An aspiring author from the Philippines

I was in high school when I discovered that I might have a passion in writing, although I have been writing since my elementary years. I did not enjoy writing back then. Though the training in writing competitions definitely helped me to build and hone this prowess, I felt that writing is an exhaustive activity with the goal to win. I frequently joined essay writing contests since I was in third grade. It took me years to understand that you can write for the pleasure of writing, with no other goal but to write.

I started with fan fictions of my all-time favourite boy group EXO. With them as my characters, I explored plot, themes, character development, and world building. I was active in Wattpad back then and had earned a number of readers. I upped my writing game by joining fiction festivals where I get to choose a prompt submitted by other people. I worked with moderators, beta readers, and deadlines. The shortest time, in which I had written so far, was in four months with 56K words. The year 2017 was when I was the most active, with three stories written for different fan fiction festivals. Basing on my statistics on the platform I am using, I had around 101k words written.

How I wish I could write that much again. 2018 and 2019 are years of big transitions in my life. My family and I moved to California for good. I struggled so much with writing the things I always want to write as I was, and still am, overwhelmed by a new environment full of different people. Time here is gold – in a way that if you waste time, you are practically losing money. The cost of living here is no joke. But I admit that I may be making excuses if I say that working took my time from writing.

I came here with high hopes that I have better opportunities to be published. With my favourite publishing companies being based here, I was like, better chances of being represented by a literary agents and better chances of making it to the industry. I tired to make the most of those transitional years. In my mind, I told myself, I may not be writing – sitting down with my word document open or with pen and paper – but I can collect stories and ideas from people and my own experiences that I soon will write. So far, I have been concretizing the plot and the world I want to build – most of them are still in my head. I have to confess something, however, just between you and me:

I am stuck with choosing what names are good for my characters. I have three weird names and I don’t feel like writing more unless I find the perfect names to give them. Send help.

Anyway, Fantasy and Dystopian are few of the joys in my heart. I’ve been reading books with those genres since High School. An avid fan of Harry Potter, Red Queen, Mortal Instruments, Divergent, Six of Crows, and many more. They are some of the books that shaped me both as a reader and a writer. They influenced me so much in terms of characters and world. I always thought my dreams are so big for me to achieve – the world I want to build in my book is too big and wide and far from my ability. But these books told me that they are possible – with hard work and perseverance. Of course, and, God’s blessings. I am excited for this season of writing.

This is the third that I have written for this year. I hope to have more – either in essays or verses or random scribbles. I’m dumping all of them here.

Thank you so much for dropping by!

With love,

Mienne