Category: reading

  • Savior of the Damned is Available for Preorder!

    It’s been a trial to get here, but I’m over the moon I finally made it. Two years of writing, revisions, editing, and beta reading have all paid off. It was not my first book ever written, but it was the first one I managed to get into publishing shape. I learned so much along…

  • Happy Bi Visibility Day!

    Happy bisexual visibility day! Part of my journey as a writer has been figuring out where my sexuality fits into the grand scheme of things. I don’t mean who I date or anything like that, but how honest did I want to be? Did I want to sit on it, considering the current climate of…

  • Diverse Narratives

    I am Filipino. I am a part of the Filipino-American diaspora, and more importantly, I’m proud to be a part of it. Biologically I’m mixed race (Filipino/white) but I identify as Filipino because blood quantum is a tool of colonialism. Blood quantum says nothing about the people I was raised around, the culture I am…

  • Switching Gears

    Sometimes it’s not that you burned out on writing. Sometimes it’s that you burned out on writing a specific project. I know I’ve been there before, and I’m there right now. I powered through most of three novels, a novella, and outlines for five more novellas, and I suspect that it’s time to switch gears.  …

  • Character Names

    I think naming characters is one of my weakest points. It’s agonizing, isn’t it? Picking the right one? Pouring over baby name websites and trying to find that perfect name that fits better than literally anything else? Or using name generator sites to find that perfect moniker. Does it ever get any easier? It doesn’t…

  • Learning to Outline

    The bulk of “The Guardians of Gaia” (the series that “Savior of the Damned” kicks off) has been written or outlined, and so I’m taking a break. It still has a ton of work that needs doing, but mostly it’s all there and I’m happy with the results. It’s been making me think of outlines, however,…

  • Savior of the Damned announcement

    Starting November 4th and every Friday after, I’m releasing a new chapter of my upcoming novel, Savior of the Damned! In case you missed the last announcement, I’ve edited the book and sent it to a few beta readers, but I can’t afford to pay an editor to give it the TLC it deserves. So,…

  • Writing Process

    The only way I can get anything done is to break it into as small pieces as I possibly can. Thinking about all that goes into novel writing is overwhelming, even as I round up on finishing the first draft of my current novel. It’s so easy to get paralyzed when I consider everything, I…

  • Tropes Versus Clichés

    A lot of people have heard of tropes, and think they’re like cliches, but that’s not quite the same thing. Tropes can be clichés but only when they don’t vary at all. But let’s start with the definition of a cliché versus a trope.   A cliché is defined as a trite, stereotyped expression by dictionary.com.…