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Make My Wish Come True

Life and Lemons Writing Now

2017 Gratitude: In Books

As of end-of-year 2017, I have written and published the following books (in chronological order, so no book gets hurt because of course books have feelings):

Blossom Among Flowers (YA romance) – July 18, 2015. Japanese high school kids. Popular, seemingly cold boy genius grudgingly tutors headstrong yet head-in-the-clouds manga fangirl. Jdorama feels. I wrote it because I loveloveloved Hana Yori Dango and couldn’t get over how Rui didn’t get Makino when they’re obviously soulmates.

 

 

Songs of Our Breakup (New Adult romance/Playlist #1) – August 22, 2015. First book set in the Philippines, with Filipino characters. Band boy breaks up with band girl. Band girl’s Japanese celebrity friend flies in, sets himself up as her perfect distraction, and for so much more. I wrote it because I’m a Pinoy music scene fan and Oguri Shun fan and why can’t I have it all in one universe? Oguri Shun is my Shinta, but the easy rule is you choose your own.

 

Majesty (Urban Fantasy/ Young Adult/#StrangeLit) – October 2015 on Buqo/ March 17, 2016 on Amazon. Welcome haunting of a beautiful ghost, friendship you find in hopeless places, and friendship and love that endure even death. I wrote it for Bronze Age Media and Buqo‘s StrangeLit workshop. And also because it’s a story that’s been living with me for years and although painful it needed to be written.

 

 

Songs to Get Over You (New Adult romance/ Playlist #2) – February 29, 2016. Band boy pines for band girl but does nothing. Accountant girl pushes him to move, and towards a new direction. I wrote it because Miki needed to learn things. I love him that way. You’ll understand once you’ve met him.

 

Songs to Make You Stay (New Adult romance/ Playlist #3) – October 9, 2016. Japanese celebrity boy gets band girl, but the struggle doesn’t end there, does it? Living the life you know versus living the life you choose, and finding out where exactly love fits in. I wrote it because Shinta is extra and won’t quiet down and leave me alone.

 

 

Make My Wish Come True (#romanceclass Christmas anthology) – December 2016 on Gumroad/November 15, 2017 on Amazon. My short story is Christmas Chicken Dance. Japanese celebrity boy flies to Manila to surprise his mother for Christmas + an ulterior motive to get the girl. I wrote it because again, Shinta. Extra.

 

 

Promdi Heart (anthology of love stories set in Philippine provinces) – March 29, 2017. My short story is One Certain Day, set in Hagonoy, Bulacan. Artsy girl and band boy end up being cemetery neighbors one All Saint’s Day. It becomes a yearly tradition and grows into friendship, and to girl, maybe something more.

 

 

Summer Crush (anthology set in a music festival in surftown La Union) – April 7, 2017. My short story is You Only Need Reminding. Accountant girl drops all the balls she’s been juggling for a summer getaway with band boy boyfriend. But what if there really is no such thing as escape? I wrote it because Tara Frejas, Six delos Reyes and I wanted to merge universes. It wasn’t easy but it was awesome and why yes, I’d totally do it again.

 

You Out of Nowhere (steamy romance/ Flair #1) – November 4, 2017. Train meet cute. Accidental Seoulmates. Older, cookie bar boss lady is so over dating and looking for the One. Younger corporate boy thinks she might just be it. I wrote it for #romanceclass2017 (alternating POV! Filipino characters! Heat level 3++!). It’s the first book from #romanceclassFlair and it makes me feel honored and grateful and pressured all at once.

 

 

Nine books in three years. NINE. Six novellas and three anthologies. All love and work. All thanks to the village it took to make the books and to people who read, reviewed and rated and told me they’ve read and enjoyed the books. All thanks, always, to the #romanceclass community.

Like most things worth doing, I’m realizing that the more I write, the more I need to learn, and the more I should improve and it’s a cycle that will never really stop. It’s hard most days (lots of days), and some days I truly believe I suck and should be banned from ever lifting a finger over a keyboard. Days like today and the past few days, for example, when even the thought of starting a sentence and plotting outline makes me shrivel up and die a little inside. But it’s all part of the process. I shall get through this. There are more stories to be written. Until then I am proud and grateful for the stories already out there, and if you find them, I hope they bring you the feels you need too.

Happy New Year! Here have an adorable Joe Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel song!

Writing Now

2016 – The Bookish Year That Was

It feels good to do this again, because it tells me that 2015 was not a fluke or a very vivid daydream, but was something that really happened and led to more things in 2016, writing and publishing-wise.

In 2016, I:

 

  • Wrote a children’s short story for Bayong ng Kuting called The Kitten She Didn’t Love, loosely based on the love-hate relationship between my sister and our indomitable male feline, Bing. This may be a trope.
  • Wrote a story spiral for Ines Bautista-Yao’s blog, starring Miki, because some days my feelings belong to him.
  • Attended a YA writing class organized by Bronze Age Media and facilitated by Ines, because I liked hanging out with the people and because my YA wheels needed oiling.

 

  • Participated in Manila International Book Fair on the first year that #romanceclass had a booth. It felt surreal. Until now I know my understanding of its significance remains dim and narrow. Suffice it to see though that our booth was right in front of National Bookstore, but our books were being bought anyway, such that panic-reprinting and restocking had to happen. Suffice it to see how the community came together, in manning the booth and playing tindera for the day and hollering mamser, pagibig? and recommending each other’s works to readers. There was already boundless joy and pride in that.
  • Felt kilig over and over again in live readings. In April Feels Day (special kilig because theater actor Jef Flores read as Miki from Songs to Get Over You), Feels Rush In, All The Feels, and Feels Fest.

 

  • Met wonderful new people—fellow writers, readers, both local and international. Saw a bit of how people in other places responded to my books, and got the happy surprise of seeing them accept my book people too.
  • Signed up for my second Mina V. Esguerra workshop, #romanceclass2017, a thing that is carrying me through to 2017. That and a fun project with #romanceclass chicas Six delos Reyes and Tara Frejas.

I ended my 2015 post with a list of goals, and I am happy to have checked them all off in 2016, at least at the minimum. So I thought a new list would be a good way of ending this post too.

In 2017, I will:

  • Write and finish my #romanceclass2017 manuscript. This is uncharted territory for me, because of the POV, the steam level challenge, and largely because this is a new universe, not the familiar terrain of my band boys and girl in the Playlist series. Scareciting. I’m building a Pinterest board as I write, because I do that now, apparently (visuals are important). Check it out if you’re curious? 🙂 https://www.pinterest.com/jayetria/where-this-takes-us/
  • Write one more book, maybe YA. Maybe Nino, or Kim, or someone yet to be imagined. Will see where my feelings will take me.
  • Publish one to two books.
  • Work on the fun, secret-for-now project with Six and Tara.
  • Go out and go places and do new things for feelings, special challenge dated 12-10-2016 in mind.
  • Rest and recharge haha because sometimes I don’t like to do this until my body breaks down and forces me to. And being forced to rest doesn’t feel restful at all, if that makes sense.

Every year is bound to be better than the last. That’s a good way to look at things, right? I’m going to keep that in mind. Hello 2017! I hope you’re ready for more of my words and feelings 🙂