#1 of 24: A Review of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert; Permission To Write For The Heck of It

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Permission to write for the heck of it

This was a long, leisurely, meandering read for me. What I loved about it was the paradoxical way she made writing both sacred and mundane (something embodied in the last story she tells from Bali...but I won't spoil it for you). Writing is both divine and frivolous. I get it. Would I still write even if I never make a bestseller in my lifetime? Yes, I would. Because writing is a lovely thing. It *is* being touched by the divine...and yet it is also totally unnecessary. A poem is a privilege and a gift in a way a physical chair or even a dentist's appointment never would be. It is totally not practical, useless in a sense, and yet contains the meaning of life or at least the seed of it. I also love how she encourages creators to follow their curiosity and to put away the costume of "the tortured artist." Write for the pleasures of writing and don't feel guilty. Share it and move on. Perfect to share this during Valentine's weekend. Love is ephemeral and yet eternal. That's the same thing I can say of the creative life. Big magic. Tiny, beautiful thing.

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Filipino Friday #2: Hello, Writer!

Yes! It's Friday and I'm finally writing a Filipino Friday post on the right day. Haha!

So, here's this week's prompt: As a reader, have you ever thought about writing a book? What kind of books/stories do you want to write? Or are you now a published author, and what compelled you to go fulfil this dream? How was your journey from reader to writer? How did you go about getting your book out there?

Here's my answer: Shameless promotion time. Haha!

Yes! Writing has always been a part of my life, just as much as reading. I started really early (grade school). I'm the type who keeps a journal. I started my first journal in Grade 2, as part of my school work. After that, I kept at it. I remember filling notebooks and notebooks with stories, poems, character banks, and even advertisements (yes, advertisements. I may have had an alternative career in copywriting)! Read about my favorite stories and my first attempt at writing a fantasy novel here (last year's Filipino Friday prompt).

Words make up my days. I say this elsewhere but I'll say it here again: your life is made up of what you remember. That's why I attempt to write whenever I can: it's life captured (and shared, when published).

I started writing poetry quite early too. I feel, up to now, that poetry is a concentrated kind of literature where I best express myself. But it's also one of the least profitable types of literature as well. Frankly, I don't care. I still write it.

My poetry has been published before. I'm really happy that I have a couple of poems published in two editions of U.P.'s Likhaan series. I also have one poem in A Habit of Shores, edited by one of my idols, Gemino "Jimmy" Abad. The poem title is rather long: "A Filipino Writer of English Poems to a Filipino Writer of Spanish Poems." It was written for a Rizal Centennial poetry contest in Ateneo de Manila (which I won...a long time ago). I have another one in One Hundred Love Poems, edited by Sir Jimmy and another of my literary idols, Alfred "Krip" Yuson. This latter poem is probably what you'd call my most mainstream and memorable poem. It's called "Seven Years Later, Driving Home." In other words: marami sigurong sawi sa Pilipinas. Haha!

I won't forget, though, the first time I got two poems published in a magazine. It was before I submitted my poem to the Rizal contest. I submitted it through my friend, Tats Locsin. Seeing my words printed on paper in a national publication was very thrilling. But my hope was: let it touch lives. The title of one of the poems was: "Lost Afternoon," about how even love is subject to time, a favorite theme of mine. I was going through a phase then.

I submitted another two poems to Panorama and they got published too. But that was it. Nothing published for a very long time.

A couple of years ago, I attended a seminar on producing results with velocity and I thought to myself: why don't I publish my books? I had a rejected manuscript for a chick lit story (too dragging, too serious...hahaha!) and I had a lot of poems that were unpublished, just languishing on this blog. So I published them on Lulu.com (a self-publishing platform in the U.S.) and I even got a couple of printed proofs in the mail which made me almost faint with excitement. My friend, Maisa dela Torre, illustrated my book of poetry.

My book of poetry is Gift: Poems. And my love story is Artemis Lets Go. I even did a little book launch in Fully Booked, BGC. The books were self-published so I couldn't use Fully Booked's distribution system and cashier. They needed a publisher or a company to sign the contract. I just printed a few copies and sold them to friends and family who showed up at the launch. My aunt, all the way in Virginia, also ordered several copies of my poetry book to give away as Christmas gifts. Yay!

Last year, I also collaborated with two other writers, Buding Aquino-Dee and Jenny Ong, to come up with a children's book that highlights how breastfeeding is part of family bonding. It's called Snuggle Wuggle Wee. It was such a joy to write! Sales of the book will fund more breastfeeding activities by the the non-profit organization, L.A.T.C.H. (Lactation, Attachment, Training, Counseling, and Help). A Filipino version, translated by a poet who happens to be my favorite Philosophy teacher, Bong Oris, is on the way.

I still won't make money out of writing. Not yet. But I don't mind. It's not why I write. And I'm learning! It also won't stop me from continuing to write. I found a way to DIY and I still got my books to some people. That's what counts. "Wildly popular" isn't really my end goal. As I've read in Stephen King's book On Writing: write for yourself. And here I am, still writing. I've submitted a couple of short stories to two anthologies for publication next year. I'm looking forward to the launches of those.

Also, NaNoWriMo is coming up. Maybe it's time to shake off the dust from a languishing manuscript and put it out there, in the world. There are a lot more choices available to writers nowadays, especially with the advent of digital distribution systems.

My conclusion: a reader may not always become a writer. But a writer...a writer will always start out as a reader. And a writer will always need to continue reading because of an incurable love for words and stories.

Disclosure: I work with a digital distribution system for the Pinoy market, buqo. But you'll see from my story, above, why I'm so passionate about books and getting authors to their audiences.

Poetry as Life

I just got this in my inbox: Poetry's a life, not necessarily a living. I couldn't agree more. Poetry is a way of seeing. Just this morning I was thinking about the relevance of poetry. I once wrote an article about it: The Relevance of Poetry in Today's World on Suite 101. Poetry's beauty really depends on the beholder. But it's true that there aren't many readers of poetry books or of poetry in general. It's not Fifty Shades of Gray. It won't give a writer the success of a Harry Potter. But it does provide many things for the writer.

What interested me in the article from Poetry.About.Com was the way it distinguished a life from a living. A living is the way one survives or even thrives. But a life is what we truly make. It is what "the living" is for. And poetry does answer that requirement.

The life of a poet is a life of epiphanies, a life of sudden, striking realizations. It is a life dedicated to seeing beyond what is obvious or ordinary. It is a life lived groping for words to paint joy or grief or love. As Socrates says, "the unexamined life is not worth living." And that is where poetry has stepped in for me. It is framing my life for examination.

There might be a misconception that poets write when struck by inspiration. I don't think this is true. Well, there *are* moments when I cannot help but write. (There is a really great description of the muse in Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk. ) For me, it is a discipline. It is a way of distilling raw experience and turning it into something that helps me make sense of it, that inspires me, or that helps me see something that I didn't see before. In a way, I find that writing poetry is a meditation. And meditation is deliberate, it is a practice. It is not something you do when it strikes your fancy. It is clearing one's noisy mind and connecting with the numinous while still perfectly grounded on earth.

So, here is my invitation: live the poetic life. Hold your days in your hands. They will slip by forever if you do not glimpse the shining moment.

To end, I offer you a line from one of the most beautiful poems in the bible (I got this translation directly from Jeanette Winterson's description of Sonali Deraniyagala's book, Wave): "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it."

That can only be said in a poem.