Some kind of restart
It’s officially the middle of 2020, and it seems like a good day to revive this blog! Hello there!
I wanted to say that “I meant to blog here” but I realize that’s kind of a lie. I never really meant to blog anything in the past months after my last post. I thought about it, but let’s be honest: it’s easier to write Instagram posts and tweets, and long-form seems like a lost art in some way? *looks at my long-dormant mailing list*
The main reason behind this is I have been so busy writing. Unfortunately, it’s not fiction–all the writing is for work. Social media captions, blog posts, collateral, email from executives…anything with words at work, that was on me. While I do like it very much, it’s also very draining, you know? You can only write so many things about payroll and HR in a day until your brain refuses to form coherent sentences after. By the time I get out of work, I’m all worded out and sometimes I just want to lie down and scroll through social media, or read when I feel like it (which also isn’t as often as I want to recently).
Then there’s this pandemic. And this year, for that matter. Like everyone else, I wished for a good year, for 2020 to be a good start/end to a new decade but this year so far has been fraught with so many things: my grandmother passing away, nearly missing the Taal eruption, then being locked down at home for the past four months. Not to mention everything that’s going in the news, how it seems like there’s no end to the rising number of positive COVID-19 cases and worrying about infection myself–with my asthma, and then my parents being away.
My past self had naively thought I would finally write the things I said I’d write back in March because mandatory work from home meant I get about 2-3 hours back to myself without the commuting to and from work. But I obviously didn’t think of how all of this *gestures wildly to the world* is going to mess up my mental space.
But this post isn’t supposed to be me complaining, haha. I meant this post to be a check-in of sorts, in some way, and also to provide a ~transition because it feels weird to just pick things up as if I have always been here without acknowledging the absence in between.
Which means I will be blogging here more often–I mean it this time. For real. Like I have actually scheduled some posts here in the next few weeks and all that. Partly for my own sanity, partly to practice long-form writing that is not about payroll or HR or anything corporate, partly for accountability to some things and partly because my marketing brain tells me to do this. So many parts! But yeah, so here.
And I don’t know how to end this now, so let’s go to some bullet updates, aka questions that you might be asking (or if you’re not asking, it’s also okay :P):
- Where is your next book? My next book (Win Meah Over) is in my hard drive, and I am still revising. Oh yeah, the first draft is done, and this is the first pass, and she is keeping me stuck at the end of Act 2. Maybe I should stop calling her my monster manuscript, because she is acting like a monster for real? Haha. But like I said, pandemic brain and work brain is a bad combination so the feelings have been waiting, but there is progress, albeit really slow. Like I always say, Meah will just surprise you guys when she’s ready. (But I remember posting the cover here a year ago–when I thought I’d be able to release it in 2 months. Ha ha ha *slinks away*)
- What else are you working on? Okay, there is this wedding story that’s also in progress until now (huhu) and then Ruth and Ian’s book where I randomly drop little things in the idea dump file (if you read You Could Be the One, I am so sorry for making you wait for their HEA!), and then Gabriel’s book who always tries to grab my attention because he is just like that, you know?
- So you haven’t finished anything? HEY. I did! I finished a script for Hello, Ever After, #romanceclass’s blog series. It’s the first romance I finished writing in years and I may have cried a little after. Will post more about that here soon (see, told you I’d blog more!), but for now, subscribe to our Youtube channel to get notified of the new episodes.
And this post is now 800+ words and I will stop here, and leave this post I saw on Instagram today that gave me peace after watching the news. Things may be a mess right now and I am honestly scared about how some things are unfolding, but God doesn’t lose battles. He always wins. And that’s something I–and maybe you, too–need to hold onto tonight and in the next days. ❤️
