so true

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. ~ Saint Augustine

vindication

thank You Lord!!!

27

how do I feel? I feel the same !

They say people don't really change, they just become who they really are.

And i love it

calm down...don't project

your anger to others.

take responsibility in your actions...

dont project anger sa iba.

do it. be inspired.

Goodness Friday

Okay. So I am in Baguio right now and in a few will board a bus back to Maniluh.

I am supposed to go to Sagada but...I chickened out. It rained. I am scared to go spelunking. I was tired. I had no more time. Did I say I am scared to go spelunking?

Excuses, excuses.

And it drove me to this one strong resolve.

I am having some thoughts.

When I go back home, I will be poised for the greatest change that I will do for myself. Not moving out cause I did that. Driving? Not really.

It's been a long time coming.

It's time. And I think I am ready for this.

pressure part 2

hay ayoko talaga magpunta sa island na yun. iniiwasan ko siyang puntahan talaga.

pero wala akong magagawa. i have to go there bec of work. #kelanganpilitingmagboracay

Before the Worst

Its been a while since the two of us talked
About a week since the day that you walked
Knowing things would never be the same
With your empty heart and mine full of pain

So explain to me how it came to this
Take it back to the night we kissed
It was Dublin city on a Friday night
With vodkas and coke, I was getting insomniac

We were sitting with our backs against the world
Saying things that we thought but never heard
Oh, who would've thought it would end up like this

But everything we talked about is gone
And the only chance we have of moving on
Was trying to take it back before it all went wrong

Before the worst, before we met
Before our hearts decided it?s time to love again
Before too late, before too long
Lets try and take it back before it all went wrong

There was a time that we?d stay up all night
Best friends, yeah talking 'til the daylight
Took the joys alongside the pain
With not much to lose but so much to gain

Are you hearing me? 'Cause I don?t wanna miss
That you would drift on memory bliss
It was Grafton street on a rainy night
I was down on one knee and you were mine for life

We were thinking we would never be apart
With your name tattooed across my heart
Oh, who would've thought it would end up like this

But everything we talked about is gone
And the only chance we have of moving on
Was trying to take it back before it all went wrong
Before the worst, before we met
Before our hearts decided it's time to love again
Before too late, before too long
Lets try and take it back before it all went wrong

If the clouds don't clear
Then we'll rise above it, we'll rise above it
Heavens gate is so near, come walk with me through
Just like we used to, just like we used to, yeah, yeah

Let's take it back before it all went wrong

Before the worst, before we met
Before our hearts decide it's time to love again
Before too late, before too long
Let's try to take it back before it all went wrong
Let's try and take it back before it all went wron

je veux vraiment des vacances Voyage dans le monde et de la merde. malheureusement je me sens le travail s'accumule. j'ai besoin d'obtenir mon rainure

I love my job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love ABS-CBN!!!!!!!!!

Here's the thing, pakipot ako. Cool ako pagdating sa kumpanya ko. A wise writer once told me, it's not the network, it's the craft at kahit saan ka mapadpad na network basta't loyal ka sa craft mo, sa pagsusulat mo, yun ang mahalaga.
When we talk about careers and employers I often get iffy, modest at mas proud pa ang Mommy ko that I am working in ABSCBN
BUT
everything changed when I signed a contract.
AND
When I received my BONUS today!!!!!!!

I have never received a generous bonus from Kapamilya until today. Generous as in reaching to amounts I can never imagine getting as a bonus, something all of us writers and other employees didnt expect!!! And I want to mark this day with a blog post. Napatalon ako. Ang taas talaga. Nakakaloka. MAhirap siya iprocess. And for a day hindi ako makaconcentrate because I am thinking how to spend the money!!! Yung mommy ko ang tanong: Ang laki naman! Baka nagkamali?! Actually nakakaduda sa laki. But I found out it's because of the advertisers and the political ads last year. Kaya sa mga advertisers, sige lang. Kapamilya lang okay? And we writers will do our best to make our shows rate, and to make the network number 1.

Dear ABS-CBN, today you honor the hardwork of all the kapamilyas! We are all sooo happy, grateful and humbled! It pushes us to do better! =)

Hay! bongga ka talaga, kapamilya! Kalurky! Hindi pa rin ako makaget over. Makapaginvest na nga sa stocks at makabili ng kotse now na! hahahaha! Thank you to the bosses - SIR RAYMS, MS. LINGGIT TAN. and now, SIR DEO. Thank you ABSCBN. Thank You Lord!!!

54 Tips For Writers, From Writers

by MARELISA · 70 COMMENTS

The entire writing process is fraught with perils. Many writers would argue that the hardest part of writing is beginning. When asked what was the most frightening thing he had ever encountered, novelist Ernest Hemingway said, “A blank sheet of paper.”

Other writers believe that ideas are easy, it’s in the execution of those ideas that the hard work really begins. You have to show up every day and slowly give shape to your ideas, trying to find just the right words, searching for the right turn of phrase, until it all morphs into something real.

Then comes the wait to discover how your writing will be received. Chilean author Isabel Allende once said that writing a book is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. You never know if it will reach any shores.

So just how do you go about facing an empty page, coaxing your ideas into the world of form, and steering the end result toward shore? You can start by studying the tips and advice from writers presented below.

photo credit: visualpanic

Stephen King – Read A Lot and Write A Lot

“If you want to be a writer,” says Stephen King, “you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

King, who has written over 50 books, emphasizes that writers have to be well-read. He adds that he has no patience for people who tell him that they want to be writers but they can’t find the time to read. The answer is simple: if you don’t read, you can’t be a writer. You have to read just about everything. In addition, you also have to write in order to develop your own style.

When it comes to the reading part of it, King explained during a lecture at Yale that if you read enough, there’s this magic moment which will always come to you if you want to be a writer. It’s the moment when you put down some book and say: “This really sucks . . . I can do better than this . . . And this guy got published.” So go ahead, read all you can, and wait for that magical moment. (Watch the YouTube video clip).

“On Writing”–published in 2000–is both a textbook for writers and a memoir of King’s life. Here’s an excerpt from “On Writing” in which King offers advice on pacing:

“Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)…I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: “Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”

John Grisham’s Advice

John Grisham–a former lawyer best known for his legal thrillers–advices young writers to find their career, and adds that at first it won’t be writing. He explains that before you can be a writer you have to experience some things, see some of the world, go through things–love, heartbreak, and so on–, because you need to have something to say.

You also need to have something to fall back on. Once you’re secure in life and you have a regular paycheck, then you can think about becoming a serious writer. (This is basically “The Survival/Sacred Dance” theory which I write about in my blog post, “Creating in the Dark – Your Sacred Dance”.)

He goes on to say that at first you have to treat writing as a hobby; you write a page a day in your spare time. Grisham explains that he created spare time to write, although he had a full time job. He adds that he always tells young aspiring writers that if they’re not writing a page a day, then nothing is going to happen. But if they make sure to write a page a day it becomes a habit, and before long they have a lot of pages piled up. (Source).

(Image from here).

Erica Jong – Fear of Flying

“The hardest part is believing in yourself at the notebook stage. It is like believing in dreams in the morning.” – Erica Jong

Erica Jong–who in “Seducing the Demon” defined a writer as “someone who takes the universal whore of language and turns her into a virgin again”, and who created compelling female characters such as Isadora Wing and Fanny Hackabout-Jones–tells us that she writes to get her life down on paper so that it can never be extinguished. She also writes to keep from going mad.

Jong admonishes aspiring writers not to expect approval for telling the truth, reminding them of Dante, Voltaire, Cervantes, and Swift. Then she adds: “Few are the great spirits who did not at one time or another write in jail, in exile, in the madhouse, or at the foot of the gallows.”

(Image taken from here).

Ernest Hemingway – Papa Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway–winner of the Nobel Prize in 1954–advices that each day’s work should only be interrupted when one knows where to begin again the next day. This helps the writer avoid the morning agony of facing the blank page. (From “Gabriel Garcia Marquez Meets Ernest Hemingway”).

Hemingway–knicknamed Papa–offers more invaluable writing tips in a rare interview he did with George Plimpton, original editor of “The Paris Review”, the magazine credited with inventing the modern literary interview. Here are some of the insights he offered during the inteview conducted in the Spring of 1958 (Source: “Conversations With Ernest Hemingway“):

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?

Hemingway: It depends, I re-wrote the ending to “Farewell to Arms”, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway: Getting the words right.

—————————————————-

Interviewer: Who would you say are your literary forebears, those you have learned the most from?

Hemingway: Mark Twain, Flaubert, Stendhal, Bach, Turgeniev, Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Andrew Marvell, John Donne, Maupassant, the good Kipling, Thoreau, Captain Marryat, Shakespeare, Mozart, Quevedo, Dante, Virgil, Tintoretto . . . Goya, Giotto, Cezanne, Van Gogh . . . I put in painters, because I learn as much from painters about how to write as from writers . . . I should think what one learns from composers and from the study of harmony and counterpoint would be obvious.

——————————

Interviewer: Does the title come to you while you’re in the process of doing the story?

Hemingway: No, I make a list of titles after I’ve finished the story or the book–sometimes as many as 100. Then I start eliminating them, sometimes all of them.

————————————————-

If you enjoy reading writer interviews, The Paris Review’s Writers at Work interview series has elicited many of the most arresting, illuminating, and revealing discussions of life and craft from the greatest writers of our time. They’ve compiled their best interviews into three volumes: The Paris Review Interviews, I; The Paris Review Interviews, II; The Paris Review Interviews, III.

(The image was taken from here).

Kurt Vonnegut – Find a Subject You Care About

Kurt Vonnegut was a prolific American author known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction. He offers the following advice to aspiring writers: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.”

In the book “Bagombo Snuff Box”–an assortment of his short stories published in 1999, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

(Image taken from here).

Anne Lamott – Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott once received a rejection letter from an editor that said: “You have made the mistake of thinking that everything that has happened to you is interesting.” That, however, didn’t discourage her from writing; she’s the author of several successful novels as well as a book on writing, which a lot of people are familiar with, entitled “Bird by Bird”.

As for the title of her book, she explains that when her older brother was ten years old he was trying to write a report on birds which he’d had three months to write. The day before the report was due he was sitting at the kitchen table at the family’s cabin surrounded by unopened books on birds, immobilized by the huge task ahead of him. He was close to tears when his father walked up, put his arm around his shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

As can be expected from the book’s title, Lamott explains in “Bird by Bird” that the secret of writing is to get started, and in order to get started you need to break the complex, overwhelming task of writing into small manageable tasks. Then you simply get going with the first task.

From Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” comes her concept of “the shitty first draft”. Here’s an excerpt from “Bird by Bird” which explains that concept:

“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go – but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”

(Image taken from here).

The Writing Life – Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard has written eleven books, including “An American Childhood” and “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”. In “The Writing Life” she goes into her life as a writer, and explains the ins and outs of what a writer needs to do to have a successful book.

Here are some gems from The Writing Life:

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place…. Something more will arise for later, something better.”

“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case.”

“It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick.”

“When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a wood carver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.”

“A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. . . it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room. You enter its room with bravura, holding a chair at the thing and shouting, ‘Simba!’”

(Browse inside “The Writing Life“.)

Maya Angelou – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou is best known for her series of six autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adulthood experiences. In 1971 she was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry, “Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie.’”

The following quote by Angelou is very reminiscent of Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk at Ted.com entitled “A Different Way to Think About Creative Genius”:

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

Beginning with “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, Angelou has used the same writing ritual for many years (from: “Conversations With Maya Angelou”):

“When I’m writing . . . I get up at about five . . . I get in my car and drive off to a hotel room: I can’t write in my house, I take a hotel room and ask them to take everything off the walls so there’s me, the Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus and some good, dry cherry and I’m at work by 6:30. I write on the bed lying down–one elbow is darker than the other, really black from leaning on it–and I write in longhand on yellow pads. Once into it, all disbelief is suspended, it’s beautiful.”

Advice for Authors From Seth Godin

Seth Godin–marketing guru and best-selling author who’s been called “the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age”–generously offers nineteen pieces of advice for aspiring writers. Here are the first three pieces of advice:

1. Lower your expectations. The happiest authors are the ones that don’t expect much.

2. The best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out. Three years to build a reputation, build a permission asset, build a blog, build a following, build credibility and build the connections you’ll need later.

3. Pay for an editor. Not just to fix the typos, but to actually make your ramblings into something that people will choose to read.

To read all 19 tips from Seth, visit his blog post “Advice For Authors”.

Seven More Tips For Writers, From Writers

Here are seven more tips from writers, for writers:

• William Stafford, explaining how he managed to be so prolific, said: “Every day I get up and look out the window, and something occurs to me. Something always occurs to me. And if it doesn’t, I just lower my standards.”

• Neal Bowers was told by his first creative writing teacher, Malcolm Glass, to “Trust the process and the reader.” His teacher also had a colorful metaphor of grabbing the tail of a wild hog as it runs by and letting it drag you through the thicket. Back when he first heard it, that metaphor didn’t help Neal much. However, he adds the following: “These days, though, I often look back at those unplanned and unpredictable trails my writing makes through the brush, with me hanging on, and I think of Malcolm’s wild hog. (Source).

• James Patterson’s method is simple: “I’m always pretending that I’m sitting across from somebody. I’m telling them a story, and I don’t want them to get up until it’s finished.” (Source).

• “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” — Mary Heaton Vorse

• “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” — Octavia Butler

• “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” — Margaret Atwood

• “I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm.” — Joan Didion

Conclusion

Another common piece of advice from successful writers is to write about what you know. Hemingway was an avid hunter and fisherman–two activities which feature prominently in a lot of his writing–and he lived within walking distance of the fishing village in Cuba from which “Santiago” from “The Old Man and the Sea” hailed.

Isabel Allende–author of “The House of Spirits”–recalls that when she was growing up every Thursday there was a seance at her house, and that it was widely rumored that her clairvoyant grandmother could move objects with her mind. She adds that her family was very strange, and that she didn’t have to invent anything for her stories: everything was given to her. While the magical realism in her novels may be something new for the reader, Allende is simply writing from experience.

Please share any of your writing tips in the comment section.

Choices

a former headwriter called me to write for a project in a rival network. Maganda ang project and super bagay sa akin. youth-oriented. at based sa classic na pelikula.

i have no choice but to say no. it's part of something na pinirmahan ko.

sayang lang.

Thank You Lord!

I pitched 2 teleserye concepts to the boss - approved!

1 sitcom concept that I wrote (but did not pitch) - approved!

I decided not to pitch the other concept (may kalulugaran sa future ito)

I am willing to stick to this battle and to make these concepts into full blown shows. Keep on coming lang.

Excited and praying and preparing to write again for NKE.

I love this day.

This high-stakes day.

I learned the value of preparation and of comprehension.

Of confidence and clear thinking.

Of picking my own brain, preparing for 3 days straight.

Of practice and organizing my thoughts.

Thankful for the blessing and for making me feel equipped and prepared and knowledgeable with my own pitch.

Thank you. All to the glory of God!

i have my very own accountant

i know right? from now on she does my SSS Philhealth and shit. And ITR. I just met my accountant for the first time last night. This is the first time I hired someone to work for me, I am pretty self sufficient as it is and I am an advocate of DIY. When I travel I never go to an agency, I do the research and legwork by myself. But, when it comes to money matters and taxes...well. It's hard! Thats why I now have an accountant.

mediocrity is not an option

give it your all.

believe in what you are doing.

practice.

***********

hoping to write again for my lucky 9!!!

Primetime slot is calling for NKE. yeah baby.

***********

apart from that today I presented: 4 concept pitches

1 concept approved and for development

1 approved

1 minor revision

1 major rework and repitch.

not bad and not fabulous either.

*************

2nd round of pitching and presentation is on MONDAY

KAYA KO TO. ALL FOUR WILL BE APPROVED.

Pressured Cooker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

today I am

exciting times

new raket.

hoping to try again on the 9th. lucky 9. prove to be.

presentation on april 11.

roomie.

yes i decided to welcome a roomie. have to be practical.

haven't decided to celebrate full blown on the 25th.

i think id rather travel.

Of relationships and adulthood

Okay. It's my birthday month. And by that it means I am turning a year older. 20 fucking 7. Three years more and I can officially delete my young adult hopes and dreams out of the calendar - a thing that a lot of people seem to fear.

What are my thoughts?

First thing is that I don't know if it's mature or immature that I feel steady at this point in time. You know, calm yet aggressive and always thirsty for more. Compared to other people of my age, I seem to be living a quite luxurious life. I am financially independent, I live alone. And apart from that my job is constantly getting exciting. I feel like I am growing in my craft. I consider myself as a young person inside and out. And despite my being big boned, ehem, I am getting some. Yet, however, I don't feel like going to a church to pray for some guy to whisk me out of my universe err my creative world and my country or my steady lifestyle. In short, I don't think being in a relationship or settling down and getting married at this age is the end all or be all of a successful young adult life. And I resent it. My thoughts and my dreams are always centered towards my job and my career, in progressing, in being independent, in earning enough money to invest and to chill and to give all the many different kinds of luxury to myself and then my family. This is a selfish life. And I am living it. And sharing it to a person I love is unthinkable at the moment. Which, if I had to submit to that life, it will be something I will resent in the future.

What are your thoughts?

Maybe because I want to get immersed and get married to my art. My art meaning, my passion. That before I could possibly share my life to someone, I want my identity to be whole. Not just whole, but for my identity to be indestructible. Right now I have my own tastes, my own dreams, places I want to go to, experiences I want to try for myself. And it seems impossible for me to give that up right now. I always consider myself able to choose a path and stick with it, figure out things, discover places and things by myself. Am I a plain loner or do I value independence that much?

When I read and or interact with people, I always get impressed with single women - independent women who are artists - writers, painters who are way past their marrying age. And I live in an industry with a lot of them. Truth is, it is normal to meet a 30 something single woman who is a writer. While they get mushy most of the time, they are able to channel their energies into their passion. They still yearn to settle, but they do not really think that being with someone is the defining thing in their lives. They live with a mission other than to support their families and parents - They are just able to carve a name in the industry they are in, and are able to influence people in a potent way.

When I look at these women, these accomplished women who love with their own missions - women who write for television, or for a book or for a the paper, I sometimes ask what do they have to give up or to sacrifice in order to get there? Did they actually give up romantic relationships, possible marriage or motherhood to be able to live a fruitful creative life?

However, some women are lucky to live a creative life, and have a rightful partner in the process. Some can actually have it all.

A blog I read about a thirty something writer says - one has to love herself, be herself, and excel alone before deciding to marry. And not just with anyone. It has to be with someone who is an intellectual equal.As of today I can say I'd choose a productive creative life than to settle with a partner who is less of a person than me.

These are my thoughts on April 1st. My birthday is on the 25th. I could change my mind. But til then... ;)