I am green with envy over what two of my colleagues have achieved.

Music journalists Tony Maghirang and Yugel Losorata didn't let the pandemic break their spirit and creativity.

Although the initial lockdowns, subsequent quarantines and standard health and safety protocols confined them at home, they kept writing and submitting their stories and columns to their respective publications.

And then something great happened.

Losorata—a senior copy editor at CNN Philippines—sat down and started writing fiction in mid-2020. The resulting manuscript became a novel, The Lust Regime, which was published in February 2021.

Meanwhile, Maghirang—who writes a column in Sunday Business Mirror—went back to a draft teleplay he started in 2018 and pumped new life into it to fashion his own debut novel, Ang Kagilagilalas na Makeup Artist (The Extraordinary Makeup Artist). It came out in March this year.

Both novels are published by Ukiyoto Publishing.

Way to go!