Updates.

Stuff:

• Just (b)reached 14,000-word mark on this thing I'm doing. Length-wise, this already satisfies requirement for fiction class, and it's only January (final portfolio due end of March). Bibo, Glenn, bibo. But it's good to know am doing this for personal reasons. That's good, I think. To have a project outside the (v. minimal) things on plate. Of course, will never go around saying, I am working on a novel, because that just reeks of ambition, something can't say I possess. And sounds pompous, too.
• Why I Write / What I Write About Essay due next week. Think might be easy, as will involve mostly masturbatory shit (can be stream of consciousness mode and will be valid form). Although somehow dreading it too because do not have childhood epiphanies of the Oh my God, I want to be writer! variety. Do remember typing out journal entries in an old school typewriter all the time. Also, hope that token mention of Country will not be contrived.
• Thinking about how stories take shape and direction. Can characters really "run away" and "have minds of their own" in manner of Frankenstein monster? Are they clearly formed already even before they act out the first gesture or utter the first line of dialogue? Or are they, from the beginning, already subsumed under a (subconscious) design in one's head, only taking shape as the story goes along?
• Am wary of gutfeel-gutfeel mode in this manner because it is too easy.
• Will be editing upcoming Kule literary folio. Watch out for call for submissions and submit! Theme will most probably be Occupy-related, as the defining call for this generation.
• First raket of the year coming in way late. I know more are coming because of annual report season. But to be honest, starting to feel guilty about sleeping-in-til-noon-then-coming-down-only-to-eat-lunch itinerary of late. Mother not saying anything about it, but sometimes things unsaid ring louder than, say, "Hoy batugan ka, maghanap ka na ng trabaho!" That said, there will be a job fair at school on February 1st. Will probably check it out. But you know: I most probably will not.
• Will turn 26 in less than a month. Not sure how I feel about this.