Author: elizavictoria

writing updates

  • Tin Lao shared a link to a quick Goodreads review of PSF VI. The reviewer writes: “The stand-out for me is Eliza Victoria’s ‘The Storyteller’s Curse'” – thanks so much!
  • UPDATE: Just received the cutest email from the Stone Telling editors Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan: “You win a prize for one of the shortest consideration periods in the history of Stone Telling. We’re very happy to accept ‘Prayer’ for publication in the fifth issue. It’s wonderful.” This is wonderful!
  • Basement Stories has released the TOC for their fourth issue, which will be available on August 30:

Fiction:

“TimeSnip” by Cat Rambo

“Sugarplum Karma” by Stephen Blount

“A Void Wrapped in a Smile” by Tim Pratt

Poetry:

“Dawn” by WC Roberts

“Remorse and the Pariah” by Michael DeLuca

“Birthing Monsters” by Siobhan Carroll

“Dreams After the Storm” by Eliza Victoria
Nonfiction:

“And All My Idols Are Angels, with the Faces of Cranky Old Men” by George Potter

Continue reading writing updates

pictures from home

Saturday to Tuesday in Bulacan. Ah, what bliss. I missed staying home. Stay home and just read a book or watch a movie and wait for my mother to call up the stairs: “What would you like to have for dinner?” I feel like a child again! One who can ask someone else to do her laundry!

For lack of anything better to do (or for being lazy to do anything better):

  • I re-read The Devil Wears Prada, and almost finished re-watching Project Runway Season 5. Omigod, too much fashion, my teeth are hurting.
  • Realized that: Smart Bro prepaid runs fast in Makati but can be infuriating in Bulacan, so I just use my brother’s Globe Tattoo postpaid.
  • I was finally able to watch Rango. I should have seen that film on the big screen! The animation is remarkable. And it’s hilarious, watch it!

  • I finished The Name of the Wind (and started reading The Wise Man’s Fear, the Kingkiller trilogy’s second book). Starts slow but around four chapters in (when the protagonist Kvothe begins talking to the Chronicler about his life and the University) it grips you and never lets go. I love the lore and the world and how magic is presented in scientific terms. It is Harry Potter-ish in the sense that there is a school, there is magic, there is the jerkwad teacher and the archnemesis and the two friends and the orphaned protagonist who is brilliant but helplessly idiotic at times, but unlike Harry, Kvothe is proactive, and unlike the Potter series, Name of the Wind begins with Kvothe a fully grown man. You don’t grow up with him. You sit down for drinks with him and he just tells you his story. (Thanks Jaykie for another brilliant recommendation.)

  • I may have added a page or two to the new story. Siiiiigh. I write so goddamn slow now. In the olden days I used to be able to sit for eight straight hours just writing, typing, typing, typing away like crazy.
  • Bought my father a new phone as his birthday gift. It’s one of the cheaper phones, he has no use for the touchscreen ones.

  • Saw the Nokia X7 and experienced sudden phone lust. I want it. I. Want. It.

  • But it retails at 18K! BUT IT HAS AN 8-MEGAPIXEL CAMERA! BUT I’M POOR!
  • GODDAMN IT!

This is Ming-Ming (Dynasty), the noisiest cat we’ve ever had.

She likes big bellies.

Famous Fathers with Cats, # 1:

We were watching Rango here, and my brother just knew I was taking a picture.

My brother, who has no choice but to be with me till Tuesday, suggested I download an ebook reader into my phone, and added Office Suite. So now I can read books (and write books ha!) on my teeny-tiny phone! I WANT AN X7! SHUT THE HELL UP!

Remember our pet chicken?


It gave us an egg! I almost rolled on the floor laughing at my father because he burst through the front door with it. He was that excited.

And now I’m here with Jaykie as he reviews for That Big Exam tomorrow. Prayers? Good vibes? Hope you are all safe and warm, wherever you are.

everybody’s fine

Frank Goode, a widower and a retiree, is having his children for dinner. He cleans the house and goes to the store to buy good steak and some bottles of expensive wine. He is excited. He tells everyone the family is having a reunion. That night, however, his children (who are no longer children and are very busy with their lives and careers) call to say that they will have to cancel. Frank is disappointed, but he comes up with a plan: if the children can’t come to him, he’ll come to his children. He packs clothes, a camera, and his lung medication, and goes on a road trip.

This film just got to me. I’ve seen it thrice. The first time, I saw a small part of it on Star Movies, that scene where Frank is on a train and a woman named Alice says he is lucky to have avoided the storm. Frank says, “I am always lucky”, with a smile so content it just breaks your heart.

Robert De Niro is amazing here. Amazing. I’m used to seeing him play tough characters – the (ex) CIA agent, the mob boss, the powerful businessman that you just don’t cross – but he embodies Frank Goode perfectly. Frank, who is no CIA, mob boss, or businessman, who is sad and weary and clueless of his grown children’s lives but proud enough to show their pictures to strangers, who is like most fathers.

 

catching up with friends

Wednesday, met up with my high school friends in Sis restaurant in Dampa before moving to Starbucks in MOA for coffee, ice cream, and stories. In Dampa, you can buy fresh seafood from the wet market and have it cooked in any of the restaurants for a fee. My friends just decided to order in Sis hehe. No pictures because we were so hungry, but I assure you the food was great and affordable.

Photo source.
sugar overload in MOA
macadamia nut from Sasa
The closest name misspelling I've ever experienced was "Elisa". Oh, but then there's also the famous, "Elizabeth Toria".

A friend has moved to a new job in May, another will make the move next week, while two are contemplating working abroad (in Canada, in Singapore). Career changes! Life choices! Upheavals! I wish them all the best.

Thursday, Research sendoff in Chili’s Greenbelt 5. They handed me a copy of the Pretty Little Liars-inspired video. I’ll recap the shit out of that soon HAHA. (Or not, for the sake of my readers’ sanity.)

Camwhoring at Jaykie’s before leaving!

beeeeeeeeeeef
medium rare

Next: Weekend recharging with my parents. BRB.

on the last harry potter film, gifts, and goodbyes

Jaykie and I went to Greenbelt last night for the last full show of Deathly Hallows.

I couldn’t resist the new Mary Grace restaurant!

(Sorry for the low-res, cell phone shots.)

Beautiful, beautiful interior. I want a house filled with pretty trinkets.

Jaykie and his new iPhone.

Dinner!

Spicy lemon scampi and apple cinnamon honey iced tea

Now full, we’re ready for the movie.

The bulk of the story is in the first part, so this is mostly all action sequences. This is the shortest film in the franchise (a little more than two hours), with the least convoluted storyline. It’s a quest. Voldemort, the evil wizard, cut up his soul sevenways, and Harry and Co. has to find the objects containing pieces of his soul (the Horcruxes) and destroy them, so Voldemort himself can be destroyed. I believe this particular installment actually improved on its source material. Rowling’s narrative style makes it impossible for me to picture the fight scenes, and because of this, the character deaths felt gratuitous. In the film version, the deaths are more effective, more moving (a couple who can’t quite reach other during the fighting end up side by side on the floor filled with the bodies of the dead, their hands still not touching) and of course the visual medium is perfect for the chase scenes and wand wars. It’s also nostalgic. I missed seeing Gringotts and the Chamber of Secrets, and I was glad to see them in this movie. The special effects have improved – the detail on the goblins’ faces looked crisp and real onscreen – and the scenes are beautifully shot. It’s a fitting end to a decade of adaptations.

*

Last day at the office. Got lovely messages on Facebook and through text (hi Ate Julie!) and got this card today from Ate Abi. :)

rose quartz and amethyst - para swerte raw sa love life at career!

This is not a going-away gift because he’s not an office mate, haha, but thanks so much for this Charles:

(giddy)

My Research kapatids shot a video inspired by Pretty Little Liars –

but that we’ll keep to ourselves.

*

That’s (almost) four years of laughter and more nervous, stress-driven laughter. I will miss these guys.

Before I worked in advertising, I was a journalist. Newspapers have a lot of pages to fill, and I found that 95 percent of what I wrote ended up in the paper.

But in our business, it’s the opposite – 99 percent or even 99.5 percent of what you write ends up in the bin.

If there’s one thing that characterizes a creative’s daily experience, it’s rejection.

– Simon Veksner, How To Make It As An Advertising Creative (2010)

*

After nearly four years, I’ve tendered my resignation from the paper, effective July 28. Tomorrow, July 19, is my last day at the office. After that, I’ll use my remaining leaves to meet with friends, spend time with my family, fill up forms, take care of requirements, and bum around before I start working again. August I start work as a copywriter at this advertising firm.

Why the shift? I knew, even before I graduated, that I didn’t want to become a beat reporter. I admire the men and women who do this every day. It’s fucking hard. I love interviewing people and writing news and feature stories, but I don’t have the stamina and the drive (above all, the drive) needed to make it as a reporter. (I think the huge uncertainty in my choice of profession, among other uncertainties, resulted in that series of poems – “Reportage” – that eventually won me an award haha.) As a Journalism major, I found this realization embarrassing, and it took me a while to admit this to myself. But when I finally did, I was relieved.

When the paper’s Research department announced an opening in 2007, I grabbed the opportunity, because it meant working in print media (and the country’s best daily broadsheet! I said it!) without the daily mental pain of doing something I don’t want to do (i.e. beat reporting).

I became complacent. Then I started thinking of career mobility. Where will I be five years from now, in this company? I saw myself in the same job, the same position, the same daily drill. I became restless. I found myself looking at job postings and asking friends for leads to other jobs, and that’s never a good sign.

I’ve been restless for almost a year. I think it’s just time to make the move.

*

This is either the best decision of my life, or the worst decision of my life. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime –

wish me luck?

  • My mother’s been having health problems. Fatty liver, kidney stones (one with a diameter of one centimeter), and she’s also pre-diabetic. I’m flabbergasted. My mother doesn’t even eat fast food. I said, I eat all sorts of things, and I’m fine. She said, “Bata ka pa.” (You’re still young.) I won’t be, for long. I really need to start eating right. Meanwhile, we can’t bring home any more sweets and salty things. (I brought home ice cream on Friday; my sister brought cake.) I wonder what I can bring home. A salad?
  • I’d appreciate any health-related advice from you guys. :)
  • On a happier note, Jaykie’s family are back from the States! I got tons of pasalubong. Tops, chocolate, a new wallet. Thank you. :)
  • My father found a chicken wandering around on our roof. It laid an egg but it broke. So now we have a pet chicken. Ang rural!
  • Pray for my mother. And for Jaykie, who is set to take an important exam on the 28th.
  • I have yet to see the last Harry Potter movie. My siblings say the epilogue is laughable.
  • I have a story idea. Working on it. Sayeth the Muse, “Write this down, bitch!”