have a very convincing American accent just so you know. Then I moved to Australia, and met all kinds of people with a whole bunch of different accents. Singlish, Malay, Chinese, South East Asian, Arab, Australian, just named it. And somehow I feel my English skills are deteriorating. My accent nowadays are completely messed up. You can hear it sort of American with few words here and there that sounded Australian, and then at the end I sometimes said '-La' (I blame my Singaporean friends for this. I'm slowly speaking Singlish). And then few of the times I replied using 'Hao a-' (Chinese) instead of 'okay' and then I also began to say 'What? Wae yo?' instead of 'What? Why?'.

Oh My God, where am I going with this. Stay with me. So, basically I started digging in to Taiwanese dramas and this one show is so AMAZINGLY AMAZING that it caught my attention and I have become a big fan of it ever since. The drama / show is Zhong Ji series. There are 3 dramas, plus one in the making right now. I just love this show. It's corny and funny, and a bit of lame too, but I still find it more interesting than the usual romcom. Being a girl that just love spoilers so much, I searched for it online, and I found Zhong Ji wikia. I'm an admin there now. But basically since I love the show so much, and there are not a lot of contributors, I started pitching in. And before I know it, I was writing in English. And the creator was so thankful for my contribution that he promoted me and of course, that just encouraged me even more. And then I found the sole show that led me to what I am right now as a writer, Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu aka Hana Kimi Taiwan version 2006.

Okay, let me get things straight. This drama is the original drama of Hana Kimi. The first one. The 2007 Japanese one aka Ikemen Paradise (as great as it was) was not the first one. And please to people who says this Taiwanese one and all that, reality check, this one is the only one (I think, if I'm wrong, so sorry about that) that won a legit award for best drama of the year. And it was awarded in SEOUL 2007. HAH! I'm pretty sure that if this it won't have even be nominated, let alone win an INTERNATIONAL award. (Sorry about this outburst, I kinda hated that there is this thing going on in tumblr, or somewhere saying that 'To The Beautiful You is second to the original one. The Taiwanese is definitely the worst'. Really I want to rant so much on that comment, on fortunately most of the time I can't since I don't have an account.)

Hana Kimi is basically my gate to CE fandoms. And from that point on I started to watch S.H.E and Fahrenheit. From all those watching I was completely inspired by Ella, no doubt. Then I somehow stumbled upon a link that redirect me to WINGLIN and that is when my fanfics adventure begin. Honestly speaking, I was completely blown away by the fanfics (CE fanfics) I've read on winglin. Like they were AMAZING! Till this day, my favorite authors are still those at winglin. Not saying that authors here aren't great, but seriously those girls (or guys) are no joke. Their mechanics / technical skills might be not as superb as the ones here, but their writing skills are something I hope I can one day achieved. Like seriously, in Winglin we don't have a definite username so authors can just changed it for every story and there will be no traces whatsoever, but readers can still tell that a certain authors are the writer. I just completely blown away with those traits they had. Some of the authors here are also like that, but not a lot.

Long story short, I was so inspired by CE moment, CE Angels, and those fanfics, that I decided to write my own fanfic. A way to pass the time after graduation and also a way to practice my English.

I think I did fairly well for my first story. My technical skills are not the best, but it helped boost my confidence in English a lot. I then moved to Australia and writing slowly became more of a hobby rather than a way for me to practice my English.

A few roaming around the web, a lot more readings, and a lot of video links from my best friend later... I found this site and BOOM! I'm into Kpop.

It doesn't really change much really. It's just give me more characters to work on. I honestly don't know how authors managed to write a long long stories about KPop idols. Most of them have moments that are only few seconds long. Honestly speaking I can say that those moments can easily be done towards friends (like seriously, I've done that to a lot of my guy friends, okay?). That's why I can never really write a whole bunch of long stories / novel like stories with KPop idols. Just because I think they don't have enough chemistry in my opinion. Why I can do that with ChunElla? You can thank all my senior / JieJie in CE Angels community. They are all so dedicated that I'm just drawn to the couple. I found how they managed to stay 'sweet' and 'playful' throughout the years (that, and also their chemistry in Hana Kimi is just undeniable okay?). And the evidence the fans gathered, as absurd it may seems, somehow convinced me that those two definitely have something going on behind the scenes. Of course, it was later proven to be not right since Ella is now married, but not to Chun. But I just like to believe, that perhaps, something did happen between the two, it's just things doesn't work out. We can't blame anyone for that. Okay, I'm delusional.

Anyway, so I got into Kpop, started writing short stories and all that. And then I stumbled upon reviewing sites, tutorial sites, and all that. I actually stumbled upon review and graphic shops before I got into Kpop, but I think the shops here are more dedicated. And then I stumbled upon a rant site. A place where people just basically said how horrible some of the authors are. And soon, I somehow stumbled on more tutorial sites. I just read them by the way, I don't really follow those. Mostly because I'm already confident with my writing and I already know parts that I need to fix and all that. (Like really, I am highly confident in the plots I create, especially for my long serious stories. And I pride myself in creating plot twists and cliffhangers - okay maybe not cliffhangers, but more towards leaving room for readers to enjoy their own imaginations. And my characterizations are quite good too. Okay, for you who read this and thought that I'm snobbish, fine. It's okay to be snobbish. It means you are proud of yourself and that it is good. It's better than being depressed which can eventually lead to suicide. And that is horrible. But in my defense, though I am proud of certain things, I know where I'm lack of and I know that I need to get better at those).

I don't know how it happened or why, but somehow those posts, and sites, and reviewing sites and all that, slowly changed my way of thinking about my writing.

When I write and post something, I do that for my own personal pleasure. Seeing something I wrote got posted and finished really makes me proud of myself. A feeling that I can finish something and it is good. And I think it is great. I have high value in my pride and my work, so I tried my best to make it presentable just so that I don't humiliate myself. That's why I often repost a few times just because of spelling mistakes. But then as I read reviews, did reviews, and read other posts, my standard in writing got higher. And now, from just posting something that is presentable, I began to feel that I NEED TO ABSOLUTELY POST SOMETHING THAT IS AMAZINGLY PERFECT.

I hired beta reader and proof reader. I'm not saying that's bad. They are great and they helped improve my writing a lot, especially with the technical skills. But then few days ago, I finally realized something. Nowadays, my passion for writing becomes overshadowed with my quest for perfection. Writing becomes a job rather than a hobby. Other than that, if you realized AFF is highly competitive. Like seriously, no joke. Getting featured is something important now. And now there is an advertising feature that helps you promote your fics or web or anything else. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame Jason for creating those. It helps a lot of people because it pushes them to improve and write more. But it slowly becomes a burden for me.

I always say that I write because I love to write and for myself, but I will be completely lying if I say those featured and all that didn't affect me. It is slowly affecting me and making me think that if my story is not featured or read by a lot of people, it is not good enough. And I know my stories are better than some of those that got featured. It's kind of an inner struggle you see, but I can't help that my brains thought this way. Sometimes there is this thought in my head saying 'What should I write next that can make a lot of people read it?' or 'I should write something that I can put EXO in'. And when I realized that, I was like 'WHAT?! Why am I thinking like this?'. (I actually tried to repost one of my story but using Kpop idols instead and I just stopped at the first chapter and deleted it because I realized it was not right.)

Something being commercialized is highly understandable and as a business student I know that practically anything can be turned into a business, but I don't want that to happen to writing. At least not for me.

That's why I decided to open up a LJ account. I've been in LJ for a while now, being anon obviously. And I realized that it is so free there and no one will judge me. And writers there are more towards having a decent plot and writing styles rather than having a superb technical skills and all that. Basically I don't want to be judge or be in a competition or being rank. Featured stories, views, and number of subscriptions are like a competition for me (You know AFF have a rank of popular authors and that also kind of influenced me). When in winglin, I don't have all that, so I basically write for me and only me (Okay, we have comments but not a lot of people are active there okay?). And I think Live Journal can give me a similar thing, but more organized I think.

Why don't I just go back to winglin? Because that site ! No moderator or any of that, my stories or posts can easily be lost or deleted for no reasons at all, and it is hard to find stories since there is no 'tag' feature.

I'll still be posting here of course. But I think I will post it a bit later than in LJ. Live Journal will be all my original posts, things that I think already good enough for myself. If I post something here, I will probably be very detailed and tried to make it as perfect as possible. I still want to improve my writing of course, that's why I want to make it perfect so that reviewers have a hard time finding my mistakes... Hahahahhaaha

Think of Live Journal as my hobby account and this one as my professional account. I know it is still me, but I figured I need some sort of a switch to make myself sane and not being overly perfectionist over writing so that I can still enjoy it.

I think I have some kind of double personality or something. I like to talk to myself, like there is two people inside of me. You know like those devil and angel cartoon on your shoulder or something. It's weird I know.

Anyway... this is the link xiaozhen16.livejournal.com

I haven't posted anything since I'm very very busy right now. Exams, reviews, assignments, stories, and all that stuff.

Okay I realized that I talked / wrote too much just for telling my reasons on why I open a LJ account and what the name is. I'm sorry for that. My boyfriend's best friend, ehhhmmm, scratch that. My ambiguous / no relationship status / more than a best friend, less than a couple / sort of already an ex guy's best friend often told me that I answered way too much. Like seriously, I answered a sentence for a yes/no question and I can talk a paragraph for something that can be answered with three words.

For example: "Are you going with us to the movies tonight?" I will answer "I don't know. I think my mum is taking me somewhere, but then it's still not settled yet. But the movie we are going to watch is quite interesting, so I kinda want to watch it, especially since I don't think I will have any other time or anyone else to watch it with other than tonight. But then I haven't spend some time with my mum and she will pay some things for me and all that. I don't know. I'll just text you later if I'm going or not.'

What weird is that my ex and this ambiguous sort of guy never complained and actually said that I don't really talk much around them. Okay, I talked a lot with them, but I don't give them a whole essay to answer a question. So they said I was pretty cool to talk to.

Okay, I'm going off course again.

Anyway, thanks for reading this whole long blog post. Wow you are dedicated. And sorry to take up your time in reading it.