While working on getting myself cleared from my former company, I had oodles of time in between the shifts of the people who were supposed to sign my clearance. To pass time, I took the bus, thinking of going to Megamall. But I realized that I haven’t been to Shangri-La in a long time, so I got off at EDSA Central to walk a bit. I passed by National Bookstore EDSA Central and decided to go in. I needed a black pen anyway. While there, I took a peek at the Tagalog Romance section and my eyes popped out. My book was out. It was the weirdest thing. I knew it was out but to actually see it on the shelf… waiting for people to buy it. They only had around four copies left on the shelf. I don’t know if it meant that the publishers didn’t really print a lot of copies since my friends had been scouring NBS branches across the country and haven’t found any. Did they just release it to selected NBS branches? Maybe. I didn’t care anyway. It was finally out.
It wasn’t my first glimpse of the book. My mom had already gotten herself a copy and had shown it to me when I got home. But seeing it on the shelf was something else. I had to snap a picture of it. Discreetly, of course ^_^
Also, my pals and I went to Quiapo for a business trip (i.e. buying raw materials for accessories), and we walked to NBS Recto where I told them we could look for my book. When one of them saw it, pointed at it with a laugh and grabbed a copy, I felt a mixture of intense pride and intense embarrassment. My friends, who are not big fans of Tagalog anything, were going to get themselves copies because they love me Ü
Of course being my friends, they liked the story. It was, after all, written by me Ü Thank you very, very much guys Ü We’ll do it again when my next book comes out in a few months.
Elise Estrella on 
freeverse34 on 
