This article never saw print but it doesn't mean it's not worth reading. This is actually one of my favorite write ups among my previous "works." And thank you to the Internet for getting unpublished works, well, "published." By the way, it's not a "how to" article as the title may misleadingly suggest.
BECAUSE their sanity was being threatened by the demands of corporate life, a group of no-nonsense creative writers felt they had to find an outlet to unearth the words and stories hovering above their heads and keep their brains from spinning. Reason enough to create a website meant especially for “young underpaid professionals” (yuppies).
The site’s overall theme: “We write what we want to write. Take it or f--- off.” Yup, the people behind Yuppie Universe really mean it.
While they are certified bookworms, the site founders don’t consider themselves as geeks. Rather, they take pride in knowing what good writing is and want to replicate that in their own, well, universe.
Two of the yuppies, Rica and Rio, both tried working in the corporate world but found their jobs wanting. Says Rio: “This is what we do to keep the semblance of sanity within the crazy corporate jungle and outside of it.” Rio is doing freelance work while plotting what she calls "world domination."
Rica, on the other hand, wants to be freed from the acerbic scrutiny of other writers “who love to trash other writers’ works.” In essence, yuppieuniverse.com serves as a venue for those who want to express themselves and create their own brand of literature in the process. Rica is back in the corpo world, by the way. The other yuppies go by the pen names Rem, Chris, Nancy S., and onlysecond.
Initially, the group’s posts tackle the corporate life and “the s--- that goes with it.” Later on, since most of them are creative writers, they ventured into short stories, essays and reviews.
Rica, a University of the Philippines cum laude graduate in English Studies major in Creative Writing, explores children's stories and young adult literature. She is most proud of the anime review she posted that elicited a comment from Canada.
Rio, meanwhile, writes really witty but helpful pieces, including one of her job interview with a public relations agency. She admits, however, to feeling insecure about her writing since she doesn’t have a degree, yet.
Yuppie writer “onlysecond” writes emotional stories about love which Rica describes as “heart-wrenching. All the time.” Rio agrees. “Breaks my heart every bloody time.”
Not surprisingly, the group’s favorite subject when it comes to writing is “Love! The twisted kind or lack of it,” says Rica.
The site isn’t the group’s exclusive outlet, says Rica. They invite contributors, mostly friends and friends of friends.
“I usually troll my friends’ blogs and ask their permission to repost if I see something I like,” Rio explains, “Otherwise, my friends need to be cattle-prodded.”
She adds: “Contributors are free to write about anything, but it’s all subject to editing or mangling or rejection (if they don’t meet our standards.)”
While still trying to figure out how to disable the computer’s copy-paste command, Rio says the group depends on the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License to protect their works from plagiarism. “If a newbie contributor were to send some work, there’s always our good friend Google,” Rio says. But trust is their best defense, she adds, because most of the contributors are friends. “I’ve worked with some of them so I somehow know their individual writing styles.”
Aside from the usual birth pains, the group says the biggest challenge is to keep the site updated regularly since most of them have day jobs and gigs. Explains Siochi: “Getting people to write—and add content—is a major challenge. Sometimes I have to grovel, beg and promise coffee. It’s not easy to get people to write especially for the site, since they’re either a. busy, b. busy, or c. busy.”
At present, yuppieuniverse.com gets little traffic. “Imagine the traffic you’d get if you lived in an island and there are only two or three cars there,” says Rio. But her patience seems to be paying off as recently, Rio found 700++ visits in a month which is monumental for the young writers. Getting visited--and read--by known and unknown species is something to really celebrate especially in a universe where websites perenially come and go.
Despite that, the group still dreams of publishing a collection of their works someday. Says Rio: “Although I know how hard it is to get published here--one of the reasons we came up with the website—we’re thinking, if the opportunity comes along, why not?”
For samples of the group’s work, check out www.yuppieuniverse.com
