Ana is in a rut. For years, she had been focused on trying to carve out a niche for herself in a competitive, male-dominated, scientific world. On her 32nd birthday, she finally takes a step back and realises her life is . . . boring. With a little prodding from her friends, she decides to shake things up. She vows that this is the year she’ll finally capture the heart of Daniel Sato, the research associate she’s secretly loved for ages. So she makes a birthday wish—to finally fall in love with someone (‘with’ being the operative word). But then,…
Jay E. Tria
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Last month, I joined StrangeLit, an online writing workshop sponsored by Buqo. The goal is to produce an at least short-story length PN/PNR/UF work. The past week, work had been toxic and cruel (not complaining, just stating a fact, haha), and although I would end the work day exhausted, I always had enough energy to read the StrangeLit lessons from our mentors Paolo Chikiamco, Marian Tee, Kate Evangelista, and today Budjette Tan. Their words of advise were golden, and they revived me. Today’s inspiration came in the form of a StrangeLit lesson from Budjette. He said a lot of valuable things about…
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I write this as I take a break from #StrangeLit duties (Activity 2 achievement unlocked!), and because I was super excited to find out that this month, August, is Buwan ng mga Akdang Pinoy. I’m thrilled to join this campaign, mostly because of two things. Firstly, these past few months I’ve been binging on works of Filipino authors, and secondly, I am also struggling to be a successful one myself (the struggle is fun and tiring and very real, guys). This month, despite my own writing goals, I aim to finish reading the following works of super awesome Filipino authors:
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I don’t normally play music when I write. I need silence. I need a vacuum. I need my mother to stop talking to me about errands and my cat to stop purring on my lap (though that’s really very sweet of the cat. I’m sorry, I take that back). When I get stuck though, I turn to music. And usually, the music plays in my head. Sans iTunes, YouTube or Spotify. For Blossom Among Flowers, I was writing a story set in Japan about bishounen–beautiful boys or flower boys, and the spunky, manga-addicted, high school girl caught between them. So it made…
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Really, I did! Well I guess technically I’ve had Blossom Among Flowers with me for almost a decade now, but this is the moment in time, the third week of July 2015 (on the 18th day according to Amazon), that my baby is finally out. She can actually mingle with the world now, you know? I realize the child-bearing comparisons are a bit weird. But I’m just very excited. I know there’s still a lot for me to do. You don’t know me, or my writing. Nobody’s probably reading this today. But for now, on the third week of July…
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Blossom Among Flowers at 65,002 words. I say super final because I now refuse to touch it. Not because I don’t love this book anymore. But because I’ve had it in my computer for almost a decade now. Even longer than the longest relationship I’ve ever had (and that one was long). If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. It’s been through at least three beta-edits and two editors, and now I have finished my super last pass on my very first book, literally a piece of my heart and good chunk of years of my life (apologies for…