comrades-in-letters

My brain is barely working today and I have written about, oh, fifteen words of the novel-in-progress.

But I'm happy to read the efforts of others who are undergoing struggles identical to mine and managing to wrestle the words down on their blogs.

We're a virtual support group, addicted to the challenge and stumbling to make our quotas of prose. Who are we? Students, newspaper editors, graphic designers, businessmen, readers and lovers of the written word, Filipinos all. A few are professional writers, but none are novelists.

We are writing about different things in different ways, and the variance in voices is astonishing. From fantasy to romance to social realism to magic realism to surreal interstitial fiction, we're here, baring the rawest of drafts to public scrutiny.

When things work, they're beautiful, unfolding characters and settings that surprise even us. When things are more difficult, our output is small and we question why we even thought we could do this, but continue to try anyway, forcing blood from stone.

Our work is uneven but we all promise to edit when the final word is finally typed or written down on paper. We just hope that after all is written and done, our psyches and fingers will one day be restored to the pink of health.

Midnight Marquee by Vin Simbulan

The Maharlika Legacy by Joey Alarilla

Pop Monster by Andrew Drilon

The Subversive by Banzai Cat

T360 by Rickey Yaneza

To Covet by Tobie Abad

Untitled by Charles Tan

The Great Emptiness by Kat

Shooting Stars by Tina

Salamanca by Dean Francis Alfar