a change in Destiny

Naturally, now that my husband has told lousy service provider Destiny Cable to cut off our Internet connection, said connection has miraculously improved. So I'm online again... for as long as it lasts.


poor composition

I attended Carl's lecture on comics paneling and composition last Saturday, and was horrified! Not that the lecture was bad-- it was terrific-- but at the stunning revelation that I've been a very irresponsible comics scriptwriter all this time. I go around dictating splash pages when they're not really needed, and close-ups whenever I happen to feel like it. Well, who knew there had to be a reason? (Well, probably y'all did... you could've said something!) Visual flow is not one of my strong points, but that's no excuse. I will do better from now on.


yes, that is an essay below, and not a novel segment
What can I say? Still swamped with projects, so I'm publishing this essay I found lying around my files instead. Hopefully it will have the desired placebo effect...


Post-Partum Digression: an essay in eleven parts

The year 2001 B.C. (Before Conception)

We had gotten to the point where we’d started telling people that my husband Dean was sterile.

This was completely untrue (as manifested by my mountain of drugstore receipts for contraceptives), but it was the only surefire way of shutting up the ever-expanding circle of well-meaning but increasingly impudent friends and acquaintances who seemed to feel it their God-given duty to convince us to have a child. “You’ve been married forever,” they would say. “Wala pa ba kayong balak?” ("Don't you have any plans?")

Rational explanations proved fruitless. Financial concerns, emotional unreadiness, and just plain selfishness on our part were all brushed aside as insufficient—if not downright inconsequential—reasons. Particularly memorable was this spectacular bit of illogic one woman offered my husband: “Matangkad ka naman, maganda ang asawa mo,” she told him. “Ano pang hinihintay niyo?” ("You're tall, your wife is pretty, what are you waiting for?")

And as we reached the midpoint in our sixth year of wedded—albeit childless—bliss, the comedians among our pundits picked up a new refrain: “Are you guys sure you know what you’re doing?”

Well, we do practice, I would tell them, with a straight face. We practice allll the time…