Creating AlterNativa

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Mock-up of a Cover for the anthology (It's not done yet.)

It all started in early-2019. I have no memory of what I was doing on that day. All I remember was drawing a tikbalang and posting it on Facebook. 

It wasn't the usual way one would draw a tikbalang. Normally, this half-man, half-horse creature would be trim and slim and toned and naked. In other versions, he would be wearing some kind of fantasy armor. The one I drew, however, was in a camisa chino with a straw hat, and carrying a couple of bayong, looking as if he had come from a shopping trip to the wet market. Oh, and he had a paunch.




After I posted it, some people were amused by it, calling him "Thiccbalang." So I decided to try another image, that of a manananggal, but in a pose that resembled that of a bird, perched on a tree branch. That, too, got some attention. But nothing substantial.

I also remember feeling particularly on edge at that time. I had not made anything substantially creative, and it was like every nerve I had was aching to make some magic, but was unsure about what form it would take. I just started to make one fantasy entry after another, deciding out of the blue to infuse some real-world history into the myths, and named the whole thing AlterNativa.

AlterNativa was a name I came up with before, but the original idea was for an LGBT fantasy anthology. That didn't pan out. For the current version, the name combines "alternate" and "native." Stories that were Filipino, but with a spin or two.

As a designer, I naturally wanted to make a logo. This is the first version, posted on Facebook on March 2019.



In the Comments section, Nathalie Atienza-Mayo suggested to make an ambigram. At that time, I had no idea what that was, so I asked friend Google for some answers. Needless to say, creating the ambigram was a bit of a pain. Here's the final version.





From entries of lore, I started to make super short stories. I figured that I'd use those stories to practice writing prose, one of my past frustrations. The reason was two-fold. One, I needed to sharpen my English-writing skills. Two, I could get a story out more quickly without having to draw it as comics.

Creating fantasy stories wasn't new to me. If you're familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons game, I was a Dungeon Master for many years, beginning in 1985. 

What I love about writing AlterNativa is that I can tell many kinds of stories. Apart from the self-imposed limitation of Philippine myth and history, everything else was free for the writing. I can do something funny, then something heartbreaking, then go for the macabre, or the silly, or something just fascinating. Writing superhero stories can be stifling at some point, at least for me.

So, over the span of three months, I feverishly worked on it, churning out one entry almost everyday. All the research back then was from the internet, and I tried to do some diligent cross-referencing to confirm the historical bits. My Facebook follower count jumped by around 2,000 over that time, if I'm not mistaken.

I was surprised at how much people liked the stories. Someone in the entertainment industry even asked me to pitch it as a TV series. But at the back of my mind, I'd be thinking, "What I'm doing is really no different from what some other more capable writers are doing." I no longer want to think about what makes my work extra special. What's important is that I get a kick out of it, especially when I come up with some nice twist. Some of my favorite stories are "Mang Demetrias," "Bal-bal," "Haginuthaw," "The Two Pugot," and "The Rooster and the Dog."

I don't want to prsasure myself, even though there's some clamor for a compilation. There's not enough material for a proper book. If ever I'm going to release a compilation, it's going to be as an ebook first. I have my personal reasons for doing so. I want to see the numbers first.

To close this blogpost, here are the top ten AlterNativa entries based on Facebook shares from my official page.


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