It feels like an impossible task to write good stuff when you're mad, sad, or tomorrow's concerns eat you away. "No good fruit comes out of a bad tree," the Big Book says. Sometimes, you force the words out of you, not minding if you're being hypocrite at the moment. "They won't notice it, anyway,"... Continue Reading →
It's easy to define freedom when you're confined to the same four walls for more than a month. You think of freedom, and you think of opening the cage's door and soaring in the sky. You think of freedom, and you think of not being hindered to do what you want. Being free is easily... Continue Reading →
This has been my routine when entering a bookstore: I walk straight to the Biography section, linger there for less than an hour or two. I then amble along the Fiction Section and allow myself to be awed by Stephen King, Agatha Christie, John Grisham and more authors whose books occupy big spaces in the... Continue Reading →
March 7, dawn. News about an NCOV-infected Deloitte employee in BGC came online. My morning and afternoon small group discussions were cancelled. Weeks back, Ate Fel booked us tickets for a theatre play called Joseph the Dreamer, and we chose to see it on March 7. "Ticket World said no advice from the promoters yet.... Continue Reading →
I reckon that the terms “intrapersonal intelligence” and “introspection” are germane to a discussion in memoir writing. When I penned my first memoir in 2017, I thought it was my initial first-hand encounter with the literary form. Wrong, I was. After teaching and studying about memoir, I discovered that I’ve been a memoirist all along,... Continue Reading →
My man brought me to Pinto Art Museum one fine Thursday. "It's my birthday gift to you," he said. And he was ready to pay for it all. We've long heard about Pinto, but had not a clue how it looks. He knew I love arts and museum though, so he thought going there in... Continue Reading →
The pile of memoirs on my desk is, lately, the most pleasant sight. This year started well for my reading life, especially that I got all three of Frank McCourt's works and The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking by Olivia Laing, mostly through my cousin's help (Ate Flor, my book angel). I'm... Continue Reading →
I received my first set of acrylic pastes in January 2020 (courtesy of my cousin, Ate Flor), and I've not stopped thinking about painting since then. The box has 18 12ml tubes of all basic colors with shades varying from light to dark. 18 hues, the possibilities are crazy. They can copy the pictures in... Continue Reading →
Writing, per se, is scary. Writing to be read is horrifying. Imagine that risk you put yourself in when you expose your choice of words, your thoughts, and a precious piece of yourself to - who knows how many - people. You throw a sentence or two onto their table and give them the permission... Continue Reading →
The first time I taught Memoir Writing, I had my initial researches in hand which included the wealth of information from a Creative Writing textbook, Memoir Writing guides, actual memoirs, and Google. Still, that heap didn't suffice, for I had an inkling that I was solely looking at the tip of its iceberg. I dug... Continue Reading →
