wired for writing words, words, words...

it's 15 before 6 in the evening here at the comfort of my rented home in the middle of sikatuna and i'm wired! what time does your clock start ticking?

i just finished uploading last week's prompt for the palh workshop. it's a good prompt, very creative like the rest of them by nadine. it's cool. makes me want to write some more! i love writing! i'm so wired today! is it the mocha latte coffee? is it the csi-marathon watching right before sunrise? is it the bath i just took? well, i think it's everything! wah!

decided to stay at home and work from the laptop. yahoo messenger is okay here, unlike in my desktop which is still kinda whacked. and i hate it. i can\'t get my groove going there. man. oh well.

i need to be online for the isis girls who are in geneva right now. prepcom3 week 2 is ongoing, and it's going to be another busy week, i assume, for us isis girls. too bad i don't have a headset with mic with me here, but i found out the old desktop mic still works. it's great to talk online, cheaper than a phone call (or even a text message), and so cool. i love this technology!

i wonder when i'm going to get my groove working on the desktop. i feel that it hasn\'t really been primed up yet. bummer. torn between technoramus and egotechist. oh what to do, what to do...

hey, dre just texted with rianna passport problems. man, what's up with her mother? psycholo. asking for legal help from m., but she's toxic on her own already this month, so i just told her i'll ask for advice later or something. plus her sis from illinois is coming over, and we're all preparing for that. they'll be going to lucena tomorrow til the weekend so i'll be a lonely planeteer again here those days. well, what better way to spend lonely time than to write. i still need to write some things, like that play review. sucky sucky sucky...aye, there's the rub. oh well. we'll see. words words words... hay. that which you call a flop, by any other translation would flop as hell. as in. well whatever.

chez moi: bookwormed

since i'm reconstructing my lost cv anyway, thought i'd also share here some of the anthologies where i got published.

i'm quite excited about being in a book. even if not all of it is mine, it's still exhilarating to be a part of it. i don't know why; maybe the pressure is easier to bear when it's not all yours. parang performance anxiety when all of it is yours -- you would think that people should like your collection of stories or poems or essays. or maybe it feels so special because out of a lot of submissions, yours got in. yeah, maybe that's it. at least, for me. anyway, here's the list and well, enjoy if you encounter them offline. and tell me what you think.

TAXI SIGNS
released: 2000 by finkomarts
works included: 10 filipino poems (mix of love, hate, pain, therapy)
--this was an independently-published work, made by my sister's friends who actually had problems because one of the original authors backed out. yes, mader, replacement lang ako dito actually, but the publisher ended up liking my work the best -- according to my sister. the dude can't stop gushing about the poems daw. abah! e di keri! sadly, finkomarts doesn't publish literature anymore. well, that's how it goes with indie presses.

ANI: THE GENDER ISSUE
released: 2002 by ccp
works included: 1 filipino poem, 1 english poem (lesbian-oriented both)
--ani is the literary magazine of the cultural center of the philippines. this guy calls me up out of the blue one day, inviting me to a poetry reading last 2001. he said it's a reading by gay and lesbian writers, and dropped names of gay and lesbian writers whom i know who are also participating, so i said okay. so i read, and they liked it. it turns out that the poems read that day will be part of the gender issue nga. and voila -- it's there! this was fun. long delay, but fun.

ANG AKLAT LIKHAAN NG TULA AT MAIKLING KUWENTO 2000
released: 2002 by UP press
work included: 1 filipino fiction "lagablab" (about how dancing becomes a multi-level approach to meeting, courting, making love, and one night stands)
--one day again, i receive this call from the UP creative writing center long after i've detached myself from the institution (to pursue other things non-writerly). the guy said fiction editor of the edition joi barrios selected my work and wants it to be included. so i sign the conforme and wait for their call again which never came, but later when i followed it up, it's already there. so there. i like this story because it was written in a style i didn't know i could use for myself. surprising if you experiment once in a while. pero ang tagal ha. well anyway, the likhaan books are always delayed by a year naman eh. eto nga two years.

FUTURESHOCK (PROSE):AN ANTHOLOGY OF YOUNG WRITERS AND NEW LITERATURES
released: 2002 by silliman university press
work included: 1 english fiction "dissolve" (rape in showbiz, in all meanings of the word)
-- i receive a text message out of the blue; this guy from dumaguete, a teacher and writer himself, wants to publish my story in sands and coral daw, the literary folio of silliman. so i said, okay, and then just waited for his updates. he updates us regularly, and i'm glad for that. masipag ang lolo, at dedicated. and i just waited for my copies thru door-to-door early this year and then...that's it.

GROWING UP FILIPINO: STORIES FOR YOUNG ADULTS
released: 2002 by philippine american literary house
work included: 1 english fiction "tea and empathy" (dynamics of having maids in middle class manila homes)
-- in pete lacaba's egroup, i see this posting for a call for submissions from cecilia manguerra brainard, so i submitted one of my stories. she ended up liking it, and liking the way i write daw in general. wow, from brainard, this praise! overwhelming! so sige, correspond correspond chuchu, then later she says oops, she had to drop my story because there was already a gay story in. i thought, ngeh, e lesbian naman ito e, different from a gay story. but i guess for heterosexuals, all homosexual stories are the same, no matter the gender of the storyteller. anyway, she told me to submit another story so i submit another story, and again, she liked it. yehey! so i'm still in. ayun, several months later, the book gets published in california, they launch it there and in the east coast and conduct readings all over, or wherever the fil-am authors are. i ask her to send my free copies to my tita in canada who will bring it here when she comes here for a vacation, and then yun na nga. it's available thru palh's website (http://www.palhbooks.com) and at amazon.com. now it's here na daw, avaiable in powerbooks and national din. and anvil is reprinting the philippine version daw sometime soon. yehey!

FAST FOOD FICTION: SHORT SHORT STORIES TO GO
released: 2003 by anvil
work included: 1 english fiction "aperture"
-- my writer friend indi one day posts via email this call for submissions for short short stories, stories below 500 words. 500 words! in filipino, they call it dagli, in the UP wrokshops, i learned that it's called sudden fiction. i loved the format because it's challenging, and nvm even introduced me to yasunari kawabata who called them palm of the hand stories, told me to study how he does it. and i really liked it. already written a handful of these. and so i crossed my fingers that editor noelle de jesus would forgive me if i exceeded 75 words past her quota. that was 1998. year 2001, i think, the call for submissions again circulated, so i follwed it up with noelle. she said no need to submit because she already got one of my stories. two years later, my friend from UP calls up, says she now works at anvil, and would like to send me invites for the launch. that happened like last week or two weeks ago, i think, at figaro in emerald ave, ortigas. that was fun. being out of the circulation, i thought the people wouldn't recognize me anymore. it was so heartwarming to know that people like butch dalisay, karina bolasco and carla pacis still remember me. la lang...

chuvaness et al? e me at jotjotjotblog@Hotmail.com or comment below.

september un-morn

do you remember...something something...september...or was it november? what was that song again? well, whatever.

i just thought of updating this journal again. the diaryland writers workshop one gets updated regularly already, thanks to the resuming of the palh workshop. see, i'm part of this online workshop of fil and fil-am authors based here and in the US and other parts of the world (singapore lang actually). a spin-off of cecilia manguerra brainard's group called philippine american literary house or palh. once a week, we get together and post short works based on a prompt given by the month's moderator (it's nadine sarreal in s'pore again this time). the exercise is fun, gives me the chance to interact with writers in a workshop environment again, and i think this is crucial for someone who is not in the academe anymore, or one who doesn't get to interact with lots of writers often, unlike before.

how time flies. august went by again in a blink of an eye.and now we're halfway through september. what's next? librans will rule once again in less than a month's time, and tides will turn again wherever and whenever... whatever. oh well, just write and write until...you produce good works.

i'm happy the palh workshop's back.