New year, old goals

Continuing on some old resolutions…

(Image borrowed from Huffington Post)

So I was on Facebook today and saw that I had “memories” on this day. I checked it, and an article I posted four years ago on new year’s resolutions showed up. Here’s the article: New Year’s Resolutions that Aren’t Losing Weight. In my post, I said that these were doable resolutions and now I am wondering if I did well on them — in 2016! I’ve also found these goals to be worth pursuing — or maybe continuing for 2017 — so I think I’ll just use these as my resolutions for the new year, while checking if I did well for 2016. Let’s see…

There is a great disturbance in the Force

(Image from The New York Times obit. Read the article here.)

Carrie Fisher — Princess Leia Organa to fans — has died today. May the Force be with her.

Today I’m grateful for…

Early morning sun in Toa Payoh

I subscribe to this site called Daily Page, which gives you a writing prompt  — basically a topic that you could write about for the day. In theory, the prompts are is supposed to help make you a better writer by compelling you to write everyday. Of course, I say “in theory” because you actually have to do the writing yourself — bummer, right? So how have I done so far in the site? Miserably, if truth be told. I had written a bunch of stuff when I was new to the site, but the discipline tapered off,  for various reasons. So for the past few months I have been ignoring the emails that have come from the site, until today.

I was struck by the topic for today: Name three things you are grateful for. It seems like such an easy subject to write about. Until I finally sat down to write and nothing came out. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of things to be grateful for. The problem is choosing from among the many.

Or, to be honest about it, choosing to focus on the good things instead of wallowing in the muck of bad stuff. It’s hard not to focus on the unfortunate things. The last half of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016 have been a bust for me. I lost my job and the one that I found this year turned out to be a disaster. When I lost my job last year, I wasn’t at all worried; I was confident that I would find another one quickly. It’s been that way for most of my working life. Things just sort of fell into place for me. I was rarely out of a job for more than a few weeks, and would be smugly puzzled by other people’s inability to snag a viable post right away. Fast forward several months, and who’s smug now? Not I, that’s for sure. While friends and family have gone ahead and done Stuff — published a book, gotten great jobs elsewhere, raised/are raising cool kids — I seem to be stuck in a rut. Don’t get me wrong, I love that the people I love are going places and doing cool things, I just wish that I was along for the ride too. I guess I didn’t realize how much the loss of my job, something that defined me, would be such a blow to my self-worth. This isn’t an exercise in self-pity, far from it. I do know how lucky I am, in the grand scheme of things. I guess what I am trying to say is that setbacks do make it harder to focus on the good things, even though it’s more important than ever to shine a light on the positive.

So, what three things am I grateful for today?

1. A thriving family. Almost everyday, I check up on the family via Facebook. I love that the older nephews are doing the things they love, the younger kids are fun and funny. My brothers and their wives are all doing well. And that my mom is as fun and fab as ever. Over in the other side of the world, I love that D’s parents are doing well and look forward to his dad’s bullet-point emails complete with photos of the lovely flowers and plants growing in the garden, sacks of compost and the latest in gardening gadgets.
2. A peaceful day. I’m all alone in the apartment, typing this with a picturesque view not many get to see everyday. I’ve just had lunch and it’s looking like it’s going to be a good day. For the past month or so, I haven’t had a peaceful day — one that wasn’t filled with stress and worry (about finding a job, paying my bills, etc) — and having one today feels like a blessing. I know it’s a respite, but I welcome it nevertheless.
3. 3. D. An old part of cool girl Terrie who eschewed mushiness wouldn’t have even put this last in here. But I recognize that I am indeed a lucky woman for having someone who actually understands and is supportive of me, even if he’s probably thinking by now that being in publishing is bollocks and I should try something else… like, I don’t know, sell insurance maybe, haha! But he’s been a rock these past few months. I read somewhere that one of the reasons successful writers end up being successful (aside from the talent and the perseverance to succeed aspects of it), is the fact that they had supportive partners they can depend on. That’s my D.

Actual view from my desk. It’s a little dramatic right now, what with the coming rain, but see the light in the upper right? That’s where the sun will eventually shine

So that’s my little list. What are you grateful for today?

Better late than never…

It’s been a turbulent and hectic last quarter of 2015, which is why I haven’t posted anything for the past few months. I’m hoping 2016 will be kinder so I can write more.

In the meantime, to remind me that I should do just that, I am posting this link to an article in The Guardian: Ten Things I Learned About Writing from Stephen King. The advice is nothing we haven’t seen in other articles like this. But numbers 5 and 6 did resonate: Number 5 was, “Aim big. Or small.” and 6 was “Write all the time. Write a lot.” So these are what I will be doing more of this year. Hopefully I get to keep this promise.

See you soon!

These words are beautiful

I deal in words every day — I’m a writer, after all. But there’s just something about Japanese that perfectly explains feelings we have a hard time with in English. Here are a few that I found beautiful:

What’s the collective noun for books?

A collection? A shelf? A library? How about a discussion or a storytelling or a chapter or a paragraph? Whatever it is, I read a lot of books the past six months. Did I mention this is a (loooong) book post?

Ready for their closeup. The books I’ve read the past six months; not included are the two I wasn’t able to finish. The funky wooden busts styled with them are from Bali

Over the years, right around April or May I used to take stock of what I’ve read for the past months. And the list would invariably show up somewhere — back in the day, it was in journals and then more recently in various social media, albeit in a more haphazard fashion. I don’t know why I do it really, maybe because I wanted to have a record of what I read and also because April and May evoked school vacations in the Philippines, a time when I could just curl up with a good book in the middle of a hot afternoon instead of taking a siesta (afternoon nap) as my parents wanted us kids to do (to make us grow tall, they said). Now of course, I am more likely going to choose the siesta than read a book, because I’m old(er). 🙂

But at the start of this year, I told myself I would jot down each book I read as I started it just so I have a record of my reading diet — you are what you eat or read, am I right or am I right? I wrote down the titles in my desk diary — literally, an actual diary on my office desk. I am not so particular that I wrote down the title on the actual day I started reading it. I basically scribbled on those blank spaces allotted for each week/month for the diarist to write down whatever existential thought or musing he or she has. I chose to write down what I read.

The results were interesting:

• 23 books read, 2 unfinished; so 21 books actually read cover to cover.
• 8 = most number of books started in a month (March). Note that I said “started” because I wrote down the titles as I started reading, but did not really write down when I finished the books. But given that I usually — not always though — pick up a book when I’m done with one, it’s safe to assume that I did finish all eight books in March. Even for me — a fast reader (D says I don’t take the time to savor the books and devour them like fast food, a claim I wholeheartedly deny) — this was, er, impressive… and a bit frightening.
• 1, unfinished = least number of books read in a month (April). What was I doing in April?? A quick glance at my diary revealed that I was drowning in work that month, apparently.
• Genres covered: They run the gamut, from historical romance, to thrillers, to a memoir. Was tempted to enumerate the books per genre, but after attempting to classify several of them, I ended up confusing myself and stopped. Let’s just say that many of them can be classified under different categories and I will never be a competent librarian, haha!

So what have I been reading? Here’s a list (as they appeared in my diary) and capsule reviews:

Lunchtime break: Random quotes

Ever since high school, I’ve jotted down quotes and passages from books, magazine articles, TV shows and movies I’ve watched, people I’ve met and even overheard conversations of random people in various notebooks that I’ve been lugging around with me ever since. But with the advent of Facebook and the various incarnations of social media (like this blog), my tendency to record stuff has tapered off, which is really a pity because jotting things down was sort of how I kept track of things that happened in my life (“Ahh! Wrote this while I was having coffee with whatshername and she told me about that thing with whatshisface…” stuff like that) or was a good creative source whenever I feel blocked about what I’m writing — which is what is happening now, actually. However, this past weekend, after updating my phone’s software, I was scrolling through my notes, and it turns out I’ve been jotting down or taking photos of random stuff and I just haven’t really realized it. So I’m putting them here, before I delete them forever from the phone. Warning, some are sappy, some are wise, some I’ve posted on my Instagram or posted on Facebook, some are funny and some are just plain, “huh?”

One More Thing

A trailer of B. J. Novak’s book, One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories. New books having trailers should be a thing. Genius!

Grace notes

This morning, I interviewed Filipino-Canadian author, Marie Claire Lim-Moore about her book, Don’t Forget the Soap and Other Reminders from My Fabulous Filipina Mother. We got to compare notes about our childhoods and how we were raised and she mentioned that the hardest lesson that she had to learn from her mom was the idea of gratitude — to be always mindful of and grateful for what we have and what is given to us.

What Stephen King isn’t

What Stephen King isn’t

There are lots of writers who tell it like it is, but only a few who, with such commitment and intensity, tell it like it isn’t. King takes the weird and gives it weight. And yet, at the same time, his novels retain a lightness, a playfulness. They show us horrible things, but they also glow, I think, with King’s joy—with his pleasure and exhilaration in imagining.” — from the article, “What Stephen King isn’t”, Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker

Truth.

[image borrowed from http://www.telegraph.co.uk ]