a new direction, a new story…
Getting back to what you love to do is gratifying. It’s comparable to the feeling of opening the pages of a book that you’ve always loved and read through the familiar lanes of words you’ve learned by heart.
After the hiatus of my rushed work titled Emergence, I’ve decided that I need to take a break and contemplate on what genre I really want to work with.
So, I needed to look back to what really encouraged me into a storyteller that I am now, what made me believe that empty white pages can be a new universe formed from my restless nights. And that was going through a hundred pages of stories I almost left forgotten in my treasure chest. One by one I read through them, reminiscing the times when I only scribbled down ideas with my pen and yellow pads in my spare time.
It took me a couple of stories before it hit me.
It took me a lot of time to persuade myself if this would work, or if this would end up like the rest of my archived tales. But then, my inner god told me not to stop there. I already drew myself away from possibilities before. This time I won’t. Especially now that I have complete control of my time.
And there is the new direction on my writing, enthused with my genuine fascination with the macabre, yet again. A story originally set in Japan, now both are set in Japan and mostly in the Philippines inspired my interest in their culture and myth. Japanese occult is an influence in the creation of this light novel, and will also take enough of the preternatural phenomenon that was seen and known in the Philippines. Although I like to have this book more into the good side, this will explore an adequate amount about the fear of the supernatural — although this might change a tidbit over time through my writing progression.
After a few weeks, I started working on it. A scribble here, a paragraph there. Few changes happened and lots of character alterations, until I found a center I could dive all throughout my writing project. I was convinced that this was it. TO FADE AWAY was finally reborn.
Three years before, with my persistence to get the initial concept written, I found an Illustrator. An illustrator I can now say I’m proud to finally meet. I was mesmerized to see the artwork personally, how I imagined my initial characters to look like. It made me feel eager to finish the story immediately, obsessed with his artwork — if obsessed is not too much a word. Every time I look at it, I’m happy to know that I agreed with my inner god back when I was filled with skepticism and doubts. But as what the experienced people in Japan would say, “Slow is glorious. It’s refined and sweet.”
I will gladly take my time with this story and I can’t wait to have this officially released. Why? Because I’m finally writing a story about the supernatural, unusual unexpected love, and fighting for what they both desire — a story I wasn’t able to write…for a long time.
What made me realize to go back and re-write this story?
Well, there’s a lot of reasons actually. Boys Love was my original concept for this plot, which wasn’t completely accepted yet in my country then, not unless I’m in Thailand or in Japan that I can freely discuss it to people without getting raised eyebrows. Now that this is being widely accepted, and young minds are open to unrestricted love, I’m sure that I can survive them telescopic captious scrutinies.
The other reason was my character concepts, which I had to brainstorm in order for me to personify them in some way — now that I’m setting most of the story in the Philippines, I can take inspiration from actors here whom I know will make a good representation to my characters. People might ask how am I biased in using these character models when there are others who are better? I love my character models, and I know they are great. And this is not just for them to notice my work, I’m comfortable in writing when I know they’re the ones I’m seeing in my mind.
And finally, my familiarity with customs and places in the Philippines. What else could make this more effective? ‘Nuff said.
As a taste of what’s to come, as the full plot will be disclosed no sooner before this year ends, here’s the promo for “to fade away”. Illustrated by Jann Galino.
Stay tuned for more updates!
