When I was a kid, I used to staple stacks of blank paper into a book-like form, and write my own novels for my own entertainment. I would just spend countless of hours illustrating and writing among the pages after happily drawing a cover and slapping my name at the bottom.

Structuring the story according to how many more pages I had left, I knew that when I got to the 3 staples in the middle of these makeshift novels, it was the halfway point of the story and the stakes had to increase. These stories would usually follow a group of super heroes fighting the most dastardly villains, who eventually reformed to join the good side until there was no one left to fight.

I fondly remember writing these novels so vividly because little did I know back then, I was already living out my dream of being a writer. For as long as I could remember, I have had a fascination with playing mental movies in my head, and most of the time, I excluded my self from the action as a huge array of fictional characters would play out their roles in dire situations.

For years, this self entertainment would keep me up at night and it actually took a while to register for me that I should start jotting these mental movies down. Finally! I could have a place to contain all the insanity that went on in my head, and I would bleed it all out through ink onto a page, which would serve as a film if you will, to create a method for all the madness.

I always knew this fire of creativity erupting within me could never be stifled, for in elementary and in high school, every time we were assigned to write short stories for English class, teachers would be dismayed by how drastically I would disobey the 2-5 page limit. I could never, ever conceive the idea of being able to tell a whole story within such a short amount of pages.

I would end up writing a 20+ page story that would contain much more vivid descriptions and bits of dialogue than any of my classmates’ work. And I try to say that with the utmost humility, because of course to most of them–most of them, but not all of them–it was just another assignment to get done. For me on the other hand, I took as an opportunity to challenge myself and actually give my all to a school assignment, which was something of a rarity for me throughout my life because I never found school work to be all that rewarding to do.

Hello and welcome to Your Write to Live! I am Marlon Manalese, and I am an author and bookworm whose taste in literature has transformed drastically throughout the years. Where I once started with an interest in medieval fantasy, I have gravitated towards contemporary fiction (both adult and young adult novels) because I find it more pleasurable, valuable, and relatable to read about the modern life and everyday people–as opposed to the battle hardened badasses you would find in the Dungeons and Dragons and urban fantasy novels I used to read.

It is my belief that we are drawn to fiction because we see like to see ourselves in legendary protagonists who overcome insurmountable challenges in order to achieve their goals. No matter what genre or age range, usually the best novels are the ones people can relate to because they invoke empathy in not just the protagonist, but also the antagonist and supporting cast.

My intention with Your Write to Live is to provide practical writing tips that can also be applied to life. From my years of study in crafting a novel, I have gathered that authors do a ton of organizing in terms of character development and understanding the conflicts that challenge their goals and motivations. As someone who is heavily invested in self knowledge and personal development, the idea clicked: why can’t we use these tools to help improve our own lives?

Perhaps through this blog, like I did with the makeshift novels of my youth, I can help ally with the superheroes of your mind to reform the villains of your subconscious.