Well, I submitted my story “White Light” to Dean Alfar (I should be saying “Mr” Dean Alfar, but I’m in the mood of pretending I’m on first-name basis with one of the country’s leading fictionists) for possible inclusion to the second volume of Dean’s book, Philippine Speculative Fiction. The story didn’t make it, but somebody reminded me I should take comfort in the fact that of the 90 or so story submissions, my story was in Dean’s “honorable mention” list, and I quote:
1. Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon’s “The Head”
2. JB Lazarte’s “White Light”
3. M. Arguelles Angue’s “Mad Tea Party”
4. Eric Melendez’s “The Small Miracle of the Liberation of La Escuridad”
5. Dino Galindez’s “Down Time”
6. Sean Uy’s “The Scent of Rust”
The thing with the “honorable mention” list, according to Dean, is that one or two of the six stories in that list may be included in the book’s final form if somehow more money suddenly became available, or if probably something crazy happens with one of the accepted stories’ authors that makes them inexplicably flip out and pull out their story from the anthology. Should I want that? Nah. I’m actually surprised that “White Light” would be taken seriously. Sure, I had also taken it seriously (serious enough to make me write a 21-page “short” story), but after so many months and enough perspective, you realize its glaring flaws and you’re just embarrassed that you were foolish enough to show it around.
The upside is that I think I’m getting better with this nasty business with perspective; recently, I notice it takes me a shorter amount of time to see whether or not my work sucked. It used to take me at least 3 months before I could look back and see all my glaring mistakes; these days, it takes me only about 3 days. Which is good, because it means I’ll have better chances at correcting my work’s flaws and “palpate” its pulse.
For someone like me who writes a grand total of two short stories in a year, something’s gotta give.
Tags: Adamson+University, Adamsonian
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