November 9, 2019 at 6:42 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Filipino Writers, Links, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: California, memories, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Saturday, Stanford
Love this week’s Photo a Week Challenge.
Self is heading home soon. Here are three pictures she took just before she left on her latest trip:
Kepler’s Books and Magazines, Menlo Park, California: Self read here when her first book came out, ages and ages and ages ago.
Courthouse Square, Redwood City, California: This has been her home for almost as long as she’s lived in America. It’s one of the most vibrant, ethnically-mixed places on the Peninsula.
Stanford University, which made of self a writer.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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November 6, 2019 at 5:00 pm (Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Mendocino, short story, speculative fiction, supernatural, work-in-progress, writing process
TO DO
Weekend in Mendocino: Clouds lower, spit rain. The meadows on the headlands are green like Ireland’s. No flowers yet, it’s still early in the year.
Out there, where the surf meets the cliffs, lives a Kraken.
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November 3, 2019 at 10:30 am (Fan Fiction, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Sundays, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: California, Everlark, Manila, Menlo Park, photography, restaurants, The Philippines
P. A. Moed quotes Kim Hunter:
. . . emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.
Domestic Terminal, Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Manila: September 2019
Sitting at an Outdoor Table, Café Borrone, Menlo Park, California: August 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 27, 2019 at 8:03 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Philippine History, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: advice, historical fiction, novel, The Philippines
My son, your disposition cannot be mild. Under the circumstances, we require you to be vicious. May God Give you strength! (p. 9 of 359)
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October 26, 2019 at 7:40 pm (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, fiction, novel, Saturday, South-East Asia, The Philippines
from self’s novel:
- It has a circuit of nearly a hundred leagues and a length of about fifty leagues, for it is very narrow. At the two extremities it is, at the widest place, about twenty leagues wide. All along the coast are to be found bays that curve in different directions.
This, dear blog readers, is self’s mythical island in the central Philippines. The place where her ambitious MC (a priest!) lives out his life, in the 18th century.
Stay tuned.
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October 24, 2019 at 7:47 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Places, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: historical fiction, historical novel, Manila, novel, The Philippines
Going to be sending this out for query in the next few days.
p. 24:
- The soft breeze blowing through carried a scent of river mud and a tinge of something else, something pungent and rich, reminding him of the canals back home, the estuaries that carried effluvia from Murcia to the sea.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 22, 2019 at 5:28 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, novel, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, writing process
From 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., this group was kept constantly occupied with reading and rigorous forms of self-affliction: lying face-down on the stone floor of the chapel, or bathing from a pump in the chilly pre-dawn. This was calculated to prepare them for the rigors of an overseas mission. They dedicated themselves to the study of languages, such as Dutch, English, French, and German. They received medical instruction, for they would be required to run hospitals. Last, they received guidance in the writing of their own sermons, and in the performance of miracles.
(If indeed this turns out to be an ACTUAL HISTORICAL NOVEL, then self will have to cut out all the parts about miracles)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 21, 2019 at 1:59 pm (Filipino Writers, Great First Lines, Places, Surprises, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: flash fiction, Manila, Mondays, The Philippines, writing process
Living and breathing Philippine history for two weeks does have its advantages. Such as
HISTORICAL FLASH! HISTORICAL FLASH! HISTORICAL FLASH!
- In the city of Manila, on the twentieth of May, in the year one-thousand, five-hundred and eighty-nine, Doctor Santiago de Marquina saw a girl he estimated to be about fourteen years of age rising about a foot above the floor while she made her confession. This occurrence took place in the chapel of the convent of the Barefoot Saint Clares, situated by the Puerto Real in the old fort known as Intramuros.
Stay tuned.
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October 21, 2019 at 12:47 pm (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Philippine History, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: experimental, historical fiction, history, Mondays, novel, revising, The Philippines, writing process
What self is doing, she does not know. She just keeps tossing off letter after letter. Like, not only does she accept the throwdown of writing about 18th century Philippines, she has to make the whole thing epistolary!
Anyhoo, this section’s fresh as fresh, as she made the whole thing up about an hour ago. Thoughts?
You wrote that it is useless to appeal to the Bishop in Manila, for he cares more for “musk, civet, and pearls” than for his priests, which necessitates your appealing to Spain. And the Governor General is no better, you say, for he “struts about in the richest of silks and brocades”. If this individual were to somehow present to me at this very moment, I would demand that he be strung up from the highest gibbet. For are these things you have requested not proper and necessary for any human being, never mind those who are representatives of the Church and our country?
I am inclined to write a letter to the King himself, to inform him of what is truly going on in the islands, for He may well not know. Oh, to what lengths are we driven to serve both Our God and Our Lord!
Your loving sister,
Dorotea
In so many previous drafts (maybe the 1st to the 10th draft), Dorotea was the MC’s (secret) love interest, but self was unable to keep up the tension after the MC left for his mission in the Philippines, so she decided to turn Dorotea into his sister. There was more to the letter (e.g. curses to the English etc for occupying the islands, which they did for two years, in the early 1760s. They ultimately decided that the country didn’t have enough gold or silver to justify them staying.)
Stay tuned, dear blog reader. Stay tuned.
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October 20, 2019 at 12:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Filipino Writers, Flowers, Links, Places, Relatives, Sundays, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, birthday, Garden, happiness, Ireland, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Layered landscape.
“You can include images of buildings, landscapes, seascapes, clouds . . . ”
The prompt was so interesting!
Here are self’s takes on LAYERED.
- Worktable in her writing studio at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre: layered in books and papers
- Layered plantings at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre:
- Layers of purple, her daughter-in-law’s favorite color. Bought her this bouquet on her birthday in September.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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