SOBRA-SOBRA (TOO MUCH)
an introduction to my novella
Hello, everyone. I have recently started on different writing projects, and now, I’ve finished one of them: my creative writing thesis, anchored in the production of a novella. This project has been a tireless effort, queerly stitched to my heart.
The novella is titled SOBRA-SOBRA, a Filipino phrase that translates to too much, excess, extra. And what do we know about excess, if not camp? And hasn’t camp always been queer? Trash made into art. Glamour made from pain. Survival glittered in drama. SOBRA SOBRA is a celebration of all that and more. It’s a word that somehow captures the fullness, the chaos, the defiance, and the beauty of queer existence. SOBRA SOBRA is a declaration, a reclamation of being too much in a world that often demands we be less.
The novella is a decades-sprawling, multigenerational archival and documentation of queer art, queer resistance, queer activism, queer love, and queer joy, wrapped in the ribbon of a literary exploration of common tropes and clichés in queer storytelling. Packaged with spectral characters who carry grit in their own right, glitter in their teeth, and queer overtness that saturates every hue of the rainbow, each is unraveled, unspooled, and excavated (without mystification) and threaded back into a full-circle reckoning of what it means to live the cliché as queer. A reclamation that winks, subverts, and embraces both the closet and the outside world, as they strut into the cavernous life of pride.
Every character contributes to the glittery fabric of the whole story; some snag it with unexpected knots of anguish, anger, grief, and complicated fear, while others do not exist just in relation to the main characters, but breathe with their own glory, driving the queer narrative to its apex.
Under the umbrella of different timelines, conceived first in the vicious thickness of Martial Law, the story engages with political themes that dissect state violence, the religious stronghold of Catholicism that has cloaked the Philippines for generations, and the intersections of oppression faced by activists during that despotic era, paralleling the abuse endured by queer lives.
As the narrative lens follows Marina in escape, the story begins to warm into the history of queer art: its power in mutilating oppression, its underground rebellion feeding the intellectual stamina of activists, and how it was wielded by drag queens who were still called “female impersonators” at the time.
The landscape then shifts into the post-EDSA era, a subtle peek into the collapse of Martial Law, then wakes into the aftermath of the nightmare: what it means to live "freely" but still be ruled by systemic abuse. The story spirals into the Y2K era, a time when the apocalypse felt near. More perspectives emerge, from queer characters affected by Marina’s many lives and legacies, until it all converges into the NOW.
The present generation, who have survived, are surviving, and will continue to survive. The generation of queers, rebels, influencers, anarchists, artists, digital divas, crowdfunding mavens, experimental, acerbic, provocative, and liberated rejects. They are still ostracized. They are still fighting. But now they live with enough space to fight freely. Now they live in a time where they can scathingly shame bigots who disfigure and demonize queer love. A NOW that prohibits hate. A NOW that is still cleaved with hatred, but thunders with pride reclaimed.
And that is where the story ends: pride.
I hope this nuance gives you the heart and strength to read through my work. Every character here cried with me, laughed with me, loved with me, and lived with me. They are all fictitiously created, but they are poetic ruptures and representations of queer lives that exist among us.
Between kisses, between cheers, between violence, between dead names, between abuse, between love, between pride, between everything, this story is a love letter to the queer life that can never be erased. A queer life that refuses to be silenced. It will exist. And I hope this novella is enough of a documentation. A billet-doux. A love to all.
Happy reading.
Here is the table of contents. Will be posting Chapter 1 soon!
01: Ang Dilaw na Bestida (The Yellow Dress)
02: Anak ng Parlor (Daughter of Parlor)
Marina's Archive: BAMBOO, SPLIT
03: Baril, Bata, Bakla (Gun, Child, Faggot)
04: Dindo, Vilma, at Ang Buwan (Dindo, Vilma, and The Moon)
Marina's Archive: KAPRE, COME OUT
05: Hindi Pa Tapos ang Pangungusap (The Sentence Isn’t Over Yet)
06: Mga Bakas ng Takong at Luha (Heelprints and Tears)
Marina's Archive: CATCALLER NA WHITE LADY SA EDSA (Catcalling White Lady on EDSA)
07: Ang Prinsesa sa Ilalim ng Kama (The Princess Under the Bed)
08: Sa Bahay na 'To, May Glitter ang Hangin (In This House, the Air Smells Like Glitter)
Marina's Archive: TIANAK SA CONGRESS (Tianak at the Congress)
09: Bago Maging Alikabok (Before We Turn to Dust)
10: Lip Sync for Your Afterlife
Marina's Archive: TIKBALANG'S TRANSPORT STRIKE
11: Sobra-Sobra (Too Much)
12: Queenanginamo
Marina's Archive: A GENEALOGY OF MONSTERS THEY TRIED TO NAME MAN
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Sounds amazing!