Thursday, 3 April 2014
MOVING to my own place!!
...on the Internet, that is!
Starting today April 3, 2014 you can find me over at my very own domain, katrinaramosatienza.com! That's the screenshot up there -- isn't it smashing?? Go on over there for news, blog posts and my work portfolio. Many thanks to the super awesome Tania Arpa for walking me through the whole scary process (lol) and doing all the work actually! Thanks for the gorgeous site!
Saturday, 8 March 2014
Impulse control
Well hey! I'm still alive, yay!
The reason for my longer than usual hiatus is (well, a bunch of things, really, including something at work that involved learning how to analyze box plots and control charts and using the words stable and capable in a totally non-romcom leading man context) that I joined this thing called Buqo Steamy Reads. The awesome Mina V. Esguerra led the charge on this class. Basically we had five weeks to come up with an adult romance novella. Amazingly, around 23 writers completed first drafts, and today, on the final day of submitting the final final novella versions, there have been around 10 (TEN!) complete books, with covers. Covers! Go check out the hash tag #buqosteamyreads on Twitter to see them all (and join the party too.)
The writing experience has been intense, but also liberating. With a compressed time frame I found ways around my usual, er, writing lethargy, as well as finding how the plot can work with and not against my natural tendencies.
Needless to say it was a lot of fun to write and a total bitch to edit, oh my God.
"Wait, what?" you might be asking yourself. "Is she saying that she finished a novella?" Yes, I did. "So what's it called?" Well...here's the tricky part. For professional and Linkedin/Googleabiliy reasons I decided to use a pen name. And it won't make sense to link the pen name to my real name, yah? (But if you mosey around my Twitter page you'll probably figure out which book is mine.)
But here's the thing. I still want you to read this book. I want you to support Buqo.ph too, because they so generously sponsored this steamy reads experiment (and distributing the novellas exclusively for a year. Get it the app on iOS; soon on Android too.) So let's try something. If you sign up below for my mailing list, I'll tell you all about this ~*mysterious schmexy book*~ including when and where you can get it. And hopefully you can tell your friends too! And I promise not to spam you or anything. Because you can totally rat me out if I do.
How about that? Lezzgow!
The reason for my longer than usual hiatus is (well, a bunch of things, really, including something at work that involved learning how to analyze box plots and control charts and using the words stable and capable in a totally non-romcom leading man context) that I joined this thing called Buqo Steamy Reads. The awesome Mina V. Esguerra led the charge on this class. Basically we had five weeks to come up with an adult romance novella. Amazingly, around 23 writers completed first drafts, and today, on the final day of submitting the final final novella versions, there have been around 10 (TEN!) complete books, with covers. Covers! Go check out the hash tag #buqosteamyreads on Twitter to see them all (and join the party too.)
The writing experience has been intense, but also liberating. With a compressed time frame I found ways around my usual, er, writing lethargy, as well as finding how the plot can work with and not against my natural tendencies.
Needless to say it was a lot of fun to write and a total bitch to edit, oh my God.
"Wait, what?" you might be asking yourself. "Is she saying that she finished a novella?" Yes, I did. "So what's it called?" Well...here's the tricky part. For professional and Linkedin/Googleabiliy reasons I decided to use a pen name. And it won't make sense to link the pen name to my real name, yah? (But if you mosey around my Twitter page you'll probably figure out which book is mine.)
But here's the thing. I still want you to read this book. I want you to support Buqo.ph too, because they so generously sponsored this steamy reads experiment (and distributing the novellas exclusively for a year. Get it the app on iOS; soon on Android too.) So let's try something. If you sign up below for my mailing list, I'll tell you all about this ~*mysterious schmexy book*~ including when and where you can get it. And hopefully you can tell your friends too! And I promise not to spam you or anything. Because you can totally rat me out if I do.
How about that? Lezzgow!
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
Spark I: The Summer I Summoned Luck (and some behind the scenes photos)
Something Mina & I have been cooking up. :) Hope you enjoy it!
***
A little background
As Mina explained in the intro note, my family is from Bacolod -- Cadiz City on the northern part of Negros Occidental, to be exact. As a kid I spent my summers in our ancestral house there, and as it's a super old place with lots of history -- built in the 1930s, it was used as a garrison by the Japanese during the war. No one will tell me what went on there during the Occupation (maybe no one knows), but suffice to say that the townsfolk tried to burn the house down and my great-grandfather had to talk to them to let him move back to his own house after the war.
So yeah, it's creepy; it's near the highway but might as well be isolated for how dark it gets at night; and when Mina told me she loved her Bacolod vacation and wanted to write a story set there, I told her some of the ghost stories I have from the old house. One thing led to another and then we started collaborating on Spark!
Do you want to see the old house?? I bet you do! Click on the link to check out the pics:
***
A little background
As Mina explained in the intro note, my family is from Bacolod -- Cadiz City on the northern part of Negros Occidental, to be exact. As a kid I spent my summers in our ancestral house there, and as it's a super old place with lots of history -- built in the 1930s, it was used as a garrison by the Japanese during the war. No one will tell me what went on there during the Occupation (maybe no one knows), but suffice to say that the townsfolk tried to burn the house down and my great-grandfather had to talk to them to let him move back to his own house after the war.
So yeah, it's creepy; it's near the highway but might as well be isolated for how dark it gets at night; and when Mina told me she loved her Bacolod vacation and wanted to write a story set there, I told her some of the ghost stories I have from the old house. One thing led to another and then we started collaborating on Spark!
Do you want to see the old house?? I bet you do! Click on the link to check out the pics:
Thursday, 2 January 2014
2013, you've been a good year!
And just like that, it's a whole new year! Makes me all giddy and reflective for the year that was. 2013 was awesome for my muse:
- Published my first independent novella, Well Played.
- Overcame (slightly) my fear of public speaking and shared my love of, respectively: writing and Jane Austen at the Eureka Seminar and the Filipino ReaderCon.
- Met other awesome indie writers at the ReaderCon!
- Tried out other ways to get my writing out there: Wattpad, Smashwords, Kobo and SOON to an Apple device near you!
- Participated in my first ever blog book tour!
Well Played also wound up on a couple of best of 2013 lists. J said my little trifle of a novella helped him through some trying times, and Sab said it was one of her faves. I'm soooo touched. :) On days when I re-read what I've written and feel like tearing all the pages out and burning them (which happens quite a bit), thing like these make me smile, too.
What's in store for 2014? Well!
- Another classic-set-in-UPLB novella, this time taking off from Jane Eyre. ("Is this going to be a thing?" asked Mina when she heard the plot. Well, I think after this I'll be stepping away from colleges and classics. I think I've gotten it out of my system ;-))
- Like, WAYYYY away: I'm joining Mina's #SteamyReads!
- A new website! And my very own URL! Working it out as we speak!
- And speaking of stepping away of colleges and classics, I've been wrestling with an idea for a book for some time now, and it's going to be different from anything I've written before. I've written pages of exposition, timelines, character histories, vignettes -- but I've yet to get a handle on the entire thing, and, you know, write the story down. I think I need to take a page from Mina and do some proper plot outlining. But who knows? Maybe 2014's the year this book will finally be written!
Happy New Year everybody!!
Monday, 9 December 2013
2013 Filipino ReaderCon
Last Saturday, December 7, southron, sniffly me braved the northbound commute to attend my first-ever Filipino ReaderCon -- and it was worth the congestion! (Both traffic and sinus-wise ;-))
Worth it for:
- Sharing my Pride & Prejudice feels at the Goodreads Filipino Group discussion. (I finally got to meet TFG's Tina, Alexa, Ranee and Angus too! BTW if you're looking for similarly reading-obsessed friends who are down with fun discussions, do join this group!)
- Meeting fellow indie writers Stella Torres (Save the Cake), Chris Mariano (Cover (Story) Girl) and Anne Plaza (In Over Her Head). Get their books!
- Got to check out independent writers and came away with Crime Fighting Call Center Agents. Laughed really hard over this, and my son enjoyed it too!
- SADLY, I did not bring enough money to splurge on all the good stuff on sale, and I missed Gerry Alanguilan's panel! Spotted him right before the P&P discussion and soooo wanted to get a picture taken with him doing The Smile, but chickened out. (I am super shy ya know...)
Till the next ReaderCon!
Worth it for:
- Sharing my Pride & Prejudice feels at the Goodreads Filipino Group discussion. (I finally got to meet TFG's Tina, Alexa, Ranee and Angus too! BTW if you're looking for similarly reading-obsessed friends who are down with fun discussions, do join this group!)
- Meeting fellow indie writers Stella Torres (Save the Cake), Chris Mariano (Cover (Story) Girl) and Anne Plaza (In Over Her Head). Get their books!
- Got to check out independent writers and came away with Crime Fighting Call Center Agents. Laughed really hard over this, and my son enjoyed it too!
- SADLY, I did not bring enough money to splurge on all the good stuff on sale, and I missed Gerry Alanguilan's panel! Spotted him right before the P&P discussion and soooo wanted to get a picture taken with him doing The Smile, but chickened out. (I am super shy ya know...)
Till the next ReaderCon!
Thursday, 7 November 2013
The Filipino ReaderCon (Updated with new date)
UPDATE! Due to Typhoon Yolanda, the Filipino ReaderCon will be postponed to DECEMBER 7, 2013.
Pride & Prejudice fans, join me at the P&P discussion at the Filipino ReaderCon. It's happening on November 9, 2013 December 7, 2013 at Ateneo Library from 8am - 5pm. If you haven't pre-registered yet, do it here!
I'll be talking about the granny of all awesome romances, Pride & Prejudice (biased much?), and my Well Played take on it. I'll also have copies of Well Played for sale. Hope to see you there!
Now pray this super-typhoon away!
I'll be talking about the granny of all awesome romances, Pride & Prejudice (biased much?), and my Well Played take on it. I'll also have copies of Well Played for sale. Hope to see you there!
Now pray this super-typhoon away!
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Hot for teacher
I'm working on a new contemporary romance and now it's at 7 chapters and around 9,300 words. My sister's been beta reading the progress. Have I mentioned that one of the characters is a super hot teacher? This is who my sister has in mind:
And this is who I was picturing...
James Wolk or Richard Armitage. =)
And this is who I was picturing...
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