December 4, 2019 at 5:01 pm (Artists and Writers, Family, Filipino Writers, Links, Publishers, Weather, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: dystopia, Literary Magazines, short story, speculative fiction
Lake Annagmakerrig: 4:30 a.m., 8 November 2018
Boy was the last of four. Alive just this morning. Fell through the ice chasing after a shadow that he thought was food.
What food. What a fool. There’s no food on the ice. Not on top, not under.
Hadn’t he told the boy, over and over: Watch the sky. The food will come as a drop.
I been watching, the boy said. For weeks.
— from self’s short story “Ice”
Her piece was published in Bellingham Review’s annual on-line issue, November 2017.
Read it in its entirety, here.
Stay tuned.
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November 28, 2019 at 2:40 am (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Philippine History, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: historical fiction, history, Manila, novel, The Philippines
Here’s one:
THE BISHOP OF MANILA WRITES TO HIS CATHOLIC ROYAL MAJESTY
26 Junio 1755
Most Powerful Lord,
When you assign someone to come to govern this land, your Majesty should take into account that you are not sending a person who will have to face investigation but an absolute king who does not have any superior, nor anyone to be accountable to but who should be solely motivated by fear of God, the service of Your Majesty and the zeal for the popular good, because there is no means to stop him, and all remedies are useless and without effect. In view of this, and of the fact that Your Majesty cannot make men of wax, nor know their feelings, nor have them close at hand, it does not amaze me that the person appointed does not turn out to be worthy.
Manuel E. Benavides Library, University of Santo Tomas, Manila (founded 1611)
Self may have gotten a lot of things wrong, but not the tone. NOT THE TONE.
Stay tuned.
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November 20, 2019 at 2:56 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: flash fiction, speculative fiction, work-in-progress
Self is attempting to finish all she has left unfinished.
Attempt # 1:
The woman took the letter and set off, but soon got lost and found herself wandering in a forest. In the gathering darkness she saw a faint light glimmering among the trees. She made for it and eventually found herself in front of a cottage. Inside, an old woman sat dozing at a cheerful fire. The old woman took fright at the sudden appearance of the stranger and demanded, “Where have you sprung from and where are you going?” The woman answered, “I’m taking a letter” but forgot everything else. In the end, what is true is what remains.
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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 31, 2019 at 11:58 pm (Books, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Writing)
Tags: novel, reading lists
The itching is insane. Every spot above his waist is unreachable fire.
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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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