#fwfc

Year-End Review. 

I can’t even begin to say how wild this year has been, so I’m not go on lengths to say it. LOL. Instead, let’s look at the positive side for the remainder of 2016. After all, it has been my most productive year when it comes to my writing.

January:

Bayong ng Kuting, KidLit Writing Class Writing for kids wasn’t as easy as I imagined. And I had to juggle my day-job to balance with my hobby (meaning sometimes the story outline is haphazardly written on the back of a coffee shop receipt. LOL)  Still, I managed to write and finish a short story about the orange fat cat, Siaopao, his introverted human owner, and new friends I’ve invented for them. No news yet when the story will come out for public consumption, but this was the start of me feeling good about my writing. 

February:

This month was spent reading Filipino books in preparation for #romanceclass2016. It was also spent poring through Ms. Mina’s romanceclass textbook. The roller-coaster of feels my heart went thruugh was just fitting for Valentines, me thinks. haha.

*Visit http://romanceclassbooks.com/ to find out where to get these books, and other RomanceClass titles. :)

March:

RomanceClass officially started and boy, no amount of textbook mastery could prepare me for the actual hardwork that is coming up with a solid idea for a story. I had to read more books and rewatch a bunch of my favorite movies to get my ideas together. 

April:

My first self-published book with Kabute Writers of Wattpad came out in April. You can read the drafts of the 12 stories featured here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/38614200-beyond-fate-and-the-stars-self-published while we are working on making the published book available for sale.

April also marked my first anniversary of joining Wattpad and sharing a story that I’ve written a few years back, Danse. I also hit my first 500 readers for that story and I couldn’t be any happier. Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/36322204-danse-first-edition

May:

Only a month after our book was published, one of the authors, my friend, Layamaria, passed away. She was a very talented wordsmith and we miss her dearly. Read her works on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/26926960-attitudinal. She will always be an inspiration to us.

It was also in May that I was able to finish the first draft for my M/M Romance Novella, “Come Here, Go Away”. i promised to make up for the opportunity I lost in #StrangeLit in 2015, and this was me, making good of my promise.

June

Three things: My poetry collections, “Thoughts on the Train” and “Free Rein” ranked #382 and #900 respectively. I still don’t know how the rankings work, but if anything, that means people are paying attention and reading my works. You can read them here, too: https://www.wattpad.com/story/38570166-thoughts-on-the-train and https://www.wattpad.com/story/54101039-free-rein

“Come Here, Go Away” entered the editing phase and I started to hate it. MY plot is shallow and wut is grammar!? haha. In trying to fix it, though, muses for my other work, The Necromancer’s Daughter, fired me up instead, so after 7 months in development hell, I was able to update another chapter, and continued a few more chapters after it. Read it here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/51080100-the-necromancer%27s-daughter

July:

My Birthday Month has got to be the busiest month for my writing rackets, starting with TND ranking it’s highest #529 in Fantasy. This was mostly because I was also the featured writer for my book club, Filipino Writers in the Fantasy Category, aka, FWFC. Here are helpful links to help me explain. :

TND’s Review Page:https://www.wattpad.com/282166411-fwfc-cycle-2-review-book-week-4-bentchbites

My Review Response Page:https://www.wattpad.com/286221129-fwfc-cycle-2-review-book-week-4-review-response

My “Ask me Anything” Page: https://www.wattpad.com/286072635-fwfc-ask-me-anything-ama-bentchbites

I also won first runner-up for a flashfic a writing contest in the club. I got an awesome certificate for it and well, *some* bragging rights. LOL. Read the winners pieces, along with the judge’s comments here: https://www.wattpad.com/279335784-fwfc-contests-shadow-flash-fiction-challenge

On Twitter, #FilipinoBookFriday was gaining traction and my alter ego, Hawaiian Jesus™, was born. This weekly online party became a staple on my schedule and I was seldom absent on the sessions (bec my usual Friday nights were spent mostly indoors, too. LOL)

Towards the end of the month, we finalized plans for the 2nd Kabute Anthology Book and called for new writers to join the group. We held a writing audition to fill-in 2 slots we allotted for  expansion. 

August:

Back to writing again, I birthed a 2.5k-word short romance following three random things as prompts, a light/darkness sub theme and a subtle mention of mushrooms. Read a preview of the draft here: https://www.wattpad.com/279128915-kathbute-anthology-volume-2-the-watch-repairman%27s. The full book will be available early next year and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you!

On my other group, I got recognized as the Best Reviewer for the second review cycle for Filipino Fantasy works. This was lovely, but the best thing I got from this review cycle were the critiques and feedback I got for my story. month after and I’m still drawing inspiration from things I learned during that feature week. Thank you, FWFC!

September:

A little less online, a little more actually being there. LOL. The Manila International Book Fair has got to be the highlight of this month, this whole year even, because I met both Kabute and RomanceClass Authors in that one Sunday of September. These ladies are my heroes and seeing them in person after being friends with them for months online is a wonderful, wonderful experience!

You can read more of that on my previous blog post, here:  http://bentchcreates.tumblr.com/post/151133454706/bentch-at-the-37th-manila-international-book-fair

October:

I had a little too much time reading and writing during this month so the upkeep of this blog became my first priority. I did several Book Reviews, TND Chapter Updates, additional thing-a-ma-jigs here and there, and of course, Season 2 of #FilipinoBookFriday, where I got to be part of the behind the scenes plans and preparations for my favorite Friday night event. Haha!  

November:

It was time again to do some reading for the upcoming #RomanceClass2017 and because I already knew what a disaster I could be with deadlines, I made sure I was prepared and ready to rumble once the official class starts. Because of this, I reached the 25-book challenge I pledged on Goodyear early this year. I didn’t think that was possible, but I even exceeded the goal and that’s amazing! All the books I’ve read this year are here: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/4514690

We also had the Halloween/Horror theme going on for #FilipinoBookFriday throughout the month. Backread on all the action by following the #FilipinoBookFriday on Twitter.  https://twitter.com/hashtag/FilipinoBookFriday?src=hash

December:

Official start of #RomanceClass2017, and because I knew I needed to offset all the writing before the holidays get me lazy, I wrote a lot of words in the past three weeks! LOL.

Season 2 of FBF featured 2 guests and a Christmas Giveaway special just in time for the festivities.

Also, here’s my Kindle library after I discovered how to finally get books again on Amazon:

We still have a few more days before the year officially ends and I’d probably spend it writing the rest of my ‘Still Untitled’ RC2017 WIP and maybe finish my current book, but I am happy with how things turned-out for my passion this year. I am looking forward to an even more awesome 2017 ahead!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

P.S.

Here’s a thank you video from the RomanceClass community (aka my YouTube Debut! LOL. I hate my speaking voice so I probably won’t record anymore of myself WAHAHA!!)

Dylan Wilson- Emilia Clarke

Brooklyn Hashi- Blake Lively

Melony Cadder- Katharine Mcphee

Harley Jacobs - Jesy Nelson

Annabelle Webber- Kendall Jenner

Wynter Rhodes- Maggie Grace

Logan Gagery- Shia LaBeouf 

Delilah White- Rachel Bilson

Oliver Grays- Josh Duhamel

Jared Parke- Alexander Skarsgard

Luke Cadder- Pete Wentz

Josh Webber- Justin Timberlake

Justin Prange- Jeremy Jordan

Noelle Fields- Miranda Kerr

Kathrine Leigh- Minka Kelly

Cami Rhodes- Emmy Rossum

Alfie Kennings- Lee Space

Parker Haynes- Benedict Cumberbatch

Grace ...- Zooey Deschanel

Lisa King- Anne Hathaway

Tyler Marx- Leonardo DiCaprio

Jess- Kate Winslet

Avery Moore- Lucy Hale

Krista Blacl- Mila Kunis

Adrian Cassidy-  Ben Barnes

Lauren Kingston- Nikki Reed