proetry and poese

After taking up CW101 under Prof. Jhoanna Cruz, we’re expected to have decided to the form of genre we’re suppose to focus at. In Creative Writing, we’ve got a lot to choose from. Being a fanatic of this course, I’m actually having this dilemma of what to focus on.

I’m lousy at playwriting! That’s a fact. At first, I was still optimistic in trying it out. I did try my best but I guess it just wasn’t for me. I don’t know. It’s the genre of being in the stage. The fact that the considerations that it’s to be performed rather than be read is quite new to me. Don’t get me wrong, I like staged plays. I actually had my share of experience in performing on stage in my younger days. But the writing of the play itself, hmmmm… I think it’s a no-no for me.

On the other hand, I guess I can consider myself to be a reasonably fair fiction writer. hehe. I mean, I’ve made stories that clicked. They’re not that good but I guess people found some potential in the writing. To be honest, I tend to get material to man’s best friend–the television. That’s the reason why my first short stories were kind of cinematic in a way. I like writing stories. Short stories or short short stories/flash fictions. The thing about fiction is the fact that I have the chance to explain myself in a prosaic way which is quite comfortable.

Poetry, however, is something exotic yet mysterious genre for me. And I’m quite thrilled in learning it. Unlike fiction, I find poetry more difficult and less comfortable. The choice of words, the tone, rhythm, rhyme, meter and other technicalities or non-techinalities are like strings tangled together in my mind. And the thing is, I love it! I love the feeling of playing with words and I kind of feel like I’m falling in love with poetry.

So it’s either fiction or poetry. Where should I focus and concentrate? I like both. I can be good at both. But there’s this feeling that only one should precede the other in my choice. What? Help me.

Poetry or Prose.

purple pad craze!

I just realize something. For the past few months, I’ve been discussing a lot about Creative Writing and other related and/or unrelated stuff. But I still haven’t even given you a chance to see some of my works. Well, to make it up to you, I’ve got great news!

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to PurplePad!

PurplePad is our Creative Writing Blogsite featuring our works for the past semesters. Yes, it’s a requirement but I would have done one like it anyway. It’s all Professor Jhoanna’s idea to publish our works online.

On that site we’ve got collections of poems (narrative poems, mytho-poems and tankas), flash fictions and memoirs! It’s a one-stop amateur literary site.

Authors or my classmates and I have our own page with direct links to their works. You’ll definitely see their faces there! Learn more about them and get aquainted to the budding writers of the century (hehe..)!

Our teachers and mentors are also listed there. We couldn’t have done it without them.

We’d really want comments and criticisms from anyone who can spare some. Writers actually love them. They hurt sometimes but we like it! It helps us in our writing if people read and critique our works.

Check it out! PurplePad!

writing with the self

I wrote Red and Purple Darkness for my flash fiction in CW101. It’s a story about Dondi, 16, who along with his Ate Nadia, escapes a life of abuse from their father. The piece is talks about Dondi’s inability to escape from being his own father as he himself beats him up when he went back to molest his sister. The story is quite violent and gory in a way.

Yes, it’s been bothering me for quite some time now. I’ve been writing bloody stories for a long time now. The story Chained Girl is I think the first story that I’ve been able to showcase to the “elite” in the Iligan National Writers Workshop. Sure enough, it received piercing criticisms.

The panelists and the fellows encouraged me and suggested that I read more of Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, etc. writer’s works. Gothic, Dark Romance, Romantic, those kinds of genre seem to fascinate me in my major classes.

Usually it is the parents who fall victimized in the end of my stories. There is also a masochistic and sadistic feeling in my works. Hatred is a common theme and Violence a usual concept.

No, I never have been subject to any domestic violence in my home. There are however heated conversations, swearing and even minor fights. Nothing serious, in general standards. Not enough for the involvement of the local law enforcement.

I guess it is in the stories where I throw out my emotions over the struggles I encounter in my life. I’ve been told in one of my majors that the writer is actually writing about himself in all his works. No matter how indirectly, it is still about the writer. Of course.

That creeps me out. Am I really that demented and twisted? I’m not a psychopath, no. I guess it only one of the undesirable pangs of being a teenager. I still have my rationality and sanity intact.

Violence is one thing that is deprived from us since we were really young. No cartoons with violence, no manga and anime! Except for Voltes Five. I guess I feel amazed of the concept of pain, hatred and fear (the emotions I usually feel) being expressed through violence.

In another name, I made a flash fiction about an unusual rain; instead of water falling, yellow flower petals fell. It was titled Alm Rain, it was a story about a child refusing to take part in enjoying the wonderful event because of pride.

I feel pleased in writing Fantasy fiction. It has a flavor that I could not describe. Maybe, I appreciate the stories of the unreal. I love Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I enjoy reading adventures that I know does not exist (or so I think). I guess what I really wanted is escape from the bitter realities in life.

I enjoy the concept of Imagery. I want pictures that shows the dark, strange, odd, grotesque and horrifying. I simply am amazed. I loved comics but I can’t afford them. I enjoy admiring disturbing paintings. There was a time when I stared at Juan Luna’s Spolarium.

I could be a Romantic. You think?

mono syllables

Monologues!

We’re really really going a bit fast in our class now. I just finished my flash fiction for our midterm project and I hope it’s good. How does the Red and Purple Darkness sound as a title? I like it. Mainly because I made it. Hah! I’m loving my own.

It’s a story about a certain Dondi who is actually my classmate’s own character given to me. Dondi is this kid who appoints himself as the Protector of his Ate Nadia. They had a very traumatic past together because of their father’s abuse, etc. I won’t spoil the fun. I plan on having it published in Dagmay which I think is a section in a local paper facilitated by the Davao Writers Guild. I’m crossing my fingers here.

Back to my thoughts in my first paragraph, Monologues! I have no background in playwriting. Seriously. I do act in plays in the school but I don’t exactly have the experience in writing one. I never really imagined myself writing a play. Wow, everything is going so fast now.

After playwriting we’ll have poetry. Now that’s something I really am looking forward. I really love this course. I really feel good studying the things which really are interesting for me. I am going to like this.

Sinews and Syllables. Now that’s a drag. It’s a production supposedly for BAEnglish students to participate on. Last year’s Sinews and Syllables was a blast. It even had an article in the paper. This year, the faculty were really planning to make it better. I have no objections for that, what I really am skeptic about is the fact that they asked me to be a performer! Why? Because they think that I’m inseparable to Darsi who by the way is my fraternity brother and constant companion. He actually did a great job in interpreting ee cummings‘ I like my body poem.

Excited us.

fiction fricative friction

I’m done with my Custard Cake essay. Hah! Really didn’t expect that to finish. Another product of bluff-writing. Hehe. It’s probably the the first time you encountered that term. It’s like writing a lot without really telling something. Or something like that.

But I’m quite excited to say that we’re going to venture to the amazing world of Fiction Writing the first thing next year. It really is very exciting for me to once again stretch my hands and try myself in making short stories.

I wouldn’t say I’m that bad. But I’m sure as hell not that good. This year’s summer, I joined the 14th Iligan National Writer’s Workshop. I didn’t know how honorably horrifying it was to join there. Of course I was grateful for the country’s top writers to discuss my work but I wasn’t ready to be humbled down that easily by them.

Haha.. Oh well, I enjoined the experience though. They’re really cool people, those writers. I mean they’re way ahead of me on age and experience but they can still relate to everyday things. They still hang out with us rookies. And they are good in conversation. You’ll learn a lot from them.

Speaking of learning from them. I learned that my story which I really was quite proud of wasn’t really a story… Not yet! Haha… But I’ll spare you my optimism. They said that it was plot driven and the characters weren’t real.  There was no clear setting and the was not clear imaging. The words were poor and the language mediocre.

I’m not going to justify that I was only a first year with The Chained Girl as my first short story ever. Or that it was done in a cramming situation because it was an assignment for my AH4 class. Or that because I was still a crappy writer at that time. Haha..

They were right though in all points. I learned now that the plot is more or less a by-product of the character. So I have to make my characters real. I mean damn real. That’s a challenge for me. I’m quite glad that the goddess disguising herself as my professor in CW101 required us to make a character’s sketch over the Christmas Break. In that way, I’m compelled to do something that I needed to do for myself as well.

I really really really want to tell you more about my short story The Chained Girl. After all, she was my first baby. But I don’t know. Maybe in another post in another time. I really want to give her justice. No, I still haven’t started to revision the whole thing. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. But I know that I’m still waiting.

I’m hoping that Fiction Writing would prove to be my genre. But for now, I’m still thinking.