what gives me satisfaction is something i have to immerse in deep thought for hours to achieve. i have always been impulsive when it comes to doing things that are good in the generic sense, so it's safe to assume that i value the same things others do---family, friends, health, knowledge, religion, love, music...but of all, my ambitions have come full circle. this is where i have gone from demi-god to garbage...where i have lost, won and lost again.
i keep a closet-full of knowledge, vocabulary and idioms. at the outset, i wanted to appear and sound intelligent, and for others to take notice of and recognize the fact that i know so much about the muses and apollo. i was deliberately reckless when i wanted attention, and composed when i wanted respect. my sense of humor is like a man's laundry that gets washed in public most of the time. blasphemy has not been my thing, though. my beliefs will remain as they came to me that fateful day i sought for repentance. my love for literature grew to obsession until i didn't care anymore about how people see me.
words of spanish writers make me want to enter their soulful pens and wander off, with blind faith, to the road of their cursive minds. i envy them for their trenchant thinking and penchant for putting together words of distant imports, but beautiful when combined--even when describing the simplest joy of movement, a sign of life, or a kitchen towel left dirty and dry on the countertop. but often times, i would replace the cap of my pens for next time and weeks will pass without any purchase from the local bookstore i used to frequent and made hard promises to--my 107th resolve to take on writing as a profession.
it's not at all lucrative compared to law, where books you don't even want to read are on the firstl level of your shelf that requires a 15-rung ladder to reach, not because they mattered, but because they are expensive as hell. my favorite professor, who was pensive most of the time, but insightful and shrewd, told me that a lawyer's library is his wealth. Haha! paper victories come in various shapes and sizes, depending on the number of words typed in meticulous legal form. an affidavit does not come from a hardbound book, only its form. God knows even my niece can write one in shorthand :) it's the form that you usually pay great tribute to, not the book from where it came.
imagination is the key to better writing, along with good disposition and perceptive thinking. what greater ingredient is there to writing a story than personal experience? if you live like a hermit though, there's really nothing much to write so aim for the prologue nalang. but then again, if you are locked up in a room, you begin to see things differently (or you might mistake hallucination for good material).
i'm glad my siblings share the same passion for reading. we each have our own decent libraries to fill, and our demons to tame whenever ate len gets the bestsellers first (one of the many perks she gets from living just across the national bookstore branch in paseo de sta rosa). but the rivalry ended when len and i conceded to kuya's collection of hard-to-find books. it's not at all surprising given that he practically lives and breathes powerbooks, fully booked and national. he's like mel gibson in "the pelican brief" where, for tracking purposes, he was drugged into buying a copy of 'the catcher in the rye' each time he enters a bookstore wherever state he was at the time. food on the table played second fiddle for a time :) (tama ba ko, ate mash)
a wartime memoir is the best and probably the most credible witness to a sterling depiction of a love story. but it has to be believable, not a mere immersion project. when you are cash strapped, a softbound version is the real deal. i bought emily bronte's novel for 50 pesos. i want to believe that penguin books deliberately rammed the prices down, particularly of classics, to encourage readers worldwide to put off their readings of science fiction and thrillers and discover the "origin of rock", in music parlance. Pride and Prejudice is worth every penny (all its 99-peso glory).
the big difference is, i no longer face the dreadful pressure of finishing my daily reading quota, unlike the merciless review period i had to go through just to raise my confidence a notch higher. come to think of it, the Philippines is the one country where taking the bar is a huge deal...when i say huge, i mean humungous deal! i carried the weight of reading for years...and now i'm free. free to go back to my roots and read archie comics and pugad baboy. I can look for larry alcala all day without guilt.
i keep a closet-full of knowledge, vocabulary and idioms. at the outset, i wanted to appear and sound intelligent, and for others to take notice of and recognize the fact that i know so much about the muses and apollo. i was deliberately reckless when i wanted attention, and composed when i wanted respect. my sense of humor is like a man's laundry that gets washed in public most of the time. blasphemy has not been my thing, though. my beliefs will remain as they came to me that fateful day i sought for repentance. my love for literature grew to obsession until i didn't care anymore about how people see me.
words of spanish writers make me want to enter their soulful pens and wander off, with blind faith, to the road of their cursive minds. i envy them for their trenchant thinking and penchant for putting together words of distant imports, but beautiful when combined--even when describing the simplest joy of movement, a sign of life, or a kitchen towel left dirty and dry on the countertop. but often times, i would replace the cap of my pens for next time and weeks will pass without any purchase from the local bookstore i used to frequent and made hard promises to--my 107th resolve to take on writing as a profession.
it's not at all lucrative compared to law, where books you don't even want to read are on the firstl level of your shelf that requires a 15-rung ladder to reach, not because they mattered, but because they are expensive as hell. my favorite professor, who was pensive most of the time, but insightful and shrewd, told me that a lawyer's library is his wealth. Haha! paper victories come in various shapes and sizes, depending on the number of words typed in meticulous legal form. an affidavit does not come from a hardbound book, only its form. God knows even my niece can write one in shorthand :) it's the form that you usually pay great tribute to, not the book from where it came.
imagination is the key to better writing, along with good disposition and perceptive thinking. what greater ingredient is there to writing a story than personal experience? if you live like a hermit though, there's really nothing much to write so aim for the prologue nalang. but then again, if you are locked up in a room, you begin to see things differently (or you might mistake hallucination for good material).
i'm glad my siblings share the same passion for reading. we each have our own decent libraries to fill, and our demons to tame whenever ate len gets the bestsellers first (one of the many perks she gets from living just across the national bookstore branch in paseo de sta rosa). but the rivalry ended when len and i conceded to kuya's collection of hard-to-find books. it's not at all surprising given that he practically lives and breathes powerbooks, fully booked and national. he's like mel gibson in "the pelican brief" where, for tracking purposes, he was drugged into buying a copy of 'the catcher in the rye' each time he enters a bookstore wherever state he was at the time. food on the table played second fiddle for a time :) (tama ba ko, ate mash)
a wartime memoir is the best and probably the most credible witness to a sterling depiction of a love story. but it has to be believable, not a mere immersion project. when you are cash strapped, a softbound version is the real deal. i bought emily bronte's novel for 50 pesos. i want to believe that penguin books deliberately rammed the prices down, particularly of classics, to encourage readers worldwide to put off their readings of science fiction and thrillers and discover the "origin of rock", in music parlance. Pride and Prejudice is worth every penny (all its 99-peso glory).
the big difference is, i no longer face the dreadful pressure of finishing my daily reading quota, unlike the merciless review period i had to go through just to raise my confidence a notch higher. come to think of it, the Philippines is the one country where taking the bar is a huge deal...when i say huge, i mean humungous deal! i carried the weight of reading for years...and now i'm free. free to go back to my roots and read archie comics and pugad baboy. I can look for larry alcala all day without guilt.
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