Coming To Writing

I don’t remember when I first wrote. According to my mother, I started composing short rhymes as early as five years old. But before that, I apparently astonished relatives with my reading prowess. My great grandmother, a schoolteacher, took great pride in having a granddaughter, me, whom she claims learned to read younger than Jose Rizal did.

In a short creative writing memoir that I wrote for my Poetry Techniques class, I explained a bit about my hunger for reading that, no doubt, steered me to the path toward becoming a writer:

I grew up in then Koronadal, South Cotabato (now Koronadal City), a small town in southern Mindanao that was without a “bookstore” or a “library” as we know them. What it called a “bookstore” then was a place that sold only school supplies and not books, and where greeting cards were the closest thing to “literature” that one could find. On the other hand, the only “library” I that I can remember from that time was the one in our public school: a small room—with a sparse collection of mostly textbooks and probably an encyclopedia set—that was off-limits to students.

In the public elementary school where I studied, textbooks were sorely lacking; and the ones available were mostly in horrible condition. They were either old, coverless, torn, vandalized, or all of the above. A single book had to be shared between two or three students, and we had to have good luck to get physical custody of one (distribution was based on the drawing of lots). Already a voracious reader at that age, I would pray and pray for my name to be called because each “new” textbook meant a new reading material which I needed to feed my insatiable appetite for the written word.

The only books I remember owning then were a world atlas, a dictionary, an origami book, a local encyclopedia, and a few teen romance paperbacks. Apart from those, there were only two other books in my grandparents’ house (where I grew up) that I can remember: one on Jose Rizal and another on panitikang Pilipino.

To feed my constant hunger for stories, I read all my textbooks cover to cover from the time I was able to take them home, and when I was done, all my cousins’ textbooks, too. (It’s a good thing I had many cousins.) Afterwards, I went through my grandfather’s stack of Bandera tabloids one by one.

When I decided to move on to an aunt’s cherished (and kept) collection of thick historical romance books, my mother tried to stop me because of their explicit content, but as she could not offer alternative reading materials for me, she had to relent.

This sums up my childhood literary history, which, the way I tell it now, does not seem like an ideal childhood for a would-be writer. But while I grew up poor, in a rural area, and with limited access to books; I certainly did not lack for unique childhood experiences that I was able to write about later on. I rode carabaos, bathed in the mud, climbed trees, and played on the street, among other things that brought such unadulterated joy.

From this early immersion in the world of literature, I ventured into campus journalism, first, as a news writer, and later as the editor in chief of my elementary school paper. (I also became editor in chief of my high school and college publications.) In Grade 5 and until I graduated, I underwent training in the basics of news writing, feature writing, editorial writing, and school paper production from my elementary school teachers whose knowledge of the field was mostly from campus journalism textbooks sold during student-teacher conventions, and from some local newsmen whom we could invite for lectures. I began joining (and winning) interschool competitions at that time, but still did not see a future in writing for me (although come to think of it, I didn’t really think much of the future then).

When one morning after flag ceremony, my homeroom adviser handed to me a brochure from a school called “Philippine High School for the Arts” (which I then knew nothing about) and prompted me to apply, I had no choice but to agree though the auditions had already started that morning in General Santos City, a one-hour bus ride from our town. As I still had to gather some requirements (ID pictures, parents’ consent and signatures, etc.), we got to the audition site almost six hours late, and the competition was already intense. I was supposed to audition for Visual Arts as I also dabbled in poster-making at that time, but when I saw a door that had “CREATIVE WRITING” posted on it, though I was not really familiar with the term, I said to my teachers: “I want to audition there instead”. And so I did.

***

The Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) is a special public high school for exceptionally gifted children in the arts. I’ve always felt unworthy to be included in that category, but that is how the school advertises itself. The PHSA awards full scholarship grants to an average of 30-40 high school students selected from nationwide auditions each year. These students are required to go to a boarding school in Mount Makiling, Los Banos, Laguna, where they are trained in their chosen field of specialization: music, theater arts, visual arts, dance, and creative writing. What makes the PHSA unique is that it implements a double curriculum: one in Basic Education (composed of the usual high school subjects like English, Math, Filipino, Science, etc.) and one in Arts Education (composed of advanced, specialized arts subjects). All students, in order to retain the scholarship, must excel in both—and especially in the arts, as that was given greater weight in the grades computation.

I entered the PHSA in 1998—as one of only three creative writing students in my batch. (Of us three, I was the only one who graduated. One backed out after just a few days of stay in the school; and the other failed to make the grade at the end of our third year.) Under the creative writing program, we took up poetry on our first year, fiction on our second, and playwriting on our third; and produced a book as our thesis requirement on our fourth year. Mine was a collection of poems in English, After Being Pink and Other Poems.

At the PHSA, I had to hit the ground running as I realized there was so much I did not know about creative writing, and especially about the so many books which we need to have already read for our classes. My three roommates’ desks had books whose authors I was not familiar with: William Shakespeare, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabelle Allende, Laura Esquivel, Roald Dahl, Kurt Vonnegut, Tony Perez, Pete Lacaba, Butch Dalisay, Alfred Yuson, etc.

During this time, I relied on their and my teachers’ recommendations and read everything I could borrow from other students and from the school library. It was at the PHSA where I was able to read for the first time the works of the aforementioned authors, and also those by Pablo Neruda, Margaret Atwood, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Tennessee Williams, Rainier Maria Rilke, Nick Joaquin, Rolando Tinio, Benilda Santos, and Marra Lanot (whom I later chose to become my thesis adviser), etc.

In college, with a scholarship that allowed me to borrow from the library ten books per week instead of the regular students’ six, I helped myself to more works by the same authors, and some new ones: Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou, and Paulo Coelho, among others.

Reading took a back seat after graduation from college when I enrolled in law school at Ateneo De Manila University, and, when I couldn’t afford it anymore, at San Sebastian College Recoletos-Manila. In those years from 2007-2008 and 2009-2011, almost all my reading was confined to law books and cases. When I had to stop my law studies due to financial constraints, I took on a full time position as the head of the Student Publications Office of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, which took me to a different reading path once again, this time, to print and online newspapers and magazines, as part of my job is to keep myself and my students updated with the latest journalism and publishing trends.

***

Though an avid reader of fiction, I was never keen on becoming a fiction writer. My attempts at the genre began only when I was required to take up fiction as a subject during my sophomore year at the PHSA. Before that, my writing was limited to poetry, and various articles for the school paper.

I still remember the assignment that eventually led to my decision to stop writing fiction altogether. For our final exam, we were asked to write our own version of the legend of Maria Makiling. It was supposed to be easy. We were very familiar with the variations of the said tale, after all, and we lived atop Mount Makiling—immersed in its rich history and engulfed in its magic.

I can no longer recall what I wrote. But a few images remain fresh: the lines and lines of Courier New font on recycled newsprint that was my short story, the marginal notes in red that were my instructor’s corrections, and the large, encircled “70” on the upper right hand corner of the paper that was my grade for the exam. (The passing grade was 90.) I don’t remember the specific comments on that work, only the teacher’s remark that the plot I wrote was clichéd—the most heartbreaking criticism for us during that time.

Looking back now, it must have been not just the failing mark but the finality of that exam that killed all my hope. As that was our last requirement for the course, I felt that I no longer had the opportunity to redeem myself. And so I simply resigned myself to the belief that I wasn’t good enough for that genre.

I haven’t written one short story since, and all the short story pieces from that brief foray on the genre have, regretfully, been lost.

  

***

After taking arts management in college and devoting myself almost exclusively to campus journalism since then, I decided to enroll in the creative writing graduate studies partly due to necessity (we are required to obtain a master’s degree in our field of work; since I work in the Student Publications Office, creative writing was the closest fit), partly to exorcise old demons, but mostly to learn as much as I can so that I can write and teach better.

The writing that I do now and that I have done for a few years is admittedly very limited because of my full time job, and most of it can be categorized under creative non-fiction: reviews for websites and magazines and some personal essays.

I am mostly an editor and a teacher. I supervise student journalists in the production of the college newspaper and special publications, and teach seminar-workshops on creative writing and journalism from time to time.

Now on my second year under the creative writing program, I am relearning old lessons and learning new ones. But more importantly, I am rediscovering the joys of the craft, and allowing myself to dream again those dreams I had in my youth.

Frankly, I do not know yet where writing will take me. Without a clear plan, I remain open to the possibilities.

(Note: This was the first essay that I wrote for my Fiction Techniques class. This was how I formally introduced myself to my professor. And this is how I am formally introducing myself to you.)