Write Sense

I promised myself, after reading this article, that I would care more about my health: Sleep a little more. Eat healthy. Not worry if I miss a weekday of blogging. Jog and do my weights.

Ah, the life of a Web worker.

I’m actually starting to feel my age. It’s been stressful keeping a full-time job, maintaining a blog, and doing freelance work, but I also know, having come from a life when I didn’t do anything after office, I would die if I stopped writing.

My son Jacob grew up wanting to be a book editor like me. He would say, “When I grow up, I want to work at your office at so-and-so.”

I remember when I was project manager for this print-on-demand publishing firm that there were nights I’d come home very late and not get to see him for three straight days, so I’d make up by bringing him to work and he’d settle into one of the empty walk-in closets in the office and read, color, cut paper, or do something productive.

Other times I’d bring a lot of work home, mostly printouts of manuscripts that needed reviewing, and skim through them while he’d sit beside me reading. The printouts would end up in two piles: one with corrections would be brought back to the office. The clean pages would go to him, and he’d pretend he’d be editing them as well.

I didn’t realize how absorbed he was with this “writer” and “editor” thing until recently, when he did the opening prayer during his preschool graduation. My mom, who had been a school principal in her working years, had drawn up the prayer for my little boy and practiced him every night so he would perfect it.

Of course, the ever-stubborn boy would not just take the draft as is: he had his own questions too. One line went, “This will be the last time that we will see each other–all 36 of us . . .” and this six-year-old disagreed with “all 36 of us” because “it is not a sentence, and it is grammatically incorrect”!

My mom was certainly shocked but kept her temper in check. “It’s for emphasis,” she says. “Writers do it a lot.”

And my boy said, “Well, you’re NOT a writer.”

Ooops. Now that’s what I mean by “a little knowledge . . .”

March is ending soon, and I realized today that it’s been ages since I last updated this writing/portfolio site. I’ve been busy here and juggling my full-time job and a Web content project now on its second month, so everything’s good.

At work, I have been doing a lot of writing for e-mail campaigns and studying Constant Contact and other EMC programs. I’m excited to try these out. I’ve also been doing a lot of blogging and managing forums for my full-time job, and it’s exciting, but at the same time draining because there’s the need to constantly keep abreast of what’s happening in the market. But who said work would be easy, eh?

I am compelled, though, to update this site every now and then, if only to thank the gods of the Internet for sending some clients to me without my looking for them. I mentioned before that freelance workers, and writers especially, must have an online presence so they can reach more people and have a venue to promote their work and what they can do. (Okay, I hope that didn’t seem too self-important.)

Someone, a Filipina, was searching for “Filipino writer” and found her way to this site. And the rest is history. This is good. Maybe I need not move to Singapore after all.

I know I’ve said a lot of bad things about technology and how it has ruined our lives (like it enabled men to cheat easily, for example), but well, for this one instance, the online gods have smiled on me.

And You Up There, thank you too.

P.S. Will write more about writing and books when I get back. Just let me finish this week and give me my space, just for now. I have so much to tell.

Yes, Virginia, there is such an occasion as Grammar Day.

Do you adore clean, correct sentences? Do ungrammatical advertisements make you cringe? We understand completely, and this is why the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar and MSN Encarta have designated March 4, 2008 as National Grammar Day.

Now you have every excuse to call the attention of someone who spells it attension. Or says  irregardless. 

I just love these people!

Incidentally, I just received a survey from Chicago Manual asking for feedback about its grammar chapter, which, I must admit, I seldom use. Another reason to take it out from the shelf and use it.

Over the weekend while recuperating from a bad case of gastroenteritis (something I must have eaten at the office buffet), I found time to catch up on books I started but haven’t had the time to finish.

One of them is Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun, which has a back story that I will save for next post, when I have found the archived blog entry somewhere.

I love this book! I love how poetic Mayes sounds even when she’s writing prose. This is the nth time that I’m re-reading the book and I get carried away by her words each time.

Under the Tuscan Sun is the kind of book you’d like to read aloud at 1 a.m., when the entire household is fast asleep.

I don’t usually mark my favorite phrases–I write them down in my Moleskine–but I felt I had to, this time, because I want to go back and read and re-read my favorite lines and feel each word roll out of my tongue when I say them.

Chapter 1 starts out very simply, matter-of-factly, but the sentence reaches out to you, an announcement that, you know, will be life-changing: “I am about to buy a house in a foreign country.”

Each time I read this, I put down the book and I am lost in reverie. I am in Tuscany too.

More soon.

If it were difficult to penetrate the international literary scene a decade ago, today many young Filipino writers are getting published in international magazines all because of the Internet. Furthermore, with the advent of Guru, Elance, and other job markets, Filipino writers are able get projects and commissioned work abroad. That means a wider market and more jobs (and more money!) for writers.

Many years ago when I applied for admission at the University of the Philippines, I was weighing the pros and cons of taking creative writing as against journalism. My parents’ advice echoed in my mind: You can never get rich by writing.

Read the rest of this entry »

I find that I remember things better when I write them down. I have a crazy (and busy) life, and I feel the need to compartmentalize it. That’s why I have seven active notebooks. Read the rest of this entry »

I had an interview today with Jaime, a senior sociology student at UP Diliman who is writing a thesis on chick lit in the Philippines.

Jaime tells she is a big fan of chick lit and has, in fact, the complete (well, almost, except for the recent one) series of books from Psicom Publishing, which produced my very first book. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been contemplating on working from home in the last couple of months mainly because I’ve started to love freelance work. I thought I was ready to make the shift from 9-hour office worker to independent Web worker who gets to do some cooking while she writes.

(I kid. I always burn the rice when I cook while writing.) Read the rest of this entry »

When I read an excerpt from writer Trey Ellis’s book, Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood, the first thought that crossed my mind was “OMG, this is like the book I’m trying to write!”

About two years ago, on the prodding of a friend, an editor who was responsible for getting my first book published, I started compiling excerpts on single parenting from my now-defunct blog (rest in peace, baby).

I had some 15,000 words written already. They were mostly posts, lifted from another personal blog, that I improved on. In between coping with depression and moving from one job to another, I lost focus. Now the manuscript sleeps in my hard drive, waiting for me to find the time to resume writing.

Over Christmas I actually thought of going back and editing, but with another edited manuscript due a Singapore pub house in January, I didn’t have much time to write. Read the rest of this entry »