#romanceclass2016

Styling Serendipity

by Racquel Sarah A. Castro

Birthdays are normally celebrated, but that is not the case for 26-year-old fashion designer, Olivia Rose Salvador. She doesn’t like birthdays, much less her own.  She considers October 1st as a jinx, because all through her life, all the important people in her life have left her right smack on that day. As the heir of the international Style Rose fashion brand, she is in charge of preparing for Style Rose’s first appearance in Philippine Fashion Week. During her stay in the Philippines, she meets 31-year old pediatrician, Jake Ocampo, who is literally the “boy next door” as he lives right next door to her temporary condo unit in Bonifacio Global City. They start to get to know each other and everything seems to be going smoothly, as both, who have been burned before in terms of love, start to open up again and start living life to the fullest. But what happens when it seems the jinx is strong and the ghosts of their painful pasts start coming back and making themselves felt?  Will these ghosts threaten their very new and very fragile relationship?   Or will Jake’s love for Olivia break the October 1st curse?

It’s time for JUNE YEAR’S RESOLUTION!!!

No actually, I just have one resolution: to write more. This year’s been awesome in the writer aspect of my life.

In January, I crammed and finished my piece for the Bayong Ng Kuting KidLit workshop. I don’t know where it is now, but I finished that! ;) In February, I soaked myself up with Filipino contemporary romance books. It was a requirement for the #romanceclass2016 workshop I was gonna do the following three months, but honestly, that was just an excuse to hoard books and to speed read things I actually want to speed read. :P

And so, just two days ago, I finished my Romance Class 2016 Draft. It feels good and scary and all sorts of mixed emotions I couldn’t understand. First time, eh! Haha.

But what’s clear to me is that I want to continue this. Writing for other people to actually read. I’ve kept a journal for years and since NOBODY is allowed to lay their eyes on that, it’s not counted. Also writing for contests. Because I discovered a healthy competitive spirit in me I’ve not felt in what seems like a long while. That helped me push myself harder and I hope it’ll keep pushing me when writing becomes rough.

I did it! Well, I did write my first draft and there’s massive editing on the horizon for me, but still...NAKATAPOS AKO! 

Hi Anon!

#romanceclass is a community of Filipino writers and readers who gathered together to do what we love. Quoting from @minavesguerra:

The #romanceclass community of authors is a group that came out of the free class I ran in 2013, meant to encourage Filipino readers of chick lit and contemporary romance to start writing and publishing their own stories. “romanceclass” was the hashtag used to informally discuss things with each other over Twitter, and it stuck. That time, 100 people signed up, and 16 authors completed a contemporary romance novella. They’ve since gone on to write more, publish, get publishing deals…and we continue to support each other on social media and everywhere else.

Learn more about the undertaking here.

There’s actually a #romanceclass2016 (read here for more). The deadline has passed though, but you can stay tuned to this blog or the hashtag on Twitter to find out about other writing classes and activities.