Name: Vicente Cajilig, Jr.
Birth year: 1993
Birthplace: Tablas Is., Romblon, Philippines
Present Address: Cavite, Philippines
Education: Tourism Management, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (University of the City of Manila)
Occupation: Environmental civil society organization

I started blogging on Tumblr back in college where I would occasionally write about special happenings in my boring life, movie reviews, and more boring stuff no one else would care to read, but my writerly journey began when my English was so basic yet got the nerve to… write.

The first story I’ve ever written was in Filipino with a title I could no longer recall but the plot was unforgettable—inspired by Alice in Wonderland with all the gigantic and other-worldly settings and characters. Then came in “The Quest”, my first in English, over my last years in grade school, heavily inspired by characters from Ragnarok Online. Venturing out to another genre, I wrote about a haunted high school with a one-legged librarian ghost as cynosure whom was well-received by my avid readers, my classmates. It didn’t stop until high school. There was one about a team of young secret agents, unfinished; my own superhero “The Monk”, still inspired by Ragnarok Online; and about the four elements, my most favorite, but went unfinished as well. How I wish I still had the manuscripts, though, and maybe have myself a good laugh. I tried again in college. Temporarily entitled “Lucky Keogh”, it was a medieval-themed adventure I have published on Wattpad, only it was unfinished as well. And that was my last attempt.

Competitively, in high school and college, I always got to participate in essay writing contests. My biggest success was once in high school when I won first place over twenty students across the province. I was also singled out to represent the whole elementary school in one of the pioneering days of the division journalism press conference which I regularly attended all the way till high school.

My love for writing, the English grammar, and the language in general took root way back in fifth grade when our English teacher would constantly ask us to make an essay about whatever she would think of. While my classmates scorned, I rejoiced. It really honed my skill by the day. Sometime in college, I was asked by her to do a writeup for our hometown fiesta’s mementos. I was so thrilled to see it published for the whole town to see and for the mere idea of physically publishing it. It must feel all the more thrilling to have your own stories (or probably another attempt to a novel!) in an actual book—oh boy, still my baddest dream!

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“World’s Like Words that Connote” is my personal take on life being double-faced or ambiguous, that one should not take it seriously right off the bat until it unveils its other shape or degree which can actually be its primary significance; hence, “connote”.