The Crazy Starbucks Challenge: A Twist on the “Dirty Chai”

[ What is TCSBC? ]

Let’s ease in to this, shall we? Let’s start it slow, keep it easy for the first few weeks. I almost ordered a Grande Triple Ristretto Caramel Macchiato at the suggestion of a friend. But then I realized I wasn’t ready to die just yet.

The Drink: Iced Grande Single Soy Chai Tea Latte
The Price: Php 200.00 (Around $4.50)
DirtyChaiTea
Continue reading The Crazy Starbucks Challenge: A Twist on the “Dirty Chai”

Introducing: The Month-old #SparkNA Monster

March 17. I got my first official e-mail from Ms. Mina with information on what I’m supposed to do to be able to proceed.

This is what it opened with: Thanks for signing up to join SparkNA! We will be writing a New Adult novella together, from April 6 to June 6. Anvil’s Spark Books imprint is sponsoring this online class and they may make an offer to publish and distribute the stories they like. I hope we give them a lot of wonderful books!

I was terrified. I think I said this in my Activity 1 entry, too, how scared I was–and still am.

But thanks to the very supportive #SparkNA tag on twitter (which is also right over there on the right side of the page :p), I discovered that I was not alone in this. Even previously published authors felt the fear, the uncertainty; heard that small voice telling them that going into this might not have been the best idea ever.

I’m pretty sure we’ve all come to the conclusion though that yes, Best. Idea. Ever.

I mean, I never thought I would meet newRunning Word Total (actual, real people) friends, but I did. The friends I went into this with in the beginning, we’ve all learned so much about writing and each other as writers, it’s insane. The thought of writing 20,000 words in 2 months seemed impossible (like, seriously dude, stop playin’), and yet I’m already past the 12,000-word mark in a month!

Great things have happened since I decided to sign-up for SparkNA, and they continue to happen. And it’s amazing.

We all want to finish. I’m sure we all want to get published, too. But after everything that has happened, I don’t think any of us will come out of this experience as losers. We’ve gained more than we expected already.

And no matter what, by June 6, we will all be better (and braver) writers than we were before.

Of coffee cups and tissue notes.

Write about what you know.

That’s how the most common writing advice ever, goes, right? Well I’m gonna take it anyway. Because I have no idea how to blog anymore and to make it easy for myself, I’m going to write about something I know: Coffee.

Continue reading Of coffee cups and tissue notes.