Thoughts and ramblings of a Filipino author
My first ever self-pubbed (very short) story is out today! Yey!
“Magkaibigan lang? O may na-develop na pala
sa tagal ng kanilang pagkakaibigan?
Ano’ng gagawin nila ngayong nagkabukingan na?
At paano kung ‘di pala iyon magtatagal?”
Get it on buqo.ph for P15.00 only!
This #TalesFromTheMetro shortie is inspired by Sam Smith’s Lay Me Down. Thank you Mina for introducing me to this. 😉
Just a Little Bit of Love
Three short stories about three young girls: Anita, Ina, and Carla. Each one finding their lives disrupted by a boy. Maybe it’s because he wanders into the coffee shop where she works after school every Tuesday. Maybe it’s because he won’t leave her alone even if she has made it clear that she is crushing on his football teammate. Or maybe it’s because she’s spent one unforgettable afternoon with him—despite being oh-so-forgetful. Three small doses of love that serve up a whole lot of feels.
What’s Inside:
After we walk in silence for a few seconds, John speaks up again. “Are you going to the game this weekend?” My heart as good as stops. I never watch the games. I don’t think my nerves can handle them. Or that’s what I tell myself anyway. Robert goes with a few of his friends. Football is big in our school—and it helps that the players (yes, not just Ethan) are hot.
“Um,” I begin, hoping my brain can come up with an instant excuse.
“You’re not going.” Is that disappointment I hear in his voice? I slow down and turn to him.
“It’s not a big game, right? Isn’t it just a friendly one?” I know this isn’t the right thing to say to a player. Support means the same, whether it’s during an exhibition game or the championship.
“Yes but…” I watch him do that my-struggle-to-read-Shakespeare-is-real expression and the part inside me that he turned soft and gooey a few days ago, melts into a deep puddle of mush.
“Okay I’ll go.” It comes out in a rush, in one quick breath before I can change my mind. The light in his eyes is enough to affirm that I said the right thing and my heart does a speedy, little tap dance.
“I’ll make sure to put my masterful dribbling skills on display.” You think he says this with his usual smirk. But that’s not what I see. His face is devoid of pretense, smugness, or any emotion other than pure anticipation. Like a seven-year-old who has practiced “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the kazoo and can’t wait for his absentee parents to hear him play it in front of an appreciative audience. I am that absentee parent who keeps pushing him away, keeping him where I can see him but no closer—definitely not near my heart.
I look away from the emotional assault on my confused senses and mumble, “You do that.”
Then I feel soft lips on my cheek, but as quickly as they land, they are snatched away. When I look up with the shock and realization of what just happened, John is sprinting up the stairs, probably to his next class. It is then that I know it’s time I stop pretending. Because the way my chest aches and my hands tremble, it seems while my head was too busy obsessing over Ethan, my heart decided to follow a path of its own.
About Ines:
Ines Bautista-Yao is the author of One Crazy Summer, What’s in your Heart, and Only a Kiss. She has also written two short stories, “Flashbacks and Echoes,” which is part of a compilation called All This Wanting and “A Captured Dream,” one of the four short stories in Sola Musica: Love Notes from a Festival.
She is the former editor-in-chief of Candy and K-Zone magazines and a former high school and college English and Literature teacher. She is also a wife and mom and blogs about the many challenges and joys of motherhood at theeverydayprojectblog.com. She has recently launched The Author Project, a section in her current blog devoted to the stories in her head.
Author Q&A:
I started writing stories when I was a kid. I don’t remember how it started exactly but I know I always brought around a notebook and pen and whenever I got the chance, I was always continuing my ‘novel.’ Haha! I had lots of unfinished ones because new ideas would always pop into my head. My muse was busy. Or had ADHD!
But my writing career started in Summit. I joined as the managing editor of Candy magazine, a local teen mag, then I launched K-Zone magazine (a mag for kids) as editor in chief, then I moved back to Candy as editor in chief. When I left Summit, I edited the Summit chick lit books as a freelancer. I also edited other magazines for Summit but they were just small projects.
After I got pregnant, I figured, why not try writing a chick lit book myself? So, I started writing one and I hated it. Three years later, I happened upon that word file again — hidden in a folder within a folder — and thought it didn’t suck as much as I thought it did. It went on to become One Crazy Summer, my first book 🙂
Anything really. A conversation, lyrics of a song I happen to catch on the radio, the pretty design on a soap dispenser, anything!
Fantasy!!! And mystery! I attempted to do fantasy for a short story once and it was like a hint of magic. I would love to do a full-blown Filipino one! Same goes for mystery. I attempted – got as far as the outline and chickened out.
Frazzled, exhausted, and completely spent after being awake for only a few hours that morning, she pours herself a steaming cup of ginger tea from a pale blue teapot, a Christmas gift from her former officemates. She squeezes out a tablespoon of honey and stirs it into her favorite mug, one with her name in bright pink letters and a drawing of a girl all snuggled up and cozy on a couch next to a pile of books. She lifts the mug to her lips and blows on it, waiting for the high-pitched sounds of children to signal the end of the only quiet she will know for the rest of the day. She flips open her laptop, scans the words she wrote the night before and smiles. She will add to them later, after she drinks her tea. Or maybe right now. Then she hears a sharp cry pierce the air and the distinctive call, “Mama!” Well, maybe she won’t add to her words right now. Right now, her babies need her. Besides, the stories will always be there, waiting till she’s ready to give them her full attention once more.
Don’t give up. There will be times when you’ll feel like you’re the worst writer in the world or that no one will ever read your books, but if you keep at it long enough and hard enough, and work on improving your craft every single day, the readers will come. But at the same time, don’t quit your day job just yet 🙂
Follow Ines on
Twitter and Instagram: @inesbyao
Sometime ago, my good friend Reev Robledo (author of Gitarista, winner of the 2014 FilReaderCon Fiction in English category) intimated that I should go indie, start self-publishing because he thought there’s a big market out there I am not able to tap because I’m sticking to Filipino romance. Not that he was asking me to give it up but more like add to my portfolio by writing in English.
I said I was not averse to it but I was so lazy, I don’t think I can do it. See, to be successful in this industry, presence is key. And if I’m lazy, I will not be able to address the needs of the two… shall we say, realms – Tagalog romance for My Special Valentine, and English fiction for Amazon (or some other online distributor). I promised I would do it in time, when I’m ready.
And then, early this year, another friend, Anne Plaza, introduced me to the Facebook community of the Romance Writers of the Philippines. There, I met incredible, dynamic authors who I will no longer name here one by one (lest I forget one of you), but the thing is, I took the inclusion in this new group (I’m new to them, not that the group was new) as a sign to actually get serious with going indie. Again, it’s not to say that I will give up my Tagalog romance endeavors, but I do wish to write other genre, specifically mystery thrillers. And stories that are less conforming to the romance formula.
But since I’m a romance writer, I will start with that. Love stories. I came up with three plots which I started to develop. One is about a 41-year old single woman who suddenly found herself no longer wanting to be alone. That’s going 8k words already. I’m thinking this could end at about 32-35k words.
Another story is about this girl who fell for a military guy who, until death, never told her he loved her. Sound familiar? It should. I shared this as a short scene for Clara Romance‘s beta version last February 2015. I feel it needs a proper story so that’s definitely going to be one of my initial offerings online.
Then I have a story about a chef, who’s also a culinary teacher, his student, who has a crush on him, and the student’s stepmom, on whom chef has a crush. Oh, and chef is about 6 years younger than stepmom-crush. *wink*
While all that was happening, there came the offer to join two online classes which was being organized by Bronze Age Media in Mina V. Esguerra fashion although she wasn’t mentoring. Merely facilitating. One was #StrangeLit, a class on urban fantasy/paranormal story-writing, the other was #HeistClub, on crime literature-writing. I joined both, but got to finish only one – guess which?
I think I really am at home with orchestrating crime and rescue missions….
And so, family, friends, ladies and gentlemen, I proudly introduce CLASSIFIED, my first English-language story, soon to be published (bundled with some of the 17 other authors who finished #HeistClub) on Buqo. Yeeeyy!
Artwork by my awesome cousin Josef Aaron Eco
We were told this story should be ‘Case Number One’ – a story that could be the prequel to another book, or a series of books under crime fiction. From me, do expect four to six books to come after this, the first of which I am tackling for #NaNoWriMo this November.
BLOG CHANGES
I do not intend to make a new blog site for my indie-released books so I am in the process of fixing this one to accommodate both my Tagalog romance titles as well as the new ones. Please bear with me for now if there are tabs that are incomplete.
Songs of Our Breakup (Playlist Book 1)
Published on August 22nd 2015
by Jay E. Tria
Genre: New Adult Romance/Chicklit
SYNOPSIS:
Every breakup has its playlist.
How do you get over a seven-year relationship? 21-year-old Jill is trying to find out. But moving on is a harder job when Kim, her ex-boyfriend, is the lead guitarist of the band, and Jill is the vocalist. Every song they play together feels like slicing open a barely healed tattoo.
Jill’s best friend Miki says she will be out of this gloom soon. Breakups have a probation period, he says. Jill is on the last month of hers and Miki is patiently keeping her company.
But the real silver lining is Shinta. Having a hot Japanese actor friend in times like these is a welcome distraction. This gorgeous celebrity has been defying time zones and distance through the years to be there for Jill. Now he is here, physically present, and together he and Jill go through old lyrics, vivid memories, walks in the rain, and bottles of beer. Together they try to answer the question: what do you do when forever ends?
The ice cream shop attendant crossed her eyebrows at them when they entered the store, trailing in mud, rain, and stones all over her gleaming floor. She had opened her mouth, presumably to shoo them away, but Shinta had smiled at her, bowed low, and murmured his apologies. So instead the shop girl served them sundaes, Shinta’s serving unapologetically heftier than Jill’s.
They sat opposite each other at a corner booth, the plastic seats squeaking under their soaked clothes, a puddle of dirty water dripping from their hair to the floor.
“You owe me a movie,” Shinta said as he chewed a spoonful of mint chocolate chip.
Jill toyed with her spoon. “Sure. Tomorrow.”
“We can’t tomorrow.” He waved his spoon at her face, trying to catch her eye. “We’re helping my mother with last minute party things.”
“Right.” Jill nodded slowly. Normal things such as birthday parties were still happening in this dark world where your ex cold-calls you for emotional comfort only to feel you up soon after. His mom has cancer, the thought went on a loop in her head. He kissed me and I ran away.
She put one hand on her cheek, fiercely brushing away the salt that had mixed with the rainwater.
Shinta’s eyes were locked on her face as he consumed his ice cream, one full mouthful after another, watching her like a movie he wasn’t quite pleased with.
“I read up on stars today because you seem to like them so much,” he said, breaking the prolonged silence.
Jill raised her eyes, swallowed the lump in her throat. “Really? And?”
“Well, according to astronomy, when you wish upon a star you’re actually a few million years late.” Shinta fixed her a serious look. “That star is dead.”
Jill sniffed. “Just like my hopes and dreams. Fitting.”
“Won’t that line make a good song?”
Jill went back to spooning the puddle in her bowl, her eyes hot. “The story of my life.”
Shinta reached out his long fingers and switched their bowls, dunked his spoon for a pool of salted caramel ice cream and pushed it into Jill’s mouth.
She swallowed, welcoming the sugar rush and the brain freeze. Jill sighed and met his gaze. “Have you ever felt that love is the most stupid thing in the world?”
He smiled. “All the time.”
“Why don’t they teach that in school? Emotional Safety 101. How to love without losing your sanity. Instead of people running around claiming they feel it, while not knowing what to do with it, how to handle it, how not to break it, how to keep it whole. It’s a terribly dangerous thing in the wrong hands.”
“I don’t think enough people know about the proper way to love to facilitate these classes that you speak of,” Shinta said solemnly.
Jill snorted. “I know I’m not qualified.” She leaned on the table towards him. “Have you ever been in love?”
“Twice,” he said quickly.
“A childhood friend gets dibs on the first one, right?”
“I sat next to her through kindergarten. It all started when she lent me her sharpener.”
“Sounds romantic. Then you grew up into all of this, and—I really wish you’ve put on a dry shirt,” she sighed out through gritted teeth, her train of thought leaving her.
“If I had a fresh shirt, I’d give it to you.” Shinta fixed her a serious frown. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m fine. I’m just—” Jill waved a hand at the length of him, soaking in front of her, water dripping from his sable hair, down the length of his neck, down his collarbone. It was impossible not to notice this boy, even as she brooded in this dark mood, even after her ex-boyfriend had broken her heart again. “I don’t believe you, Shinta. You have abs now?”
Patches of pink lit his cheeks. “You were saying that love is stupid,” he grunted, arms over his broad chest.
Jill released another breath, averting her gaze so she could concentrate on sulking. “I was saying, you must have left behind your own trail of broken hearts.”
“I try to not be an asshole.” Shinta kept his arms crossed, mouth in a serious line. “I believe in karma. I guess none of them worked out because I was already in love.”
“You mean your second love? How come you never told me about this? Who is she?”
Shinta leaned back on his wet seat, empty bowl forsaken on the table. “I don’t think you’re ready to hear that story.”
Jill frowned. “Why not?”
Shinta fished from his pocket and pulled out her phone. It was dry, unlike the pair of them. He had probably left it in the car before he joined her rain walk. He fiddled with the buttons, easily breaking her passcode, and found her music. He played back a rough recording of her last rewrite of All the Way, the song that refused to be fixed.
Her curiosity about his secret love forgotten, Jill quickly realized that Shinta had gotten her phone back from Kim. She wondered very much what Kim had told him, if Kim had spoken to him at all. Heat flooded her cheeks, even more so when Shinta leaned towards her, drops of rain dripping from his hair to the table.
“Do you think when you get over Kim, you’ll stop writing songs about him?”
He was staring at the screen of her phone, his straight nose mere inches away. He rested his forehead against hers, as if suddenly tired. His long finger was rewinding and playing back the song at the exact verse where Jill felt it went wrong.
Jill lifted her hand and touched his briefly, then slid her phone away from his reach. “That’s the plan.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Hi! I’m a writer of contemporary Young Adult and New Adult romance. These days I’m writing paranormal/fantasy too, and it’s a fun exercise. I’m often inspired by daydreams, celebrity crushes, a childhood fascination of Japanese drama and manga, and an incessant itch to travel.
Connect with Jay via:
Website
Amazon
Goodreads
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram @jayetria
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Paper Planes Back Home
Published on February 21, 2015
by Tara Frejas
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Links:
Goodreads
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Apple iBooks
SYNOPSIS:
When Gianna wakes up on a cloud, she is disoriented yet fascinated. She thinks she’s only dreaming until she gets a storm of paper planes—”They’re thoughts of people who remember,” a man on another cloud tells her—each pleading for her not to leave. The man tells her these planes are the key to get out of there, and while she thinks it’s hard to believe, she decides everything is worth trying if it meant finding her way back home.
Skylar recognizes the grief, the denial on the newcomer’s face while he watches her unfold each paper plane and read the messages—the thoughts—sent her way.
“I need to go back,” she murmurs, finally breaking the silence between them. “I can’t stay here.”
“I tell that to myself often,” he says. His tone is calm, as though already resigned to his inevitable fate. And then he smiles. It’s the reassuring kind, one that makes her smile at him in return. “There is always a way.” He takes a small step to the side and glances behind him, jerks his thumb toward what she initially thought of as a paper sculpture, and says, “Ride back home.”
Her eyes narrow in curiosity. “What?”
“I’ve seen it before,” Skylar says. He drops on his cloud and sits comfortably until he’s poised to tell her a story. “There was an old man here. Sam,” he begins, pointing to empty space to his left. It’s only then that she takes the time to look around. Not that there’s much to see aside from the beautiful expanse of blue hues as far as her eyes can see.
“Might’ve been about fifty. Said he suffered a stroke while tending his garden.”
The brunette stares blankly at the space Skylar gestured to, and then she turns to him. “Where is he now?”
“He’s gone back home.”
The look on her face is quizzical.
“Home,” Skylar says with a smile. “What do you think of when you hear the word home?
There is a word in her head, just one. A name she doesn’t utter, but one that’s always brought about a familiar, warm feeling—like gentle morning sunlight against her skin.
“Anyway. You’d be surprised what those paper planes can do,” he continues. His voice is bright and encouraging, and she wonders how he could be so. She has only been sitting on her cloud for—How long have I been here, again?—a short while, and she already feels miserable. She wants to go back home. “That guy, he’s had millions of paper planes fly to him every single waking hour . . . It was an amazing sight, I tell you.”
“How long have you been here?”
He stops, the question taking away a shade of cheer from his face. He doesn’t seem to know the answer either. “A while.”
“Why don’t you go back home?”
Another shade of cheer gone, and she feels sorry she asked.
“I don’t get enough paper planes,” he replies with a shrug. There’s a short, uncertain pause that transpires between them—one unsure if she should ask why, and the other unwilling to reveal any more of his misery—before he finally says, “And that’s that.”
Without warning, a loud swishing sound is heard around them again, and a bunch of paper planes emerge out of nowhere. Skylar only watches as they all fall on the other’s cloud, and they exchange glances for a while. He sees the sorry flicker in her eyes, and he smiles. “It’s okay.”
She seems reluctant to unfold a plane, but when she looks back up at him, she sees a paper plane drop on his lap.
The look on his face is inexplicable.
“Someone thought of you,” she points out, feeling an ounce of hope for this man in front of her.
Skylar swallows a lump in his throat. Could it be—Jeannie, have you found me? He unfolds the paper plane quickly, brows knitting together when he sees a handwriting he couldn’t identify.
Be strong, soldier.
THE AUTHOR:
Tara Frejas is a cloud-walker who needs caffeine to fuel her travels. By day, she works in project management and events, and she writes down her daydreams at night. She began publishing fiction for public consumption in 2004, posting her pieces on various online channels like fan forums and Blogspot, eventually exploring other avenues like Livejournal, Soomp!, Tumblr, and most recently, Wattpad.
Aside from her obvious love affair with words and persistent muses, Tara is very passionate about being caffeinated, musical theatre, certain genres of music, dancing, dogs, good food, and romancing Norae, her ukelele. She owns a 6-month-old male bunny named Max who sometimes tries to nibble on her writing notes.
Paper Planes Back Home is her first novel.
Follow Tara through these links:
Website
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