J.H. Jamorabo

Kamusta, Bluesky :D

It’s so important to reach out to your go-to Filipino support group if you’re writing a Filipino book. Many of their stories will fill your cup.

If you find one, please send an invite 🫠

I don’t need to sound pretty, I already do… I wonder how long before I really understand that.

Rewiring Myself After The First Draft: 3 Steps

It’s my first time completing a first draft. I’ve been a writer for five years. I stared at blank pages for minutes, hours, years. I had the brain of a planner, not the hands of a writer. Then, about last month, I sat at the laptop and finished a…

Want to ugly-cry in Filipino? Watch And The Breadwinner Is on Netflix

Six months?!? Oh my God WHAT

Where do we writers go now?

The first book I opened was about a white boy.

The first POC book I opened was about a Chinese American.

The first Filipino book I opened was about a Fil-Am.

I should’ve known reading isn’t a race. It’s adventure. It’s a search.

So I search now. I write now. I will find more Filipino books.

I keep forgetting the sense of accomplishment after a first draft. A gross jumble of text, but still so much use.

Yeah. I love first drafts now.

Any Filipinos here who can chitchat with me about their OFW experience? Writer here trying to expand their knowledge for a short story based on an OFW in Singapore. Any help appreciated!

After a winding-down activity, of course. Don’t wanna lie in bed still in over-editing mode

Have you ever over-edited so much that you notice your brain is so tense and pulsating?

If it is, it’s time for bed 😅

This whole time, as a new writer, I have been so focused on ticking all the checkboxes of being a good writer. At the end of the day, I don't even get a good noodle star, I just get OCD

Here's something about writing tips: humans love restrictions. So it has always been show don't tell. Plot, don't pants(?). So many don'ts when this whole time, it could've been "show and tell"

Have you guys read any of Mia Manansala's Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mysteries? I just finished Arsenic and Adobo today, and my gosh please don't read this book on an empty stomach or you could end up hungry in bed at 1am like me

Was reminded this, so I’m just passing it on ❤️

A reminder to writers out there that your draft might look like bird poop right now, and that’s fine. It’s a WIP, not the submission.

Omg same here! I also struggle to show character reactions. Can you give a review later on The Emotional Craft of Fiction and your thoughts on it?

They stepped out of boots and into soft carpet. He stepped out of tsinelas and into linoleum hard as the concrete beneath. They slid into the front seat and buckled up. He hunch-walked through the low, crowded jeep and searched for a vacant spot. He squeezed his eyes tight at the faint sounds of clamoring tricycles, of guffawing men. Meanwhile, they sank into a thick, suburban silence, and slept.

Practice sentences on imagery

Oh and if you know, you know:
Ginataang bilo bilo is coconut cream with glutinous rice balls and fresh riped jackfruit 🤨💅

I might just be such a caveman but Filipino food translated to English sometimes sounds so weird! Tocino = sweetened pork belly? Sinigang = TAMARIND SOUP?

It might’ve been the writing, but I had a hard time relating to the other stories.

The most interesting stories for me are The Kontrabida and The Miracle Worker. Not to spoil too much, but the mother and the maids are so familiar and kind and ten pages later you don’t know them anymore. (🙈)

Have you guys read In The Country by Mia Alvar yet? It’s good.

Maybe the better word is naïve. Not to risk spoiling too much:

In the beginning scenes his white mother and white friend knew more about certain happenings in the Philippines than he himself, a Fil-Am.

He also gets called out/explained to by other Filipinos who have lived in the country.

Yesss!!!

Next read: Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay 📖

The characters are very relatable and realistic.
Tita Ami’s are sadly fairly common in the country.

Tita Ines and Tita Chato are good representation, I love it.

Jay’s insensitivity to the culture, being a Filipino-American, was so real it annoyed me a little lmao.

Just finished reading Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. Just wow. Definitely recommend it.

We should make it a thing so we don’t worry over not posting on social media for a while (because we’re too busy with writing projects)

If illustrators post WIPs of their art, why don’t writers post drafts of their story? 👀