JnB Shrine Blog

samantha                                                        

THE INTERVIEW                                                           
                                                   

You are one of the more prolific writers of winglin, and not one plot
is similar to the other, how do you do it and where do you find the inspiration?

Thank you.
About the prolific part. I think some of the plots I do have
are pretty generic,it has all the right formulas ...
boy meets girl ... boy wants girl ...
boy gets girl ...

Not true! Sometimes boy meets girl and girl dies.

S: Yeah, FD, okay so maybe not so generic but the gist of all
my storiesis that it's a modern (and better yet, Asian)
version of the fairy tales from when I was a child.

 is that where you get your inspiration from, fairy tales?

S: i'd say yes and no. okay, yes! i learned to read when I was 3
but before that my dad would jump in bed with my brother and i and
tell us stories. everything from fairy tales to greek mythology
to ichabud crane (sp?) to beowulf.

all this before you were 3?

S: well, it started when i was 3 or so and then up until i turned
maybe 5 or 7. so even at a young age,
my imagination was already stimulated, the lights would be off
and i'd only hear my dad's voice in the room, or i'll have my ears
pressed against his chest or back listening to his voice and
my brain would just run rampant.

 sounds like fun!

S: oh it was! i don't remember a time when i couldn't read,
it was like, i popped out of my mother with a book in one hand
and ready for the literary world.

- what were the first books you read?

S: fairy tales! my dad finally got tired of telling my brother
and i stories so one day he said, okay ... you have to learn
how to read.he bought me books, and from then on every birthday
every christmas, every end of the year present was a book.

- fairy tale books?

S: oh yeah! totally. you name it, i had it! Cinderella,
Sleeping Beauty,Puss in Boots, Rapunzel, Jack & the Beanstalk,
Snow White ...
I had the works! but as i got older, maybe 8 or 9 it became classic
literature like White Fang, Call of the Wild, Tale of Two Cities,
works by Guy de Maupessant (sp!), Dickens, Poe,
Austen (which was my very first romantic book aside from
Fairy Tales!)

and greek mythology. I also was a biiiiiiiiiiig fan of
Life and Time Magazine.I thoroughly enjoyed learning about WWII,
for the most part because the Philippines was involved and
i had a morbid fascination with WWII in Europe.

-  this was in Manila?

S: yup! we didn't have much in terms of money but my parents tried
 to givemy brother and i everything that we needed and for the most
 part, wanted. it was a lovely, very idyllic childhood and when i
have children,i would want them to have the same kind of childhood
 that i did.all the good parts at least.

- when did you move to the United States?

S: i was lucky enough because my father rejected a job offer
to New Zealand and decided to accept the job offer from the US in 95
He left the day of my graduation from elementary school, big deal
that,April 5th, 1995.
My family and I followed a year later in 1996.Everything was pure
stroke of luck, it could've taken ten years but my parents
didn't slack off in fixing our papers and getting us visas.
We left early in the morning, no one from my neighborhood knew
with an exception of my two bestfriends whose houses flanked ours,
one of them was able to take me to the airport and we were off ...

- tell us of growing up there.

S: lol. is that necessary?

- sin, it's an in-depth interview.

S: ::sigh:: growing up was tough, i left when i was 13/14,
difficult age to begin with, so while i was starting to thrive
again in Manila, it had to leave and it was the most difficult
transition ever,in particular for me.
I'm the oldest of my siblings, I was dumpedright in the middle
of high school and the hs i went to was small and
tight knit and they didn't like interlopers all that much who
wore the wrong sort of pants or the wrong sort of shirt.
it was an affluent communityand it made being an immigrant
difficult. I lost my accent in a matter of a months,
i had to fit in somehow.

i had good friends, but diversity wasn't a factor,
i just wanted to fit in and so my friends were all white
in the 4 years i was in high school. i was the biggest dork too!
haha! dorky pants, dorky clothing,
frizzy hair, no make up, no boyfriend ...

- seriously???

S: seriously! i was that annoying, nerdy girl.

- seriously??? but you're so different now,
i saw pictures of course but you look so pretty and so gorgeous!

S: eww! haha! i'm cute, not really pretty or gorgeous.
anyway, college . . . college happened and i'm still a dork,
i'm still a nerd but the packaging of this dork/nerd is just
a little bit more attractive. haha!

- you have a boyfriend, correct?

S: yup! yes, i do.

- is it the same boyfriend who left love notes on ALAAO?

S: NO! no, no, no, different boyfriend. we've been together
for 9 months now and we're happy, very happy.

- okay, okay, back to work now, gossip later, work first.
what happened in college?

S: college proved to be better than high school, except when i went
to college i had no clear idea of what i wanted to do in life.
At all. I pretty much triedto go by what my parents wanted.
Something quick, fast and will earn money,they wanted me to be
a dentist but i have always been afraid of blood.
So that didn't pan out beyond a semester, then i wanted to be
a broadcastjournalist, a physical therapist, an interpreter
and a nurse to finally I was old and really should've graduated
college already but finally just realized what i wanted to do
in life.
that was tough. still is tough.

- how so?

S: age. feeling like the world is leaving me behind.

- you're never too old to "go after what your heart
really wants."

S: hmmm ... that sounds familiar, lol.

- yeah, thought you might like that. what do you want to do,
now that you've got it all figured out? is being a full time writer
figured anywhere in your future?

S: i'm an okay writer, i don't think i'm up there yet with GREAT.
maybe when i'm older, when i have a lot more confidence in my
writing and in myself, i'll do it. i'll take the plunge
and be a full time writer.
i want to do a lot of things, still. i want to do everything
i dreamt of doing.
i wanted to be in the Peace Corps,
live in Africa for two years and help.
i've always been i think a little bit of a humanitarian
at the same time i'm a little bit of a walking paradox.
i want to help people but i also want to
live a bountiful life, i want to help those less fortunate
but i dream of winningthe lottery and never having to worry
about money ever again. right now, the most
achievable dream i have is to be a lawyer.
a human rights lawyer and work for the United Nations.
i've always dreamt of working for the UN, always,
i don't think it matters what i end up becoming 15 years from now,
i'll always want to work for the UN.

-  it's a little bit hard to reconcile you,
SiN the writer with SiN the humanitarian. i, personally,
can't imagine you bent over law books as opposed to reading
anything on winglin about MG. so, how did you finally discover
winglin and MG?

S: i went home to the philippines for a visit and i was packing
to go back to Manilaand my uncle turned on the tv and said,
hey, why don't you watch this?
it was MG at the height of it's popularity. afterwards,
i was a goner, i was able to watch 4-5 thirty minute episodes
and came back to the US annoyed beyond belief that i didn't
see more.

- i read somewhere that you only watched a total of 5 episodes
of the whole MG, 3 from MGI and 2 from MGII.

S: true, that's so true. but i read the transcript
like craaaaaaazy!

- what inspired you to write ALAAO?

S: i read about three really good ones, Crash and another one
of chinkee's,snowblue's ... afterwards i stumbled across
a few terrible ones ... and i thought,
i could do a better job. i have always been competitive in every
aspect of my life so i started to write.
no particular inspiration i just started to ...

- ALAAO won Best Second Generation FF with the j&bshrine
contest,out of about 200 stories, yours was in the top ten.

S: yeeeees!!!
first of all, i don't understand what that meant by the way,
second generation?!? but whatever, i'll take whatever i can get
because it's niceto be recognized once in a while and
i love my trophy.

- yeah, saw the pictures

S: ummm ... yeah ... moment of dorkiness

- they were cute!

S: thanks! lol.

- currently, you have three stories finished but ongoing
 you have about how many?

S: oh geez, do i have to name all of them? haha! currently,
i have 14 stories posted on and 11 of them are unfinished.

- see what i mean by prolific?

S: lol, yes, yes ... i know ... terrible.

- of all 14 which one is your favorite?

S: that's so hard! each story is unique and has a special place
 in my heart. it's my hard work.
 ALAAO will always be special because it's my first, my baby,
 the original and i had an amazing rapport with my readers
 from that story.my comments board was soooo much fun,
 it was my labor of love

- Chapter 32 was amazing.

S: i wrote it when i was in the philippines!!! 2004,
i was on vacation and justgot back from Boracay i believe
and i had to post it and it was everyone's favorite.
i'm glad. who knew pig head dms could be so romantic?

- as one of your avid readers and fan and unbiased "journalist"
i have to say that reading ALAAO was refreshing, not too heavy on
the drama,i smiled most of the time and when there were
poignant scenes i teared up.

S: aw, thanks. exactly what i was hoping for.
i didn't want it to be super dramaticto the point of cloying,
i wanted ALAAO to be a breath of fresh air.

- it was.

S: thank you. it really was my labor of love. my obra maestro

- aside from ALAAO, you have also finished Five Days
which is a different story altogether from the rest of your stuff.

S: yes, i did. Five Days was a XM/XY story, i started it
because all of a sudden,around me people were writing XM/XY
tragedies, so I wanted to get in on the action.
lol.

- Five Days was/is beautiful.

S: thank you sooo much. i poured my heart and soul into that story.

- you said that, "Five Days was for Jay,
my first love who passed away suddenly and deliberately."
could you please expound?

S: wow, this is really in depth, isn't it? I did use the word
 deliberately didn't i?
i'm sure it confused people. Jay was my first boyfriend,
in college, and he shot himself, hence the deliberately part.

Jay was my Xiao You. i started to write Five Days because
i was bored and wanted to try my hand at something tragic,
except i had every intention of writing it and in the end
turning it into a happy ending. Jay died at the most
crucial time in my life. My grandmother had just passed away
a few months before, and I couldn't attend the funeral because
she was in the Philippines and i was a freshman in college and
couldn't leave. the months beginning in september of
2000 were the hardest for me. bouts of homesickness just swept
through me.
i experienced staying up late at night, the whole night really
until i had to get up the next day and all i could think about
was the philippines. home.
i had vivid dreams, even when i was awake about my childhood
and the people i left behind. my grandmother passed away,
i thought finally,
i can go home and reconcile with my past, no such luck there.
jay became my strength.

he encouraged me to talk about my past, about the memories that
i had no outlet for,he was my anchor, my strength. love, you know?
he died in 2001, self inflicted gun shot wound.
his mother told me later on that the last
letter i sent to him was close by, with the pressed white rose
i included in it.she figured it was the last thing he read.
he was half filipino by the way,
he was beautiful.  his passing coupled with my grandmother's death
sent me spiralingout of control, i failed all my classes in the
fall semester and i decided to take a year off from school and
then work became a priorityand school second. until now, at least.

- you said, he was your xiao you?

S: yeah, jay, my xiao you. in xm's world,
she was the constant thing in his life, the one who always told him
he was loved.
jay was the one thing in my life at the point whom i knew i could count
on to be there. to be my rock.
except we forget sometimes that even rocks crumble.

- "People come in and out of our lives, they stay for a while,
help us grow, make us better but then they leave. Why?
Because they just had to.
It hurts at first, and then you learn to live with that hurt,
and move on.
You live your life and look back on it with a slight smile.
Maybe a smile of sadness for what could have been, or a smile
of thanks,for what it was you shared.
I don't know why Xiao You left."
So this really holds true to you?

S: Yes! I don't know, to this day, why Jay did what he did,
 I may never get answers, i've forgotten what he looks like now,
he's just a memory, a slowly fading away memory in my mind.
but when i think of him now, i stop being angry and bitter,
 i thank him sometimes because he gave me a life experience none
of my friends can possibly contend with. the heart is resilient
and a woman's heart even more so. i've lived my life in the
 5-6 years since since he died and i have no regrets,
none whatsoever. sometimes i wonder, was his death supposed
to serve as catalyst to make me stronger? to make me turn into
myself and pull out all the creative juices stored in me? without
 Jay, without his life or his death or his smile,
Five Days wouldn't have been the story that it was. i mean,
 by no means, was it brilliant but the gist of the whole story
 i think was encapsulated in the author's notes. makes me wonder
sometimes whether i should've posted the author's notes instead.

- i have read the comments section on Five Days,
the readers' response was astounding.

S: yea, it was. i really didn't think it would have that impact
on people.
but i think, when i explained to people where i was coming
from with the story it became even more relatable.
Sunrise, Sunrise by Lhara was by far sooooo much betterthan
Five Days, and so was Black Coffee by killerbee
but i suppose that a little bit of personal experience thrown
in made it relatable and therefore more fun to read and more
emotionally captivating because youimagine someone as real as
the author going through something so tragic as that.

- is it safe to say that your works are greatly derived
 from your life?

S: hahaha! okay, wait, yes and no. God forbid that my life
ever turned out to be so dramatic or wacky as any of my stories!
i don't think it's necessarily derived from my life, certain parts
though, mostly the funny parts are tidbits from my life.

- like?

S: ahhh, ALAAO ... when DMS arrived in  Canada following SC,
XM was supposedly keeping watch on XY but XY sorta/kinda caught him
and followed him and she ended up walking into the men's bathroom.
I did that. Twice. The first time because I thought the guy
had really awesomesneakers and i was too busy looking at his shoes
 to pay attention where he was going.

- do you think you'll ever stop writing?

S: NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! my brain is always on overdrive,
everything around me serves as an inspiration, I'll be 80
and I'll stillbe scribbling away in a corner coming up with
cheesy one liners about love and the unfairness of it all.

- love and the unfairness of it all?

S: maybe not the unfairness of it all, i've discovered that
there are different kinds of love in this world,
not necessarily between a man and a womanin a sexual kind of way
but just love. Pure, unadultered love between a father
and a daughter, between friends, just love that has nothing to do
 with "hey, we're jumping in bed together later, right?"

- you mentioned father and daughter love, are you talking about
A Tale of Two Dao Mings?

S: well, yes. it really has been the main focus of my writing lately.

- ATOTDM is absolutely fantastic!

S: Thank you so much! I never realized that readers would respond to
it so well,when I bounced off the idea of writing about DMS &
his daughter,
i received very leukwarm reaction. But when I started to write and
readers saw that it showed a very different side to DMS and
that it's like FINALLYhe's met his match in Helen,
 the response was amazing.

- Helen is an incredibly strong character, she knows what
she wants,knows how to get it and is manipulative but still
adorable.

S: she's DMS & SC's offspring, could she be anything but? Lol.
She's inspired by a fellow writer's daughter, Julianna, an
Julianna iis in the poster made by Suga.
She's the one with her arms crossed and a pout,
she's a little spitfire.

- were you like Helen at all as a child?

S: lol, not even close. I was daddy's little girl,
that's true but not to the degree that Helen is.

- is your dad anything like DMS?

S: haha, no, no, he's not. my dad was my everything when i was
growing up.
he was intelligent, he had all the answers and he was always
so proud of me.
One time i was 8 or so, we had a little store and it had a dirt
floor and of course you know, in a sari-sari store you sell
everything, we sold gas for lanters and it dripped onto the floor.
I had this bright idea of lighting the
droplets on the dirt floor just to see if it would light up.
yes, i was an idiot.
anyway, i was so scared to light up the match but i really wanted
to find out and next thing you know as i was about to, there
was my mom looking likeshe would've liked to set me on fire.
i just remember her screaming and her spatula on one hand . . .
my dad came home as she was about to lay it on me and
my dad just calmed her down, put me on his knee and as i was crying
he wiped my tears away and said,
"she only wanted to experiment, right? you only wanted to
experiment, coz one day she's going to be a scientist. hush now,
don't cry,
my smart baby." a week later my aunt who's a chemistry professor
at Trinity College came home with a bunch of test tubes for me,
said that my dad asked her to bring some home for me so i can
experiment.
i spent the next two weeks stinking up the house. i mixed perfume,
cough syrup, soap and mushed gumamela/hibiscus together. lol.

well, things change, people change. i guess that i started tale
of two dao mings because it's an ode to my childhood.
i had the best childhood, safe, secure and loved.
but things change and my dad and i aren't as close as before.

- so, this is your outlet?

S: sorta, kinda ... a bit, i guess. helen's world is absolutely
perfect,in that her father would still love her no matter
how many times she scewed up.
no matter how big of a headache she gives her parents,
it won't matter because she's still loved and her parents
make sure that she knows that. that's the most important part.

- and don't we all wish we lived in that kind of world?

S: i wish it everyday.

- so your stories ARE influenced by your life!

S: okay, yes, you're right. authors write about things they know,
things they experienced and for someone as young as i am,
i experienced a lot in my short time living. my life is,
has been amazing and it influences a lot of my writing.

- what about love? are the views on love by the characters
in your story a reflection of yours?

S: oooh, we're getting to the good parts! haha, ummm, yes and no.
currently in my situation, i cannot in all honesty come up with
anything bad to say about love and being inlove and all that stuff. not even one
sarcastic or bitter thing,
i'm just completely and absolutely inlove right now
that it's geting harder and harder to come up with negative
things to write about.
and the characters in my stories are simple people,
with simple views on love.
nothing complicated, they want the same things that you and i want,
which is to love and be loved in return.

- and you're loved?

S: completely, wholeheartedly yeah, i'm loved.

- and it's not the same guy from ALAAO?

S: nooooo ... haha, omigosh, everyone loved THAT guy. it's amazing.

- it's not everyday we get a declaration of love from a guy
 to an author.

S: yeah well, some things work and some things don't.
but we are still good friends, i think, he's the only person
 whom i have allowed into my "writing life" and i'll be forever
 comfortable talking to him about certain plots and how much wiggle
 room do i leave for characters and he gives good input.

- your current bf doesn't know about your writings?

: he does and doesn't. he'll never understand it, mostly because
he knew me when i wasn't a writer, he knew me when i was at
my most bitterwhen it came to love, he knows me as someone who
wants to change the world,
one african AIDS orphan at a time and not as someone who has
this secret world full of romantic jargon. and i like that it
that way. i have no interest in him
knowing anything about it, i have no idea why, just you know.
he knows everything about me, but i draw the line at THAT.

- are you inlove? absolutely inlove?

S: i am. he makes me happy, as cheesy as it sounds
but he compliments me in every way that matters. he pushes
me to be better,that's really important.

- are you so inlove that you'll update
ALL your stories with big happy endings?

S: yeah no ... lol. i'm too busy right now to really be sitting
 down and writing.

- and you're leaving us i heard?

S: i will be joining the Peace Corps but it won't be for
a few years,
two years i think.


****Waiting for the other authors********
email Samantha at i_am_scheherazade@hotmail.com
or at the jnbshrine