That was the challenge given to me, and it was tough.

Y'see, I have my next school assessment coming up: a public performance.

Yep. Right. Next Wednesday.

A public performance.

The hub of the arts in this country (look up the Esplanade if you're interested in depth-knowledge) had a conveniently-placed cafe in the library, and it had conveniently provided a little stage, complete with a digital piano.

When our group of merry students made a trip to that library to handle our assignment, the lecturers got really interested.

So it was set: an evening performance, a piece per group (of 3 to 4 people) at the library cafe. Bring your own audience.

Considering that a guitarist with little experience and an erhu player with some experience had ganged up with this piano player with a little more than 'some' experience, I decided that an easy piece would have to do. Easy, but pleasing. The two others did not want a leader's role, so they ditched all decisions to me.

Considering that Play! Video Game Symphony had just arrived and performed Asia's debut concert not too long ago, I decided to follow suit.

Piece of choice: Eternity - Memory of Lights and Waves. From FFX - 2? Or 1?

Yes, the one with the repeating melody that repeats. Again. And again. And again.

It was an easy piece to play, and it was very pretty. However, it could get very boring.

Solution?

Pretty it up even more. Add in improvisation, re-arrange it, and give it a new twist by the different instruments we were using.

So that's what we did. Last we tried, I think we've got the go-ahead to perform that piece.

*Writer's Tip*

The very same thing goes with writing Bionicle stories.

Now, Bionicle is a storyline with the same characters. Tahu, Vakama, or everyone's current interest right now, the Toa Mahri and the titans of Mahri Nui.

But, everyone writes the same thing, right?

Wrong.

Well, not quite. I would be lying if I said there was a great variety. The most common epic-style would be of a new island, new heroes, or canon islands and heroes doing their fighting thing. The most common short-story styles are love, tears and down-right moody.

And, after a while of the same thing, won't it get boring?

And this leads to another question - I want to write those genres. So, how do I look different? How do I write the tale without making it boring, and make it stand out?

I suggest to you to try altering the way you write the story, adding in different elements, and always test and practise what you're trying to show to the readers, just like I did for my music piece.

*Writer's Tip Over*

And for real life, it sucked. My wallet disappeared, containing not only my money, but my identity card and transport card too. Those will be expensive to replace.