Writing

by

Ricardo F. Maulion

(11^th Entry for My 500 Words daily Challenge – January 12,2014)

            As enjoined by Jeff Goin, I would like to share my thoughts on the subject. I think  writing is everybody else fulfillment as we intent to carve a niche in this world. Want a complete life? Then plant a tree, raise a family and write a book, reveals a familiar maxim. And isn’t it that writing too should be the end result of any communication. Listen attentively, speak fluently, read voraciously and write at the end of day, the instructive communication flow in every classroom show.

            The communication pattern I think shows the stages for you to become a writer. Listening and speaking are explainable indicators so with writing in the equation. And what is its secret, making it easy as singing do-re-mi? I think it’s in the third concept that is reading.  For how could you write anyway a piece or an article if you don’t have reservoir of knowledge. In my case, I normally got enlisted as regular member of a library to get into the groove as we have all the materials specially bestsellers and periodicals.

            Many writers have been into this even did not finished college but graduated anyway from paperbacks with flying colors. The likes of Conrad de Quiros, NVM Gonzales, Nick Joaquin to name a few are best examples. Even the late Blas Ople, Labor Secretary and member of Philippine Senate was also a graduate of paperback before he became a writer. You could hardly even understand and pissed off too when you hear him speak in English as he stammers every time he speaks. But read his column “Horizon” in Bulletin Today, national broadsheet, and you can’t help but appreciate the man for the beauty of his articles. Ninoy Aquino's Gung-ho personality might have also helped him develop his journalistic skills when he volunteered as journalist during Korean War. All this was made possible through their being graduate of paperbacks, euphemistically an institution of Hard Knacks, in Visayan School of Gahi Ug Ulo.

            I think that observation is very important to disabuse and demolish the concept that all you have to take for you to write is to have a professional degree. But of course, no and never sir. What you got after four years in college is nothing anyway but a diploma, that piece of paper you hang as souvenir. For you to become a writer is to nurture that “student by heart” mentality albeit even you have already graduated. Your advantage I think for having completed a College Degree is to use this  to jump-start your desire to be a writer. By this I mean, conducting research to facilitate your writing career which what actually I’ve been doing capitalizing on my background in Philosophy, History and English. My graduate study too in Sociology though I have not delivered a thesis yet  is also a necessary lift. Well, why so? If you have the data on particular issue right in your palm, that would already constitute 80% or maybe less of the whole article unwritten yet. And like globules in your palm, they would just automatically come in handy sliding down when you use them.  All you need is just to use the necessary connectives and bingo could already facilitate your writing activity formulating there an introduction and conclusion packaging the whole piece as palatable write-ups.

            Among fiction writer having been into reading binge, Irving Wallace exemplifies  to me as a perfect example on this. He normally reserves a month or two conducting first research on his subject before he develops his plot for a fiction. I read mostly all his books (more than a dozen actually) he wrote and I tell you he really makes sense. No wonder maybe that his works were made into movies and considered writers’ writer. I actually wrote a critique  about  his work entitled “Irving Wallace, The Almighty and Pinoy Media”, a beautiful material I could probably offer as thesis when I’ll take graduate study in Literature.

            How about the language? Forget this! What are you comfortable with is okay. You need not to be an English expert for you to write. I think some of the classics we have in literature were originally written in the writer’s language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and New Testament in Greek.  I think Alexander Solzhenitsyn epic “Gulag Archipelago” was originally written in Russian. Paulo Coelho who registers 97 maybe translations from his books earning him the most translated author in history by Guinness Book Record have his  works  originally written in Spanish.Good even to learn and for the information of Filipino writers  Palanca has been there accepting entries in regional dialects – from Ilocano, Visayan and what have you – in its annual competition writing competition.

            Writing talent, this is the bottom line of it all. How you say it is what matters. But sad to note that what would have been classics from a Filipino genius  died too its natural death this as Juan de la Cruz  buries with him when he would be buried six feet under the ground.

All of us were given gift and blessings by the Lord alright. But what separate the artists – writers and all that- from the rest is that they open first that gift, nurture it before they were given back to the Lord. Writing sense? Yes we all have, Vergel de los Santos, veteran Filipino journalist affirms but unless you have the more and better appetite than ordinary people you  would hardly make it. Writers are not born but made so you have really to pay the price of your option if you like to become one. No one too poke a gun on your head, Butch Dalisay advises. The world simply  owes you nothing. But better you take it seriously when you attempt doing it.

You really would like to become  a writer. So be it But why are you here, Nick Joaquin begged the question to would-be writers. You should be somewhere maybe in your room pounding your own  typewriter. And when you do having felt the highs of writing getting critics  feedback here and there, don’t fret because writing actually is war, another late veteran columnist Teodoro Benigno reveals.

            That said, would you still like to become a writer! Must be joking. Thus, my advice to students and would-be writers – go for it. That  if you’ve got the balls and nerve what it takes.  The contrary holds true – never mind attempting  doing it if you’re not serious about developing the craft or you would only be wasting away time.