compendium on prose

I thrive on writing. It’s freeing, and it feels as if that since the very beginning, my imagination has been running on the spill of punctuation and the doting tilde of analogies and similes. Coming more naturally to me than anything else and a forever love despite not being the most avid reader; I’ve taken it upon me to push forward with this mess. An angsty teenager with a pen and the Goodreads quote section for Chuck Palahniuk or the HelloPoetry collective of Allen Ginsberg is recipe for crisis.

So, I published a chapbook that contains a collection of my poetry and am in process of continuing a winter novel that has become so much more than I initially anticipated. Read more to find out about them, and stuff.

Some quick links:

[button link=”https://gumroad.com/l/selffulfillinghere” size=”large”]Poetry Chapbook[/button] [button link=”http://hellopoetry.com/chiaski/” size=”large”]Hello Poetry[/button]

Channeling the uncontrollable desire to constantly do something (or feel like a dying sack); I started the process of writing a book. It doesn’t have a title yet, but everything is panned out. Not exactly. I write as I go often, and I have made it a point to barely go back and fix things, delete chapters or words — I will just write it as I go, not bother to revise it, and keep the raw winter child of a mess on paper as I self-publish it somewhere, with money that I will find somehow. This book actually started during the last point of the Christmas break. In 10 days I wrote over 40,000 words. Originally, I wanted to write an entire book during the break but the idea hooked me in so much and I didn’t feel that 40,000 would suffice — so I’m continuing it on until now; though I have a difficult time finding time to settle down and get into the momentum for writing with the same mood and vibe that concocted all the old chapters.

I don’t have a name for it yet, but to give you the gist: fictitious teenage angst unrequited romance sociopolitical religious commentary nationalistic nonlinear abstract narrative young adult novel. In short, it’s a 1984-esque archetypal yet contrasting totalitarian fictive of religion, love, and freedom. It’s really abstract and doesn’t follow a linear progression, and is honestly quite pretentious. It drifts into different themes and pummels you into the eyes of someone foreign and cold yet familiar, giving you glimpses of different events that only a certain niche would be familiar with. At times, it is more poetry than novel, more reality than fiction, and more mind than action. Selfishly, it’s written for myself and is a very personal experience. Delving into dreams that I had, and the deepest fears that I view for the nation. You get the idea on what kind of novel it is and what it stems from.

I intend to finish it very soon. No later than past the first semester of my schooling. No one is pushing me to do so, I just fucking love writing and imagining things. Warped happenings in my head. I’m probably going to use my birthday earnings to get it self-published, sell copies of the shallow book to my friends and revel in them skimming over the mess that it is. I just want that new book smell. Fingers run over something that for once I can actually call mine. Things like the cool side of the pillow and the blade. Something that is warm and forever a piece of me — a mark of me out there on mankind.

I hope that once it comes out, you manage to enjoy it (and bear with me) as much as I did writing it. Flickering on and off, Haruki Murakami and Slaughterhouse Five reminisces; it is a mind that is so closed off and personal and in an instant, bursts into a reflection of the world around and a million other voices. As a warning: It’s laden with verbose descriptions, monologues, barely any dialogue, and the drone of a one-track mind. But I don’t know — as someone who usually resents her creation if it is not up to par, there is something I am doing right when every writing session I feel that as if I’m completing parts of my own self. Building myself up with words.

In good news, it’s halfway. Around that.

i. my god loved me as he loved
the world. he christified us,
spoke sanguine and scourge—
coronated sorrow and miser,
left us all to cross.
ii. arrival down palm trees & self-dissent

Moving on, as I stated earlier — I published a chapbook called self-fulfilling prophecies for falling headfirst down empty chasms. Put together during the last few weeks of school — this is a collection of ten poems, of which half are previously published and found online while five can only be found there and nowhere else. It surmounts to about five thousand words and talks about all the topics that my writing circles around, in this sort of harmonious discord. Religion — atheistic views of a god that has abandoned all of us, calling the common man savior. Family, the abandonment and brokenness in something that is supposed to be inherently familiar and warm. Something that reigns nostalgia becomes a broken record of corruption and loss. Love, in its purest. A salvation looked down upon so madly when it can be found in the skies of everything abound. Suicide, a finale to the book and closure to each and every poem. Control, loss of it, innocence, and a criticism on how the common viewpoint is that it becomes the greatest sin.

[button link=”https://gumroad.com/l/selffulfillinghere” size=”large”]Download Online[/button] [button link=”https://gumroad.com/weeb” size=”large”]Chia’s Gumroad[/button]

The above buttons link to the pay what you want PDF version of the book as well as my Gumroad account, respectively. It would be really amazing if you would support me, but honestly I would be immensely grateful just seeing that 0$ purchase. I hope my writing leaves a mark on people, no matter how shitty of an impression or little of a care it may be — as long as something is left. It’s written for me, but it’s nice to feel that others take something out of it.

My biggest fear when putting this together in the middle of class days, quickly learning how to use inDesign and getting so perplexed and amazed at how you can just seamlessly drag things from Microsoft Word to the Adobe program wasn’t the fumbling around with titles or formatting. It was the actual content of everything. I derive the core of my writing from my deepest thoughts, or warped iterations of events that happen around me. Self-fulfilling is an extremely personal and grim subject matter that I feel would probably wreck me when found out — but at this point, it doesn’t matter. Let people bask in my writing, for it’s real.

I still intend to publish this in real life and have a few prospective publishers for a small pamphlet-style book. I’m easy to please, but I do want a tangible copy more than anything. I think that the words written down in self-fulfilling are worth a shot at glancing over; they’re of course, unpolished and terrible — but I actually proofread this and have an ounce of my heart in each and every word. I charged people 150 pesos for the book, which amounts to about three cents per word. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Culmination

I wrote a poetry chapbook of ten extremely personal and teenage angst-ridden words that I feel is worth giving a shot at swallowing — it’s available on my Gumroad. Currently, I’m writing a book that means so much to me and symbolizes a lot of fight and struggle in my own self contrasted against the world around, that I can’t wait to publish.

I’ll update more on my words and writing — you can expect these kinds of posts to never stop, the words to never end. Novel come, feast your eyes on the raw, unadultered mess that is Chia Amisola with too much anger and a 160 wpm typing speed.