My NEW Portfolio is up!

I'll just let this post be a shameless plug. As I mentioned in the previous post, I was working on my new graphic design portfolio. Now I'm happy to say that it's FINALLY done!

Check it out here: www.carissatrianty.com.

It features some NDA-free collaborative projects at my full-time work and some pitch projects as freelance gigs. Also, find out some exciting personal work and a brand new re-done school project! (I redid my Type 5 project, how savage is that).

Official author website is up!

So this is happening you guys...

I have an author website!!!

Aside from my design portfolio.

You can easily access it by clicking the image above or go to carissatrianty.weebly.com

This past month, after my work permit was expired, I spent most of my time getting back to writing and collected my guts to move forward with my long-time novel draft, Translucent. Although of course, I still do some designing on the side. After months of working full-time as a designer and learning a lot from my agency, I decided to set designing a little aside just so I could focus on my other passion (without abandoning my main one, which is designing, of course).

First Book Signing Event

Zodiac Wikia

For the first time ever, I attended a book signing event!!

How cool is that?

Vromans, the bookstore where the event took place, is located just a few blocks from where I live and it often hosts so many book signing events. That I just discovered lately. As an aspiring writer and avid reader, I'm psyched, of course! Lately, I've been circling some potential Young Adult books for me to read to kill time after The Girl on the Train before finding Zodiac by Romina Russell.

Band saw and Laid

Hey guys,

Guess what, it's a long weekend! I won't have class on Monday, which is good. What makes it even better, the homework load is not as crazy as I thought. But I know I will regret for saying this in the latter.

This term, I'm taking the last required class for integrated studies, and that is Materials of Art and Design. Honestly, I'm not really fond in building and making things. Cutting, sawing, and carving are just not my thing, which explains why I never had any pottery class. However, the first two projects seemed to be a fun thing to do! The first project involves carving a name out of a 0.5 inch MDF wood using the band saw. Frankly though, I hate the earsplitting sound of the blade cutting through the material. That machine doesn't seem so friendly.

But I'm pretty fond of how it turns out!

spring break frenzy

First of all, I'd like to wish you a very...

Just thought I'd like to take a break from writing "Orlando for Winter" :)

The graphic I made this time was quite lame. I tried my best to create an egg on Illustrator only to find out I failed to do so *doublelame*

Hope you guys had a great Easter! I wish I had some real eggs to decorate here, but apparently they have gone rotten so I had to dispose them (did that a while ago).

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So you might probably remember a post that I did previously about me staying here in the Bay Area for spring break for a week, while a lot of people I knew fled out of state for vacation. Well, it looks like my break wasn't as boring as I thought it would be. Although not as satisfying as winter break, I definitely had a good time during spring break and most importantly, I had never saved as much money like I did in other breaks, so that adds to the point.

In exchange of not traveling anywhere, I (sorta) "warned" my parents that most expenses for a week would be on food, clothing, and movies. I ended up rewarding myself after an exhausting quarter with bunch of food, a pair of new clothing, a good book to read, two movies, and a quality time of blogging :)

Yep, I bought The Hunger Games!!!
I felt so tempted to read the book after seeing the movie. The movie was unexpectedly good, although I heard a couple of my friends said it sucked. I was totally blown away by Katniss' character and her upbringing delivered by Jennifer Lawrence. The whole atmosphere and cinematography also successfully drew character into the situation the characters were involved in. Sooo...intense. I'm definitely looking forward to finishing the book.

May the odds be ever in your favor!

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I wish I could show my new clothing, but too bad I don't have that particular "fashion blogger" quality. Anyway, I spent some time at H&M and Forever 21 buying myself a new hot pink shirt with a string (more like a belt) attached around the waist, a floral dress (a super duper very rare occasion for me to buy a casual dress, but then I remember that I might need one for summer or spring), and a jeans jacket that matches with the dress.

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Moving on to the food!! Ah, here comes my favorite part of all spring break time. Aside from my extreme liking on food, my goal by the end of the break is to at least gain a pound of weight since I'm a little underweight. Oh how hard is it to gain weight? -_-

Tenma Ramen is one of the most awaited food I'd been dying to have ever since spring break starts. This authentic Okinawa ramen is rich of garlic flavor, making it so undeniably luscious.

After seeing 21 Jump Street with ISV folks, the remaining of us went to Harumi Sushi to munch on 65 sushi rolls. Yes, you got it right. Sixty-five rolls for five people. That's hella a lot.


Chicken Curry with Rice after 3 hours of playing badminton! Had this at Tandoori Chicken. I got to say that the rice was not as tasty as I thought it'd be, but the curry was absolutely mouthwatering.



Grilled chicken with fried potatoes and mushroom sauteed with Cajun Sauce!
I don't quite recall the full name of the food, but I believe it's one of the signature food at Applebees.



Pho with Beef and Soft Tendons at Downtown Mountainview.
I'm never quite a fan of this Vietnamese noodle soup, but whenever I'm hungry, I can never resist this dish!


Sauteed Chicken Marsala at Elephant Bar.
It's a you-pass-it-everyday kind of restaurant, but who knows the food can be so promising?


I had beef and tofu rice at Top Cafe right after playing at Golfland with some friends of mine, an activity that finally concludes my whole spring break event.

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So the rice plate wraps up my simple spring break! I know I expected much than just culinary tour and shopping: I wished to travel out of state (been saying this for hundredth time now), but on the bright side, at least I got to save some money for my future needs and especially university tuition :)

See you in a bit. Spring quarter starts tomorrow and I need to get enough sleep to slam early morning class :)

A WEEK BEFORE SCHOOL!!

Just a week before school, but I already purchased all of my textbooks! I've shown you guys my Intermediate Algebra one which is freaking thick!

Lately I got two other textbooks for my English class which are much thicker and cheaper. Good thing, cos it'd be easier to carry them around.

Reminds me that I need to read them before school starts. Previewing, as you can tell.

Anyway, it also came to my realization that I lacked of nice casual clothes for college. Most of my clothes are dominated with white, and that's too monotone.
You wouldn't go to the campus everyday wearing the same color shirt would you?

So I was planning to buy (not shop) for some casual yet colorful shirts and coincidentally, my friends (Patricia and Astha) sort of asked me and Elda to hang out to the nearby shopping mall to just have lunch.
There was an impressive moment during lunch though. Patricia, who's also from Indonesia, happened to randomly asked Astha who comes from India about Hindi culture. We ended up talking about Hindi movies and the culture. Interestingly though, we also learned a bit of Hindi language, stuff like Namaste.

At the same time, the Asian lady happened to sit next to our table turned out to be an Indonesian and had a nice short talk with us. Apparently she comes from Central Java and had a pretty Javanese accent (how I miss hearing that accent). Her American husband suddenly popped out and greeted us with an "Apa kabar?".
It was sooo awkward that there was a short pause before we responded him. Isn't it interesting and surprising at the same time when you discover an American's able to speak your mother language?

After lunch, we moved to another mall located quite far from Cupertino and it's in Milpitas. To get there, we had to take a bus ride to Santa Clara, then switched to riding Light Rail (the so-called monorail you saw in my San Jose post eventually turned out to be referred as Light Rail instead of just monorail).

The second mall we happened to visit had cheaper stores. Elda, Patricia, and Astha were kind enough to help me look for some decent shirts.

On the way back to our apartments in the bus, Elda happened to hear two girls and one boy sitting behind her speaking Japanese. Then one of the girls and the boy got off, and there left the last girl on her own. Suddenly, the next thing I saw was Elda was already having a warm talk with that girl. I even heard some of Japanese words I happened to recognize, like "ima" which means "now" and "iru" which means "there/exist".

Everything seemed to go very fast and that the next thing I remembered, after Patricia (who sat next to me at that moment on the bus) got off, the Japanese girl gestured for me to sit next to her.

Here are some of the memorable quotes I was having with Ai-san (her name)

Me: Anata no namae wa nan desuka? (Trans: What's your name?)
Ai: Ai. (Then she sort of spoke "And you?" in Japanese. Forgot the words)
Me: Carissa. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! (Trans: Nice to meet you!)

To which she responded with a laughter. She kept complimenting us how our Japanese was good despite of us being beginners (no, ME being a beginner. Elda has learned a lot of Japanese through its dramas. So consider her more as an intermediate).

I tried to recall all Japanese phrases I've learned at high school. But using them to speak with a real Japanese person seems harder than talking with your own teacher.

FYI, this is my first time speaking Japanese to a real Japanese person. You can imagine the whole awkwardness and stuff.

Me: What school do you go to go? Are you a DeAnza student? (I don't know the Japanese words for this. Probably stuff like "Anata no gakko wa nan desuka?)
Ai: No, I go to San Jose State University. (her Japanese accent is soo kawaii!)
Me: Ah... *pauses* sugoi! (Trans: good!)

Ai mentioned that she was really happy to finally meet someone who could speak Japanese, because she hadn't met strangers (non-Japanese) who could. I guess that day was her lucky day? Anyway Elda continued speaking random things in Japanese about dramas and we ended up talking about Arashi (a Japanese boyband) on the rest of our bus ride.

We felt all saddened when we came to our stop and that we had to part. But Elda had asked her email already and Ai said that she was going back to Japan in a week.
Safe trip, Ai!

That day was a bit multicultural-ish. It started with us learning some Hindi words, met a Javanese born lady, and ended with a sweet conversation with a Japanese student. :)

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Yesterday was a bit exhausting, but it was really worth it since I finally got to find good yet cheap shirts. Not that cheap but at least reasonable (yep, that's exactly the word).

Yet today I hung out with Patricia and this time with some of my other friends like Rebecca, Angie, and Amira. Good thing that today, we got to watch Going the Distance.

That's like one of the not-so anticipated movies for me, but it turned out to be quite hilarious! I can tolerate the cursing, dirty jokes, and whatsoever, but Drew Barrymore looked fantastic there. It's not a surprise anymore that her costar in the movie, Justin Long, IS indeed her real life boyfriend. That's one pretty interesting fact about the movie.

Movie time was over, but sadly there wasn't plenty of thing to see in the mall where the cinema was located, so we decided to go to Santana Row instead to take a look around.

Patricia happened to spot this CHILI restaurant where we munched on our afternoon snacks.

Cheese fries
I'm a fan of french fries but this is my first time trying a cheese-smeared fries.
Cheese is also one of my favorite side dish. So you can imagine...
French fries + cheese = perfection!

Love the jalapenos too.
Anyway I think it's spelled "halapenyos"


Chicken Crisper
You need some sort of thin bread (don't know how to call that in English) to wrap these chickens. Then you eat it the way you eat a hotdog


The side dish. :p


Chocolate Molten for dessert!
A combination of heated chocolate cake and a vanilla ice cream underneath the dome-shaped chocolate.
I luuurrrrveee chocolate so much!
This is probably my most favorite chocolate cake I've ever eaten. Yum yum.

Speaking of chocolate, I'm planning to make some experiments on chocolate later on. Lately I've been into cooking pretty much, mixing random spices, garnishing onions, garlic, pepper, and salt.
But the result's not pretty bad. I used to cook when I was little though, but then I always puked everything that I cooked, so that's why I stopped cooking until I moved to the US, where the situation forced me to resume cooking.

Cooking's been pretty much my current hobby aside of writing these days, and especially after I'm forced to temporarily skip my two favorite hobbies after moving in to the USA: photoshopping (I haven't installed it on my mac yet T_T) and playing violin (just broke its E string and changed it immediately, but considering that I live in an apartment, I can't do that freely. Unless you want a neighbor to actually knock on your door and ask you to shut up).

Anyway, back to cooking. So yeah, so far I've cooked random things without the help of recipe at all. I've been applying "Ratatouille" concept of "Anyone can cook". Maybe next time I'll post some of the food that I got to cook here.

It's been a long post. See you very soon!

SCHOOL STARTS IN A WEEK!!! ARRRGGGHHHH

all about love and its art of writing

Is it normal for a teenage girl to write about unrealistic stories such as thriller/scifi/fantasy instead of romance story?

The thing is, I've been sick with love stories. I don't know maybe it's just my mood so don't take it too personally, but it happens quite often. Sometimes I find love stories are rather not to my liking, even though I do have some romance novels and even I myself have written two romance novels. Instead, I find stuff like historical novels, mythology like The Illiad, and even classic novels are more intriguing.

Maybe it's just me having been trapped in the world of romance literature in the past few years. I've finished two novels in two years, and both are romance. So, I needed a lot of research and looked for influences from other romance literature. I did a research what to include in a romance novel to make the readers happy (due to me being single and haven't experienced romance just yet). I'm not saying that romance novels are bad or something like that. I adore them, it's just sometimes I'm getting too bored reading them. It's the frequency thing that makes me.

Though there is something that bores me about love stories.

The happy ending.

Again, I'm not saying that happy endings suck. It's not that I love tragic love stories such as Romeo and Juliet more than anything. Everytime I flips the first page and spots the two main protagonists, Girl and Boy, I always think "Whatever happens in the story, they'll fall in love later on, and at the end of the book, they'll date and get married. Huff."

I'm talking too much. I know. But the point I'm trying to say is: Sometimes love stories just lack of twists.

It's always like that. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. They're involved in a conflict. Love triangle. Blahblah. Then at the end of the book, a solution comes. Ta-daa, they get married. End.

I adore works of Nicholas Sparks, who mostly writes coming-of-age stories. Even though I haven't read his books. But I heard of one of his notably works "A Walk to Remember". That's one good story with good twist at the end of it. I'm sure not all readers won't like the ending since it's a sad one, but whatever the ending is, I'm sure Nicholas Sparks didn't focus only on the couple's happiness and ending, but the true moral about love he expressed through the book: that love lasts forever. Sure it's a sad ending, but it's definitely a work with great impression especially at the end of the story.

I love endings where the boy and the girl don't end up together, but as long as they're happy, it'll make a good twist and a happy ending at the same time

Say, the boy goes somewhere else at the end of the story, and doesn't end up with the girl, but she lets him go because she wants him to be happy. See? A good twist and a happy ending right? Nobody dies and nobody's even sad in that story. :)

FYI, while writing love stories, I also find it difficult especially in depicting a kissing scene. Read this post for more details about it.

During my early plotting for my two books, I planned that they wouldn't have happy ending, or something like that. In Private Course, although Samantha and Derrick (the protagonists) experienced some chemistry in the middle of the story, I wanted them not to date at the end of the book, but remained best friends instead. But after asking for friends' suggestions, they disagreed. They said that readers wouldn't love couples in romance novels to eventually become best friends, after what they'd been through. "You shouldn't write for yourself. You write for readers." My friends told me.

So, okay, I eventually made Sam and Derrick a couple at the end of the book.

Second novel, The Nightlurker, I wanted to make Julia and Cornelius separated forever, with Cornelius finally departing to afterlife to reunite with his deceased love interest. But again, my friends said it wouldn't make a good ending. Julia and Cornelius had experienced a lot in the book, and they ended up separated forever? And Julia letting him go to reunite with his deceased love interest despite the fact that she loved him?

So at the end of the book, I finally decided that they reunited and ended up together.

No twists. But again, I write for readers. If I had written for myself, I would have twisted the endings as I like it, but not to the liking of readers.

Yes, my stories are still lame. But I'm open to critics. :) I may write for readers, but the characters are mine, so after receiving suggestions and critics, I'm the one who decide what's going to happen to them.

Weeeelll...right now, I'm currently reading Winter in Tokyo by Ilana Tan. I read romance novels only when I'm in mood for reading them though (which is probably now or the past few years). I often consider romance novels as light readings, which do not require any mind tricks unlike Dan Brown's works. I'm not finished reading the book though. So far as I can see, the book is impressively and finely written! Ilana Tan is such as an awesome writer. She's great at describing places, diction, and the characters! Although, I know that the characters will end up together at the end of the story. But I have to accept the fact that happy endings are mostly on every romance literature.

Having been sick of love stories, both reading and writing them, I finally came up with an idea to write a new genre.

Science fiction/fantasy.
Two worlds collide.

Then I come to think something: I'm about to write something that is uncommonly written and read by most teenagers. Before I start it out, I stopped to think. Is it normal to write something as unrealistic as that? Scifi and fantasy are definitely things that are out of our world, while mostly writers these days choose to write stories that relate them to reality. I'm still a teenager myself and I realize the consequence of writing that genre.

It requires an extraordinary imagination and idealism, where my story will take the theme of alternate universe and utopia realms. It requires a lot of researches about certain gadgets I'd like to create, the mechanism, and stuff. But in the other side, I also decided to depend on my imagination and my unrealistic sort-of-lucid dreams I have experienced. Especially, what more not-normal from my upcoming sci/fi fantasy story is, it'll possibly include a war scene.

Something that normal teens won't write, I presume. Besides, I just wanted to check if my sanity still sticks with me here.

I asked my mom about this and she kind of thought that it's not normal for a teenage girl like me to write sort of unrealistic genre.

"Be realistic. You're still a teenager yourself. Write things that relate you to your surrounding."

I know my mom refers me to romance, but sorry mom, my life is not currently revolving around it. Even I think my love stories are kind of unrealistic. Yes, even my love stories that I wrote wasn't really realistic, stuff like forbidden love or friends-to-couple. But well, I feel like I should get out of the world of romance. I've had enough with it. Thank you, romance. Now I'm going to need a break from you and move out to another realm, the unrealistic one. Someday, I'll get back to you. I know my sci/fi fantasy novel project is going to take a while. I'm working on the plot. Hopefully it'll be done soon so I can write the whole novel :)

All in all everyone has their personal tastes. Maybe my taste is a bit different. I do enjoy reading romance, but sometimes I need a time out of it, like this time.

Je suis super content aujourd'hui!

means: I'm very happy today!

Haha, not really. It's just that I'm kind of in a good mood today. Well, there are several things that really made my day today.

• Finally, I got to figure out how to do three column layout on Blogger. So you can see that I come up with a new layout. Not a new template though. Dark and Hollywood pink still catch my attention. But you can see some new features I applied on the sidebars. Don't those Facebook and Twitter logos look different? Yeah, I made them myself, after downloading their fonts.
  
  
• After getting stuck for nearly days on my paper, I did a consultation with this lovely lady, advisor, and teacher, Bu Santi, who gave me solution what to do with my Chapter 3 and the best way to complete my paper before its deadline. Finally...after days of being stuck, thanks to her solution and dedication, now I can move on!!
  
  
• I got to ALMOST finish Canon in D today, for the concert on the 31st of November in PIM 2. Please come and watch, everyone :)
  
  
• Getting more and more expressions, phrases, and vocabularies of French. By the way, the teacher offered me to take a DELF test, it's like a TOEFL but in French. Well, I'm still a beginner, and far from being someone who is fluent in French. German takes more of my time, so I'm more getting used to speak German. Though I love French too. That language is just fascinatting. The phrase "Je suis super content" is one of the new phrases I learned today.
  
  
• Speaking of French, just found a new, unseen scene of Gaspard Ulliel in his movie the Vintner's Luck. Whoopeee
  
  
• Unfortunately, nothing new about Super Junior. The frequently updated website of theirs: Twelfs, is currently in hiatus. Except that yesterday, a friend of mine, a Freshman to be exact, lent me two disks of Super Junior 1st Asian Super Show. It was awesome!!! Can't describe it by words.
  
  
• RAININGRAININGRAINING. Wish today is Sunday night. If you know what I mean...
  
  
• Going home early from school. A monthly teachers' meeting was held.
  
  
• I finally finished reading a novel written by Fenny Wong, entitled "Moonlight Waltz". Scroll down for its review

Um alright now onto the book review

It's been a while for me not to read teen stuff, especially in Indonesian. Lately, I'm more into chicklit and cultural literature like Memoirs of a Geisha. Actually I stumbled upon this book while looking for a book for my friend's birthday.

Lately I'm interested in fictions about music, and there it was, the book called Moonlight Waltz caught my attention and I decided to buy it. This book is published by Gagasmedia, and written by Fenny Wong. It tells about a girl named Arlin who falls for a boy who dedicates his life for piano. But in the other side, the boy actually also catches the attention of Liora, a girl who is pretty much like him. Both Liora and Aldo have this same interest on music, while Arlin feels jealous about them having this same ambition.

As the 'new book' I've read after a while reading mature, literate, heavy readings, especially in English, I felt kind of awkward reading this novel at first. I mean, after a while being vacuum from reading Indonesian especially teen fictions, I haven't got used to the sentence structure and writing style. But I tell you, Moonlight Waltz is really nicely written, straight to the point, warm, and witty. The plot is light, not too heavy. It's kind of book you'll bring with you on a trip and you'll read it while waiting to board the plane in the airport.

However, the book is less descriptive, and much straight to the point. But you know that this book is unlike Twilight, who blabbers more about descriptions of the characters, setting, and place. Moonlight Waltz is more into narrative prose, with a flowing plot (haha, Language department student mode on). Although it's less descriptive, I think this book fits for people who like to go to straight to point, without blabbering here and there, lots of description, etc. I consider myself more as a descriptive person though, seeing that my novel is filled with descriptions, descriptions, descriptions. I love them, but it doesn't mean I hate narrative prose. Description is just my thing.

Onto the minus, well, first, it's a bit less descriptive, like I say. Second, some parts seem to be experiencing from 'plot jump', meaning there are some scenes happening without being told why that happen, like the reason why Liora is absent for a while. The story is also a bit cliche and too teen-ish, with a simple plot (love triangle. Trust me, it's just me not getting used to reading teenlit!). But I like how Fenny makes a twist at the end of the story though, which I like.

OK then, let's wrap things up. I recommend this book for those who like light reading, to be read to kill your time, and just a one-day finished reading novel. Guten Nacht!

Something about...

I can't really post anything special tonight. I wanted to post some photos, continue posting my February US Trip and maybe also about my recent China trip (I'm considering this blog to be posted with my travel stories, since I love traveling. I've seen my friends making blogs with their own purposes, like fashions and most of them write poems, which are really, really great), but they're in my user account and I'm now on my dad's. So I have nothing here. But of course, I have something to share, though you may consider it's not really necessary. Besides, I find blogging is also the way to escape from my mom's anger.

OK, a bit chitchat, Don't ask me why she's mad, she just happens to be mad everyday. It's like she can't live with it the way you can't live without watching your favorite TV show in routine) Although there're no any problems, she suddenly - in a super peaceful situation - brings them up and complains about unnecessary things. Like today, I bought pantovel shoes size 38. I've never bought any shoes that big, but size 37 is just too small, so I decided to choose 38. And yadayada.


Fine, enough about chitchat.

Right now, I'm reading The Devil Wears Prada, as you might have known it as the 2006 starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. I've been into Chicklit these days (Yes, I've never been into Teenlit, only in my junior high years), since it's warm, witty, funny, and it depicts just what a reality is like. I love Chicklit coming from New York, especially. New York-set stories feature many elite institutions, places, and just cool societies (speaking about Upper East Side) and how life of a New York elite revolves around fashion, institutions, nannies, and French. It's just so great about it. The Devil Wears Prada and the Nanny Diaries perhaps have similarities and also the fact that both of them are actually my favorite novels.

A bit synopsis. TDWP tells about Andrea Sachs, who wanted to be a writer in The New Yorker but instead ends up in a world that is totally not her. She ends up being Miranda Priestly's assistant (she's like the fiction world's Anna Wintour). The thing is, Miranda, her boss, is not kind of a nice boss. She demands Andi to do things in impossible length of time and some demands are even absurd.

Well, I almost finish reading the book. I can't wait to see the ending....

My Book is Done

Yay! My book is finally done. Anyway it's my major project this year (apart from paper, which is coming up late this year, hopefully I will make it to the senior grade, amen). It is a remake of my short story published in ILP Press in 2006, inspired by my friend's experience (apparently now, two friends' experiences).

Synopsis:
This story is about a girl who just moves in to her new house in a small town called Aberfeldy in Scotland (which has the most amazing countryside scenery I've ever seen). The girl's name is Julia and she has pretty much a gloomy background: her mother divorces and gets engaged with a guy Julia dislikes. In her new house, or exactly her bedroom, in Aberfeldy, Julia feels as if she's haunted by a ghost. After gaining information through internet and her medium friend, Julia discovers that the ghost that has been haunting her is Cornelius Houtten, coming from World War I era. At first, Cornelius intends to ask Julia for help so that he can return to the place where he belongs: afterlife, even though Julia is not a paranormal. But for Julia and Cornelius, they never expect that they will face a new obstacle heading their way: love.

The short story kind of sucks so when I read it over and over again, I felt like I really should make it a novel, since there are a lot of stuff to add in it and some exciting scenes. So voila, the book is done in just matter of four months and I finished the book a few days before final exam. The beginning of the book is kind of like a horror story, maybe because of the atmosphere (Julia is haunted by the apparition of the pale ghost in her room), but when it comes to the middle of the book, romance starts to bloom.

I dedicate this book to no other than Natush.

I plan to get this published. Though at first I'm pretty confused which publisher I should contact to get it published. As far as I know, Gramedia and other famous publishers do not accept English novels. But thanks to my English teacher, ma'am Lucy, for pointing out that she knows a publisher. Yay!

Oh and my dad suggested that I should design the rough drafts of the cover, since I've been into Adobe Photoshop lately. I adopted the name Carrie Hawkins to be my pseudonym (because I believe people won't read English books written by a so-called Indonesian). I eventually came up with these two cover versions, which I can't upload now (since I forget where I put them, shit).