Mina V. Esguerra's Blog, page 21

Short thing: Boracay Guy and Manila Girl (Words and Water)

Wrote this in February 2017 for April at The Reading Belles. Part of something that isn’t really anything just yet.

Do I even want to do this…?

It took me seven days out of ten to make my way to this place, just a hundred or so steps away from where I was staying in Boracay. Or so, if you count the turn from the beach into the narrow alley, and crossing the street. The establishments and resorts on this side weren’t strictly “beach front” anymore so they had to come up with other ways to lure the guests over.

Diving Lessons. Pool Training.

Seven days out of ten to end up there and I still spent twenty minutes looking at the sign.

It’s now or never. I only had eight vacation days to use and wrapped it around a weekend so I could stay ten days there. Another trip like this was not happening soon, or ever.

The seven days had been good to me so far. February was not the obvious time to go to the beach, but that meant less people, clear water, and a surprising variety of sky. I got to spend a sunny day, a rainy day, a cloudy day, a windy day at the beach. Like all the seasons, as if I were a local.

If not for that then the days would have felt the same. Because I drank fruit shake, attempted to make sand castles, ate fish, sat on the sand. Every day.

What I said I would do, when I first booked the flight, was this, and I was going to try, maybe, finally.

The gate holding up the sign opened outward all of a sudden, and I jumped out of its way.

“Are you the nine o’clock?” a woman asked me, as she pushed her arms into a wet suit. I was not the nine o’clock, but the gate was open and I was there, past the point of gracefully running away.

“I’m not…exactly…” I was stammering as I stepped inside, into a receiving area that was really just the space surrounding a rectangle of a swimming pool. “I wanted to inquire…no I’m not your nine o’clock.”

“Oh.” She looked like she was in her thirties and had absolutely no time for me. “In that case, you’ll need to talk to someone else inside, because I need to go find somebody.”

Isn’t everyone? Looking for somebody. I almost said that, because my humor was not very good, but kept wanting to say things. Good thing I was silenced by this being very awkward.

Maybe I was hoping it would be too early in the morning and there would be no one here to entertain me, and I could go back and say that I at least tried. Instead I find the resort and diving school somewhat busy. I could hear people, noises, signs of life.

The pool was quiet, empty, the water clear and still.

The sun moved on the water and I blinked.

“You need help with something?”

Oh, god. This guy who spoke up. Tall, hair like an untamed nest of fire. Hard body. No shirt, and suddenly in front of me.

“Do you work here?” I squeaked.

“They think I do.”

I squinted. “Well…do you?”

“Yes.” He was amused, and my pool of embarrassment grew and I sank in deeper. So smug, so tan, possibly so annoyed that he was having to entertain the clueless customer. “Now, at least. If you’re interested in learning now. Is this your first time to dive?”

“I’ve never done it before.”

“Where are you from?”

“Manila.”

“Ah. Of course.”

I wondered where he was from. I’d traveled to other provinces before, encountered the different reactions to Manila, from admiration to ambivalence to disdain. I tried to place where he was in that spectrum; the look he gave me made me feel small, amateurish, but those were true anyway.

“Oh, no, I’m not here to learn to dive.”

“You’re not?” This caught him by surprise. “Why are you here then, Manila girl?”

“Basics,” I answered, trying to say it with conviction. “I want to learn to swim.”

“You’re in Boracay. Surrounded by water. You don’t know how to swim?”

I laughed; it was weak. “Best place to learn?”

On day seven out of ten, I went to this place to ask if they could teach me to swim.

At twenty-five years old, I was and had become a number of things already. Now I was a wannabe traveler, beach lover. I should have learned this, way before now.  

“If you don’t offer basic swimming lessons, I’ll look somewhere else,” I said.

But I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I didn’t give much thought to what my instructor would look like—it shouldn’t have mattered—but now that I’d seen this guy I…

It mattered.

He thought it over. It felt like a long time.

“This is what you want to do?” he said, finally. “Today.”

God, what was the problem? Did they not offer it? And what was I doing, suddenly insisting? The time to walk away would be the zillionth time I was asked if this was what I wanted to do. But hearing my own question to myself from another person’s mouth changed its tone and flavor, cut it off from me entirely. It wasn’t my doubt anymore—it was someone else doubting me, and that brought up familiar bile.

“Why, everyone knows how to swim now? It’s beneath you to teach someone who comes up here ready to pay to learn?”

“I was going to say, before you interrupted me. It’s Valentine’s Day.”

My cheeks burned, not from the rising sun. “So what?”

“There’s a lot happening on the beach today. More fun things than committing to a class that lasts several hours.”

“I don’t care.” I was single. The Day of Hearts meant something else to me entirely. “Unless you have other plans.”

Maybe I shouldn’t fight with my potential instructor.

But he seemed okay with it. “Fine. We start today.”

“Awesome.” I was relieved one second, and scared/excited the next.

“What’s your name, Manila girl?”

“Ivy. What’s your name, Boracay guy?”

 He didn’t expect that and it seemed forward, for sure. But he took it in stride, and actually smiled. “Diego.”

#romanceclass releases in 2018

I released one new contemporary romance book this year. I had originally typed that sentence to include “only” but that makes it seem like a disappointment. One new book a year, or every few years, is fine–it really is! I’m happy to be part of a community that writes books in much the same vein as mine, and that means I can recommend them when I don’t have new stuff to promote, haha.

In case you’re not familiar yet with #romanceclass: this is the community I’m part of, that started from the class I did in 2013. We’re still writing books, and we’ve also strengthened the creative and editorial and publishing aspects of it, so while most of the books are indie, I’m hoping that every year the releases are better in all the ways books have to be better. Because of the collective knowledge and willingness to experiment! These are the #romanceclass books released in 2018.

New romanceclass project: Still our words, new medium #RCU

We did the poster reveals on Patreon, and today on Instagram and Twitter, so now I can talk about it: We produced a thing. Three things. Specifically, short video adaptations of scenes from #romanceclass books by me, Jay E. Tria, and Six de los Reyes. 

What Kind of Day on Amazon: bit.ly/six32central1

As I’ve documented fairly thoroughly here on this site, #romanceclass has been staging live readings of scenes from our books for three years now. What’s next? We’ve been playing with that idea of what’s next. Video has always been part of that, and now we’ve finally produced something. This first “season” takes familiar scenes from the books (scenes you might have seen performed live!), and Tara Frejas has adapted and directed each for the new medium, in different styles. 

Songs to Get Over You on Amazon

We’ll be releasing trailers and more details soon. What we’ve decided on so far: Patrons (via patreon.com/romanceclass) will get the news and see any produced media first. We’ll have a viewing party. We’ll make the videos available to stream. We’re already thinking of the next season and how to finance it. Get in touch with me/us if this is something you want to help us out with. This doesn’t mean this is the only kind of film or video work we’ll do–this is just one of the things we’re doing. Create the stuff you want to see, and all that.

Beginner’s Guide on Amazon

This wouldn’t have been possible without the help of people who say yes to things (even if it’s after midnight haha). Gio Gahol and Gab Pangilinan are absolutely awesome. We also have editing and photography by Chi Yu Rodriguez, sound engineering by Tania Arpa, art by Carla de Guzman.

You can follow us on Instagram @romanceclassbooks, visit romanceclassbooks.com, or go back to minavesguerra.com to get the next update. Let us know what else you’d like to see in future seasons!

New-to-me authors read in 2018

Ah, the TBR. We all have our huge to-be-read piles. I’ve always felt that anyone giving my books a chance has done so because they’re kind enough to pull a new-to-them author’s book out of their pile, and now I’m very aware of doing the same, when deciding my next read. Many of them on this list are not new authors, and come highly recommended by friends, so the qualifier is “new to me.” Warning: this strategy opens up worlds of beauty; it does not reduce the number of books to be read.

Here are my new-to-me authors in 2018: (Full books/novellas only, and those I did not help publish. Does not include new-to-me authors in anthologies, short stories online, fanfic, zines, comics anthologies. I have not been documenting those as precisely, ugh.)

Mia Hopkins

Sarah Wendell

Talia Hibbert

Charlotte Stein

Jackie Lau

Jasmine Guillory

Elizabeth Acevedo

Kate Clayborn

Hulyen

Cecil Wilde

Sandhya Menon

Katrina Jackson

Helen Hoang

C.B. Lee

Aisha Malik

Nyrae Dawn

Cat Sebastian

Angel C. Aquino

Nicola Davidson

Sherry Thomas

Ruby Lang

Elise Estrella

Lara Madrid

Chace Verity

Tiffany Reisz

Ibi Zoboi

Naima Simone

Therese Beharrie

Reese Ryan

Zoey Castile

Draft excerpt: Thirst Date (short story)

This is an excerpt from the draft of a short story I wrote, that’ll be part of an anthology with some lovely #romanceclass authors. More details soon! Since this is from the draft, some details may change in the final. But…new thing!

Frances and Sebastian are friends and coworkers. They’ve also started, er, conveniently dating each other. For convenience. 

Thirst Date by Mina V. Esguerra (excerpt, draft)

This was not their first fake date. This was, in fact, fake date number three, but it was the second one that Frances initiated. Fake date number one was Sebastian’s doing. Not exactly an idea she would have come up with herself, but it was such a success. And brilliant really.

She wouldn’t and didn’t come up with that herself because when she first met Sebastian, he was someone else’s boyfriend. So back in college, he was just the guy one batch lower in social development management, and someone else’s boyfriend. On his senior year he interned at the agency she worked for, and was still with that same girlfriend. When he graduated and started working for that same agency, they became coworkers…and he had a different girlfriend. The hell! He must have liked being a boyfriend. Sebastian was in two rather long and serious relationships in four years. The guy was an annoyingly handsome serial relationship person, and that was a difficult person to love.

But to have a long-running, life-sustaining, playful but Never Gonna Happen distant crush on? He was perfect. Every single day he came in to work looking so good. Walking past her desk in crisp button-down shirts, sometimes that and a blazer, sometimes that shirt with a collar that looked like it would feel good against her fingers. Sharing an elevator with her in the morning, smelling like soap. She recognized his steps, the way his work shoes on the tile signaled his approach, because he had some non-work nonsense to talk about. Sebastian was a let’s-touch-base, let’s-talk-shop, people person, and Frances had long since told him to keep work correspondence to email or the office messaging app. He couldn’t help himself, and still dropped by daily with nonsense.

Which wasn’t so bad. He looked nice, smelled nice, and talked to her like she was genuinely a part of his day. That was the only thing he had to do really, and he didn’t even know that he was doing it so well. That he was good at his job, that he respected her position and input, that he was also a believer in the practice of the long walk to the other building’s cheaper cafeteria on the week before payday…that was all cool, too, sure. Made it easier.

Frances drank this in. All of it. From her comfortable distance, like across the room. The thirst was real, but didn’t need to be acted on. Sometimes she would breathe deep, in his presence, and that would be enough. Little doses of admitting that Sebastian was her hottest real-life friend, that flare of lust that kicked in when he was close, when he gave her a hug, when he remembered to order turon for her–all of that was fun. The desire wasn’t too much.

Well it was a lot, but not enough to be totally dangerous, you know? Frances could still see him as someone more than a sex object. He was someone’s boyfriend. He was her coworker. He was Sebastian Saldua and he was never going to like her or want her, otherwise he would have said something. Frances accepted this without bitterness. She liked her looks, liked herself, thought she was an interesting person. Sometimes it was a numbers game, and the odds were not so good. Sometimes the most attractive guy within one square kilometer of you preferred someone else instead. Can’t be lucky all of the time.

She had to respect that.

Fake date number one happened three months ago, on this the eighth year of their friendship. Sebastian had needed a date to the Halloween birthday party of a common friend from college.

“Why me?”

“Because it’s tonight and I don’t have time to meet someone to take.”

“But…”

Frances had assumed that he was with someone, or maybe he was about to be because surely he was dating people. Maybe she was wrong? When he told her on one of their next-building-cafeteria lunches that he and the most recent girlfriend had broken up, she told him that the only advice she would give him was stay freaking single for as long as he could.

“Really?” he had asked, maybe a little surprised. “What’s wrong with taking a relationship seriously?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she had answered. “All I’m saying is, take a freaking break. Do you even remember what life is like when you’re not in a relationship? Enjoy it. Figure out what your weekends look like. Spend money on yourself. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“And this is what you’ve been doing?”

“Yes, Sebastian. It’s a little difficult to do because everyone is judgey about it, but I have been on a single streak for maybe three years now and it’s awesome–”

“What’s a single streak?”

“Oh that. I guess that means no one got past three dates with me in three years. So far. But if I want to go out with people, I do.”

“Frances. This sounds…”

“Don’t judge. It’s fun. It’s fun! Let yourself have a single streak, and enjoy it. Find out what you’re like when you’re traveling alone, eating out alone. What movies would you watch by yourself?”

“Disney,” he had said without missing a beat. “No one ever wants to watch animated movies with me.”

“There you go. Discover all these things you want to do by yourself, Sebastian. Then maybe when you meet someone you want to spend more time with, it’ll mean so much more. Because you know yourself more.”

He had seemed to buy into that, which was cool. But at the same time he stopped mentioning dating and girlfriends, so she just assumed he was getting his somewhere. Apparently no one close enough to ask to a sudden date for that evening? Frances didn’t know what to think about that, but a night out with Sebastian was always a good idea. It was a costume party; they wore plastic crowns from the toy store and told everyone they were dressed as Prom King and Prom Queen. She stayed away from any alcohol that night because she needed to be extra sober–prolonged exposure to her thirst trap meant she needed strength and all her faculties. They held hands.

Being around Sebastian made her feel…extra. The little things he did to convey in body language that they were together–the hand-holding, the look in his eye, all that constant whispering in her ear–they were extra too. She felt giddy all the way to her toes.

— end of excerpt —

Out soon! Soonish. We all hope. Hugs!

Writing while grieving

This year, I lost my mom. I’ve avoided posting on the topic anywhere on social media as much as I could, though I did a tweet and an Instagram post eventually. I have a personal Facebook that I’ve all but left, and in the aftermath have visited it less. It’s not that there are no words; there are many words, too many, but I really will stop mid-draft, delete whatever I had, and do something else.

I don’t think she read my books. She read the first one, and pretty much said I should ease up on the sex because I was “an example to younger relatives.” Obviously I didn’t do that at all but my focus on sex positivity and attempt to normalize a female main character being responsible about her decisions is all the versions of the sex talk we never had. (Sorry, but I’ll keep at it, it’s important.) She was always proud of me anyway, and would intermittently ask for help with her own writing. She wrote for a magazine, and apparently wrote about the family a lot. I find that hilarious because here I am keeping as much of my personal life away from my author media, and there she was telling stories from my childhood that other people have read. Yikes haha.

Anyway, it is entirely possible that after the first book of mine, she just didn’t read the rest. Which meant she would not have read about Nicholas the rugby player whose mom had cancer, or Damon whose mom had chosen a life in another country. Or Ben, whose mom’s death from illness had been the fuel for a speech that got him his job. No she wouldn’t have read about Ben at all, because his book was released a month after she had passed.

What I keep trying to say, but end up deleting everything before posting, is that I have been writing to process this for years. It’s not something I want to dwell on, or specifically live in on a daily basis as stories often do in my head, but it seeps through, and sometimes it should. 2018 was a difficult year, as many of my author friends have said, and they have their own reasons. We’re all trying to make sense of this. For a stretch there I was worried that I would never be in the right frame of mind to write the things I used to, but eventually I got past it. Not that it’s been “fixed” and we can all go back to work now. We work with it, I guess. Or through it.

Okay, I’ve said it.

More on: Support your communities. Support ours too.

#FeelsFest2018 on Instagram

I was interviewed by M. Paramita Lin for The Unpublishables. Really appreciated the questions! Wanted to highlight this particular one, and maybe talk about it some more.

You’ve done a lot of workshops and mentored quite a few romance writers. Can you tell us what the biggest misconception or mistake aspiring romance writers have and what they can do to address it?

That writing romance is easy. The classes I did to start the community were free, so we had a lot of writers coming in with this mindset. The classes are still free, but now I require anyone joining to read at least five books (one of mine, and four from other Filipino authors of romance) before the class starts, especially if they’ve never read romance in English by Filipino authors before. And then I talk to them about the books they read. Sometimes this conversation reveals that they don’t like the genre all that much, but it’s got a large readership and the class is free and maybe they’ll do this first before writing the book they really want to write. And I…tell them this is not how it works. The community can’t help them become successful at this if they don’t understand it, and may in fact dislike it. They really should just write what they want to write, and let us spend time and resources on people who are on the same page, have the same goals.

The first time I tried answering this question, I went a little long, haha. So this answer is an edited, nutshell version, but I wanted to add something that maybe needed its own blog post.

I know what I know because of the romance genre and its community. If I try something and it works, it will be because of the romance genre and its community–how I’ve understood what readers need, and the trust that led them to give me a chance.

I’ve done a lot of speaking, and panel appearances, and workshops in the past nine years. In many rooms out there it’s an endless discussion of why doesn’t something work, why isn’t it being read, why doesn’t it sell. I’ve attended meetings and helped mentor, suggested methods of access and distribution that worked for me and my genre, to boost readership for others. When it works, wonderful. If it works, it’s because of lessons learned from creators and audiences of romance, of teen fiction, of online fiction, of fanfic, of indie publishing. I’m a creator and audience in all of those, and they often don’t get credit for the creative, editorial, and publishing innovations they introduce. We’ll be a stepping stone, a thing someone studied with curiosity before taking what they needed.

If you’re here on my blog because you want publishing “success” advice but don’t write romance, here’s what I know can work: Focus on your book’s community. Think about the readers. Make things easy to access (whether it’s to buy or borrow or read free), and think about unexpected audiences.

If you need me, my community, my genre, our publishing methods specifically, then support us too. Support us first. Read our books, buy our books, go to our events, refer opportunities to us if you feel we have more experience or know the answers. If anything we’re doing works, it’s because of the time and effort it takes to do all of this, and the nerve it requires to take a risk and evaluate the results. We can’t teach that in an email, or even a workshop. Support the communities doing the work that you aspire to do, reaching audiences you also aim for. That’s everyone, not just us.

Thank you, readers (thank you thank you)

I’ve been keeping track of mentions of #romanceclass books on publications and lists, and 2018 has been a great year for that. So grateful for readers who recommend our books and include us in lists. Here’s a thread I made on Twitter of all the rec lists I saw (click on tweet to follow the thread):

As year-end lists come up, I’ll be re-sharing some lists from earlier in the year that have mentioned #romanceclass books. Thank you for keeping books by Filipino authors in mind, when you list things, any time of year.

— Mina V. Esguerra (@minavesguerra) October 31, 2018

Readers are doing that. We’ve gotten as far as we have as a community in five years because of readers who care. (We in the community who write are readers who care; we should be.)

@ me on Twitter or comment here if there’s a rec list that I missed! Thank you.

The work we did, 2018

Remember when I’d post recaps of the work I did that year, as an author or a workshop facilitator? That’s evolved, and maybe in the right way. I’ve gone from releasing three books a year to one book a year, two years now. I feel like I spend the same amount of time writing, but I also spend time on new editions.

A chunk of time? #romanceclass community work. Yes, I’ll call it “work” because it’s time and effort that has value, and after three years of putting our books out there and organizing events, we’re starting to see exactly what this is worth. (Spoiler: A lot!)

Here’s a summary of 2018. Most of it is announced or documented here on the blog, go backread when you have the time. Thank you for an amazing year for #romanceclass!

#romanceclass 2018 activities

#romanceclass lecture: November 17, 2018 (Marketing and Querying)

#romanceclass lecture on November 17, 2018

Saturday, 1 PM to 5 PM

Ortigas Foundation Library, Ortigas Ave.

Fee: P1000 (there are a few slots left as of posting)

Please email minavesguerra@gmail.com to get the payment options.

Session 1: Find Your Reader Match: Marketing for Romance Authors

Your novel is out in the wild, go you! Now how where are your readers? Marketing your book is a necessary part of an author’s life and it can be a bit overwhelming – but it can be fun, if you know where to start. This workshop is all about setting the right marketing goal for you so you can use the available channels strategically and let you find and connect with your readers while staying authentic to your author self. This class will also include a brief overview of European Union’s Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and what it means for authors.

Speaker: Ana Tejano

Ana Tejano has been in love with words and writing ever since she met Elizabeth Wakefield when she was in Grade 3. She’s been blogging for years and has contributed several non-fiction pieces in print and online publications using her other name, which isn’t really a secret identity. When she’s not writing romance, she works as a marketing communications manager for a payroll and HR company, extending the marketing things she learns at work back to her author life. She’s an active member of CFC Singles for Christ, lives in Metro Manila with several dogs and cats, and is always trying to catch up on sleep.

Session 2: Welcome to Querying!

This talk is an introduction to querying literary agents. It includes the dos and don’ts of querying, a query letter writing exercise, and query letter critique from the speaker.

Speaker: Tarie Sabido (via video)

Tarie Sabido is the Chair of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY), a nonprofit organization committed to the development and promotion of children’s and YA books in the Philippines. She is also interning at two New York City-based literary agencies and on the editorial reading team for Foreshadow, a serial YA anthology created by New York Times bestselling authors Emily X. R. Pan and Nova Ren Suma.

The main audience for the lecture are romanceclass authors and authors writing books in the same genre/categories (contemporary romance and young adult in English).