Let it be said ngayon pa lang (now before anything) that the ideas that follow are not solely my own but they are my interpretation of the general sentiments of persisting in the minds of myself and my peers, mainly the core group of Martin Villanueva, Khaye Apay, Cindy Custodio.
Agian, I don’t claim to fully represent the ideas and views of that have been expressed in my little group of amateur writers but what I intend to reiterate is more of the general sentiment among us. That is that we are afraid. Pride aside, we have been stunned by the progress of our own skills in relation to the outside world of creative writers. We have among usa a winner of the Carlos Palanca award, fellows of the National Writers workshop in dumaguete and a handfull of hopefull others. The truth is that we are afraid of many things. The most obvious and underlying problem and the most discussed among us is the very practical problem of mere economics. We don’t know how to make our bread and butter as writers. We don’t know if it’s even possible for people other than Dalisay and Yuson. We have each taken different and extreme approaches to respond to this problem but the problem remains, and I’m sure it’s not only limited to Atenean students of the Creative Writing program. Survival is the word. Some choose to revel in the demand of the immoral writing college papers in exchange for dollars, others seek new vocations in full knowledge that their writing will suffer, their first passion will suffer. One in particular (not I) turns toward the raging tsunami and says “fuck it! Everything else will follow.” But none the less, we are all afraid. We are of our own progress because of the abruptness of it all. Truth be told, as a creative writing sophomore taking my introductory class in creative writing, my mentality was an to wrap myself in a protective shell of disinterestedness. The plan was simply to ignore all comments sacrificing productive criticism for my tiny ego. I had somehow convinced myself that I was a mere novice ergo; my works were amateurish. I had prepared myself not to care how much my teachers hated my work because I was determined to be a writer. The only thing that could have eradicated my barrier of hard headedness was exactly what came next: praise.
As a student of creative writing in a university at the age of eighteen, you think that everything you have written is only relevant in context. I wrote this for a school project. I wrote that but really the main character was me. I wrote, I write, no one reads.
Considering that, I thought it would take me years in order to produce a piece that anyone could stand to read much less praise and consider again that these complements were coming from well renowned Filipino writers. My guard fell. I became vulnerable. Like Cebu Pacific whose vision it was to be the aircraft of choice for the Filipino traveler, I had achieved my goal and was faltering at the confusion of “what now?” The world was ready for the taking. If not now then when, if not I then whom? More importantly: at this point, who needs determination anymore? I’d been acknowledged, not as a student writer but as a writer. “Eighteen years old and he can write like this, wait till he really learns to write.” Wait till he masters the art of metaphor, the scrutiny involved in fleshing out a character, the objectivism of the narrator to plot. Now I am afraid, no longer that none would appreciate my works (in fact I don’t give a shit whether anyone ever reads my past “good” works again) in comparison to the prospect that no one will ever read my future works, in contrast to the idea that good potential turns into a flat tire. I am afraid of being stagnant in my potential. I am afraid of being called lucky. I am afraid of being a called a fluke. I am afraid that I am on the tarmac ready for takeoff when the engine overheats and busts into flames prematurely. I am afraid of my past work: the creature that has grown beyond me. I am afraid of my former self. I love, too much, the sanctity of potential and the shell that is anonymity.
