JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

From hereon I think Writing Boot Camp should always be held out of Metro Manila. Clean air and a change of scenery is always conducive to thinking (or sleeping, which is a vital part of writing that nobody talks about. Eight to nine hours a day, people. Accept no substitutes. Hmmm, I should do Sleeping Boot Camp). Traveling to another place, with all the hassle and expense it entails, tells you that this is not a regular weekend: you are carving out time and space in your busy life for something that is important to you.

Also, being strangers in a city not your own (although two of our participants live in Baguio) brings the group closer together and gives us an excuse to go out drinking afterwards. (We’re having dinner in Makati next week.) With apologies to previous boot camps, I think this was my favorite workshop of all. The group was small enough so we could get to know each other and root out the personal experiences that could be turned into stories. Yes, it’s a rather intrusive process, but then writing requires that you expose your emotions. There’s no use hiding yourself, anyway, because whatever you end up writing, the readers will always assume that the characters are you.

Writing Boot Camp was held at the Larawan Hall of the BenCab Museum. The museum is buzzing with visitors on weekends, but the Larawan Hall is tucked into a quiet corner with private access to Cafe Sabel. If you look away from your paper or your screen, this is what you look at.

Our boot camp participants were working people from their late 20s to their early 40s.

Vicky worked in branding and is now planning a family saga set all over the world.

Lord is a corporate executive and mindfulness coach whose stories dissect the conflicts and tensions within every individual.

Reina has a shelf full of degrees in Astronomy from Trieste, Princeton, etc (She’s been the subject of TV features as “the girl who proved Einstein right”) and is writing an astronomy book for the general market.

Annalyn is based in California, where she works with people with psychiatric issues—she feels that writing could help them. I totally agree, being from the Therapy school of writing.

Von, a lawyer (and a very influential blogger) is working on his collection of personal essays (We’ll call them Sedarian).

Allan, who was in the first writing boot camp (where he finished a novel!), is a manager at a BPO and does way too many things, such as run my feline overlords’ Instagram.

Marisol, a Fil-American who moved to the motherland a few years ago, works at Mt Cloud Bookshop and is processing many levels of culture shock.

On Saturday we had lunch at Cafe Sabel, which serves an assortment of salads, pastas, sandwiches, and coffee that will keep you awake for days. (This is the view from Cafe Sabel. If you feel like taking a walk, you can do the eco-trail.)

As we headed out on the first day, I saw the sunset through the branches of a tree and wondered if we should start looking for stone tablets.

The next Writing Boot Camp is in Normandy, France. I’m kidding, that’s my friend’s house where I stayed in November. The next Writing Boot Camp will be held somewhere in the south, I’m looking for a place. Any ideas?