Conversation with Mica De Leon

Mica De Leon is a celebrated Filipino author known for her captivating romance-comedy and speculative fiction (SFF) novels. Her works effortlessly blend humor, heart, and imaginative storytelling, creating swoony narratives that resonate deeply with readers. Among her notable achievements is her widely acclaimed novel Love on the Second Read, which has cemented her reputation as a master of modern romantic fiction.

Beyond her novels, Mica has gained recognition for her thought-provoking essays, earning the prestigious Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2019 and 2022. Her award-winning essays delve into themes of romance, feminism, history, and fantasy while exploring the complexities of Filipino identity. Her work also reflects the sociopolitical landscape of the Philippines, particularly addressing the aftermath of Martial Law and the pivotal 2022 presidential elections.

Mica’s writing is characterized by her nuanced understanding of love, identity, and cultural history, making her a significant voice in Filipino literature. Whether through the lens of speculative worlds or heartwarming love stories, her narratives continue to inspire and captivate audiences both in the Philippines and beyond.

1. "Love On The Second Read" offers a unique blend of workplace romance and the vibrant world of Philippine book publishing. What inspired you to set this love story in such a niche yet dynamic environment?

Mica De Leon: Writing Love on the Second Read was more a product of necessity than inspiration. The month before I started drafting it, I had just finished my fantasy trilogy inspired by Philippine mythology, The Seedmage Cycle Era 1 (Winds of War, Veins of Power, and Seeds of Conquest), and that was three years of worldbuilding, drafting, researching, and plotting, 34 drafts rewritten to death, over a million words deleted before I ended up with the initial draft of the 180k words that we used for the book

So for my next book, I didn’t want to build a new world. I just wanted to write something I was familiar with, which was making books. Publishing. I have been working in publishing for over ten years, you see, and so I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if I wrote a romance about a romance book editor working in a Philippine publishing house that produces romance books falling in love with a SFF book editor and they’d be dropping Literary references as banter and cutesy, nerdy name-calling? I just wanted to have fun with this project, and believe it or not, it only took me a month, or 31 days, to draft the entire book.

2. Emma and Kip are editors with very different personalities and literary preferences. How did you balance their contrasting voices and make their dynamic feel authentic?

Mica De Leon: I am a hardcore plotter—or if we’re to use George RR Martin’s descriptions for types of writers, I’m an architect. And what that means is basically, I’m the type of writer who has to plan every part and detail of a book before I sit down and write the book. The risk of being a hardcore plotter is developing characters that don’t feel human. So when I was learning how to write a novel, I taught myself to trust my characters to show me who they are without me having to map out their entire lives during the planning stage. So to answer your question, I don’t know how I balance my characters. I just trust them to show me who they are as the story progresses and hope that they feel human enough that someone could resonate with their personalities and life experiences.

3. The book includes meddling friends, past relationships, and high-stakes career challenges. Which of these subplots was the most fun—or challenging—for you to write, and why?

Mica De Leon: The best friends! I love writing side characters! With main characters, you can’t do so much with them because it’s their experience that moves the plot forward. It’s too high stakes if I mess around with the main characters in the name of fun. But with side characters? Side characters usually have very little stakes in the story and so I can really have fun with them.

For this book, the challenge really is trying not to focus on the fact that Love On The Second Read is actually more metafiction than romance, because then I’ll overthink it and that’s not going to make the writing experience fun for me.

4. The sci-fi romance manuscript in the story becomes a catalyst for Emma and Kip’s relationship. Is this manuscript inspired by any real books or personal favorites?

Mica De Leon: I imagined The Menagerie Of Lost Things to be a cross between Ice Planet Barbarians and The Invisible Life Of Addie Larue. I considered writing a chapter or two of the book myself, but then I thought, this is something I should leave to the reader to imagine on their own. Very Lovecraftian except for romance. haha

5. You’ve written both romance comedies and SFF novels. How do you approach writing in these two genres, and how do they influence each other in your storytelling?

Mica De Leon: I try to look at it the way Maurice Sendak looked at the way he wrote books in that I write stories and somebody decides that it’s romance or SFF or whatever. Like I wrote in my book, genre is an arbitrary classification of books designed to help readers find their way around a bookstore. That’s it. I write stories.

I try not to limit myself to genre. Whenever I have a story idea in mind, I check the story beats the idea has and try to match it to the genre that most frequently uses those kinds of story beats. Then I go from there. My personal goal actually is to write at least one book in every genre so hopefully someday you will see books by me in the mystery, horror, non-fiction, literary, scifi, middle grade, etc. sections of the library and bookstores.

6. Your work often intertwines social commentary with romance and fantasy. How do you strike the right balance between exploring serious themes and creating an entertaining, swoony narrative?

Mica De Leon: I plan. I’m very calculating as a writer, and I learned that from Brandon Sanderson’s writing philosophy of Promise-Progress-Payoff. My outlines include notes on thematic questions that I try to answer as I dive deeper into a book until it reaches its inevitable payoff at the ending. Then I map out the funny, entertaining parts and merge it with the thematic map. I always want to feel like I earned the ending.

7. Many writers struggle with creating flawed but relatable characters. How did you approach this when crafting Emma and Kip?

Mica De Leon: When I choose characters to populate my stories, I always start with their red flags. Kip gets lost in this little bubble he created for himself with his fandoms and his passions. Emma is too decisive and doesn’t leave room for nuance. But even though I start with my characters as red flags, I trust them enough to be human and also show me their green flags. Because in real life, we’ve all got red flags and green flags.

8. Philippine culture plays a big role in your works. How does your cultural identity influence the way you write characters, settings, and themes in your novels?

Mica De Leon: I have to be honest, I don’t know how my cultural identity influences the way I write, but I know for sure that it does. I just write what I know is honest and true in my heart, mind, and soul, I guess. My cultural identity shows up in my books through little FIlipinisms we do that we don’t notice no one else in the world does, the things characters care about, the way setting are built, the themes that are specific to Filipinos. I’ve recently been traveling a lot, and it really opened my eyes to how different our lives are compared to the lives of those people who live in other countries. If anything, I hope readers of my books pick up empathy and an understanding that we all live different lives wherever we are in the world.

9. What do you hope international readers will take away from reading a romance set in the Philippine book publishing scene?

Mica De Leon: If there’s anything that I want anyone to take away from my book—and not that I had intended anyone to get anything from my book other than have a fun time reading it—it’s this: Love is equality.

10. As someone who juggles writing, winning awards, and a love for long epic novels and Taylor Swift, what does a typical writing day look like for you, and how do you find inspiration in your daily life?

Mica De Leon: My personal philosophy in life is this: If I want to do everything, I plan and schedule to do everything.

I have a full-time day job, which takes up most of my day. On weekdays, if I’m able to punch out of the day job on time, I allot 1-2 hours to write at least 500 words a day. On weekends, if I don’t have events, I schedule writing time in the afternoons. I write till I’m too tired to write. I am able to do what I do because I follow a strict schedule. Before starting a book project, I give myself a timeline with exact dates and a corresponding word count. My method may not work for everyone, but it works for me. I’m very competitive, and I like competing with myself. Having word count goals triggers that hunger to outdo myself every time I start a writing session.