And Action

New story up in the old Zeppelin. You can read the, er, murder here. Short stories are fun when you don't think about them, and it relaxes a really tired mind sometimes. If you're lucky, you might even come up with something good.



A couple of weeks ago, I was told that a story of mine will be coming out in the newest issue of Story Philippines. That was a couple of weeks ago, a few days before the holy week celebrations in the Philippines ground almost all big businesses into a standstill. I hear the issue's been released though. My family actually bought five copies. One of my sisters called "Japanese Green Tea" (my story) short but sweet. But don't take her word for it. Take mine, and believe me when I say that the story goes really well with an ice-cold San Miguel pale pilsen and a few grilled eggplants. Many thanks to Mr. Bernas for letting my constant nagging slide.



The newest issue of Dapitan was also recently published, and yes, I sent in stories (yes! stories!) in lieau of an old piece that they really wanted. There's actually a funny story here. I was on a date with Laida Vicente when Keith Cortez stops me in the middle of one of Greenbelt's corridors saying "Are you Martin Cruz?" The thing was, I didn't even know his name, but I went from mild surprise to abject horror when he started talking about an old story I sent in for an older issue of Dapitan. Few people knew about it, and I hadn't even been in the UST writing circuit for so long that I imagine it would take a master sleuth to find traces of me in the UST-CCWS and TWG files.



Well, it turns out that somebody did find a dusty old manuscript of the said story (which will remain unnamed until it earns me something haha) in the CCWS's filing cabinet, and was considered worth publishing. At the time, though, I was busy rehashing (I still am) the story, so I begged off, and sent them two shorter stories - Double Take and Posthumous - in its stead.



And the folio looks really interesting. I was browsing through the list of contributors here, where I discovered that a huge bunch of the writers were either people I knew, or people who were well-known enough to carry a name that sounded like Egyptian lightning in a stone corridor. I was actually pretty pleased to find out that Cherifer Patola had a contribution, as well Junn Dela Rosa and Emong de Borja, people whom I briefly knew from a past life (ahem). I was also pleased to see that I wasn't the only short short fic contributor; Galapagos Man also sent in two short shorts, although his works were probably weren't sent in just to cover up an inability to send in something better.



Many thanks to Ron Benusa and Keith Cortez for helping me get these two stories out of the trunk (and no, Ronald, I don't think that those stories of mine are bad, haha. I wouldn't send in something that I didn't think was worht publishing). Readers may waylay any of the Flame or TWG people for copies of the folio starting now.