Moving House

June 11, 2009 at 3:26 am (journal)
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Nah, I’m not moving house.  But I am moving blogs.  The first time, I simply imported my friendster blog to wordpress.  Now, though, I’m starting a whole new blog dedicated to writing.  Here’s the link.

Eventually, maybe I’ll be deleting this blog, I’m not sure yet.  For now, I’m still in the process of nesting in my new home.  It’ll probably take me a couple of days to tweak it to my satisfaction, and set up the necessary links to the people I’ve met on this blog.  In the meantime, update your own links.  I’m probably going to be pretty active from now on.

Join me then!  I’m now at The Tao of a Writer.  Haha… and I like the title, too.

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The Epic Quest 6: Plodding Along…

June 4, 2009 at 11:40 pm (the epic quest)
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All in all, the past few weeks have been full ones – to put it mildly.  I finally drafted what I considered a good (i.e., acceptable) ending to a major written work.  And then, of course, I became too giddy at the prospect of actually finishing something palatable that I completely lost it.

It’s funny now, in retrospect, though in the midst of it, it was anything but.  For one thing, I had no idea what to do with the damn thing.  I knew it needed editing, probably some serious revising, and of course proofreading, but to be completely honest I was so sick of the damn manuscript that I went casting about for any and all means to get rid of it.  Except that when I looked at the potential markets, they had what I considered to be pretty steep demands – query letters, synopsis, possible further editing work, and of course, the necessary waiting game.  Lots of administrative details I wasn’t really sure I could hack.  Like I probably said once before, it was nauseating.  I couldn’t even find it in me to write a two-paragraph synopsis.

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We Are Mr. Thomas Gradgrind

April 27, 2009 at 2:03 am (Uncategorized)

An essay on educational reform in the Philippines in relation to “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens

See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1685956/we_are_mr_thomas_gradgrind.html

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The Warrior Pose

April 21, 2009 at 9:16 pm (Uncategorized)

An article on Warrior I and Warrior II, and understanding the symbolism and demands of each.

See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1669971/the_warrior_pose.html

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Keeping It All In Check

April 6, 2009 at 2:09 pm (journal)
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This has been almost like a yearly litany with me – how I hate the hot, humid tropical summer of the lowlands that induces sweat so efficiently even when one has plastered herself to an air-conditioned room.  On the worst days, and when one is out and about under the broiling sun, it feels nothing so much as slowly being roasted inside an oven.  One drinks gallons of iced water (and all other manner of liquids besides), one loses quite a bit of appetite in the heat (not to mention sleep), and all of it contributes to the pounding headache induced by the pressing heat that comes down from the sun, the air, and the cracked ground. Read the rest of this entry »

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Not Much Fun in Being Left Behind

February 22, 2009 at 5:49 am (journal)
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I recently had occasion to read a short story written by a fellow aspiring writer.  It was a tragic love story, where the “happy ever after” did not come to pass – due to the guy’s inability to get past memories of childhood peers perceiving him as “not good enough,” even though he was fairly sure that the love between him and the girl was mutual.  The ending, inevitably, was of the guy walking away, leaving the girl looking after him as he departed.

He wanted criticism and feedback of his story – but I kept my opinions to myself.  As it was, the story itself was fairly well-written.  I just didn’t have patience for the plot – and I thought that the choice of plot was pretty much a personal choice – both for the writer and the reader.  So I kept quiet instead. Read the rest of this entry »

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On the Road

February 11, 2009 at 7:03 pm (sketches)
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Every year a kind of mass migration takes place within the Philippine population.  Scores of warm bodies board transportation vehicles, often during the holidays or on long weekends, to go home to the provinces.  At one time, I opted to remain in Manila during the Feast of All Saints Day and All Souls Day (what the western world knows more familiarly as Halloween) – and me and some friends lounged about in the vast city that was eerily devoid of congestion and traffic.  The entire city felt like a ghost town, and I was so amazed to find that going from one place to another (where my usual travel time consisted of over an hour) took barely ten minutes! Read the rest of this entry »

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This Thing About Free Art…

February 3, 2009 at 3:39 pm (journal)
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Once again, I’ve been exceedingly busy that I had to pull myself away for the moment from the addicting world of online blogging.  It’s kinda weird how things have turned out – I have less free time now than when I was actually working: hours that no longer revolve around the 9-5 of the working world (or more accurately, 8:30am-1am the following day).  I suppose it has to do with the increased productivity being so evident (and being so well-received) that one doesn’t really mind.  You get more done in an hour at home that if you take two hours to get there and another hour to “acclimatize” before actually working. Read the rest of this entry »

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A Great Reboot

January 9, 2009 at 6:12 pm (journal)
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I’ve been out of commission for quite some time.  Though honestly, it wasn’t quite so unexpected for me, it being a chronic pattern in my life after all.  Any time I went back home, no matter for how short a time, I always ended up inadvertently divorcing myself from the demands of work which I’ve come to associate with Metropolitan Manila.  Maybe it’s a Baguio thing – that home city of mine stuck high up on those mountain ranges, existing in a (foggy) world of its own.  Somebody once commented that Baguio City didn’t feel like the Philippines at all, one childhood friend said he was so glad he grew up in eclectic Baguio (he said this at the time we first found ourselves having to tough it out in Manila), and another who moved back home after more than ten years of Manila living told me how glad she was to be back, and how she kept asking herself “why on earth did I ever leave?!” Read the rest of this entry »

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The Epic Quest 5 Making Peace with the Waiting Place

December 10, 2008 at 6:15 pm (the epic quest)
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I think it was Dr. Seuss who said, “Nobody likes the waiting place.”  And that particular “motto” (so to speak) has been very true for me.  I have always been under the bane of my peculiar brand of impatience, which wants to see results just as soon as anything is begun.  Otherwise, I generally lose interest and move on to other things.  Patience being a virtue and all, it has never been one of mine.  Contrariwise, I found the ability to move on and forget a much greater virtue.  Leastways, it was an easier virtue for me to swallow.  On a very productive day, I could move like a whirlwind and jump from idea to idea, conversation to conversation, task to task and person to person.  Multitasking came almost naturally, perhaps a symptom of having grown up in this day and age of rapid change. Read the rest of this entry »

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