Against All Odds

Against All Odds

I take it as my chore to discourage as many ‘aspiring authors’ as I possibly can. Because you cannot discourage a real writer. I’ve said it a hundred times in print. Break a real writer’s hands, and s/he will tap out a story with feet or nose.

– Harlan Ellison, in the foreword to Dan Simmons’ Prayers to Broken Stones

Charles is right: we do have a rather odd friendship. We disagree on quite a few things, but we don’t normally end up hating each other because of them. As is the way with these things, though, it’s probably just a matter of time >P

I think Charles has blogged a few times about how he endorses a “proactive” mode of living. He’s also elaborated on his thoughts on being “proactive” in private correspondence. I regret I wasn’t able to provide a suitable reply, but I do respect what he has to say.

I believe that what Charles is against is whining, more than anything. However, I think “whining” and “introspection” are separated by very thin lines outside of fiction.

Just to be clear: When I write about why I think Filipinos can’t produce more fiction, I’m not necessarily writing about why I can’t produce more fiction. I’ve had my own personal excuses for not writing more fiction, especially not a novel, even if the sharp point of NaNoWriMo and similar activities hang over my head at least once a year. And in my private little world, all those excuses make perfect sense. But to someone else, they would seem like nothing but excuses. And whining about it would make me an intolerable git, which is why I never do it, at least not in public.

I know for a fact that my father doesn’t want to hear any excuses about why I can’t write. Since I’ve chosen writing as my profession, I don’t have the right to complain about not having enough time, not being in the right environment, or even being too hungry or too sick or too tired, to meet a deadline. You just shut up and do it. If there’s anyone I can thank for my Pavlovian fear of deadlines, it’s my dad, whom I love very much.

But writing fiction is something else for me. It’s something I do more out of love than anything else – I certainly don’t do it for the money. I do it not because a deadline compels me; I do it because I need to. Because I have something in my head and keeping it in is going to tear me apart. I can probably write a passable news article in 5 minutes in the middle of a bloody battlefield, or a decent essay on the ethical dilemmas of the East India Trading Company in under an hour… but I can’t write a story unless I feel like it.

And there are times when I just don’t feel like it. The need simply doesn’t exist. Maybe I’m too caught up in the drive to make money, maybe I’m too sad or stressed, or maybe other more urgent thoughts are occupying my time. At the end of it all, I’m just not inspired. And if anybody tells me that I should write fiction while I’m uninspired, out of responsibility to a society or to myself or to anybody else, that person automatically gets the finger from me.

Money – or, more appropriately, the lack of it – is not my main excuse. I write when I don’t have money… in fact, maybe I’m more active writing fiction when I don’t have money.

I stand by what I said elsewhere – that in order to write well, you don’t have to pay to do it. Paid workshops are helpful from time to time, school is always a great place to get books and get in touch with other aspiring writers… but if you want to write, the one thing you have to do is live. You have to have stories to tell. And you don’t need much money to just open your eyes and look around you, or look inside you and see what’s there to give.

Unfortunately, cultivating the gift of communication needs a lot of support. There’s a very real difference between writing for publication and simple storytelling. Writing to get published requires intimate knowledge of convention, of language, and most of all, of the industry. You hardly ever get that without having access to education and up-to-date information.

You know what you get instead? A lifetime of rejection letters. That won’t necessarily stop you from writing, but as we’ve established: nobody wants you to keep your words to yourself. You have to be good enough to be able to share your stories with everyone else.

I can safely say now that I ended up being a writer because I grew up surrounded by my father’s books. Because I had money and time to commute so many miles every day just to borrow even more books, from friends and good public libraries. Because I had a computer, and later the Internet. Because my mother was kind enough to spare me the backbreaking responsibilities that come with being born female (I still remember her telling me that it’s fine for boys to be antisocial bookworms, but not girls), just so I can spend my time reading and conducting long, fruitless conversations with dead guys in my head.

All the circumstances were favorable. If I had not become a writer, it would not only have been a surprise, it would have been a complete embarrassment.

In conclusion, we have to get things in perspective: my problems with writing are not other people’s problems with writing. Compared to other people’s problems, mine are really so dull as to be insulting. Perhaps yours are, too.

I think there are some very real hindrances not only to good writing, but to writing in general, and these hindrances are not unique to our country – however, that they exist in our country at all means we can probably try and do something about them. I’m not talking about them to make people feel bad, anyway: I’m hoping for an exchange of information, at least on ongoing efforts (Charles has already pointed out Zarah and The Filipino Librarian in his post, for which I’m grateful).

Moreover, these problems are not simply solved by telling people they need to get off their lazy asses and write. You can tell me to get off my lazy ass and write (and then I would have to give you the finger) but I think we could do with a lot more of everyone else’s writing, as well.

Right, have to run to catch a ferry. Will be posting more and looking over this one later.