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( IT'S TIMECollapse )

[

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satisfied

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LAST NIGHT: Feeling more than a little bored with myself, I have done something so deliciously audacious that I'm still reeling from the thrill of it all. Amazing, the little cracks in the world you'll find if you just peer in to look. And now I shall not talk about this properly. Because it is insane. And bordering on scandalous. I will back down out of respect to the innocent unsoiled minds that stray in and out of the room like rare elephants.

Hee hee. I feel so cool. I now have a lot more material I feel obligated to pour into writing. Oh well. Cool. Ask me when you see me, I might tell you, I might not. :P

TODAY: I have to get some good sleep and wake up on time for class. Hell week is riding on the skeletal mares of apocalypse. Cue teeth-gnashing and nerves. I hope you've all been obediently studious this sem. Hmm mmm...(9_9) Good luck to all of us.

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thoughtful

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LINEAGE AND LEGACY. Spent the afternoon talking to Vin about the antics of life and age and death (his grandmother recently passed away), and I went home carrying the mental baggage of all these mortal conundrums, existentialist doubts and fond memories that stretch the cord of my short but eventful life. The whole exchange got me thinking of my grandmother on my mother's side, Leticia, whom we affectionately call Mama Let at family gatherings and see as the central knot that ties together the far-reaching (but closely-knit) web of a clan that I belong to.

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creative

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THE NEXT WAVE OF WRITING. It's Palanca-writing season, time to gear up and work on entries for the most coveted writing award in the country. Thanks to Dean for sending me the Palanca entry forms, rules and whatnot; if any of you guys want a copy, leave a comment here and I'll email it to you guys.

This being a red flag raised in the horizon, and I can imagine the multitudes of writers in the Philippines clacking away at their keyboards at this very moment, gearing up for Palanca war. And so, drawing a kitame sword and my samurai helmet, I shall join the fray for my 3rd year of entering.

I recently discussed the Palanca Awards with Reja, and she asked me why I keep joining this contest when I've lost twice in a row already and "obviously, they don't want what you're writing". My answer: "They didn't want what I've written, but that doesn't mean they won't want what I can write now." As you keep writing and writing and writing and writing, you can't help but change as a writer, shifting priorities, getting sick of old tricks, finding new ones, improving and refining your style. It's basic evolution. And by that token I'm a different species of writer now that I was a year or two ago.

So now, pending the last few weeks of school and the work involved there, I'm gearing up for a couple of new entries to the Palanca. At this moment, I'm angling to write a new short story, a one-act play (brushing up on a couple of plays I've already started), and possibly a series of poems. Also, I'm gonna have another dream collaboration with a very special someone on a Future Fiction story entry. It's still at the gestation stage, but I'll update on it once it's well under way.

That's it so far. Gotta get off the 'net and onto Microsoft Word for a definite slog through the writing world. Good luck with exams, people!

THE NEXT WAVE OF READING Been reading through a couple of novels as of late, which is really good if the material's nice, since it all filters into the writing in one form or another. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 is the current favorite, a writer who I've been meaning to read for a long time but haven't gotten around to until now. It's a nice postmodern specfic piece which plays with the concept of life and time, inventing a slew of techniques by which to handle this, and I'm excited by the storytelling possibilities this examples.

Next up is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobiography, Living To Tell The Tale, perhaps the heaviest read in my pile, perhaps the most beautiful. It chronicle's Gabriel "Gabito" Marquez's life from his humble beginnings in Colombia to the many foibles and challenges which eventually led him to choose the life of a writer. All of it so beautifully written, when I start reading I get sucked into a couple thousand words before I have to tear my eyes off the page and process everything that's just happened. Really sweet wonderful stuff going on here.

Another book on my list is Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, a sharp, strangely-written novel of love and despair among young poets, painters and jazz musicians of postwar San Francisco. I've always been fascinated by the whole Beat movement, an aesthetic revolution in my mind, from which bloomed many writers I've come to love and respect, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg among them. Jack Kerouac, romantic intelligent and handsome, has been called the father of the Beat movement, and in this novel (one of his more obscure ones, I think), he shows us why. Again, realist fiction with a stylistic twist, brimming with a passion for details and emotions, plus lots of yummy first-person prose soliloquys which make the reading of it a breeze.

Lastly, as little commercial breaks (sometimes very looong commercial breaks), I'm reading through my treasured anthology by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 18th Annual Edition. If there's anything in my reading list that is full-on fun for me, with my attention span, it's this. So far, my favorite story is "Tales from the City of Seams" by Greg van Eekhout, but there have been other stories contending for the top spot. Anthologies are great because you only have to invest a short amount of time to get a complete story, and since I prefer to write short stories, it's a small wonder why I love these things so much.

Some of you might say, with all the things here angling for my attention, it might not be the most efficient way to read. Truth is, I have a terrible attention span and I prefer to read a lot of different things at the same time, jumping from one book to the next, so I get the full-on effect of MTV channel-changing TV-surfing. This is probably a true mark of the times I've grown up in, but what the heck. It's what I like to do.

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WITH A VISE AROUND HIS NECK, I PRESUME. The little sketch above is scanned from one of my old sketchbooks, circa 2003 (Photoshopped a bit, obviously). I found a stack of them again recently and I've been gleefully paging through them and basking in the utter brilliance of my 17-year-old self. "I used to be so cool..."

It was a bit depressing and challenging really; leafing through these old record tomes of my past self's brain, I'm reminded of that free-wheeling "idea machine" energy that seemed to possess me way back when. Not anymore lately, not for a long while now. I dunno what happened. Maybe I got caught up in the nitty-gritty of the craft, maybe it was all the seriousness that filtered into what I was doing; i dunno.

Bottom line is: I want it back.

And I'm getting it back, you just wait and see. I just need a little bit of time to wrap my head around the whole concept of reclaiming creative innocence after swimming for too long in the pool of academic jadedness. Maybe I need to get back to more music. Seemed to be a main inspiration then. Whatever happens, the whole cold, calculating and self-conscious process of putting things together has run its course for me. It's just so goddamn depressing now. I need some sort of fusion tile on my brain, to patch things up between the left and right wings. We'll see what happens.

TO WONG FU, WITH LOVE. Or without, as the case may be. Been reading up on astrology a lot these days, once I realized it was a painfully obvious section of the magic bookstore I hadn't yet seriously perused.

Which is bad timing, I realize, since the stars are pointing to a more or less boring, meandering period for me this 2006; all the exciting stuff really blooming only after Oktoberfest this year. Which, in turn, explains my half-heartedness as of late, the depression-I-hate-but-can't-shake, the pointless expeditions into the world of beautiful young love, the blank-faced expression I seem to get every two minutes.

Bah. I'm the kind of person who thrives on excitement in life, whether positive or negative. I can't take boring. It's my personal concept of earthly Hell. All sorts of exciting things are happening to everyone but me and I'm more than irritated at that.

On the flipside, now that I think about it, maybe there's a way to develop some sort of magical reversal to the whole astrology thing. If I can engineer some sort of instrument that sort of refracts the design of the cosmos, with an effect like the way an image flips when you look through a prism. Hmmm.

BRAINWAVE ALERT! You can tell I've been making up these blog entries as I write them. Now that I think about it, the second part of this post can sort of connect to the first, since I just remembered a lot of old Grant Morrison interviews where he explains how his creative life, his comics and writings, after a lot of good thought and hardcore creation, seemed to jump out of the page and magically edited the real world. Hmmm.

Which means I need my mojo back. Really. There's no fucking around about it.

Consider this whole piece you just read the opening monologue of my version of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back". We'll see where it all goes.
--
Gah! Look at the time! I gotta get some Z's! School school school blah school...

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busy

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SKIN OF MY TEETH (AGAIN). Oh. My. God. Finally finished polishing up and sending off my entries for the 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Contest, sponsored by Neil Gaiman and Fully Booked. I'm dead tired and awake, having spent the whole night finalizing them for submission. And I have school in a few hours, a whole day of school up until 5:30pm. I seriously want to just faint and sink into my bed.

For my entry to the Comics category, I Photoshop-tweaked a nice 5-page comic I made late last year, "Caraboy", one of the few unpublished comics pieces I'm genuinely proud of. This was submitted (pending acceptance) to Ian Casocot and Kit Kwe's Philippine Fiction Anthology. Was in terrible panic yesterday since all the short comics projects I was working on for the contest just weren't working, including the Pablo Neruda romance piece I've mentioned and a Whapak! short story. Finally, at 7pm, I gave up cramming, knowing I didn't have enough time. I was a bit scared to submit "Caraboy" since I'd already passed it to Ian and Kit's anthology, but after carefully reviewing the contest guidelines I found that the rights still immediately revert to me, so there was no danger of it being legally shanghaied out of its creator copyright. Cleaned it up, sent it in; it looks good.

For my entry to the Prose Fiction category, I took four (4) short short stories I'd recently written, jammed them together, pressed "Creative Osterizer" and remixed them into a very nice short story of 5,000+ words called "The Writer's Garden". It's got a sweet Canterbury Tales feel to it, slapped into shape by a surreal framing device that I hope works. I'll have to reread it again in a few days with fresh eyes before I can absolutely say for sure that I like it, but for now, it feels good.

Gah. I'm totally spent and I have a teeny amount of time to sleep before I have to get up. Hope the day works out well; after all the military coup crapola that's been happening, it's gonna be hectic to catch up with lost time. For now, I'll leave you with my favorite panel from my "Caraboy" comics entry:

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Watch the sunrise
Say your goodbyes
Off we go
Some conversation
No contemplation
Hit the road

Car overheats
Jump out of my seat
On the side of the highway baby
Our road is long
Your hold is strong
Please don’t ever let go oh no

I know I don’t know you
But I want you so bad
Everyone has a secret
But can they keep it
Oh no they can’t

Driving fast now
Don’t think I know how to go slow
Where you at now
I feel around
There you are

Cool these engines
Calm these jets
I ask you how hot can it get
And as you wipe of beads of sweat
Slowly you say "i’m not there yet!"

I know I don’t know you
But I want you so bad
Everyone has a secret
But can they keep it
Oh no they can’t

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morose

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BREAK. For the first time in a thousand years, I am legitemately soul searching. I dunno. Long time, long time, and now I'm finally getting hit by pangs of growing up, responsibility, maturity, life plans and such. It's a cruel world and day in day out you have to get your hands dirty.

I want so many things it hurts. Crap. Feeling all emo in the morning with my head all drowsy with brain hormones pumping out depressants, little hazy cloud all over my vision as I, in the truest sense of the word, contemplate. There's only so much fucking around you can do with your life before you realize that you have to fuckin work to get something.

Things have been more or less easy for the past few years. Well, maybe not so easy, but I'm the kind of guy who just slogs through things to get to a desired point, and then forgets all the work I'd done getting there. And now, things are still peanut butter smooth but somehow I get the feeling that life's soon gonna get chunky, and that's kinda depressing, you know? I'm not one to get depressed or even like it when I'm there, but i've been feeling the blues creeping into my bones lately. Like I'm lost without direction. But I could choose a direction, but it might not be the best decision to make. I dunno.

Reading into my life right now, there's a lot I have to be thankful for, and yet there's something gone missing over the past few years. That youthful, reckless drive that made my eyes light up and abandon myself to whatever it was I was doing--comics, paintings, stories--I can still pump stuff out easily when I want, but the verve seems to have gone. The vigor. The vibe. It's a long way from back then and while I don't regret what I've done, I'm not very happy where I am right now (that's a horrible statement to make, I know, me being me, it sucks to think I've really gone off that deep end).

Dunno. Gah. I'm getting all depressed right now. Figuring out you're at one of the big crossroads is one thing, figuring out where to go is another. I wish I had a break, right about now. Some time to mull things over and ruminate like an ox would be wonderful. This's gonna be bubbling in my head for the next few days or so.

AND JUST SO I DON'T BORE YOU TO TEARS WITH MY EMO-BLAST, here's a coupla funny/cool/crazy pics I found off the 'net, lurking in my pictures folder waiting for me to show:

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ON AUTOMATIC WRITING Huge apologies to everyone who commented on my last entry--where I put myself up to writing a short story for every comment laid down--I'd initially planned to finish all entries in a night, 2 nights max. I also thought I had a light week in terms of requirements, but all sorts of engagements popped up and I just lost all the time I thought I had to finish off the challenge. So for everyone who's been waiting, my humblest apologies, and rest assured that all comments will be dealt with by the weekend. I promise.

Meanwhile, you can check out the whole absurd fiasco HERE. It could build up to a glorious crescendo; I'm feeling it.

NEIL GAIMAN THING. Oh yes. That Neil Gaiman Contest thingee. Completely slipped my mind. Ah humm. Let's see...for my fiction entry I'm toying with a few half-formed stories I've already got in a folder on my computer--once I'm through with the aforementioned short story challenge, I'll see which ones I can mash together into a delicious literary concoction, with a cool new technique I'm developing, called "Creative Osterizer". Squeezing a lotta grapes to draw some fine wine.

I don't want to enter a by-the-numbers specfic entry--I'm thinking most people will be doing that, so in particular American Idol fashion, I'm working out what exciting weirdness I can cook up to break away from the pack.

As for my comicbook entry, I'm gorging myself on tons of Pablo Neruda (I recently recieved a book of his complete translated works, plus original texts from my big bro) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez (am currently reading his beautifully-written autobiography, thanks to Dean) in preparation for a full-hard-on romance comic, spurred by some back-and-forth creative conversations I had with El and this really cool idea I had to sum up all the EMO I've digested since high school: an ambitious b&w slice-of-life comic for the 21st century.

Yup, you heard me right. Romance. I didn't know what I was thinking either.

As for the artwork and panelling, I recently got me a copy of Grant Morrison's Kid Eternity, borrowed a Vinnie's copy of Spectrum 12 and was very recently blown away by Kevin Huizenga's GLENN GANGES. Check out that last link for true comics genius. All of these things will filter in somewhere, I'm almost certain.

And even though I'm in the mood to babble lots more, on stories and storytelling and all those weights I've been working my brain muscle out on, I gotta get up early tomorrow for the humdrum, back-breaking routine of real life, so that will have to be all for tonight. Lotsa things to finish up before I can zone out to real artiste' mode. I'll probably work out the rest of it in my subconscious.

Off to dream now. Keep smiling, people. :)

P.S. THIS IS SO COOL:

by Chris Ware.

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STUPID QUESTION. This has been bothering me for quite some time now. Actually, I've been wondering about this probably since high school--just never really got around to asking anyone about it. Does anyone know what this means? Now that I'm thinking about it, this mysterious "E" drives me up the wall. I need an answer. What is this:

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awake

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NOWHERE TOWN. Having nothing better to do with myself yesterday, I decided to rough it (with about 200pesos in my pocket) and took a taxi to Nowhere Town. Grimy, hazy and derelect at the edge of Shaw Boulevard, Nowhere Town is a pocket world of shanties, pawn shops and peddlers of the strange. It runs along Gen. Kalentong Street, Mandaluyong City, a thatched community of ramshackle old buildings and new, bric-a-brac buildings, camouflaged somewhere deep in the bowels of Metro Manila, Philippines.

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I CAN'T SLEEP. Tossed and turned in bed, wrestled with a few ideas, burping out concepts i'll probably forget in the morning. Oh wait. It's morning. I'll have to be messing around online in blurry speed at this rate...

The babble generator is a bit slow right now so I'll just mumble out nonsense:

ANTIBODY

Will I be your antibody near and always deep down inside
Feel me rise inside your body dear you know I'll keep you alive

Your bones are grinding friction burn with new ideas brimming to blow
Alone I'm finding diction not enough when swimming undertow
If antibodies
deal disease
with such ease
why persist
in this tryst
of words and fancy tied in knots and twists

Will I be your antibody near and always deep down inside
Feel me rise inside your body dear you know I'll keep you alive

--Okay, I give. I need a new version of me. This one's gotten kinda bored and stale. Perhaps reinvention is in order. Something to the sound of "funk", "manic" and "unlikely". Gwahblahblah. Some people think I'm more interesting when I'm half-conscious. I'm not. It's like flogging a drunk person. You don't get the tantalica of reciprocation. I'm in no-brain state right now. Perfect time to wish to the universe.

"I need a new adventure"

Woo. Did you feel that? Cosmic ripple. I can feel it coming...

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CPRtist of the DONE-T0-DEATH. My finger keeps floating a bit off the "O" on my keyboard when I type down my password for LJ, Gmail, Blogger and most of my online password-protected haunts; apparently it's an acquired bad habit from my last few months of haunting a special* online site whose password application system thus blocks out any letters after the 10th.**

--
* by "special", i mean secret, funny, possibly-deplorable, dirty, wanky, porny, filthy and generally not in the area of the universe that i prefer to mention on this site. this is a warning. you probably don't want to know.

** what you might want to know, as astute readers of this "update" might have picked out, is that I've given away that my all-encompassing online password is 11 letters long and ends with an "O". that should make it much easier for hackers to fuck around with my virtual life on the Internet.
--

Now that I've discouraged readers who hate my favorite particular style of writing, (different hums for different bums), I will now announce that I'm particularly grooooving on writing, ditto on reading, as I've spent the past three hours pumping out the words in particular effluviastic flavor, and that my particularly favorite word for the last few seconds seems to be "particular" (it's not; it's "effluvia").

Picked up John Barth's relatively new novel, "Coming Soon!!!", today, which presents an especially stunning parody of myself and my situation for the past three years. The story, which is buried underneath a tantalizing assemblage of keyboard strokes, is best explained in the back blurb of the book, which reads:

"Coming Soon!!! is the tale of two writers: an older, retiring novelist setting out to write his last work and a young, aspiring writer of hypertext intent on toppling his master. In the heat of their rivalry, the writers navigate, and sometimes stumble over, the cultural fault lines between print and electronic fiction, mentor and mentee, postmodernism and modernism."