Tag: books

I meant to blog more before July ended (because that last post can get a bit too maudlin, right? Also, I haven’t used the word maudlin in ages), but alas, work, a typhoon, several SFC events, and sickness got in the way. Before I knew it, the month was over and we’re well into August, and I…well, look, we’re in August.

I realized something recently, though, in my new-ish job (can’t believe that I’ve only been here for less than 3 months – feels like forever already): the more you do something, the better you get at it. I mean, okay fine, I know that already, but being in this new role proved it. I haven’t done any major designing stuff since 2008, 2009. Now that one of my job functions is to design ads for work, I have been stretched in an interesting way and I find that it is getting easier for me to be more creative in making ads.  I am learning to use Adobe Illustrator more now, and I am really liking vectors. And I have used the Pen tool properly! How about that. Excuse me for being a noob, but it’s all so fascinating. (And to think I used to say I was a graphic designer. Heh.)

Then I realized how much that principle also applied to other things, particularly, writing. I admit that being so busy in all this newness has stopped me from writing – here, in my book blog, and even creatively – and I missed that. But if I can get better in designing because I do it everyday, then I would get better at writing if I do it everyday regularly more often than I do now.

Like I said, nothing new there. But indulge me a bit.

To put that in action, I am starting this little, semi-regular thing called All These Things. Because I don’t always have to write about oh-so-serious stuff – sometimes, I just really need to write. So let’s start.

If there’s an award for a song that has given me the most massive case of LSS, this would win. I heard it in my friend’s car last week and I have been playing it all week. I haven’t played it today yet, but I bet later I would play it and sing it and I don’t know if it would end anytime soon.  And there, I just played it again.

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I just finished reading Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You, upon recommendation of a friend. I liked it, but I have very mixed feelings about that ending.

But this is not a review, so I won’t talk about that. There’s this line from the book that I want to print out and frame so I would remember it everyday:

Some mistakes…just have greater consequences than others. But you don’t have to let that […] be the thing that defines you.

Book season is starting in the Philippines. Book season = time for sales, book fairs, and reader conferences. And just this week, we kicked off the 3rd Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards. Nominations are now open! Nominate your favorite 2013-published book by a Filipino author. There are thirteen new categories! :D

I’ve had my gym membership frozen since March because I wasn’t going there anyway. I’ve been contemplating on having it cut because I haven’t been using it as much. I forgot to have the freeze extended, so I got billed for August. I decided to use it again and went back for a dance class yesterday. I forgot how fun it was. And how much I missed dancing. :) This little fella dances way better than me, though:

One of my new favorite bloggers, Hannah Brencher, ((Hannah, who actually inspired me to come up with this thing with her Field Notes feature)) wrote this post a couple of weeks ago. I keep going back to it because…because:

And while I’m not an expert or a ghost buster, I think a ghost gets born out of a constant wish that maybe you and another person might have more to say to each other. Like maybe you never reached the point of finally saying everything. And maybe, just maybe, if you can manage to keep a person in your orbit or your memory a little while longer then you’ll never have to face the real truth: you can’t fix everything.

So many powerful words in this post that I can’t pick. But what she said about having final words, about how “Final words shift the atmosphere” give me hope. And it reminds me of this quote from Yann Martel’s Life of Pi:

So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

Maybe all I really need are those words.

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Have a great weekend, everyone. :)

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