novel talk at powerbooks megamall

Capping off my hectic week of presentations and pitches was another presentation - this time about writing the novel. And yes, this was the one I enjoyed most.

I was invited by Read or Die and the UP Institute of Creative Writing to be part of Write or Die. WOD is a series of lectures on different aspects of writing: for the novel, there's me, Charlson Ong, Jun Reyes and Amelia Lapena-Bonifacio, all at Powerbooks. One of the goals of WOD is to promote the UP Gawad Centennial Likhaan 2008, a special set of awards to be given out next year (and the huge prize money - P200k for each category - is incredible!).

Anyway, I had a great time sharing my own process (remember: description, not prescription) and hopefully, I was able to encourage some members of the audience to go for it.

I said a lot in two hours, so for those who have been requesting for my presentation, here it is (Dean's Novel Presentation). Please note that these are only my talking notes. Also, the incredible Charles has put up an audio recording as well as a partial transcription of my talk (warts and all, LOL) over here.

And since I wrote Salamanca as part of NaNoWriMo in 2004, it was great to meet the Pinoy NaNoWriMo folk. Thanks to Kyu of Philippine Genre Stories and The Lit Critters for being there for me (Vin especially for helping with my laptop and Alex for the timely hand-raising).

Some pictures (from Kyu):

On "the telling detail"

Pinoy NaNoWriMo with Read or Die

I was pleasantly surprised by Ichi Batacan - one of the Filipino novelists I admire (go and read her "Smaller and Smaller Circles"). One of her stories appears in PSFIII.

And here are the two hottest LitCritters :)