The author's unexpected journey

If one had told me years ago that I would be writing about something else besides romance, I probably would have laughed. Romance was where I became a published author - I wrote stories about love, longing and the messy beauty of human emotions deliberately ignoring the way people dismiss it as if it’s some lesser genre when in reality it demands so much emotional depth, nuance, and skill but let me talk about this in another post. It was my comfort zone, familiar and safe. Love, after all, is a universal experience.

But then, something changed.

Panglawan Series. I plan to add at least one more book.

I joined a writing community hoping against hope that my creativity that the pandemic took away would come back. Pinoy Indie Authors became another family that embraced me as an author with only romance books in my portfolio. My English didn't have to be exceptionally well. My talents were thoroughly explored. And just like that, I caught myself adding a twist of adventure to my tamawo romance story. 

Was it easy? Nope. Terrifying? Yes!

While romance thrived on emotions, adventure demanded complex details, well-structured plots, and a different kind of intensity. I had to map out worlds (damn those Panglawan mini-islands were actually quite a challenge to conjure), untangle mysteries, and step outside the emotional landscapes I knew so well. It was like learning a new language, one with higher stakes and bigger dangers. And yet, there was something exhilarating about it, too - like stretching muscles I never knew I had.

my romance books

Then came non-fiction.

Now this was a completely different beast. Romance and adventure gave me the freedom to create, but non-fiction? That required honesty. Objectivity. A direct conversation with reality. If romance was about exploring emotions and adventure was about building worlds, non-fiction was about confronting truths, and sometimes even my own. It stripped away the safety nets of fiction. It required me to write with clarity and purpose.

my first non-fiction

And in between all of that, there was poetry.

I never planned on writing poetry. Sure, I wrote a thing or two in high school, but that was the teenage me, full of angst because she felt the world misunderstood her but in reality it was her who didn't fully understand the world. Poetry required a different level of artistry, a different kind of creativity that for the longest time, I believed I didn't have.

Then PIA Poetry happened. Poetry suddenly became a space where I could be completely non-confrontational yet deeply personal. It allowed me say the things I wouldn’t normally say to your face because again, I didn't like confrontations. It let me write the things I wouldn't usually put into full-length stories. It became my avenue to capture my overwhelming emotions in fragments, in whispers rather than declarations. It became my quiet refuge.

So here I am, an author who has wandered through different genres - each one challenging me, teaching me, and, in some ways, changing me. I used to think that sticking to one genre was the mark of a real writer. Now, I know better. Writing is fluid. It shifts, it evolves, and it takes me to places I never expected to go.

And maybe that’s the best part.

Who knows where I’ll end up next?

here's to my favorite PIA poem