Last year days before the pandemic was declared, I was mentally preparing for what I will share to the invited crowd who will be attending my very first book launch as a sole author. I will not tell you here what happened because you are all aware of it as its impact is still felt up to this day. We had to postpone the launch as it deemed dangerous by the authorities to continue holding gatherings with a supposed large crowd in attendance. To say that I was disappointed is an understatement. 2020 was supposed to be a year that I will get to experience a life of a legit author where I have already plans for my own launches at school where I teach or anywhere else. C'est la vie I guess so I take what I can and continue dreaming for the day that it will become a reality. 

But my darling publisher persisted even sans launch that I needed to receive my copies  as pre-orders were already locked in. So with mounting fear, I met up with Gerome Dela Pena as he was kind enough to bring my books. On my way home alone in the taxi, I held my book near my heart and silently cried. It was the best feeling ever you guys. But because of the restrictions, I waited for the lockdown to ease up for all the deliveries to happen. I was just so lucky that all my readers were so understanding. They knew that had there been no Covid-19, there is no way that I will allow this to happen. There is nothing that sets the blood astir of a novice author than seeing his readers up close and personal. I'm a firm believer of small talks that can turn into interesting conversations. 

Eventhough, all my hard copies got sold out from the pre-order, I feel that my book has been stagnant, collecting dust. If I want my book to be read by demographics who choose not to buy a hard copy, I should think of a plan. When my co-Young Blood Six alum Syrine sold her book through e-copies and sold it really well, that's when I knew that a light bulb moment is upon me. So I asked her and she willingly told me her tricks. Tbh, converting your manuscript to a Mobi or Epub is as easy as flipping the pages of a riveting read.  Truth be told, I never thought of ever converting Pun Intended to ebook version. I have my reservations which I shall not disclose here. But if I want my book to be moving, I need to take this measure and see where this will take me. As of this writing, I have sold 17 copies and it's a small win that is not so small at all. I shall be naming them because their support matters to me as this will push me to continue writing. 

MJ Geronimo | Gloida CV | Abigail Maalindog | Mercy Panagsagan | Aizel Nova Aranez | Rhyah Austrie Reyes | Kookie Gebilaguin | Madith Deinla | Angelo Evarola | Nina | Syrine Gladys Podadera | Cath Villamor | Kate Pedroso | Kristine Abrigo | Andrei Septimo | Noemi Maac | Jay Capon | Ivan | Jelyn | Quinly | Nicole | Mina | John Kelvin | Marvie and more to come hopefully! 

I have no room for bitterness even if the community that I expected to support didn't bother at all ( I mean not all of them but you get the drift) and I totally understand. Life is hard. Books are not essential. My brand of writing is not for everybody. I gave up promoting to certain groups because I don't want my happiness to be eclipsed by that thought again, you know the big S. 

Of course, I prepared pubmats through Canva ( us DepEd teachers can use the premium version) to accompany the release and even if my all my social media friends will think my self promotion borders on just freakin too much, I have to do it because I simply can't expect people do it for me. So, please forgive a rookie author! 

Btw, if you also want to support since this ebook will be available forever, all you have to do is read the details below: 

This is just a short update because I am drowning in my sea of responsibility because of my day job. But I'll be able to update here once my schedule clears up. I have everything written down in my Notion which is a pretty nifty organizational platform and for someone who's an organized chaos, I badly need it. 

Thank you once again to my ebook buoyers. Buoyers? You might ask. I made it up. It's a words play of  Buy and Buoy! My buyers buoyed me up so I can continue creating the brand of art that I am confident to share to the world and hopefully it flies the farthest so it can take me away!

Xoxo, 

          

The time Jhemerlyn was shuffling her carefully-curated playlist off her phone bought for half the price during the Great Reduction Spree, probably the last one before the mad dash of holiday kicks in, Linda Ronstadt, beautiful Linda in Simple Dreams, remembered with pathos the one she left behind in 'Blue Bayou'. Jhemerlyn was traipsing and humming along to her dulcet tones and recalling things. She, too, had left him in the blue ocean of despair and desolation, with nothing but coarse sand on his feet to keep him company. And the occasional seabirds. 

When the chorus part coalesces with the shape of him in her mind, that's when she shouts, shut up Linda, no one is going back! You can't go back to the times that you wasted. He left her for another woman. He chose someone with a strong sense of melancholia who'll cry just by the thought of leaving. Oh Linda, you always made me remember the home that languished in my unguarded wakefulness. Home is him and him is gone. 

*Shuffle Mode: Press Next*

Not again Petula Clark. There is nothing and no one here in 'Downtown' except for walls that reek of bad-taste graffiti, of ten thousand pisses and greases coagulating on asphalt. You do not tell me to listen to the music of the traffic of the city because in these parts, traffic is a vexation and the only music people listen to are congealed traces of expletives that stick to you wherever you go. 

The noises of the hagglers, harsh and discordant, is in varying degrees of decibels. The ladies who sell RTWs offered Buy Two, Get One clothes for free. Petula hunty, downtown is no finer place. It is not a place to forget all your troubles, nor your cares. It is carmageddon that wears survival-of-the-fittest mentality on its carburetors! Jhemerlyn caught a whiff of someone's burning his lungs and nearly gasped in exasperation when he threw his cigarette stick on the dispatches of non-biodegradable wastes. Faint sketches of ashen smoke vaporized into the air. Frightened that it will catch fire, she poured half of her mineral water. It hissed. The man gone even before she could school him. 

*Shuffle Mode: Press Next*

"Hurry, Hurry lover, come to me" sings Paula Abdul. Hey! Why the rush? She thinks of her friends who rushed and were forced to marrying too soon that they all ended up in an insane asylum of their own doing. Loca de amor. Remedios, the last of her friends who she thought will not fold up, was last seen seen running in the witching hours in Vera Wang. The next day, the wedding gown was probably spun by the maelstrom as it was flapping in the highest boughs of their neighborhood's biggest tree, diaphanous veil billowing, a kind of vision in white. The train, if stretched to its fullest length, will put the Light Rail Transit-1 to shame. Remedios came home after a week, linking arms with a man they thought they saw in the Most Wanted List. All because she rushed, rushed. 

*Shuffle Mode: Press Next*

The time she was shuffling her concoction of guitar riffs, synthesizers, drums, and orchestral bits that was morphed into the music that she listens to these days, Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman both know that it is time to say goodbye. In the compartmentalized archives of her mind, she only remembers goodbye when the very familiar Linda Ronstadt came stroking with the robust voice of hers. 

So what is this goodbye? 

When did she download this? 

Operatic coloratura is not her thing because she feels that one false, ill-timed note can cause guttural rupture. Not that she can sing as stratospheric as Brightman. This song will have to create meaning for it to stay on her discounted phone. Oh well, such a powerful song. It's a shame that she could not identify this yet to a memory. She was trying to remember some guy in indeterminate past that can highly be associated with this song but remembered no one. When she was about to open her photos,  Jhemerlyn caught a sight of her phone with growing, gnawing curiosity. There is something troubling about discounted phones, like how they could be so lightweight as if souls were sucked out of them by digital dementors. Cheap does not mean substandard right? 

News about thieves penetrating a cellphone shop in Baclaran was blaring in the rows of television sets. Her ears caught the CCTVs were not working the night it happened. These days you can never be really vigilant enough. When the last sustained notes died down, while Andrea and Sarah were probably collapsing from running out of breath, an oh-so-dainty swooping jolted Jhemerlyn, then after a few minutes  the feeling rolled into tiny ripples of debilitating shock: 

Oh my god. My phone!

Xoxo, 

Image from Pinterest (No.5 Metal Print by Loui Jover)