Bookish society 01/04/2012
 
I've been spending an inordinate amount of time in Goodreads these days. In between work, I troll back and forth to check if anything new has been added to the discussion threads. Before, I simply add and rate the books I've read. I've made "friends" with some Filipino book bloggers, too. One of them even invited me to Manila to join one their book-related activities, and because I live so far away, they'll make some sort of an arrangement so that we can all meet up. All of them are true book addicts, and they discuss about books so eloquently that they make me feel very proud to be a Filipino. I have the national pride of an unformatted microSD, empty and unreceptive to new data. Not until I "met" this bookish sector of the Filipino society. I also realized that I am now officially a geek. Lately, I have been wanting to harass the ones who give a rating of 1 to Ira Levin's books in Goodreads. Why oh why. A 1 is a statement of strong dislike. I take 1s seriously and only give them when I feel that the book is something that must never be opened/written/read. But not Ira Levin. He writes about the most sensational and lurid of topics, I get that, but he's got the guts to cut the meat from them and to charbroil. 

The all-around Osias couple released the full lineup of writers who have been accepted to the Philippine Speculative Fiction 7. Joseph Roque was also kind enough to invite me to submit something to his new editing venture, Desk Rage Poet.

Yesterday, I started to read the Chikiamco-edited anthology Alternative Alamat and Paul Jessup's book. I also wrote and submitted stories around midnight until I was already too dazed to move the mouse. 

Once again, I diluted the 1-Liter bottle of Coke with some water in the fridge last night; my mother is consuming too much sugar, and I can't make her stop. I can upend the contents of the bottle, but there's no use. We are the only supplier of  Coca Cola products (plus the country's popular beer products) to merchants in our area. The supply of toxic drinks are close to limitless in our household. So I now resort to surreptitious acts. 
 
Writing-wise, many life-changing things are happening. A North American publisher is interested to see a novel from me. So I will need 40,000+ words of lucid prose. There's this disorder called hypergraphia, and how I wish I can artificially induce it. 

And because I did not blog yesterday, the number of unique visitors dipped to this:
 


Comments

Patricia Esposito
01/04/2012 9:12pm

That's so exciting that a publisher is requesting a novel from you! Congratulations ... on that and on your other recent publications. I hope to be able to read more of your work soon.

You make Goodreads sound very appealing. I joined awhile back but haven't been able to read any of the books I added to my "to read" list. (My job is copy editing and proofreading all day and I rarely get my own reading done anymore, but you've made me really want to, with the ability to review and discuss on Goodreads.)

Good luck with decreasing your mom's sugar intake! It's so easy to get addicted to sweets.

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Kristine Ong Muslim link
01/04/2012 10:47pm

Hi, Patricia! Wow! Thank you for taking the time to comment here. The request was no big deal really, because I still have to write it, and he still has to like what I've written. I so recommend Goodreads if you have time. Then apply for author status; it does wonders if you want to promote your book. There's Jon and I, shelving your gorgeous book http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12009888-beside-the-darker-shore -- We're such a nice little family. :)

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