A few months ago I’ve rammed down Smoketh’s throat a short story I’ve been contemplating on submitting to a well-respected national weekly magazine. It has been years since I’ve written a short story, this blog having usurped any designated daily writing hour in the past three years or so. “It’s crap,” Smoketh had declared in between bouts of vomiting and choking on her own vomit. “This is not your style. You’re writing to get published. It’s a sell-out.” And truly Smoketh has probably assessed it correctly, but there’s just a certain vanity need for any writer wannabe to get published, and it has been years since I’ve actually gotten to publish a short story. This gave birth to a blog entry months ago about the risk of selling out. The story got canned and got lost in folders within folders within directories in my computer after multiple reformatting necessitated by too much porn-related viruses, until I’ve just decided to email it and it got published. Which leads me to another round of shameless self-promotion:

I have a short story in this week’s Philippines Graphic dated August 23, and one huge thanks to the literary editor for considering my story worthy. It’s entitled Blue Form, about some medical resident named Carla who has to contend with guilt and self-resentment issues while in residency training. I know it doesn’t sound like me, so keep sending those bleches in my direction. Yes, truly I can be accused of not exerting much effort to imagine, but at this point in my life when any existing literary compartment in my brain has been usurped by medical training and too much resentment the old adage of writing about what you know best is the only thing I could hold on to. The Philippines Graphic is now one of the only 2 national weekly magazines, along with The Philippines Free Press, that upholds and promotes Philippines lit. It has featured the works of a lot of established local literary icons, so just getting in the same mag as them is quite cool for me. While medical people get their jollies from getting their research published in medical journals, this is where I get mine.

“You should give me a signed copy with the note ‘In your face, Smoketh!'” Smoketh declared. What I would write, though, as always, is “In the event that I get famous and my name becomes expensive, here’s a signed copy.” Sadly I’ve been signing that line for over ten years now.

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