It was a beautiful day for dreams to come true.

Yes.

Yesterday was a particularly bookish day as I went to two launches: Mina Esguerra's book launch for the nationwide release of Welcome to Envy Park, Never Just Friends, and The Harder We Fall in Powerbooks Greenbelt, and the launch in Greenfield District of the buqo YA bundles that contain the stories my classmates and I wrote under Mina's supervision. 

My heart leaped when I checked my Buqo app and saw them available already! Buqo is a free app available on the App Store and the Play Store, and you can use your credit card or Smart/ Sun Cellular load to purchase books and magazines! It is also available to everyone worldwide!

The story I wrote, Once Upon a Sticky Note, is in the Sweet Complications bundle together with stories written by Ines Bautista-Yao (Plain Vanilla), Sassy Fova (D'01), Charm Lee (Same), Irish Fleur (Travel of Two), and Amae Dechavez (One Lovely Summer Day).

I was the only one in my bundle who was able to go to the launch, so I prepared a special treat for buyers.

Everyone who bought our bundle or said hi to me got a pack of sticky notes each!

With Maxin of Hand Interactive, Inc.

People who know me in person know how awkward and shy I am especially in front of people I don't know, so you can just imagine how panicked I felt moments before I went in front to read an excerpt of my work! 

Still, I did it. And it was surreal.

I would like to thank my friends who carved the time out of their busy schedules to support a girl chasing after her dreams on this very special day!

Ed

Eiyan and Angel

Alvin

You guys truly went above and beyond. Thank you so much! My heart is grateful. ♡

The Sweet Complications bundle is currently number one in the Young Adult charts and number six in the Buqo library overall!

Thank you so much Maxin, Mina, and Buqo for this amazing opportunity!

And of course, to everyone who have already bought a copy and are sending me screencaps and sharing their feedback to Tanya and Nate's story with me, I would like to shout out a loud THANK YOU! You guys make me so happy I feel like my heart would break. This still feels like a dream to me - one I never thought would ever happen - but it did, AND WE'RE HERE! THANK YOU.

Writing is a solitary activity in that a writer is almost always alone with his/ her thoughts, but the Buqo YA class (and the currently ongoing Spark NA class) taught me that it's fun to be solitary together with other writers. Here are more photos from the two launches yesterday.

With fellow Buqo YA author Six
Her story After the Moment is in the Taking Chances bundle!

With #romanceclass classmate and fellow Buqo YA author Justine
Her story A Portrait of Jade is in the Taking Chances bundle!

With Mina, during her book launch

Never have I met anyone more generous with her talent and time

With the very supportive Pau-pau

With my friends Alex and Ed

Once Upon a Sticky Note is just a short story, but I couldn't have done it without the support of other people. With that, I would like to share the Acknowledgments section with you.

Nate and Tanya’s story is a product of three weeks’ worth of over-thinking and less than twenty hours of mad writing sessions that mostly happened from 11 PM to 3 AM. There was a lot of self-doubt, but magic started to happen when my fingers touched the keyboard. Thank you to Niel, Dianne, Ed, Jamie, Sunshine, and Kristel, for reading the early drafts of Once Upon a Sticky Note and for giving me important feedback; to Vlad and my Breakfast Clubmates Chum, Shiela, Mike, and Ralph for giving me the push I needed; to Anne, Alvin, and Alex, for pointing out the kinks I missed and for helping me fix them; and to Mina, for paving the way for writers like me who do not want to keep another unpublished manuscript rotting away in our hard drives. 

Thank you too, dear reader, for picking up this story and giving it your time. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed discovering where Nate and Tanya (and the pure joy of walking down the memory lane of young love) would lead me.

I still need someone to pinch me sometimes. If you would like to read Once Upon a Sticky Note and the rest of the other Young Adult stories we wrote so you can feel the feels~, I suggest you get them soon because the $0.99 price is for a limited time only! If you have read my story, your reviews will be much appreciated! I would love to know what you thought/ felt about it! Tweet me, leave a comment, or send me an email!

Happythankyoumoreplease. My heart is grateful.