Overcoming Writers Block

What is writer’s block? Well, I just can’t think of a single darn thing to say. Oh well, I’m outta here! Sound familiar? No! Oh, get real! We’ve all experienced this phenomenon when we absolutely have to write something, particularly on deadline. I’m talking about. . . . .uh, I can’t think of what the word is . . . oh, yes, it’s on the tip of my tongue . . . it’s: WRITER’S BLOCK!!!! Whew! I feel better just getting that out of my head and onto the page!

You may think you know EXACTLY what you’re going to write, but as soon as that evil white screen appears before you, your mind suddenly goes completely blank. I’m not talking about Zen meditation stare-at-the-wall-until-enlightenment-hits kind of blank. I’m talking about sweat trickling down the back of your neck, anguish and panic and suffering kind of blank. The tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer’s block gets. Having said that, let me say it again. “The tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer’s block gets.

” Now, can you figure out what might possibly be causing this horrible plunge into speechlessness? The answer is obvious: FEAR! You are terrified of that blank page. You are terrified you have absolutely nothing of value to say. You are afraid of the fear of writer’s block itself! It doesn?t necessarily matter if you’ve done a decade of research and all you have to do is string sentences you can repeat in your sleep together into coherent paragraphs.

Writer’s block can strike anyone at any time. Based in fear, it raises our doubts about our own self-worth, but it’s sneaky. It’s writer’s block, after all, so it doesn’t just come and let you know that. No, it makes you feel like an idiot who just had your frontal lobes removed through your sinuses. If you dared to put forth words into the greater world, they would surely come out as gibberish!

Let’s try and be rational with this irrational situation. Let’s make a list of what might possibly be beneath this terrible and terrifying condition.

1. Perfectionism. You must absolutely produce a masterpiece of literature straight off in the first draft. Otherwise, you qualify as a complete failure.

2. Editing instead of composing. There’s your monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder, yelling as soon as you type “I was born?,” no, not that, that’s wrong! That’s stupid! Correct correct correct correct?

3. Self-consciousness. How can you think, let alone write, when all you can manage to do is pry the fingers of writer’s block away from your throat enough so you can gasp in a few shallow breaths? You’re not focusing on what you’re trying to write, your focusing on those gnarly fingers around your windpipe.

4. Can’t get started. It’s always the first sentence that’s the hardest. As writers, we all know how EXTREMELY important the first sentence is. It must be brilliant! It must be unique! It must hook your reader’s from the start! There’s no way we can get into writing the piece until we get past this impossible first sentence.

5. Shattered concentration. You’re cat is sick. You suspect your mate is cheating on you. Your electricity might be turned off any second. You have a crush on the local UPS deliveryman. You have a dinner party planned for your in-laws. You . . . Need I say more. How can you possibly concentrate with all this mental clutter?

6. Procrastination. It’s your favorite hobby. It’s your soul mate. It?s the reason you’ve knitted 60 argyle sweaters or made 300 bookcases in your garage workshop. It’s the reason you never run out of Brie. FACE IT ? IT?S ONE OF THE REASONS YOU HAVE WRITER’S BLOCK!

How to Overcome Writer’s Block Okay. I can hear that herd of you running away from this article as fast as you can. Absurd! you huff. Never in a million years, you fume. Writer’s block is absolutely, undeniably, scientifically proven to be impossible to overcome. Oh, just get over it! Well, I guess it’s not that easy.

So try to sit down for just a few minutes and listen. All you have to do is listen ? you don’t have to actually write a single word. Ah, there you all are again. I am beginning to make you out now that the cloud of dust is settling. I am here to tell you that WRITER’S BLOCK CAN BE OVERCOME. Please, remain seated. There are ways to get over it.

Pick one, pick several, and give them a try. Soon, before you even have a chance for your heartbeat to accelerate, guess what? You’re writing. Here are some tried and true methods of overcoming writer’s block:

1. Be prepared. The only thing to fear is fear itself. (I know, that’s a clich?but as soon as you start writing, feel free to improve on it.) If you spend some time mulling over your project before you actually sit down to write, you may be able to circumvent the worst of the crippling panic.

2. Forget perfectionism. No one ever writes a masterpiece in the first draft. Don’t put any expectations on your writing at all! In fact, tell yourself you’re going to write absolute garbage, and then give yourself permission to happily stink up your writing room.

3. Compose instead of editing. Never, never write your first draft with your monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder making snide editorial comments. Composing is a magical process. It surpasses the conscious mind by galaxies. It’s even incomprehensible to the conscious, editorial, monkey-mind. So prepare an ambush. Sit down at your computer or your desk. Take a deep breath and blow out all your thoughts. Let your finger hover over your keyboard or pick up your pen. And then pull a fake: appear to be about to begin to write, but instead, using your thumb and index finger of your dominant hand, flick that little annoying ugly monkey back into the barrel of laughs it came from. Then jump in ? quickly! Write, scribble, scream, howl, let everything loose, as long as you do it with a pen or your computer keyboard.

4. Forget the first sentence. You can sweat over that all-important one-liner when you’ve finished your piece. Skip it! Go for the middle or even the end. Start wherever you can. Chances are, when you read it over, the first line will be blinking its little neon lights right at you from the depths of your composition.

5. Concentration. This is a hard one. Life throws us so many curve balls. How about thinking about your writing time as a little vacation from all those annoying worries. Banish them! Create a space, perhaps even a physical one, where nothing exists except the single present moment. If one of those irritating worries gets by you, stomp on it like you would an ugly bug!

6. Stop procrastinating. Write an outline. Keep your research notes within sight. Use someone else’s writing to get going. Babble incoherently on paper or on the computer if you have to. Just do it! (I know, I stole that line from somewhere?). Tack up anything that could possibly help you to get going: notes, outlines, pictures of your grandmother. Put the cookie you will be allowed to eat when you finish your first draft within sight ? but out of reach. Then pick up the same type of writing that you need to write, and read it. Then read it

again. Soon, trust me, the fear will slowly fade away.

As soon as it does, grab your keyboard ? and get writing!

Real Monsters in the Philippines Facts and Sightings

Philippines is not new when it comes vampires, werewolves and among others, but the monsters you would know in this article is more feared. Some say that it is just a folklore just like what other countries thought, but it is not. Many filipinos have experienced battling with these monsters, especially in the remote towns in the Philippines where there is no electricity. This article would surely open your minds to the world supernatural creatures are real and they are somewhere out there in the Philippine Islands.

The aswang are the most feared of supernatural creatures on the Philippines. They can enter the body of a person and through this person they inflict harm on those the they dislike. Most common are the female variety who appear as an ugly old woman with long, unkempt hair, blood-shot eyes, long nails, and a long, black tongue. She has holes in her armpits which contain oil. This gives her power of flight.

A being of enormous power, she can transform herself into any shape, even inanimate objects. She preys on children, pregnant women, and ill people. Once she has overpowered a victim, she will take a bundle of sticks, talahib grass, and rice or banana stalks, and transform these into a replica of her victim. This replica is sent home while she takes the real person back with her. Upon reaching its home, the replica will become sick and die. The victim will then be killed and eaten. She is said to be particularly fond of the liver.

I had a real experienced of seeing this monster, I was a young boy at that time and our house was in a small barrio (small town) with only few neighbors and surrounded with trees. The wife of our neighbor was pregnant at that time and their house was a small hut with windows that cant be closed, which simply means you can see the stars in their house during night time. It was a very noisy mid-night that i could not sleep, our neighbor dogs keeps howling in our backyards. So, I tried to check it, I slightly-openned our window good enough for my eyes to see everything outside, I am fascinated because the moon was so bright and there was no dogs in our backyard so i look at our neighbor’s house and there i saw the howlong dogs, BUT WHEN I LOOKED AT THE WINDOW, I SAW SOMETHING DARK FLOATING – ITS LIKE A PERSON FLOATING HORIZONTALLY FACING OUR NEIGHBOR’S OPENNED WINDOW. I was very scared because its hard to describe that dark floating thing, even the surrounding was clear. I closed the window and went straight to my bed covering myself with my pillow and sleep again.

On the next day I talked to my friend about what happened last night, and i asked him if there was something unusual that happened in their house that night. He said he and his siblings were guarding their mother all the time and they were aware of the possible attacks of the Aswang. He told me had stepped something like a hairy tail and then he had thrown Garlic unto it and then it suddenly dissapeared.

There are a wide variety of stories about the Aswang circulating between rural Filipinos, making it impossible to settle upon any fixed definition of their appearance or activities. However, one trademark or defining feature of Aswangs which distinguishes them from other Filipino mythological creatures is their propensity to replace live victims or stolen cadavers with a facsimile that it creates out of tree trunks and other plant materials. Aswangs are particularly feared for their fondness for eating unborn fetuses and small children. Their favorite body parts are the liver and heart.

By some accounts, Aswangs are said to be able to enter the body of a person and through this person they inflict harm on those the they dislike. Most commonly, they are female and appear as an ugly old woman with long, unkempt hair, blood-shot eyes, long nails, and a long, black tongue. She has holes in her armpits which contain oil. This gives her power of flight.

A being of enormous power, an Aswang can transform itself into any shape, even inanimate objects. It preys on children, pregnant women, and ill people. Once an aswang has overpowered a victim, it will take a bundle of sticks, talahib grass, and rice or banana stalks, and transform these into a replica of its victim. This replica is sent home while the Aswang takes the real person away to be killed and eaten. The replica person, upon reaching its home, will become sick and die.

In many stories, an Aswang lives as regular townsperson by day, and prefers an occupation related to meat, such as butchery or making sausages. By some accounts, Aswangs have an ageless appearance and a quiet, shy and elusive manner. They can be distinguished from humans by two signs. One is the bloodshot eyes from staying up all night looking for opportunities to sneak into houses where funeral wakes are being held, and stealing the dead bodies.

Among its many talents, the Aswang can transform itself from human to animal and animal to human. The Aswang can disguise him/herself as a pig, dog, snake, bat, or black bird. Supposedly if a person looks at them in the eyes, the reflection would appear inverted. During their nocturnal activities, they walk with their feet facing backwards and toenails reversed.

One type of Aswang is the kikik, which transforms into a huge bird/bat at night and prowls. The kikik looks for a sleeping pregnant woman. When it has found one, it extends a very long proboscis into the womb and kills the fetus by draining its blood. It is said that while this is taking place, a ‘kik-kik-kik’ sound is often heard.

In some stories, the kikik is an Aswang’s familiar, said to confuse people by its ‘kikik’ sound. If the Aswang is near, the sound would be faint so that people hearing it would think that the Aswang is still far away.

The term wak-wak or wuk-wuk is frequently used for the same creature in the Cebu region. The legends of the wak-wak and kikik are much the same, but the wak-wak is specifically supposed to change into its birdlike form by leaving behind its lower body, much like the Manananggal, another Philippine vampire. The cry of a night bird which makes a “wuk-wuk-wuk” sound is believed to be the call of this monster and is feared by superstitious villagers. As with the call of the kikik, the wak-wak is believed able to make its cry sound distant when the creature is near.

In Panitan(Panit’an) Capiz, there is a myth of the Dangga or Agitot. This type of aswang is said to take the form of a handsome gay man that hunts women during the night and drinks blood like a vampire.

Another familiar is the sigbin or Zegben Some say that this is another form that the Aswang transforms into and yet some say it is the companion of the kikik. Its appearance is said to be similar to the chupacabra and Tasmanian devil in appearance, although with spotty fur. It supposedly has a wide mouth with large fangs.

One of the most popular legends in the visayas region is the infamous Aswang Tiniente Gimo(lieutenant Gimo) of the town of Dueñas, Iloilo.

A manananggal is described as being an older, beautiful woman (as opposed to an aswang), capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings to prey on unsuspecting, pregnant women in their homes; using an elongated proboscis-like tongue, it sucks the hearts of fetuses or blood of an unsuspecting, sleeping victim. The severed lower torso is left standing and it is said to be the more vulnerable of the two halves. Sprinkling salt or smearing crushed garlic or ash on top of the standing torso is fatal to the creature. The upper torso then would not be able to rejoin and will die at daybreak. The name of the creature originates from an expression used for a severed torso: Manananggal comes from the Tagalog, tanggal (cognate of Malay tanggal) which means to remove or to separate. Manananggal then means the one who separates itself from its lower body.

Superstition says that an Aswang can be revealed by using a bottle of a special oil extracted from boiled and decanted coconut meat and mixed with certain plant stems upon which special prayers were said. When an Aswang comes near or walks outside the house at night, the oil is supposed to boil (or froth into bubbles) and continue boiling until the aswang leaves the area.

A Buntot Pagi, a stingray’s tail, is also a very effective weapon against such beings, if one is brave enough to face the Aswang in combat, a shiny sword made of sterling silver or an image of an old crone (a grandmother’s) would effectively dispel their presence according to local folklore. The myth of silver weapons dispelling evil creatures is probably taken from western mythology.

In the case of the Agitot type of Aswang, freshly drawn seminal fluids thrown or whisked at the creature is said to distract it from attacking as it will lap up the precious fluids before pursuing its intended victim.

Throwing salt at Aswangs is said to cause their skin to burn due. This belief may stem from the purifying powers attributed to salt crystals by various traditions of witchcraft.

Sigbin

Sigbin is a creature is said to come out at night to suck the blood of victims from their shadows. The creature walks backward with its head lowered between its hind legs. It resembles a hornless goat, emits a very nauseating smell and possess a pair of very large ears which are capable of clapping like a pair of hands.It is also claimed to issue forth from its lair during Holy Week, looking for children that it will kill for the heart, which is made into an amulet.

It is also believed that there are families known as Sigbinan (“those who own Sigbin“), who possess the power to command them. The aswang is said to keep it as a pet, along with another mythical creature, a bird known as the Wakwak.The sigbin is said to bring wealth and luck to its owners. There are many sigbin roaming in Visayas and Mindanao, which mostly owned by witch doctors, according to many who had encountered it, it provide witch doctors with healing powers and mystical oils that can cure illness. In 2000, there was a hunt for sigbin in Central Visayas and Mindanao, they said it’s oil can cure AIDS and other harmful diseases. But sigbin is hard to find and when you ask a witch doctor, he surely answers you with “I dont know how it looks like!”

In the Eastern Visayas they are also known as the Amamayong.

There is speculation that the legend may be based on sightings of an actual animal species that is rarely seen; based on the description of the sigbin in popular literature, the animal species might be related to the kangaroo. With the recent discovery in the island of Borneo of the cat-fox,a potential new species of carnivore described as having hind legs that are lower than its front legs, the animal species that is the possible basis of the legend as well as the reported sightings of sigbin may belong to or is related to the cat-fox species.

Definitely not a toy for the big boys!

Maybe you are intrigued with the title of this article. Different things may enter your mind, but is not about cars, motorcycles, etc… but a creature…

Two hours have passed but I can’t think of topic to write. Different questions entered my mind. Will they read this? What if someone will be offended? What am I going to write? Until I heard a beep from my phone and form it, I received a message from a former friend in elementary that goes this way: A girl is special creature created by God. If you praise her, she thinks you’re lying. If you don’t, you’re good for nothing. If she talks, she wants you to listen. If she listen’s she wants you to talk. If you kiss her, you’re not a gentleman. If you don’t you’re not a man. If you agree to all her likes, you’re a wimp, if you don’t you’re not understanding. So simple, yet so complex, so weird, yet so beautiful. That’s a girl, a non-understandable creature, but makes a man complete.” The last two sentences got my interest. But why do sometimes “some” boys treat a girl as a toy” After playing her, he would dumped her like a garbage.

History says that in old times, girls are not given such priority and importance in the community. They serve as slaves, they do the household chores as caretakers of thier children. Truly different from the situation now, they work, vote, hold a position in the government, they do what the boys do. But there are still chances that they are nearly “manipulated” and ” “disregarded” by some “cruel” and “playful” creatures.

Let’s come to a closer look of what girls can do despite thier being “girls only” – weak, fragile, vulnerable and soft hearted person.

The president “Gloria Macapagal Arroyo” is a living example. She is a mother to her children and the same time to ninety million of Filipinos. Governor “Ma. Grace Cielo Padaca of the province of Isabela, physically handicapped but now serving as a leader to over a half million of “ISABELINOS”. Yet, she could not please everybody and sometimes other people would tell “babae kasi”(girl). Now, who says that only boys can be a Governor or even a president??

There are Filipino women who had successfully climbed the highest mountain in the world. Who says that only boys can do it? A wife that becomes a breadwinner, but why is it that she is still battered? A girlfriend who understands why her boyfriend had left her for another girl and who wholeheartedly accepted him when he had “realized” his mistakes, after which he does it repeatedly but he hears no complaint from her. An Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) who does not even have time to rest or sleep but her husband would live luxuriously in the Philippines. A mother would untiringly looks after her child who was confined in the Hospitals, then after the child gets well, he killed her mother.

Yes sometimes she is maltreated. She is defenseless and hopeless. Her only weapon is her tears. But who would have gave birth to our Savior to our National Hero or to YOU, with out her. She is only a girl, whether you like it or not, she completes a man… but definitely not a toy for the big boys.