Some Kind of Happy Ever After

It was somewhere in October last year when I read the FB post from Mina that she would be running a short story class sponsored by buqo. I had met her and Chris Mariano at their booth at Aklatan some months prior where they introduced me to the concept of self-publishing, Mina’s Romance Class, and the changing landscape in Filipino readership. I was skeptical at first, but it had more to do with the lack of belief that I could actually do it. That anyone would ever want to buy my book if it were myself to sell it.

I’ve written several projects previously, and I like to think I have a couple of readers from my fanfic site and my other tumblr (lol) but that didn’t mean they liked my stories because of the way I wrote it. It could be as simple as I wrote about the people that they like, and I couldn’t just assume that these people would buy my original stuff. I was also very uncomfortable with the idea of letting the world know I actually write. Writing is my secret world. It’s my safe place and it’s a very personal experience for me. To open myself raw for an audience to see, should an audience manifest at all, terrified me.

But I had decided in the beginning of 2013 that it would be the year to try stuff. To just go ahead and do stupid things and make mistakes and try more stuff and go out and just go with it. I like to think it paid off. I mean, it did lead to Aklatan, to Poptastik Pinoy, and to City Fiction 100, and finally to Philippine Speculative Fiction. PSF9 was a reject, but it was the most beautiful and most encouraging rejection letter I have ever received. City Fiction 100 and Krys Lee gave invaluable advice in terms of my writing, and I have been changed for good.

The experience lead to me this whole new world where there are people who like the things that I like and unlike me, aren’t embarrassed to show it. So, it being Bold Move October (as pointed out by ate Rya), I thought, why not?

Sure, a short story class called Steamy Reads didn’t exactly sit well with my Spec Fic aspirations, and considering I have no idea how to write romance, I had lengthy discussions with Writer Six re: do or don’t. But in the end, I was all, whatever. Let’s do this. If anything, the experience will do you good, the exposure will do you good, and who knows, your non-existent networking prowess might do you good. Besides, why the hell not?

So I signed up.

The initial panic was, what am I going to write?

Four tropes were given out in the class: Love at First Sight, Friends to Lovers, The One That Got Away, and Opposites Attract. The guidelines were simple enough. According to your assigned trope, write a “steamy story”, alpha love interests, and no “simple, ordinary main characters”. The challenge was to portray these tropes and the guidelines in a limited number of words (min: 5k).

Our reading assignments only served to add to my worries. The more I did my research, the more I felt paralyzed. On January 18, 2014, the class had the the first face to face session. I chickened out so I didn’t attend. Later that week, I received my trope: Friends to Lovers.

Confession: My story, Just for the Record, was a project I started writing in 2012. Started, meaning I wrote Heat Wave and bits of what came after. It was largely unfinished with no hopes of completion. Until now.

But what’s a project with no problems.

First of all, the trope is Friends to Lovers. My main characters are kind of, sort of friends, but they don’t end up lovers. Not really. Not in the original inception of the plot. Second, I have no alpha males, and how do I know my main character isn’t simple or ordinary? And third, and most importantly, how do I incorporate the steam?

First, let’s talk about alpha males. I don’t like them. They creep me out. Second, I began to wonder if “simple, ordinary” girls is a cultural thing that’s manifested in fanfics and self-insert fics. And third, steam. It always boils down to the steam.

The opening chapter, Heat Wave, was written under the premise that these two friends, in the literal and figurative heat of the moment, share a hot kiss (and more) but shrug it off when it’s all done and over with. I could have developed that single chapter into something easily 5k words, it’s already 3k+ in its earliest form, 2k wouldn’t be so hard to put in there. But that didn’t happen. Instead, development happened, and the bits and pieces I had randomly written with these characters morphed into one rabid plot bunny. Yay for random character development throughout the years, and yay for drabble exercises at every given moment. They were ready to be written. So I wrote.

And so, Just for the Record happened.

By the time I had most of it written, I realized I still had no alpha males and I still had no idea if my characters were special enough. Looking at the Twitter feed for #buqosteamyreads didn’t help me much— awkward turtle issues on my part. And then of course The Boss sends me out for field work the week of the Feb 15 deadline.

But somewhere in the middle of the ocean I had a moment of clarity. Just write. If it doesn’t fit, then it doesn’t fit. If it ends up not making the standards and the guidelines, then at least you finished writing the story. So on the morning of February 15, just as I got back home, I sent my manuscript in and attended the last f2f.

Let’s not even begin talking about cover art woes and final editing and revisions because up to this day, I’m still editing my manuscript and the bundles come out on April 1.

The experience in itself, I suppose, does prove what Mina had been telling us all along. Dangle a carrot and the bunnies will start hopping. I’m glad I got to be a part of this group. I had so much fun watching everyone spazz over their Alpha Male pegs and fan themselves with the abs and the steam. I like how how people who have never met before suddenly become BFFs and writing buddies. Maybe one day when I get over my awkward turtle disease, I’ll be able to participate more, but hanging at the back was an experience in itself. If I was weird, I’m so sorry.

Congrats to the completers! I’m sure we’ll see each other again very, very soon!