Thursday, August 21, 2008

Women who write

Mentoring

Back in college [in the early ‘80s], I attended a couple, or probably more and I just couldn’t remember, of creative writing workshops. It was a high experience for me as I got acquainted with named literary writers and authors, and I received tips I needed for the craft I wanted to be good at—fiction writing. At that time, though, I was still writing short stories in Filipino; I now write in English, and I can’t write short stories anymore. My story ideas tend to evolve into novel material. I guess this is the result of years of reading novels. Anyways, I promised myself then I would follow in the footsteps of the Filipino greats I met during those workshops.

I didn’t follow in any of their footsteps. In fact, I got disillusioned by my own writing and writing experience that I decided at one point during my 20’s that literary writing was not really for me, only to wake up one morning in my mid-30s, probably also the beginning of mid-life, that I needed to ‘find’ and express myself again. I was looking for something I wanted to do that would be deeply connected with who I am, at a more personal level. To make the long story short from that mid-30’s period to my early 40’s now, I decided to write again.

Just like when I was in college, mentoring has also been an important part of my becoming and being a writer now. I received this ‘mentoring’ through the books I’ve read and continue to go back to—a number of them serendipitously encountered and bought. Topping the list are Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write and The Artist’s Way; a book of essays, which I stumbled upon one afternoon at the previously-owned books bookshop Bound, where I got ‘enlightenment’ from George Orwell and Joan Didion’s essays among others, and; Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola. This one was given to me by my former boss at my first ever job [Philippine News and Features]. It was Christmas 1994 when she gave it to me but I didn’t read it from cover to cover in a few sittings, because I found out while reading it that Pinkola’s book is something that has to be experienced. I would always know when it is time to read and go back to it, and during all these times I always find what I need. Many times, this book has ‘saved’ me from myself and from life’s complications that I’ve formed a special bond with it. I know it’s kind of weird to have a ‘relationship’ with a book, but it’s just how it is with Pinkola’s book. Then there’s another good find, Anna Quindlen’s anthology of essays, Living Out Loud, and most recently Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones.

I still read about my craft, and there is this book I’ve used as reference a lot of times, Mastering Point of View by Sherri Szeman. But I am no longer inclined to attend workshops. I believe workshops have an upside to them and have benefited a lot of writers, but what I realized based on my experience in the last eight years, when I was struggling with the idea of becoming a writer or when I doubted whether the pursuit and practice of a writing life was real or would bring real significance to me and my family and to society, is that a writer needs a nurturing environment.

Critiquing a writer’s work may teach him or her something, but what will make an individual sustain this writing life is the presence of a community of friends and fellow writers who come together and share their work, just talk and understand the unique process each one is going through. It’s only through this kind of mentoring that a writer/artist could face up to the challenge of “artistic survival,” which according to Cameron is “one of the most difficult tasks” for an artist. And when she said this in The Artist’s Way, she was not referring only to economic or financial survival.

“All artists must learn the art of surviving loss: loss of hope, loss of face, loss of money, loss of self-belief…They are the hazards of the road and, in many ways, its signposts. Artistic losses can be turned into artistic gains—but not in the isolation of the beleaguered artist’s brain,” wrote Cameron.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Introducing Women who write

By Clarissa Villasin-Militante

It took me a long time to adjust to a writing life. Though I quit a regular job in 2001 and decided to go free lance [sometimes as writer, sometimes as editor and sometimes as researcher, and with two brief intervals doing and quitting full-time jobs], realizing and accepting what it means to live a life devoted to my personal writing—my fiction, essays and blogs—happened only seven years after. But as in other discoveries and epiphanies, it took only an instant of a mind shift to realize that it is happening and that I accept it. Even writers sometimes take a while to name ideas and emotions, to articulate what they are going through, especially if the time to release these ideas and feelings has not arrived. But that instant was waiting to happen, because the preparation for it was already taking place in those past years.

A phrase from Anna Quindlen’s book “Living Out Loud” named “it” for me. [In fact, I was already re-reading some of her essays and was sure I’ve read this line before, but only now did it affect me] Talking about her life and her writing, former journalist and now columnist/author Quindlen said “…my work became a reflection of my life.” Realizing that this was what she wanted, her being a writer, being a woman, wife, mother, friend and everything else she did outside of writing fell into place.

That’s what I want to do—for my work to reflect my life. In fact, that’s what I’ve been trying to do all these years, but there was guilt, fear and apprehension in accepting that, because it’s very personal; very individualized. Other women have careers; other women go to office. Others are involved in politics or are doing social development work or are in media. Others are homemakers. But I choose to write—to put my writing in equal terms with being a woman, being a wife, being a friend, being an activist, being whatever aspect of life a woman wants and needs to be.

Women who write is about defining these other aspects of life through writing so that all things fall into the right place, because of this writing life—whether it be writing in a personal journal, or writing a blog, an essay, fiction or poetry or music, or whether it gets published or uploaded into the internet, whether it is only read to a group of friends or the writing becomes a career or not. There is no writing on the sideline or when there is “free” time or writing that happens after laboring first on more supposedly deserving endeavors, like an income-earning work or home-related chores, or after being a wife and mother and friend and mentor and other things and roles that women live.

There is no condition in which this writing should happen.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola in Women Who Run with the Wolves wrote “It is right and proper for women to eke out, liberate, take, make, connive to get, assert their right to go home. Home is a sustained mood or sense that allows us to experience feelings not necessarily maintained in the mundane world…home is the pristine instinctual life…where all is as it should be, where all the noises sound right, and the light is good and the smell makes us feel calm rather than alarmed…for some, home is taking up an endeavor of some sort. Women sing again after years of finding reason not to. They commit themselves to learn something they’ve been heartfelt about for a long time. They seek out lost people and things in their lives. They take out back their voices and write. They rest. They make some corner of the world their own…and do something that leaves foot prints.”

What I hope in beginning Women who write is to make it a means to share stories and express ourselves and find our voice in whatever form of creative writing, and in so doing help us find, journey back to, sustain or create this home—whether it’s just for ourselves, with friends or with family. Women who write does not intend to be a monologue.

Friday, February 22, 2008

UP Asterisk's Cultural Night, Feb 22!

The University of the Philippines Asosasyon ng Kabataang Artista, Kritiko, at Iskolar ng Sining at Kultura (UP ASTERISK) is celebrating its 2nd Anniversary in a two-week event entitled "Isang Siglo, Buksan 2: Ikalawang Anibersaryo sa Sentenaryo" from February 11-22, 2008 at the UP Diliman campus.

On Feb 22, join them on their Cultural Night and watch the performance of seasoned artists, U.P. Singing Ambassadors and Kontra-Gapi, plus great UP-based (and alumni) bands like The Purplechickens, Jeebus, Makopa, 10-storey Fall and more!!!

Venue is the CAL New Building (CNB) atrium located in between the Faculty Center and the Vargas Museum.

Admission is absolutely free!!!

Poster design by Tinakuting

Photo taken from http://topofyourschool.blogspot.com/2006/01/college-of-arts-and-letters-cal-new.html.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Open Mic: Asian Roots and Routes (January 27, 2006)

A S I A N R O O T S

_____________________________________________

an open mic to welcome 2006 & celebrate new beginnings

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

& R O U T E S in literature

Likhanan and the Philippine-China Development Resource Center (PDRC)

invite you to this gathering of friends

at Arabica Hills* , 6:30 pm, Friday, January 27, 2006.

Come with poems, short stories, songs and your dreams and visions.

* ARABICA HIILLS DINERS’ CAFE

Philippine Social Science Center

Commonwealth Avenue,

Diliman, Quezon City

+63 2 9229626

About the Sponsors:

• Likhanan stands for "likha" (to create) and "tahanan" (home). Likhanan is a community of creatives.

• PDRC is an NGO that promotes mutual understanding and development

cooperation between the Philippines & China.

Open Mic: Never Again War (March 20, 2004)

THE ROMANTICS

OJO! All you lovers and friends out there,

don’t just say it with flowers and chocolates;

shout it out in the Dreaded Poets Society’s

almost Valentine’s Day open mic

THE ROMANTICS

6:00-9pm, Friday, 13 February 2004

CONSPIRACY BAR & RESTAURANT, 59 Visayas Avenue, Quezon City, (beside Ninang’s, near 7/11)

TRANSLALATIONS

Because each tongue speaks our own hope,

we dare you to grab the open mic for

TRADUÇÕES

TRADUZIONI

TRADUCTIONS

TRADUCCIONES

ÜBERSETZUNGEN

MGA PAGSASALIN

TRANSLATIONS

We double dare you!

6 -9pm, Friday, 28 November 2003

Books & Bytes, Benjamin I Building,

#62 Sgt Esguerra cor. Mother Ignacia Sts., South Triangle, QC (near Hi-Top)