Shoutout

To my friend Cathy, who bought the book a few weeks ago. (Yay!)

She's a friend from way back, and she's actually read the early stuff I wrote. When it was typed crudely on bond paper, and then when the typewriter gave out I wrote them all on notebooks longhand. She read all of them. This was before the Internet, and we entertained ourselves this way. We wrote stories, and we read them.

It wasn't just her, though; many other friends from high school who were supportive and encouraging. It's a nice memory to go back to when you have the desire to write beaten out of you by school, work, and everything else.

New bedtime reading

Now reading The World for Lost Beings. (Author Miriam Delos Santos is a friend.)

Three chapters in and I'm getting a Coehlo vibe from it. Not exactly my thing, but I see that she's taking very real situations (I would say Pinoy but some of them are quite universal) and placing them in that philosophical space. More pages will be read tonight. :)

Belle for real

"Scientist announces that she is call girl and blogger Belle de Jour" (The Guardian)

How wacky is this? This can totally be spun off into another novel. :)

I didn't read the blog or the books, but instead watched the Secret Diary of a Call Girl series on British TV. It's a good watch, but I didn't feel compelled to want to know the "real Belle." Finding out, now, that she's a scientist, does make me kind of curious.

I know this is a misconception, but I still do think that people who write novels gravitate toward somewhat literary careers as their day jobs. I've been an editor and corporate communications writer myself, and if you read a lot of local chick lit you'll see that authors with advertising and journalism backgrounds. Developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology? That's different. That's kind of cool.

Will she be as interesting an author now that she's out? Does it even matter?

Shoutout

Jill, I've signed your book. It will be one of two signed books in Texas. Yay!

It's fun and all, but writing on a book makes me feel weird. A few years ago I stopped writing my name on books to label them. Today when I take a pen to a book page a little voice inside tells me I'm vandalizing private property. :P

Congrats!

How's this for inspiring? For the third year in a row, a Filipino author has been part of the Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist.

Eric Gamalinda's The Descartes Highlands (excerpt here) also starts out promising and is likely the kind of book I actually will buy. Looking forward to it, and I wish him winner vibes.

NaNo time

Thank you, Tina, for reminding me that NaNoWriMo is near. I'd heard about it, and been spectator to the efforts of friends to participate, but never really got into it myself.

But wait -- maybe I kinda did. Most of my only first published novel was written in November last year, so I do know how it feels to write every day and finish in a month. I was kind of wrapped up in it and then poof! It's over.

Happy writing and plotting, people!

Everyone has a story

Cutting into regular programming about romance and chick lit to bring you this:

My FirstPerson account of Ondoy

Hope everyone is safe, dry, and healthy.