LITERAL 04: "What Will Make You Feel That You've Made It as a Writer?"

L.I.T.E.R.A.L. is a weekly blog meme for authors hosted at Indie Books, created to serve as a support group for participants of the Author at Once workshops.  L.I.T.E.R.A.L. welcomes all writers (from anywhere in the world) who’d like to weigh in on the topics!

After a hiatus of ... well, quite a while, the boys and girls of L.I.T.E.R.A.L. have come up with the latest writing prompt.

Q. "What will make you truly feel that you’ve made it as a writer? Seeing your byline? Holding the book in your hands? Seeing it climb up the charts? Your first book launch? What will finally get you to tell people that yes, you are a writer?”

That's a very good question. It's right up there with "What will make you feel you've succeeded in life?" Where "life" is the question, the answer certainly isn't making the first loan payments for your car, house or  condo unit. Certainly it's not marrying one woman you love-- though  there was a time I'd thought that was enough.When the question is life, it's very tempting to go whole hog on your wish list of  accomplishments and accolades, the stuff you have to have before you can really tell yourself, "I've arrived." Or, "I've really, really lived."

When the question is writing, it's also very tempting to go whole hog on the answer, to raise the brass ring so high that looking at it makes you dizzy. I already know I'm a writer. I'm just not a very good one if whatever I write doesn't move the people it's supposed to move. The problem is that everyone else is also a writer as soon as he authors his first badly written grade school composition. And here's my brass ring: until my writing does the impossible (bring about world peace, raise the dead, create a universe from scratch) or the highly unlikely (cause a violent and bloody revolution, win a Nebula), I will always be filed under "everyone else."

Sadly, no one's that good, on purpose. Karl Rove had maybe a quarter billion in funds, think tanks, copywriters, Fox News and he still couldn't deliver a win for Mitt Romney.


...


If I lower my goals to realistic levels and still allow myself to dream, though, then I'll settle for the following indicators, for now.

I'll know I'm "on the road to being made" if I can write a straightforward novel or story where my characters are real, not convenient stereotypes or only simple mouthpieces for my politics or philosophy (cf Ayn Rand's John Galt).  F. Sionil Jose accomplishes this in Ermita with Ermi Rojo and Rolando Cruz, but they are still, primarily, mouthpieces in the greater dialogue among the themes of Jose's novel.

I'll know I'm made when someone I don't know quotes me because he finds that my ideas (and therefore, my writing) makes sense to him.

I'll know I'm made when I'm as well-known for writing and related endeavors as Ian Casocot, Third Domingo, Arnold Arre and Carl Vergara. This of course will never really happen, but a man can dream, can't he?



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LITERAL 03: Who Is Your Writing Support Group?

L.I.T.E.R.A.L. is a weekly blog meme for authors hosted at Indie Books, created to serve as a support group for participants of the Author at Once workshops.  L.I.T.E.R.A.L. welcomes all writers (from anywhere in the world) who’d like to weigh in on the topics!

This third prompt comes late because of my involvement with Crime Prevention Week. We've been celebrating it on the first seven days of September since 1994... well, anyone who's had some involvement with the law has been "forced" to observe  it since 1994. As in many holidays, most folks just nod their heads, grunt noncommitally and do whatever they are wont to do during the week. Not me, no sir. I had to be shanghaied into filming it.  

Excuses aside, our third prompt has to do with support groups. And truth to tell, I don't really have one, at least, not any more.


The First Institution

No one in my family writes for a living. Sure, the legal and police administrative professions require one to churn out volumes of text-- subpoenas, affidavits, undertakings, memoranda-- but this kind of writing is subordinate to the whole that is "the job." Writing is the boring and tedious  part of whatever "the job" is. No one really gets respect for writing unless his name is Sidney Sheldon or Gore Vidal. My family is somewhat "old school":  there will be lip service paid to writing in and of itself, but little else, unless said writing "delivers the goods"-- a roof over your head, food on the table and a woman in your bed. Or just wads of cash.

My sister and I dabbled in writing for publicists and publications, but these never really took off (except maybe my sister's year at the Manila Bulletin, but that had to be sidelined for her studies in Law). We were natural candidates for "support group"  but it never quite happened. We were too wrapped up in what we were doing  individually. Our own personal lives didn't allow for much interaction beyond the occasional family dinner discussions where we avoided talking about our work or our personal concerns.


F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

My friends in early college were all trying to write the Great Comic Book or Novel of the Early Twenty-First Century, and most of us filed that dream under "Stuff you Outgrow" pretty quickly. Thad Lacanlale and I were writing for a Cubao-based comic book series back in the early nineties: something just shy of copyright infringement called WrestleWarriors.  If you haven't heard of that book, then you pretty much understand why you haven't heard of us. That experience didn't kill the dream for me, but put it in a body cast and made us push it in a wheel chair for around eight years.


A recent friend, Jen, was willing to share assignments with me just to get me back into writing again, but I could not accept her sometimes unsolicited help. Not that I didn't want to, but because my job was in the way. Being a language coach in my old company required you to do the work of grad students with two jobs. I literally had no time.



Plugging Doll Eyes

Among my friends, only Eline Santos may be on her way to making good on our collective dreams. You should check out her children's story "Doll Eyes."  It's very Gaiman in the way she mines our psyche and our childhoods for villains, but you should just read it for yourself.        


Conclusion

There were other friends who came later in my life, who offered their support-- but they've gone, they're in other locales and social groups. Or they've gone into other projects. Really:  rehabilitating angry bloggers with writing issues should never be on top of their list of priorities. I won't expect them to cheer me on, if and when I take to writing The Thing That Should Have Been the Great Novel of the Early Twenty First Century (That Will Also "Deliver the Goods.")  We're all simply too busy with our expanding social circles.  If and when I do, though, I'm sending them all private messages on Facebook. I hope they'll be happy for me when I do.  



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Light as a Feather, Stiff as a ...

I've been published before-- school publications, illustrations for training manuals and student guidebooks, anonymous articles written for a publicist, speeches written for some government bigwigs, artwork for EPSON Vision and the Commission on Human Rights. There are also significant contributions to the odd Engrish Teachel Manuars for my former Korean bosses (Seriously, I have to bring home a copy the next time I'm at the old office).

I have pointed memories and feelings for each of them, but few among these works give me as much pride and disappointment as that one poem that showed up in the compilation in this picture (left).  If you've read my first L.I.T.E.R.A.L response, you'll understand why I will probably derive much joy from throwing this book at the odd home invader.

Strangely, the compilation is true to its name: much of the poetry that lives on the pages has to do with love-- expressing it, having it rejected, keeping it alive in the face of ridiculous odds. The book's construction itself is the bastard child of love and cynical marketing. It's as if the minds behind the old Poerty.com (the people who put this book out in the early 2000's)[1] were divided into camps who--

• wanted to put out quality work for the many authors who wasted their time submitting entries in the earnest hope of making it , and  
• who wanted to milk us for every penny they could get, while the cash cow was in a mood to givegivegive.  

The paper stock is great, and I can't complain about the spine. I think the cover is hard enough to stop a knife. These, to me, are clear indications that whoever approved the project cared enough about the many people who were being bilked to include these specifications while their cynical counterparts nodded their heads and discussed among themselves the market appeal of making a book that could potentially be an heirloom.      

The time I'd been informed that I'd received some sort of prize and gotten "invited to share" my poetry "aloud" in the old Poetry.com's annual Poetry Convention in DC, I'd also felt humiliated as my application for a US visa got shot down. It's standard practice, of course, and I cannot blame the consul who denied me entry. This is exactly how the embassies make money for their mother countries. Nevertheless, the wound was deep, and I'm not sure it's really healed. I'd grown up on Sesame Street and Marlo and the Magic Movie Machine, and while I had no illusions that America was a paradise, I still suffered from the misapprehension that I could represent myself in a way that would get embassy personnel to respect my honest endeavor enough to let me through for a two week tour.[2]

Okay, this is hopefully the last time I'll talk about this. It's great to get it off my chest, but to dwell on it is ultimately unproductive. Here's to just writing, and (for now, at least) writing for the sake of it.

-------------------------------------
[1] The new Poetry.com is, to my knowledge, being run by Lulu.com. I have not tried to retrieve my old submissions from the site, even though a link has been generously provided for all the old poems submitted before the site changed hands. Perhaps I should. I sharpened myself partly by making poetry on the fly using their poetry in motion app, where one uses the scrambled words of one poem to fashion a new one. It's a good exercise and I miss it.

[2] It galls that people actually get past the consuls, overstay, and disappear into the landscape. I'd not wanted to even travel before the opportunity to be recognized as a good poet even presented itself. When the prospect of doing so was presented to me, my inner child took over, and I thought I could finally see the Empire State Building, feel it and, later, the US capitol ground under my feet. To have that inner desire exposed, the opportunity to satisfy it stare me in the face and then yanked away was the ultimate cock tease.  If a God had set it up, it was a cruel joke consistent with his Old Testament dickishness.

LITERAL 02 "What gets you in the mood to write?"

L.I.T.E.R.A.L. is a weekly blog meme for authors hosted at Indie Books, created to serve as a support group for participants of the Author at Once workshops.  L.I.T.E.R.A.L. welcomes all writers (from anywhere in the world) who’d like to weigh in on the topics!

Here's number two--


Q. Now let’s share how we get things done. What gets you in the mood to write? Is it a deadline, a prize, a pushy editor? Can you recall your most productive writing session ever? What triggered it?

It shouldn't solely be love, or anger, sadness, fear or any of the usual emotions. They're great motivators, but when they ebb, you're left stranded up sh!t creek without a paddle. Starting is easy, especially when you're caught up in the power of the anger in your belly, or when you're high on love. It's when you decide that you want to write at a level better than people ululating out of their pens, that your inner critic is born, wears its mother's clothes, acquires a knife, and brutally murders your creative impulse in the shower. Competent writers allow their feelings to get the ball rolling and keep their inner critics leashed until there's enough on the page to properly mine for themes, dialogue, good lines and (above all) sense. Good writers know how to manage their time, and the ebb and flow of inspiration, so that they remain productive regardless of how they feel.

Don't look at me-- I've yet to get that "Good Writer" part down pat.


Primum Mobile 

I generally need a reason to write. There has to be some sort of end--

to catalogue your thoughts for future study and critique, perhaps; 
to engage in written scream therapy; 
to explore a theme, or aspect of what you're feeling or experiencing; 
to write about the same topic differently, (maybe condense your love song as a haiku); 

or else the writing need not be attempted in the first place. You cannot write aimlessly-- that is, write without a goal and write without refining the work--  and expect an audience to respect the writing. That's how kids come up with clumsy high school love poetry, and how local Catholic bishops churn out crass hyperbolic ramblings against teaching Rizal or family planning advocacy.  


My Most Productive Session(s)

When I was high on love, I had many of these. I'd start with a song or poem in the morning, come back to it around lunch, and have that sucker polished by 3:00 p.m. Some of the writing still had problems-- at least, one of the following: clashing themes, murky images, problems with rhythm, or making the word count fit some sort of meter. Still, I was very prolific, writing regardless of the emotion that came as a consequence of my clumsily loving someone--joy, sadness, anger, longing.

The key to each session was almost always a woman. That, and Microsoft Word. I'd rush home to write about her eyes (her "wells of thought") or her ("chestnut") hair. On other days, I'd write about how we interacted on campus or at that last Sci-Fi Fan Club meeting. I'd write about her clothes, comparing them to a landscape seen from thousands of feet in the air-- how it would be glorious to fall into them, to break myself on the topography of her skin.

Only a few of these courtships ended well. But when they ended badly, they generally brought about a slew of new writing that explored what it was like to watch the lady swooning in the arms of another man. Or perhaps what being a tree must be like--  you grow roots by her door, waiting for her with flowers (or a token of goodbye) in your hands.


Yes, But What Motivates You To Write Today?


To compel myself to write, I ask myself this question: "What would it be like to...?" Then the ideas start coming and I have to restrain Norman "Critic" Bates while he ogles the creative impulse in the shower. Time enough for the knife, later.      


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LITERAL 01 "Have You Been Published?"

(L.I.T.E.R.A.L. is a weekly blog meme for authors hosted at Indie Books, created to serve as a support group for participants of the Author at Once workshops.  L.I.T.E.R.A.L. welcomes all writers (from anywhere in the world) who’d like to weigh in on the topics!)

Here's the first one--

Q. Has your book/story/epic been published? If yes, how was the experience, and where can we buy your book? If no (or not yet), why the delay? Is there anything you know you should be doing to make it happen?

Strictly speaking, yes, I have been published. Likely, so have you. Published plenty of times, if you keep a blog or say something regularly on Facebook or Twitter. I can say with a straight face that I've been published, in that I can slap a street thug on the back of the head with a copy of the hardcover anthology to which that one poem belongs. If said thug had a taste for foreign-made status symbols, he'd be in luck: my poem was published in the 'States.

Sadly, I doubt you'll still find it in print, as I can no longer find any trace of the --and I would learn about these people painfully-- infamous vanity publisher, The International Library of Poetry. The elation I felt at being "distinguished" by these people, being invited to participate in one of their annual poetry conventions in Washington, D.C. evaporated when, after I had purchased my copy of that year's poetry compilation, I  found out that my piece stood shoulder-to-shoulder with ham-handed high school verse.[1]

I've tried tracking it down. The ISBN (0-7951-5135-7) apparently belongs to more than one body of work.

Yes, there's a happy ending in this story. I have a beautifully bound hardcover book that will likely last a couple of generations. I can safely claim that I am "Published, In Hardcover, In the 'States." I won't need to grab my knives or my arnis sticks in case some nutjob tries a home invasion. I can literally throw the book at him, and beat him to death with poetry.  


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______________________
[1]  Everyone, who submitted entries for their poetry contests were sent the same letters, the same citations, the same  invitations to participate in the D.C. conventions as "semi-finalists."  Amid many earnest, if unrefined, attempts of writing well under the restraints of some sort of meter, were occasional flashes of brilliance. I wasn't alone, but this solidarity was not comforting.            

[2] I no longer remember how much that one copy cost my mother to have delivered to our door. I do remember the humiliation of being denied a US visa, one for every convention I tried to get to. .

Profit Motive

I'll drop any pretense of BS and level with you, dear single reader.

I feel that my little business has gone to pot, or at least, that it's been progressing at the speed of molasses. For various reasons, I have been missing opportunities to schmooze-- that is, to make acquaintances, friends  and business contacts who could potentially bring in the funds I need for getting the business back on track. I have been missing out on videographer assignments that could have put me that much more securely on the goddamned map and increased my value to the teevee people I work for.[1][2]

God knows I need supplies for the copier, a new laminator, and likely a new computer to boot. I need funds for personal food, new clothes and a satisfying visit to the doctor. You know, one where I won't have to go home knowing absolutely nothing about the causes behind the symptoms I'm feeling, for lack of very liquid funds that can be used --without question or quibble-- for very extensive, expensive tests. I have a health card whose terms seem so Byzantine that I'm afraid of spending too much time reading them, let alone using the card itself. Then there's social security to pay for, due on the last day of this coming September. I haven't bought and assembled a model kit in two years. Every time I feel a pressure on my neck or on my temples, I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to die really horribly, really soon.    

Days like this, I want to be a US Republican and howl at an unjust tax system and a large bureaucratic government hell-bent on taxing and regulating me to death. Please don't quote me on that.

So what does all this have to do with my moribund Lit blog?

I'm considering making changes and churning out content more regularly. No, the blog will not be monetized, but every time I write about writing, it'll show up here, on the off-chance that it helps someone out there and that it helps to send--yes, opportunities for schmoozing-- my way.[3] The stories, the poems will still be put up here, as well as on my deviantArt account and other venues, but I aim to be more selective of what goes here, since I may have to commercially publish that content one day, hopefully soon.

Anyone whose spoken with me at length will be acquainted with my disillusionment with writing, as it keeps failing the acid test for me-- If it doesn't quickly and reliably get you a roof over your head, food on your table and a woman in your bed[4], then you shouldn't be dependent on it for a living. Why, then, the change of heart?

Every time I feel a pressure on my neck or on my temples, I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to die really horribly, really soon.

That, and the hope that the people at Author at Once have actually managed to inspire in me. Check them out, if you feel like trying your hand as an independent author, or even if you feel like you could use something worthwhile to do with your time.

_____________________
[1] One feels inclined to partially blame inclement weather and unexpected death, but no one, no one,  likes a whiner. The moment you express yourself along the lines of themes that don't involve some kind of victory, apparently, you become a whiner.

[2] However strongly you shout that you are an agent who can work independently of others' opinions of you, those opinions are still major determinants of your success, otherwise advertising is really a billion- dollar waste of money.        

[3] I'm sorry: one of the changes that has come over me, since my recent discovery that Tina Turner was right all along when she sang about love in 1984, was that I've picked up an acquisitive streak that is totally at odds with my generally hippie personality. I've realized that I have to care about wealth, and to that end,  to keep schmoozing if I don't want to spend the rest of my productive years working in a call center, or as an indentured slave for Korean English language training centers looking for quality educators on the cheap.

[4] I would have been happy if it had just accomplished just one of those things.

I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus...

TOMMY (sings):

I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus/ Underneath the mistletoe tonight

They didn't see me creep/ Down the stairs to have a peep

They thought that I was tucked up/ In my bedroom, fast alseep.

And I saw mommy tickle Santa Claus/ Underneath his beard so snowy white.

Oh what a laugh it would have been/ If daddy had only seen/

Mommy kissing Santa Claus to-night... 

JOHN (sings):

Yeah I saw my wife kissing Santa Claus/ Underneath the mistletoe tonight/

They didn't see me creep/ from the kitchen to have a peep /

They thought that I was senseless/ In our bedroom fast alseep

Yeah I saw mommy tickle Santa Claus/ Underneath his belt so big and wide...

John turns to the audience and says


"At this point all I see is red."
"The red of his stupid fur-lined suit"
"The red of my wife's lips as they curl round his..." 


John points his Steyr AUG at the Santa and Mommy. John empties it.

JOHN (sings, slowly):    

...And it's a shame my son had been/ a witness to his mother's sin

and his father shooting Mom tonight

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." 

John shoots Santa in the face with his Glock for good measure. Tommy runs away screaming. 

Tony's Day

The college is a long walk

under a barren sun,

cold classrooms that you

get to after a long hard run.

Then there is climbing upon

costly carpeted stairs before lunch.

After that, one more long-haired teacher.

After that, I go home.

--------------

Tuvshin (aka Tony) was a student of mine from Mongolia. (Yes, I was teaching Engrish) This poem was written as a sample to show him and his Chinese classmate Peng Ju (aka Michael) that poetry need not climb ridiculous heights in subject matter or use of language.

March 2010

typewriters

typewriters.

i miss 'em.
i miss how loud they can get
when you whackwhackwhack
at the keys.
they're kind of like...

(shhh!)

i even miss how they jam
when you whack too fast
how the hammers lock up,
lost in the throes of your
(pro) creative activity

(it takes a lot to pry 'em apart)

i like the sprocket-ratchet sound they make
grating teeth, ragged breathing
when i pull on her arm and roll up the next
creamy space to rat-tat-tat-tat-type at.

when you're done banging,
parts of you hurt from so much abuse,
and you know you should feel like an ass
because you didn't quite consider her feelings

but you bask in the afterglow,
maybe take a long drag on your cigarette
contemplating the smells, the fluids you spilled
on so much white, pristine space.

i miss them as much as i miss

(shhhh!)

Being Fair to Stephenie Meyer

I've spoken out against what I perceive to be the critic's tendency to treat the artistic endeavor as if it were a gladiatorial event. They seem to boo and hiss and jeer from the sidelines while the artist struggles with the lions of snark and put-down until what makes artists artists chokes on all that bile and dies.

I know, I know: the Cadaverous Jaded Critic stereotype is not always true and standards have to be met and kept if we want to make good art. 

So. 

What I know of Stephenie Meyer and Twilight--accusations of Mary Sue-ism, shoddy research, purple prose, hollow plot--has basically been pre-processed by the Cadaverous Jaded critics and by the Critics Whose Fairness I Respect.  While these criticisms foreshadow my future disappointment with Meyer's literary product, I can't quite fault her so much for her process. 

The story of how Edward Cullen's and Bella Swan's romance (can I call them Bedward now?) came to be was as legitimate a creative jumping point as any: it came to Meyer in a dream. It niggled, unsatisfied with staying in the back of her head until the story had to be written, however badly or well. It's as valid as Stephen King's birthing of Roland in The Dark Tower series.

Regarding the possible travesty that is Twilight, I've decided that it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is and see it for myself. I can't get all snarky and contemptuous about something I haven't seen unless it is patently horse turd, or produced by people who consistently produce horse turd (A-kon, Gunther, Soulja Boy: I'm looking at you.) 

So, if you've bought the Twilight novel, may I look at it? If you've bought the DVD, may I borrow it?    

Story Zero

Writing is a necessary evil. When people are simply too lazy or ineffectual to do something to improve their lives, they whine about it. Sometimes they whine about it in writing. Writing serves the dual purpose of--

1. bleeding off their restlessness and resentment so they don't kill themselves, rape people or otherwise become inconvenient to the rest of us;
2. contributing to art and culture (useless pursuits that keep the rich in their belief that they are intrinsically better people) when the writer hits occasional literary gold.
   

This pretty much keeps the masses pacified and intellectuals entertained so no one gets any funny ideas about upsetting the status quo, which frankly, needs a little tipping over.

Speaking as a cynic, that's the first story. Speaking as a writer, I'm sick to my stomach. Time for my medication.

The Ninth (Or Zeroth) Original Story

Click here to get to the other eight. The gist of that article being, that every Hollywood movie on God's green earth is based off of at least one of them. I submit there is a ninth story, or story meme, that informs the rest of them. I'm loosely calling it the Fall.

In every story is a status quo and then something happens to upset it. Sometimes that something is a villain, like Brainiac trying yet again to put Metropolis in a bottle: Superman must fight him to prevent Metropolitans from being very inconvenienced by the villain's shrink ray. Sometimes it's a natural disaster-- think Titanic. Regardless of what that something is, the characters have to fight it to get their status quo-- or a semblance of it-- back. They've fallen out of safety, contentment, out of Paradise and they have to struggle to return to it.

This is story zero. This is everyone's story.

Sand

Don’t shake me off your sandals;
Build castles with me
Put out the stubs of your anger,
All your wasted working days, in me.

Build your bonfires, hold your parties
But lay your head and your blanket of troubles
On the grains of my broad back
Hide in me; cry in me; confide in me

Love washes over me,
Causes me to cling to you,
To those parts of you
That leave their mark on me so—
The back of your neck, your soft arms
Your gentle hands, your toes,
the arches and soles of your feet

-----------

This was originally meant for Project Formalin, (I just love appending weird names to my little endeavors, don't I?) a series of videos and related work that I did for the Clavier School of Music. As a matter of course, I have multiple agendas when I make my projects. And a nasty habit of making those agendas obvious to people who know what to look for.

I found the draft in an old sketchbook. I tweaked it just tonight.    

A New Take on an Old Tale

written around 22 December 2005

Love made the World on a Wednesday and found it was good.
In the World, Love planted a garden, bidding all to eat of its fruit.
The Man and the Woman (Love brought them there)
saw that the fruit was lovely and inviting to touch.
The Woman took the fruit and bit into it, giving some to the Man to taste.
He did.

Immediately their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked.
They sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness,
and hid in the trees.

Love walked into the garden and asked of the Man and the Woman: "Where are you?"
The Man stepped out of his hiding place and proclaimed
"I am here, Lady. We were hiding in the garden from the World because we were naked."

Love asked, "Were you hiding from me?" The Man replied "No, Lady.
You who brought us to live here, know already we are naked."

At this, the Woman went out of her hiding place,
drew forth from her heart, a flaming sword.
With it she cut off the arms of the Man as she cursed him.
"You have shamed me. From this day forward, never shall your arms enfold me.
On your belly shall you crawl, and dust shall you eat for as long as you live.
I set enmity between us. When you kiss my feet I will strike at your head."

At this, Love shed her bitter tears.

In the World, the garden, the Man and the Woman stay to this day, until
one moves the other or the world itself is changed.

Soma 3

the telephone is lying silently
my heart is a clock ticking slowly tonight
and this ticking and my open secret
are ringing in my ears

you’re never alone
when alone together is what i
desperately need us to be

--------------------------
Inspired by song by Anne and Nancy Wilson.

The Worship of Mammon: Misogyny

She's not a nice friend. But she says that every word out of her mouth is truth I would do well to heed. And grudgingly, I must admit that that is the case regarding much of what she's told me before. She knows me inside and out, knows what makes me tick. She's one of a handful of people on the planet who's seen me truly deeply twisted angry. Others have seen me break but she was there each time I did. Waiting.

She says she loves me, and on some level it's likely true. Even if I've seen the stable of broken men she says she's rescued from their exes. Yes, she keeps a stable. And that's partly why I haven't told her "yes." Her arguments are, of course, powerful enough to merit consideration. She has been with me for every heartbreak, every bad day. She has been an understanding, patient, if silent friend to me. She knows what makes me tick. Knows how tired I am of failing every character test thrown my way by Woman. How utterly sick I am of puzzling them out, of not fitting their mental pictures of Prince Charming. She offers me freedom, the room to be utterly preoccupied with only my projects and plans as long as I nee to do them. Her connections are extensive and while they are not equally available to every man in her stable, there is always a portion of her largesse that is reserved solely for me.

She claims she can match my intensity with her own, that I need not hold myself back from displays of affection. In matters of sex she is open to everything, even the practices that would make me blush. She is willing to go as slow or as fast as or as bizarre as I want. She says she is everything to every one of the men she consorts with. She tells me she will be everything I want for me. And she says this with such deadpan confidence that I find it hard to doubt her.

She is a comely woman, and though she can be as charming and winsome as the rest of them, there is often little warmth in her. She's as beautiful as a well-kept marble crypt is beautiful. Sharp, cold smooth, precise. She makes a great goth girl. Given my preoccupation with things dead and necrotising, that does give some life to my interest in Ginny.

All she asks of me is that I become part of her stable. And that is partly what galls.

She has a stable.

I mislike being part of a communal love nest.

I have told her this. I have told her I'm waiting for someone too. She had chuckled softly at that, eyes flashing with a certainty that frightened and angered me. She understands my reticence, or so she says. "I have time, Dex." she says. She will wait for that last bad day that will finally drive me into her arms.

So how do you write?

Take something everyone else takes for granted and stand it on its head. Imagine their faces as what these peole expect blows up in them. Find your inner imp and follow where she leads. If she goes too far--off a cliff and into the sea, for example-- you don't have to jump after her.

I will admit, though, that sometimes following her to her watery end is quite rewarding.

Tobie's Challenge

2059: The population of the Earth is 4 Billion people worldwide.

Today (2008), the population of the earth is about 6.5 Billion. In 2020, you are the leading scientist in (whatever feild you choose) and the UN has asked you to make a plan that would make sure population growth would be stiffled and earth will only support 4 B people in the next 100 years. You have 1.5 to 2 generations to implement.

What's you plan? How will you control population growth?

Be creative! I asked people in Mangaholix but most answers were: I wouldn't live by them, the world would end by then, natural disaster that would kill everyone. We're Talecrafters. We should be creative!

-----------------------------------

And in the tradition of people with nothing better to do than play with story cards when we sure as heck should be working for a living, (sorry, bad joke) this is my answer--


The New Deal

Well, it turns out the Evangelicals were right after all.

Millions of people disappeared just as most of the world was spiraling into what would have been--pardon the Husseinism-- "the Mother of all Wars." One minute they were there, sharing in the muted global panic or otherwise making the most of their time on the planet. The next minute, they were gone.

You don't have any concept of how much that bites when your girlfriend is raptured away from you in the middle some well-earned nookie.

I went crazy looking for her, churning up all sorts of explanations for my aborted communion and the feelings of fear and loneliness in the weeks that came after. It was a super-weapon. It was an experiment in some newfangled physics gone awry. Alien abduction.

(I did take some comfort in the knowledge that the people most vociferously advocating the Alien Abduction theory were ...dare I say it? Evangelicals Left Behind.)

The world pretty much did the same thing-- go crazy looking for absent friends, lost loved ones and significant others-- after the initial skirmishes, the petit panic that set in when armed units in the field found themselves without commanding officers or communications specialists. Thousands died in those weeks. Needlessly.

It was only after nations started sending representatives to the UN Building again to compare notes that people put together just what might have happened. Many of us didn't quite believe it, of course. And soon enough it didn't matter because many more people would die. Needlessly.

Well, it's 2099 now. Jesus hasn't come back yet. What's left of the world's population is shut up in Supercities-- New York, Vegas, Los Angeles, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Pasay, Sao Paulo. Pockets of humanity connected by tenuous threads of intermittent radio-communication (God bless the guy who invented sattelites-- we still have a couple up there faithfully facilitating communications). It's getting harder and harder to house, feed and clothe everybody in because absolutely no one can get out of the 'Cities and there're only so many ways you can sell Soylent Green to a restive population. I imagine the situation's pretty much the same in the other 'C ities.

The official story is that the Outside World's still hot--radioactive. Besides, the environment's crap anyway. Serves us right for actually using all the nukes.

My problem is that you can't keep humanity hermetically sealed in domed pockets the size of what used to be Israel. People in Pasay are dying to get out and claim some real estate-- never mind that it glows in the dark. There are rumors--Urban Legends of areas recovering from what we did to it. New places from which to start over. The Pasay Quorum of Twelve has been on my ass to send out exploratory expeditions, to establish trade routes with Mumbai.

Idiots. Children.

They don't know what I had to do to make sure we have the crappy real estate we're sitting in now. Why the populations in the 'Cities remain constant. Why I tax people so much. Why most of the budget goes to military R & D instead of making Soylent Green more palatable. Or why I'm still alive when I no longer have the right to be.

I made a deal back in 2024. After that horde of inhuman mosters rose up out of the earth and halved the world's population in a matter of weeks. Why do you think we had to use all the nukes? I spoke to a representative... an emmisary. It promised the horde would leave Pasay and the other 'Cities alone if the horde had the rest of the world to play with. Anyone who left our safe zones would be fair game, and in the early days of Pasay's development, we lost far too many people.

I've discouraged people from leaving for whatever reason over the years. But enough sneak out of Pasay to satisfy the terms of The Deal. Part of those terms involve keeping mum about The Deal to our charges-- the people who live in Pasay and complain about the quality of their food.

If the Quorum would only wait five goddamn years... at least that's what the 'tech boys and Pasay/Mumbai black ops people are telling me. We'll have a working prototype for a weapon that can really hurt these things.

Then we'll all be in a position to negotiate a New Deal.

God helps those who help themselves.

Eline won!

Her story, Doll Eyes, was an entry for the 2008 Romeo Forbes Children's Storywriting Competition.

Let's grab a quote from these guys:

"We ended up with a very strong set of entries in the final round, but in the end the judges (singer/actress Lea Salonga, Tin-Aw Art Gallery owner Dawn Atienza, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Head of the Graduate Studies Office of UP's College of Arts and Letters Wendell Capili) were unanimous.

"Congratulations to Ms. Eline Santos and to all the other finalists!"

Read the story, check out the other entries.

Writers Suck

Because that's all they do.

When warm bodies are needed to stop the tanks, don't count on writers to be there with you. They'll be in their hotel rooms with their laptops and their notepads, writing. When you're busy making money the tried and tested way, yon writer will be busy wasting his time writing stories and filling his blogs: you're still saddled with the rent.

When someone is patently stealing your woman, writer, don't count on yourself showing up at their door and cracking skulls. You'll be at home, writing, adding one more neurosis to the ones you already have.
Cue the sound clip from America's Sweethearts. Hank Azaria's Spanish character turns to a really barely-holding-in-his-psychotic-temper John Cusack and refers to him, derisively, as--

"You puth-thy."

You'll also have the bonus of showing your unwary reader friend that the bedrock upon which he rests his sanity doesn't really exist. And then there'll be two of you f_cking up the world by making everyone uncomfortable with life as they know it. She was right who said it best:

Keep only cheerful friends; the grouches pull you down.


The world doesn't belong to contemplatives, besides. Writers in general never see the fruits of their labor. For every Stephen King and Neil Gaiman there are thousands of frustrated writers married to their own misery and (in my Mammon stories) at least one who is dating his misogyny.

You may be the next Nietzsche, the next Kafka, the next Rizal-- but look what happened to them.

Nietzsche: nuthouse, couple of strokes, death by tuberculosis.
Kafka: nuthouse, tuberculosis, death by starvation
Rizal: exile, death by firing squad

And if you luck out and do a Thoreau ... well, okay, he didn't suck. He lived a full life, though he was felled by tuberculosis at age 44.

The point is very few writers ever live to see their legacy; fewer writers ever get to have one.

What's greatness if you never get to see nor taste it? I'm altruistic enough to care about my fellow man, but I've read all the books and seen all the movies: writers end up with the girl and the happy ending only in the stories they write. And I'm sick of watching everyone else's happy ever afters.

On Poetry

Did anybody ever tell you that I dislike poetry?

I do. I hate it with all my heart. Because people turn to words, to satire, to reams of inutile academic discourse when they cannot act. Poetry, dear friends, is yet another manifestation of this kind of impotence: the writer feels so strongly about something that he cannot act, except to commit something to verse.

Maybe he gets lucky. Maybe the poem affects people who feel the same way but cannot articulate their feelings. Maybe the song becomes a hit and the writer becomes another Morrissey. Or maybe the writing is so potent that it helps kick-start the Civil Rights Movement. More often than not, the writer cannot taste any success beyond the personal "Hey, I got something written!"

Unfortunately, "Hey I got something written!" cannot by itself get you fed, clothed, housed, and (especially) laid. Your needs still drive you, and if you're as much a poet as I am, your automatic response is to write reams upon reams of (say it with me) useless poetry. I could have spent that writing time by actually getting me fed, clothed, housed and, yes, laid (Getting a better paying day job is often a step in that direction).

The awful truth is that nobody really reads, much less appreciates, poetry. Okay, some people do, but often, they're neither numerous nor rich enough to matter. The perception is that poetry is either--

1. nothing special as any five-year-old can break a long coherent sentence into lines and call it poetry or
2. it's so specialized that most people who have "jobs" and "real social lives" cannot relate to it.

Besides, it does not make us better people. Bin Laden is a poet. So was Hitler. A sensitive thug with literary leanings is still a thug, albeit a more sophisticated one. If you ask my ex, being a poet only makes people think of you as a smooth-talking snake oil salesman. Or a smooth-talking snake oil peddling thug.

(So before you run off with someone because he is an artiste do try to remember that the insensitive clod who's forgotten how to say "I love you" probably got that way acting --and not writing poetry-- to meet the needs of your belly and those of your kids.)

The point is, poetry sucks. When it isn't trumpeting your triumph to the world after the fact, poetry's like opium. It keeps you distracted writing when you could be taking action instead. When there is a venue for action, when one is empowered to realize his desires, there is much less poetry. I fear that there are quite a few of us who are lock-stepped into being nothing more than poets, forever writing about actions we will likely never take.

Still it's a beautiful activity, and one of the reasons why I write is that I am plugged into a higher power when I write my best poems, even when these are the most useless kind-- the interminable whining about aborted romantic liaisons.

The price I pay for loving poetry is that I hate it with a passion.