Recently in Blog Fiction Category

By Izah Morales INQUIRER.net BEFORE aspiring writers would need thousands of pesos in order to publish a boo k. Today, being published is just a click away. For some, they only need to pay P2 5 for computer rental. Blog has revolutionized the way people get published on the Internet. It has op ened a window of opportunities to amateurs and professional writers. During the Pistang Panitik at the 29th Manila International Book Fair, literary writers < a href="http://dirtypopmachine.multiply.com/journal" target="_blank">Vlad Gonza les, Marne Kilates, Dean Alfar, Vic Nierva an d Sonny Villafania shar ed their experiences on how they use their blogs and how it helped them promote their literary works. Gonzales, a professor of Malikhaing Pagsulat at the University of th e Philippines Diliman, said that he incorporated blogging in his lecture in Pan itikang Popular. âSa blogging, hindi lang tayo tagatanggap [In blogging, weâre not only the rece ivers]. Blogging has the concept of interactivity, [where] there is a space for comments,â said Gonzales. On the other hand, Alfar used blogging as a venue for expression. Through blogg ing, he rediscovered himself as a writer. âHaving a blog helped me become disciplined,â said Alfar. Alfar related that he used âguerrilla writing techniqueâ whereas he writes vign ettes for 15 minutes. Aside from Alfar, Kilates uses his blog to write prose. Despite the risk of being plagiarized, Kilates said that he doesnât want to wor k in fear. âThe risk of somebody stealing your work is the just the same outside of the In ternet, in real time. The benefits of having other people access your stories o r poems, I think they far outweigh the fear of being stolen, being plagiarized, â Kilates said. Also, Alfar suggested that if one is afraid of being plagiarized, then one shou ld not blog about it. âBy blogging, we consciously expose ourselves,â Alfar said.

A BLOG also lends itself well to fiction and other literary pieces. An interes ting example of this is Shiksa from Manila, a series of stories from Brooklyn-based Filipi na writer Sophia Romero about a fictional character/online persona named Amapol a Gold. Romero is the author of "Always Hiding," a 1998 novel whose ma in character Viola is the daughter of a wealthy Manila socialite who has fled t he Marcos regime to live as an illegal immigrant in New York City. Viola's fath er, a government official, decides to send Viola to live with her mother in New York to escape the political turmoil, unaware that his daughter plans to bring her mother back to the Philippines. I haven't read the book, but the description of Romero's first novel has certai nly piqued my curiosity. For now, I'm glad I've stumbled upon the fascinating s tories on her blog. By the way, as her blog explains, a "shiksa" is a "term use d to describe a woman who is non-Jewish. Usually meant in a pejorative way." Here's an excerpt from the latest story on Shiksa from Manila:

My name is Amapola and I am the shiksa from Manila⦠A hyphen is a small bar that looks like a minus sign. The dictionary further de scribes the hyphen as a punctuation mark used to divide or connect two words; t o describe a person who performs more than one function; to describe a unit of mixed or diverse backgrounds. To me the hyphen is all that. For something no bigger than a period, it means s o much more. It describes the life I lead: a life that straddles two worlds, th e tight rope that connects me to both, maintaining the delicate balancing act b etween the life I had before and the life I have now.

Romero also has a blog on the Parents' Blog Network of NY Metro Parents Magazin e called Mom After-Hours.