danice mae p. sison – Tara Tries To Write

#AprilFeelsDay2023 was a blast!

May 10, 2023 No Comments

So #AprilFeelsDay2023 was two Saturdays ago, and it was a fun time, as always, seeing old faces, meeting new friends, celebrating the release of new books, and squealing in kilig hearing scenes from our books being read back to us. This is the SEVENTH #AprilFeelsDay we’ve had (the first one was in 2017! Imagine that!) and the first in-person one since 2020, so it felt like the first time all over again (yes, even if we got to do an in-person #FeelsFest event in October last year).

Here are some highlights from #AprilFeelsDay2023:

Personal, The Writing Community, Writing

Five years in the making…

April 21, 2023 No Comments

Five years ago, I tweeted this:

Jeon Jihyun x Daniel Henney
Friends to lovers

Unlikely childhood friends bond over a scrappy puppy they find in a dumpster. The budding relationship that blooms as they raise the stray together gets cut short when his family migrates overseas. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/PEj7ORYHCS
— Tara 🐰 (@tarafrejas) October 18, 2018

I don’t remember anymore how exactly I came up with the plunny, although it’s possible that it’s mostly because I had Daniel Henney in mind as the love interest. He loves dogs, and so do I…and I’d never really written a story yet where the characters had pets, so I wanted to give it a try.

I’ve kept the idea for the story in my growing list of plunnies to explore, but only got around to writing it until sometime in late 2021, when I decided to put together an anthology of short stories that eventually became What If We Fall In Love? I shelved this story and instead included my NomCom submission, Your Heart, To Go, to complete the lineup. I thought it would take a while before I got to revisit the manuscript, but an opportunity to finish it came when submissions for Pawfect For You (then simply called Tropetastic 3) came along.

Cover Reveal, The Writing Community, Writing

New anthology alert: Pawfect For You!

April 16, 2023 No Comments

Friends and lovers, listen up! #RomanceClass is back with another charity anthology, and this year, we are helping cats and dogs in need!

On National Pet Day (April 11), we did a cover reveal+ pre-order link drop for Pawfect For You: Tropetastic Kindness Bundle 3. It’s a collection of six all-new nakakakilig stories where the main characters are pet owners/pet lovers falling in love. Check out the wonderful cover below, illustrated by Liza S. dela Cruz.

We met Liza last year when she worked with #romanceclass authors Carla de Guzman and Celestine Trinidad for their KILIG anthology entries, and it was so lovely getting to work with her for this cover. Don’t you think it’s pretty? ^_^

Included in the anthology are stories by Danice Mae P. Sison, Ines Bautista-Yao, Tara Frejas (that’s me!), Celestine Trinidad, Angel C. Aquino, and Jay E. Tria. You may pre-order a copy of the book at US$7 (or the price you want) at kilig.pub/pawfect4u. Just like our previous charity anthologies, Pawfect For You is available for a limited time only (until June 29, 2023), so please make sure you grab this opportunity to get the book while it lasts.

Pawfect For You will be released on April 29, 2023. ALL PROCEEDS will go to Pawssion Project, a non-government organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and rehoming of cats and dogs in distress.

Yes, please I’d like my own copy of Pawfect For You!

The Writing Community, Videos

When food and kilig go hand-in-hand

February 21, 2022 No Comments

*points up* I was one of the guests for #RomanceClass Podcast S5’s 1st episode featuring food and kilig! We had a lot of fun talking about the food we incorporated in our NomCom: Tropetastic Kindness Bundle 2 stories, and also managed to make ourselves (and the audience) hungry in the process, LOL.

If you have been reading a lot of #RomanceClass books, you’ll have noticed how much we love including food in our books. From the popular champorado in Summer Crush and Second Wave Summer to the scandalous biko in Alta: A High Society Romance Anthology, to the scrumptious mangoes in Mango Summer and the many, delicious meals the Aguas family had in If the Dress Fits, food is an inevitable part of our stories. I personally think it makes the characters and places more relatable, more vivid. It also adds an extra layer of interest for me, because I tend to want to try the dishes mentioned in the books (especially if I haven’t had them in a long time, or ever).

What’s a dish you’ve wanted to try or have tried because you’ve read about it in a book?

Music, The Writing Community

Music x Book Match: Ben&Ben

January 7, 2020 No Comments

In mid-December, I started a Twitter thread that matched Ben&Ben songs with #romanceclass titles, and it garnered a bit of attention from my mutuals as well as people I don't know. Because that thread was made rather haphazardly, I thought of creating a new one with better visuals and stuff, but things got busy right before the holidays, and I wasn't able to continue/complete the thread at all. And because I vowed that I would try my best to finish things I started, here's a blog post instead! <3

(NOTE: I'm going to try doing this Music x Book Match a regular thing just like Pinoy Movie x Book Match, so wish me luck!)