My Blogging Game is Weak. Updating Anyway.
2019 has been a hot minute, but really though, it's been a busy and mentally exhausting one.
POETRY
Was able to edit and submit some poetry that eventually got accepted into UC Berkeley's {M}aganda Mag #32, INDAK, which published in April! I've worked on those poems for almost 2 (or 3?) years up until Maganda's initial deadline. So, effort and care pays off. P.S. These poems are also part of a potential chapbook WIP I've been super gradually tinkering away at and adding to for almost 3 years. I'd give it at least another 3 years before I can ever think of sending it off somewhere.
FICTION
My NING SANTOS WIP is on hold until I'm ready to pick it back up. It's currently at 13k, but there's a lot from the beginning I want to structurally rework/replot (again)...more importantly, the dynamic between Ning and her mom. I really need to NOT be indecisive about their arcs. But I mean, a Plantser gon' Plants.
In the mean time, I'm shifting focus on a smaller but just-as-difficult speculative MG project that hits even closer to home than NING SANTOS, and I'm currently picturing it as a collection of very short stories. It started with a 4 year-old fantastical Pinoy-centric flash fiction piece I wrote for a poetry class and a fiction class, which I'm planning on editing once I have the other stories drafted. It's Wansapanatym (if you grew up watching The Filipino Channel, you know...) meets Goosebumps/Are You Afraid of the Dark/Creeped Out/Twilight Zone. And each story is based on personal/familial superstitions that also touch upon/respond to broader FilAm issues. Currently in the middle of drafting 2 of the ones that hit the closest---one of which I had to take a break in drafting because the particular superstition coincidentally happened IRL, and I'm still a bit freaked out. But they are things I've been really wanting to explore in my fiction more than in my poetry, at least in vastly different ways.
READING
On-track with my 2019 Goodreads goal of 12 books with 6 read so far: 2 FilAm poetry collections, 1 diasporic Pin@y YA urban fantasy novel, 1 short children's graphic novel, and 2 picture books). Currently trying to finish the audiobook version of INSURRECTO by Gina Apostol. The writing is gorgeous. The audiobook narration is both a hit and miss but in a nit-picky way. I'm definitely hyped about Randy Ribay's PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING, Gail D. Villanueva's MY FATE ACCORDING TO THE BUTTERFLY, and Erin Entrada Kelly's LALANI OF THE DISTANT SEA......all of which are releasing this year. FilAm fiction keeps expanding like the universe and I'm here for it.
Hopefully, the next post comes after summer....but take that with a grain of asin.
POETRY
Was able to edit and submit some poetry that eventually got accepted into UC Berkeley's {M}aganda Mag #32, INDAK, which published in April! I've worked on those poems for almost 2 (or 3?) years up until Maganda's initial deadline. So, effort and care pays off. P.S. These poems are also part of a potential chapbook WIP I've been super gradually tinkering away at and adding to for almost 3 years. I'd give it at least another 3 years before I can ever think of sending it off somewhere.
FICTION
My NING SANTOS WIP is on hold until I'm ready to pick it back up. It's currently at 13k, but there's a lot from the beginning I want to structurally rework/replot (again)...more importantly, the dynamic between Ning and her mom. I really need to NOT be indecisive about their arcs. But I mean, a Plantser gon' Plants.
In the mean time, I'm shifting focus on a smaller but just-as-difficult speculative MG project that hits even closer to home than NING SANTOS, and I'm currently picturing it as a collection of very short stories. It started with a 4 year-old fantastical Pinoy-centric flash fiction piece I wrote for a poetry class and a fiction class, which I'm planning on editing once I have the other stories drafted. It's Wansapanatym (if you grew up watching The Filipino Channel, you know...) meets Goosebumps/Are You Afraid of the Dark/Creeped Out/Twilight Zone. And each story is based on personal/familial superstitions that also touch upon/respond to broader FilAm issues. Currently in the middle of drafting 2 of the ones that hit the closest---one of which I had to take a break in drafting because the particular superstition coincidentally happened IRL, and I'm still a bit freaked out. But they are things I've been really wanting to explore in my fiction more than in my poetry, at least in vastly different ways.
READING
On-track with my 2019 Goodreads goal of 12 books with 6 read so far: 2 FilAm poetry collections, 1 diasporic Pin@y YA urban fantasy novel, 1 short children's graphic novel, and 2 picture books). Currently trying to finish the audiobook version of INSURRECTO by Gina Apostol. The writing is gorgeous. The audiobook narration is both a hit and miss but in a nit-picky way. I'm definitely hyped about Randy Ribay's PATRON SAINTS OF NOTHING, Gail D. Villanueva's MY FATE ACCORDING TO THE BUTTERFLY, and Erin Entrada Kelly's LALANI OF THE DISTANT SEA......all of which are releasing this year. FilAm fiction keeps expanding like the universe and I'm here for it.
Hopefully, the next post comes after summer....but take that with a grain of asin.
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