THE QUESTION I dread most to answer usually comes from mothers. And no, it’s not “What are you doing with my daughter?”—although I suppose the mothers of some of the young women I’ve asked on a date when I was a young man may have had that query in a thought balloon upon meeting me.
The question I dread most is usually asked by the mother in this manner: “My daughter (or son) is a writer in her school paper. Her teachers say she is very good. Sir, is there good money in writing? Can she make a successful career out of it?”
Usually, the setting for this lovely little exchange would be at a social gathering where I am busy getting drunk. The mom’s little daughter is standing beside her, looking at me with a blank expression.
Of course, I know what’s on the mother’s mind. “Success” may mean several things but the usual sense I get from people involves money, job security, paid leaves of absence, employment benefits, maybe even fame and respectability. This may also include hopes for a good family life with spouse and children, HMO coverage and a pension.
I have to look at the inquiring mother with a kind smile and not give the answer that first threatens to rush out of my pie-hole, which is, “Madam, I may be drunk but you are ugly. And I will be sober in the morning.” Oh, wait. That’s not it. That’s a remark usually attributed to Winston Churchill. Let’s do this again.
Sir Winston Churchill may have looked like a pink old woman—but he led Britain through World War Two. He was Prime Minister and also “King of the Comeback”. (Source: http://www.world-war-2-diaries.com/winston-churchill-pictures.html)
My first answer, which I keep to myself, is: “How dare you remind me of the desperation with which I am burdened every day, the same desperation that I am vainly trying to escape by drinking myself blind in this gathering where, fortunately, no one gives a s**t about my contribution to society.”
I wouldn’t say that to the mother of course, who stands before me, eyes brimming with hopes and dreams for her daughter with kinky hair, wearing braces and prescription spectacles.
I wish I could give some standard, beauty pageant answer like, “Follow your dreams. Recycle. Save the trees—it’s their fault that they didn’t evolve into Ents, the moving, walking, stalking monster trees of the Tolkien universe, and so are now helpless against the chainsaws of capitalist greed.” But I can’t. I can’t bring myself to do it.
The scourge of tree-killing mall taipans. (Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P_enGjuZU0I/TxFdFfD1A5I/AAAAAAAABKs/DTzpNDG4THc/s1600/ent_isengard_small.jpg)
Surprisingly, I would give a more truthful, rather balanced answer. Which is: “Ma’am, writing is a very useful skill for your daughter to learn and to be good at. She would be able to use that skill in whatever profession she gets into. Writing provides good training for the mind when it comes to verbal dexterity, articulation, analysis, information processing, conceptual organization, creativity and imagination. But writing doesn’t really pay good money so it’s best for her to get a real job. Or she could start her own business.”
That hits the mother like a jab into her solar plexus. The daughter has no idea what I just said. They both go away, leaving me with my drink. The drink has numbed me enough not to feel my monstrosity at the moment.
***
Seriously, though (because what, the previous paragraphs weren’t serious enough?), I would not wish a writing career for my own children. Especially not in Philippine society, which is an oral, rather than a textual one. Filipinos are talkers. Some, thank God, are actual conversationalists. But mostly, we talk. Or, more precisely, perhaps, we yak. We’re good a yakking.
Most PInoys who think they “write” on Facebook or on their blogs are yakking, not writing. It’s not enough to be able to type words on a keyboard and pour forth your bile, your corny sentiment, or your emo despair. Writing, first of all, is a way of thinking. It’s a way of thinking coherently, with purpose.
Our oral society simply doesn’t value the written text enough. The written text requires permanence, more honesty, and commitment. Talking is less committal and conveniently changeable. This affects our sense of history, our daily transactions, and our politics.
This is also why a lot of people who don’t write think that writing is easy. They think it’s like talking, except that you put your talk on paper or on MS Word. Some clients of professional writers are curiously clueless about the actual work, the level of skill and expertise that writing requires. As a result, many of them want their writers cheap. I’ve even heard of a website that offers writers the lucrative job of writing five hundred words per article in return for all of P60—minus 10 or 12 percent tax, probably.
Well, Mr. Client, if you think writing is so easy, why don’t you do the writing yourself? Or let your driver or your maid do it for you? Or better yet, leave me alone and kiss this:
Source: http://www.godandchristian.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/donkey.jpg
This is also why a Filipino Supreme Court justice takes entire pages off someone else’s book and puts those words into his ruling. And the Supreme Court thinks this is okay. Many of us do this. We copy and paste instead of actually write something on our own.
If you do this often enough, you become a conceptual artist and think you’re on the cutting edge of Philippine literature.
I’ve been writing since I was nine years old. That’s 30 years of writing. And no, writing was never a hobby. Writing, in my case, was a skill I was taught to use in exchange for certain rewards. I was taught to write when I was a child so I could join contests and win medals and recognition for our school. It was, in essence, a job.
It was a good job, from a nine-year-old’s perspective. Weeks before the writing contest, I could get a few days’ exemption from my classes. Instead of coming to class, I would be asked to do nothing for the whole day but write. It was fun. I loved it. I loved it so much that I have practically not done anything else.
On breaks from the writing training, I would go to the school quadrangle and throw my boomerang. Sometimes, the darned thing got caught in a tree’s branches, and I’d have to throw a rock at it so it falls back down. That’s my childhood: writing essays and feature stories and throwing a boomerang around.
The medals and the praise from teachers also felt good, but somehow, I feel it was also a type of brain-washing. Why was it brain-washing?
Well, if my very first writing coach, a sweet old lady who taught us English, told my nine-year-old that I would spend weeks of my adult professional writing life—body unwashed, teeth unbrushed, hair uncombed, stomach empty—beating deadlines like I was in an endless arcade game of Whack-A-Mole, I would have socked her on the nose.
Yeah. Palm-strike to the nose! Bam-bam-bam! Like Viggo Mortensen in Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence.”
Who’s going to say this guy isn’t a professional writer? Give him a laptop, tobacco, coffee, alcohol--he’s all set. (Source: http://amandamervine.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/homeless-guy.jpg)
Beating multiple deadlines really feels like that. You see a deadline rear its head, you smash it with a mallet quickly. Look, a deadline! Smash it! Another one! Whack it now, for the love of God! Whack on, whack off, Mr. Miyagi. (Yeah, he said “Wax” in the movie, but Mr. Miyagi looks like a DOM, so…)
Like I said, I learned to love writing so much that I didn’t even know I had other career options. I got brain-washed into thinking that Writing Is The S**t and it’s the greatest thing in the world to do.
This has lead me to a situation where if I don’t write, I don’t eat. Really. This is so unlike other “writers” I know who have another source of income, which is usually teaching. These writers are brilliant. Some are practically geniuses—but they are paid to be academics, not writers. So, in a very real way, their writing is more “pure,” I guess.
They write what they want when they want to write it. They don’t have to put up with the sometimes atrocious, sometimes insane, occasionally hilarious demands of clients.
(And speaking of clients, here’s a trade secret: If you are going to write for pay, pick an American, British or Indian client who knows his stuff. In other words, pick a client who comes from a society, a culture that knows the value of writing. They not only pay more (hopefully), but they actually have standards.
They are willing to work with you to improve the written output. They value your opinion when it comes to the job at hand. If you get a foreign client who knows his stuff, you end up writing better. Of course, you might end up with an ignoramus foreign client, too. In which case, refer to this column’s first nine paragraphs. Any beverage that’s 9% proof and above is a coping mechanism.)
There’s so much more to tell when it comes to the writing life. And mostly, it’s not depressing. I’m happy that, in the course of my own work as a writer, I do not always write for pay. This type of writing is something freeing, something joyful. But that’s the topic of the next Inkcanto.
