blogging at eleven p.m.

Put the baby to bed at 9 p.m. so I could catch up on my reading, writing and do some blogging.

This Writing Life

Looking back, I have to laugh when I think about how I never excelled at essay writing. During elementary and high school, my essays came back with bold red marks telling me my margins weren't aligned. I thank God for the advent of computers. At least I don't have to fold the sides of my bond paper when I want the margins to align properly. Hallelujah for work that's automatically centered/marginated/left or right justified.

I still haven't got the slightest idea how folks manage to create headers with their names and respective page numbers on them. This is something I still do manually (because I am so lowtech and don't know where under help topics I can find this information). This also probably explains the notes I received from Ideomancer, way back when I was still submitting like crazy, telling me that I had formatting issues. I never understood what they meant, since my computer always told me my ms was properly configurated. So if someone can tell me how that almost invisible header thing works, I will be eternally grateful as I have decided I should really start thinking of sending out work again.

I sometimes wonder what it is with us writers and publication. I mean, here we write to the best of our ability, stretching our minds to the limit and then *boom*..."sorry this isn't for us" arrives. We must be masochists of a very special kind.

But when we get telephone calls from editors who have paid long distance fees in order to tell us that our work is being published and we are getting creditted as co-author of a book that's going to be sold in local bookstores where people who were our classmates in elementary, highschool and college will see it, well...I suppose that nullifies all the red marks telling me my margins are not properly aligned.

I hope my former english writing teacher gets to see that book. I really do.

Boy in the Bush, illustrated

The talented Kevin Shaw has created an illustration for Boy in the Bush. You can see it here.

specfic writer hay(na)ku

Found this while doing the file reorganization thing.

A week in the life of a specfic writer
by chie

monday
belongs to
scarlet dragons--flying

tuesday
to a
mysterious blue goddess

wednesday
to voyagers
from distant stars

thursday
to chocolate
covered hazelnut bars

friday
to misadventures
on unfamiliar shores

saturday
to tyrants
and willing slaves

sunday
rotates back
to monday’s madness.

Genoeg Getreuzeld

In other words, enough of this dilly-dallying.

Late News:

The hay(na)ku continues to find a welcome at Dragons, Knights and Angels Magazine. My fellow Editor, Rick Copple, has been bitten by the hay(na)ku bug and has successfully placed some hay(na)ku poems with DKA. His hay(na)ku poem, Black Hole Relationships, won honorable mention during DKA's 2006 poetry competition. Yes, I'm blogging about it a bit late, but I have my excuses. In December, my mind was occuppied by things other than blogging or writing or going on the net. Rick's Science Fiction hay(na)ku, The Path of Least Resistance, was published in August last year. Danged, but I am so behind on stuff. Anyway, I thought I'd raise my glass (of water) and toast to Rick.

Haruah update:

I think Haruah is a definite "she". Her development has been a bit slow, and it's difficult to find good literary pieces that adhere to the guidelines. Could it be the name of the mag? We get loads of outright preachy pieces, when the vision of Haruah is to publish good literature and not to convert folks.

Writing News:

So, I thought it was time to stop dilly-dallying. Adopting Dean Alfar's guerilla writing method, I've managed to do some sorting and have figured out what stories still need working on, what needs to be rewritten/sent out/fine-tuned.

Working on Little Goddess, I decided to trash almost all of it except the opening and went for wacky instead of serious. He, he. So, I have a furious goddess Momma wreaking havoc on shell worlds, while little goddess takes on a literal meaning in addition to the figurative one. We'll see what happens to this tale, and whether I manage to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. *happily wrings hands together*

I've completed work on Remembrance of Griefs and Losses, my tribute to my neighbour and am now working on a Dutch translation for the family. My deep thanks to Bec for reading the piece and for her feedback.

And finally, a post about a poem I'd forgotten all about. Between Kisses (Sam's Dot Publishing) has accepted my hay(na)ku poem, How to Prepare a Head, for publication. Yayness!

Blogging is also a form of dilly-dallying. Genoeg getreuzeld! I'll be back another day.

In between...

In between this posting and the April post:

--I celebrated my birthday
--we celebrated Samuel's Dedication
--Samuel turned four months
--My parents returned to the Philippines

Having my parents here was such a treasure. It was as if time stood still and I was back home again.

There are dreams that seem so real, you think you can just reach out and touch them...you want to keep on dreaming forever because that's happiness right there in that dreaming...

I have those dreams. I dream I am sitting down with my dear ones, I dream of dinners filled with chatter and laughter, I dream the bright sunlight, and the light radiating from faces so dear as we sit and talk and talk and laugh and remember all the good old days.

I think I just have to reach out a hand to touch the hand of the one next to me, and I wake up in the darkness of a Dutch dawn...and realize I'm not home but here, and while I am happy here, there is a part of me that thinks I'm dreaming this and if I just close my eyes tight enough, I'll open them and find myself waking up to the sunlight streaming in through the pale pink curtains of the room I shared with my sister...

But there's no going back, and I have to say how I would not exchange the reality of these:

--Joel Jan
--Samuel
--Jan
--family and friends I've found in this cold "kikker" land

But still, I miss...and we all miss:

--chess games with Lolo
--Lola singing to Sam
--Lola playing the piano
--football with Lolo
--stories exchanged during extended meals
--together time in the evening
--and all that...all the things that made us live inside the dream for the space of almost four months

We all live towards that moment of the next meeting...

Boy in the Bush

Boy in the Bush is now in print at TeenAge Magazine. TeenAge is DEP's newest publication and the editorial staff is comprised of teenage readers and writers. I'm quite curious as to the direction TeenAge will take. Considering their first offerings, it promises to provide an interesting mix of literary work as well as work geared towards the teenage reader.

Boy in the Bush was inspired by the true story of a boy I once met. Rereading the story, I find myself thinking of all the children who are victims of civil war and armed conflict. This story takes place in a mythic village, on a mythic mountain, but it is true in many aspects. So many young lives fail to reach their promise because of war, because of strife, because of violence.

I still have to catch up on a lot of things, six more weeks of school, and I hope the computer cooperates and holds out till the end of school. So many stories that need polishing and rewriting, and I am so behind with criticquing and reviewing stuff at the Shop as well as at Liberty Hall.