Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 55

Love and Friendship is the cattiest film ever based on Jane Austen’s work

It’s hilarious! Lady Susan: The fees at Frederica’s school are too high to even think of paying. So, in a sense, it’s an economy! Later, Lady Susan: She says she must think of her school’s reputation. Reginald de Courcy: Preposterous. I’ve never heard of her school. I think Tita Jane Austen would love it. It’s […]

How to write a novel: Are you a Pantser or a Planner?

I’ve always been a pantser. But for the second and final draft, I’m being a planner. There is a long-standing debate about a critical aspect of the novel-writing process. Currently and colloquially in some annexes of the writing community it’s been playfully termed the “pantsing vs. plotting/outlining/planning” debate. Pantsers fly by the seats of their […]

The Philippine Literary Festival is coming up.

The headliners are Adam Johnson and Paula McLain. Start reading.

Rx: Pop culture therapy for anxiety, ennui, the fear that you’ve wasted your life

Symptoms: Fear and despair over the state of the world Treatment: Stranger Things. It’s supposed to be a horror series—bizarre stuff happens, and some of it is quite scary—but its real hook is nostalgia. Specifically 80s nostalgia: Steven Spielberg of the Close Encounters and E.T. era; Stephen King’s The Body/Stand By Me, It, Firestarter; Goonies; […]

Rogue Male to be filmed with Cumberbatch; who will co-star as Asmodeus the cat?

Geoffrey Household’s wonderful thriller Rogue Male is coming to the screen! The film will star Benedict Cumberbatch, who will also produce. It will be the third adaptation of Rogue Male, after the Fritz Lang version (Boring) and the TV movie starring Peter O’Toole (Somewhat better). The novel is the gripping tale of an unnamed hunter […]

Syria’s Secret Library: Keeping minds fed in a war-torn country

When a place has been besieged for years and hunger stalks the streets, you might have thought people would have little interest in books. But enthusiasts have stocked an underground library in Syria with volumes rescued from bombed buildings – and users dodge shells and bullets to reach it. Down a flight of steep steps, […]

Finished my novel!

Thursday, 28 July 2016, 9:53pm. Then passed out for most of the following day. Freedom! Now to find a publisher. And start the next one. I used the method I teach in workshops and it works for me.

Jason Bourne is fast, intense, impressively-choreographed chaos.

The world has caught up to the Bourne movies, and the latest installment doesn’t deny it, name-checking Snowden at least twice and featuring an Assange-like character and a global network of hackers. After Bourne Legacy, which should’ve been a better movie considering the hellish inconvenience we in Metro Manila had to endure while it was […]

Do you feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? Here is some relief.

It won’t de-assholify the world, but it should temporarily cleanse your optic nerves of the sight of Trump’s hair and other grotesqueries.

The North remembers to send handwritten letters.

because sending ravens doesn’t tell the full story. Dear Jon, The DNA test results are in. You are a Stark. . .on your mother’s side. I am writing this on House stationery so you know I’m not Littlefinger. The information could fill the notebook but the blasted thing has lines and I cannot write on […]