Just a quick note to say I'm still alive, still frustrated that I haven't keyed in my pending book reviews, and so happy to be giving away books this Christmas. Maybe I should give a book out to a reader of this blog, too? :-) Let me know if you're interested to receive a free book (something extra to add under the Christmas tree).
Merry Christmas! :-)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
The discipline of art
It's easy to think that writing is effortless. Everyday you talk words, you think words, therefore you should be able to write words without a problem. But writing is not just spewing out a lava of words to make a paragraph, the way talking sometimes is. If you want to make a conversation, well then sure, keep talking. But if you want to create literary work, hold back, tread thoughtfully, let ideas unfold on their own, let characters simply become. And that is art, and it takes discipline. Which I don't have.
I dream of slipping into my own world, though. I understand different worlds very well. I can tell if I'm being invited to enter a different reality, or just being manipulated by a cheap pocketbook. I can see where the seams of a make-believe world rip, and I can tell if it will hold to the end. I take pleasure in a creation I can willingly escape to, from chapter to chapter, until the last page.
I wonder, if I tried, what kind of world I would come up with, or if I could. I keep blaming my lack of discipline; maybe it's a lack of courage. If I was brave enough, where would it take us?
I dream of slipping into my own world, though. I understand different worlds very well. I can tell if I'm being invited to enter a different reality, or just being manipulated by a cheap pocketbook. I can see where the seams of a make-believe world rip, and I can tell if it will hold to the end. I take pleasure in a creation I can willingly escape to, from chapter to chapter, until the last page.
I wonder, if I tried, what kind of world I would come up with, or if I could. I keep blaming my lack of discipline; maybe it's a lack of courage. If I was brave enough, where would it take us?
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Writing my heart out
I used to write a lot. At least a lot more than I write these days.
I remember starting my first diary in third grade, with someone's Christmas gift of a fancy-enough hard-cover diary with plastic jacket, and a title that claimed that it was. My penmanship was big and loopy (I didn't have the beautiful script that I now believe I possess!). I think I just wrote about my day and my crushes.
I kept on writing from one notebook to another since then. I had notebooks of all shapes and sizes, and I wrote in different styles (depending on what genre I was into--it was a phase thing). But I remember clearly writing as if I was writing to someone very dear. It was the only way to share my thoughts without feeling the need to censor them.
When computers came and I learned Prince of Persia and Wordstar, I hacked away--this time writing my own stories. I did this as a kid, of course, in Disney workbooks bought second-hand from missionaries' garage sales. It really gave me a kick weaving a story out of the picture given.
My Wordstar stories were of course attempts at an actual book-length story, but they never reached it. I had a lot of starts though, and a lot of characters, and a lot of plots. I printed them out, I think I may still have some of them stashed somewhere. I remember that what I enjoyed about it most was writing something I would have loved to read, but never found. So in a sense, I was really just writing for myself, because no one had yet bothered to write this or that story for me.
I enjoyed reading my first chapters--in the end I was stuck with just first chapters! I must have had a dozen of them.
I stopped writing some time in college, or maybe after. I got lazy somewhere in between diaries and stories. I'm not sure if I still read, either. I did write news feature stories for the university paper, though. It was kind of the same, but different: I dug up a piece of news each week, and I'd write it in a more fascinating way, rather than just serve it up in your usual 5 Ws and 1 H journalistic style.
I didn't do much writing and reading after that. I started a blog a few years back but got tired of that, too. But now, towards the 2nd half of 2007, I somehow found myself reading more, again. It was a peculiar kind of electric jolt I got scouring through book sales and finding something like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale at Php35, or Michael Crichton's Congo at Php30! I also once found a Salman Rushdie, but since I had bought two of his works before and never really could find what most other people found in him, I thought I should just skip his Midnight's Children. One of my latest finds is Michael Crichton's Prey, hardcover, for Php25.
So now, I want to write again. I want to write about what I'm reading, if anything else. I want to write about books. I want to write about readers. Books turned into films. Books in the Philippines. Readers in the Philippines. Art in children's books. Audiobooks, e-books, that nifty new toy called Kindle, and all sorts of things abuzz in my head. For what reason, I'm not really sure, except that whenever I look back and take stock of my life, I realize that I always light up inside in moments I've spent within pages and chapters, and dipped in ink.
That's really why there is this The Book Buzz that you're reading today, and hopefully for days to come.
I remember starting my first diary in third grade, with someone's Christmas gift of a fancy-enough hard-cover diary with plastic jacket, and a title that claimed that it was. My penmanship was big and loopy (I didn't have the beautiful script that I now believe I possess!). I think I just wrote about my day and my crushes.
I kept on writing from one notebook to another since then. I had notebooks of all shapes and sizes, and I wrote in different styles (depending on what genre I was into--it was a phase thing). But I remember clearly writing as if I was writing to someone very dear. It was the only way to share my thoughts without feeling the need to censor them.
When computers came and I learned Prince of Persia and Wordstar, I hacked away--this time writing my own stories. I did this as a kid, of course, in Disney workbooks bought second-hand from missionaries' garage sales. It really gave me a kick weaving a story out of the picture given.
My Wordstar stories were of course attempts at an actual book-length story, but they never reached it. I had a lot of starts though, and a lot of characters, and a lot of plots. I printed them out, I think I may still have some of them stashed somewhere. I remember that what I enjoyed about it most was writing something I would have loved to read, but never found. So in a sense, I was really just writing for myself, because no one had yet bothered to write this or that story for me.
I enjoyed reading my first chapters--in the end I was stuck with just first chapters! I must have had a dozen of them.
I stopped writing some time in college, or maybe after. I got lazy somewhere in between diaries and stories. I'm not sure if I still read, either. I did write news feature stories for the university paper, though. It was kind of the same, but different: I dug up a piece of news each week, and I'd write it in a more fascinating way, rather than just serve it up in your usual 5 Ws and 1 H journalistic style.
I didn't do much writing and reading after that. I started a blog a few years back but got tired of that, too. But now, towards the 2nd half of 2007, I somehow found myself reading more, again. It was a peculiar kind of electric jolt I got scouring through book sales and finding something like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale at Php35, or Michael Crichton's Congo at Php30! I also once found a Salman Rushdie, but since I had bought two of his works before and never really could find what most other people found in him, I thought I should just skip his Midnight's Children. One of my latest finds is Michael Crichton's Prey, hardcover, for Php25.
So now, I want to write again. I want to write about what I'm reading, if anything else. I want to write about books. I want to write about readers. Books turned into films. Books in the Philippines. Readers in the Philippines. Art in children's books. Audiobooks, e-books, that nifty new toy called Kindle, and all sorts of things abuzz in my head. For what reason, I'm not really sure, except that whenever I look back and take stock of my life, I realize that I always light up inside in moments I've spent within pages and chapters, and dipped in ink.
That's really why there is this The Book Buzz that you're reading today, and hopefully for days to come.
Pahinang Pang-Romansa
Where did all the Tagalog Romance Novels go? I remember seeing them in almost every turn, at unexpected places, like a sari-sari store. I also remember them occupying endless bookshelves, an entire aisle, at major bookstores. I'm probably exaggerating, my memory's poorly selective.
But anyway, I'm oddly curious about them. I once bought a book published by UP Press, an anthology of romance stories written in Filipino by Joi Barrios. I think she's wonderful--her writing makes me of something delicate as cat's paws and equally hard-hitting as targeted arrows, all within the same story. Her insights and observations of Pinoy culture shine from the page; nuggets like that always capture the wonderment of the reader in me.
But anyway, I'm oddly curious about them. I once bought a book published by UP Press, an anthology of romance stories written in Filipino by Joi Barrios. I think she's wonderful--her writing makes me of something delicate as cat's paws and equally hard-hitting as targeted arrows, all within the same story. Her insights and observations of Pinoy culture shine from the page; nuggets like that always capture the wonderment of the reader in me.
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