Remembering “What the hell is CNF?”[And it’s a long one.]

January 26, 2008 8:49 am; January 28, 2008 6:25 am- 5:17 pm

In the second semester of 1999, I had written an essay---

And I submitted it for my Creative Writing 140 [Essay 1] workshop. I wrote about one of our family problems. As I write this, I’m trying to remember which text was that and which problem.

I can tell you for sure that it was about having the fucked-up family. When I’m asked about my family, I would laughingly say, “Whatever problems a family may have, and I mean whatever--- I think we have had it.”

Or I would dryly say, “Nung nagsabog ng kamalasan sa mundo yun Diyos sa mga pamilya, nasa unahan ata kami. At least nasa dulo kami nun linya nun nagsabog ng katangahan or kapangitan.”

Or as I had told Dean Alfar in amusement in one e-mail, “I would likely write a novel based on my family and it would have the title ‘It all happened to us’.”

What I distinctly remember from that workshop was Aldus Santos:

He was the vocalist of Purple Chickens at that time. I was a fan of their band. The first time I heard “Butterfly Carnival” was when they performed it in Aura Café [Kamias] and they owned that song so I thought it was theirs. Later on, I found out that it was Sandwich’s.

Until now, whenever I hear “Butterfly Carnival” I would think it’s a song by Purple Chickens.

When I saw Aldus again in 2007 in one Happy Monday Mag:net reading, I had said, “Man, he looks older than he should.” He is still with Purple Chickens [check out their album] and has published a collection of his poetry. I like some of his poems.

What I distinctly remember from that workshop was Wendell Capili telling the class, “Aldus’s style in writing is philosophical.”

What I distinctly remember from that workshop was Aldus saying about my essay, “Is this an essay?” which was really the put-down because that meant that I couldn’t write an essay.

What I distinctly remember from that workshop was Wendell Capili almost sighing in exasperation, “This is what you call creative nonfiction.”

I had almost scoffed out a “Hah!” which meant “Buti nga sa ‘yo” but I just smiled at Wendell.

They were all writing personal essays: I wanted to write my way. It was the only way I knew how and my way appeared very much like Jessica Zafra’s “creative nonfiction”--- only raw and all edges.

The essay read like a short story and I didn’t even know how to write a short story at that time.

The Risks:

I was at war with UP Quill at that time--- the writing organization from UP Diliman which Aldus was a member of---in and out of the classroom.

85% of the class were members of UP Quill.

They were gunning for me.

The text’s content was ammunition for them.

The text’s content was not supposed to be written because it was going against the family edict: keep our business to ourselves.

Because of the text, I had also exposed my family to that persecution. Man, you don’t know shit about persecution unless you’ve experienced it from that organization.

I took the risks.

The text needed to be written.

By the way:

I had heard that to trash(talk) me had become a tradition in that organization for a time. As Ayn had once said, “Wala na ba silang ibang mapag-usapan??” I used to shake my head and wonder what they would say once I started getting published.

Outside written texts, I’m the psycho-bitch: “Bring it on. Talk all you want. When I’ve had enough I’m gonna beat the crap out of you to shut your trap.”

In written texts, I had asked myself when it came to being published, “What would my family say once they read any of my stuff?”

I said to myself: Don’t publish anything.

I was first published in 2006: a short story.

It took that long to take that risk.

In 2001, I had submitted a text in a Short Fiction workshop.

I had passed “Room 22-B” in our short fiction class under Charlson Ong. Since there were only six students in our class, there was really no need for pseudonyms during workshop. None of us also personally knew each other.

By that time, I was already on my 5^th year in college and was considered “old” in whatever class because I was older than most students.

“Old” also means: I come to class, spot who would know what, and then leave as soon as class ends therefore having no “class buddies”. I would only talk when asked by the professor for comments or for the sake of having recitation points and spent my time listening to what everyone would say.

I was also wary: there always seemed to be a Quill or friend-of-Quill in my classes. The less I said, the less about what I said would be twisted and spread.

In that class, there was this one pretty girl who would talk a lot and through her actions made it known that she knew the professor personally.

When it was my story’s turn to be workshopped, the girl had a lot to say about it. In workshop dynamics, the subtext of that kind of action is: I’m putting you in your place and you don’t know shit yet about writing.

She had some points in her comments and I was grateful for them. For example, she said, “In love is not hyphenated.”

And I said to myself, “Oo nga naman. Ang tanga ko. What the hell was I thinking?”

Then she started going about the story scene-per-scene, saying, “This is not possible” or “This does not happen this way, you know.”

And I had almost blurted out [but didn’t], “How would you know? Nangyari na ‘to sa yo? Na-rape ka na rin? Ilang beses?”

She went through the text with one unconstructive comment after the other and I felt that I was the one being ripped apart. After all, the text was really nonfiction and I said to myself, “I can’t change how they happened because they happened that way.”

The subtext of unconstructive comments is: I’m just being bitchy.

After she was done, the only comment that really made sense to the text was the hyphenation correction.

All of my classmates said so: one was an MA student and a teacher in FEU, the other one was writing social-realism stories, and the other one was an Amboy who was exploring writing. They said that it was well-written. To them, it was just a short story.

One classmate, Charms [poet and the vocalist of the band Matilda] said, “Hayaan mo na. Mayabang kasi yan dahil sa nanay niya.”

I had asked, “Who’s this girl anyway?”

She said, “Anak ni Ma’am Jhing.”

I asked, “Sinong Ma’am Jhing?”

She told me the professor’s full name which I recognized since I read some of her texts.

I said, “Talaga? Ah.”

As much as the bitchy comments had hurt, I didn’t take them personally. I was used to pointless bitchy comments in writing classes anyway. If I had taken the comments personally, I would have stabbed her with my pen the moment we stepped out of the classroom. Gripo sa tagiliran, for short.

When it was her turn, I had also ripped apart her short story, page per page with a red ball pen. Or rather, my boyfriend and I did. There was one page that we purposely left blank and the next page had a comment, “Sorry, got tired from all the commas.”

The text had a comma-problem--- think of it as Jose Garcia Villa’s “I,It,Was,That,Saw,” poem only it’s in a short story. And among other things, it had bad dialogue. The protagonist was supposedly a world-weary woman in her late-twenties involved with a man she had characterized in a dialogue line as “He was a bad man.”

Basha had read the story and when he saw that line he had laughed, “She sounds like Bugs Bunny with that line: ‘He was a bad man! He was a bad man!’”

The bad man was a son-of-a-bitch who probably had erectile problems hence would beat the crap out of his girlfriend to compensate for his short dick, small brain, dickhead personality, and no future. If I were the girlfriend, I would castrate him in his sleep, make him swallow his dick and not just leave or run away from his Neanderthal ass.

Ah, love.

I had suspected upon reading the text that 65%-7O% of it was nonfiction.

Passing off nonfiction as fiction: it takes one to know one.

I had left a note on the back of the last page, something like “Sorry, my husband also reads the stories in any of the workshops because he’s interested in writing. Sorry about the mess.”

My classmates and I almost had the same comments about the text.

The Risks:

Making my boyfriend (“husband”) and my boy-friend read it.

I had wanted to double-check if my comments on the text were valid--- given that I was smarting from her bitchy comments--- because I didn’t want to make comments that were influenced by the fact that I didn’t like her bitchiness.

I really was being a little bitchy, too. I can’t help it sometimes: being bitchy seems to be a genetic trait.

In general, my boyfriend said that we were being “snarky”: sarcasm with humor to drive your point.

The wrath of Ma’am Jhing.

By the way:

During the session after I ripped apart her text, I was berated by Charlson Ong in class for making others read the submitted stories outside the workshop.

I was also berated by Charlson Ong in class for taking comments on my text too personally and therefore becoming personal in my comments to her text.

My classmates had raised their eyebrows and rolled their eyeballs. I had simply smiled and said, “Okay, Sir.”

She didn’t get berated. I would like to think that she was berated privately.

I had forced myself to write a fiction story that semester for that Short Fiction class and it was titled “Tupada”--- because I didn’t want to expose my life stories to plain bitchy comments.

She trashed that too.

Memorable comments from her: “I have held cocks and they don’t thrash when aroused and agitated.”

I had said, “Well, the cocks I held would thrash when aroused and agitated. You know, flurry of wings, you get pecked, end up being scratched. ”

She had said, “Well, I’m telling you: I grew up knowing these things.”

And I had said, “Lucky you.”

We were talking literally of fighting cocks, of course.

Memorable comment from Charlson Ong: “If I were you, I would make the protagonist behead the cock and eat it.”

I had said, “Yes to the beheading. Eeew to the eating.”

She and I agreed on that.

I am still tweaking “Tupada” until now.

I had learned the value of writing with discipline on that semester: deadlines.

I had learned that true stories are not believed, even when written well, when written under “short fiction”.

I had learned that somewhat-true stories are defended, even when not written well, when written under “short fiction” and the author has connections.

I wrote in my Thesis acknowledgment:

To Professor Charlson Ong--- whose teaching style I absolutely abhorred but from whom I have learned the value of discipline, form, and literary language in writing. Thank you for mediating in a slugging match in CW 111 workshop; and for achieving the unthinkable: making me sing “Top of the World” with Carmen at Blind Tiger. I’m still cringing. (But Sir, I’ll buy you a drink any time.)

A demonstration of how I get personal:

I beat the crap out of you or get your life killed or---

There was also this one girl I didn’t like who had once proudly said to me, “Oh my god, there were times that I would just fuck and fuck and I wouldn’t even wash after. [Sotto voce] That’s how I got the yeast infection.”

I said, “Yeah, I heard about that and how you fucked the whole brotherhood. Yeah, some of them are my friends and you know how guys are: they gossip so much and you should hear what they were saying about you. [Sotto voce] Kadiri ka.”

Yan ang personal.

Siyempre after that mega-kontrabida line, exit ang queen of tarush mo.

In the same semester in 2001, “Room 22-B” was revised and written as “A Virgin Joke” and submitted for Creative Nonfiction Class.

Charms was also my classmate in CNF and she had become a story-confidante. During workshop, most of the class was quiet about my text--- given the content and the way it was written.

I was itching for criticism of the text so that I would know how to write it better. After all, I still wanted to double-check if that classmate’s comments in the Short Fiction workshop were valid. I was ready for another bitchy round and this time I had no “short fiction” wall to hide from.

One classmate said during the workshop, “Kawawa naman yun sumulat nito.”

That classmate wrote about exploring his “being closet gay” by deciding “to befriend” a stranger in UP one night and he ended up being robbed.

We thought he was gay. He denied it.

And Carljoe had said about A Virgin Joke, “Is this true? It’s a short story.”

Charms had immediately said, “Yes.”

Everyone else stayed mostly quiet.

Critically speaking, A Virgin Joke was one of the most put-together CNF pieces from that class. The best one for me was Collins Lidua’s.

You know when something is put-together-written-well for me? It makes me think, makes me feel, makes me laugh in joy, makes me cry, makes me remember it and makes me want to take it inside of me.

The best ones are those that could shut me up.

The Risks:

Going against family edict.

Being revealed as the author: feeling exposed.

Finally putting a painful personal story out there thus it is a story that can no longer be denied by yours truly.

Putting a painful personal story out there that could be ripped apart because it was not written well.

A true story that wouldn’t be believed as true even under “nonfiction”.

A true story that wouldn’t be believed as true even under “nonfiction” because it reads like short fiction.

By the way:

After that workshop session, we all got drunk.

Three of my truest friends came from that drinking session: Collins Lidua, Selena Salang and Carljoe Javier. In life and in our texts, we tell each other the truth.

For example, I told Carljoe when I recently saw him that his story in “Heartbreak” had slipped in believability. Given the protagonist’s character, she used the word “chick” in reference to women.

I told him, “Dude, no girl like that would call herself or a woman ‘chick’. You slipped.”

Carl had laughed.

I stuck to short fiction after that CNF class.

I only started writing what might-be-CNF because I started blogging in 2005.

The other night, I had a “What the hell is CNF?” conversation with my writing fellows because of entries in this blog that had personally hurt people.

Creative Nonfiction is the most dangerous genre because there are too many risks:

The greatest risk for me is that writing CNF would hurt my family because it would remind them of things best forgotten or they would find out things unknown to them.

The greater risk for me is that in writing CNF, I would hurt people I care about.

The great risk for me is that in writing CNF, I hurt myself.

The risk in writing CNF is that nouns and pronouns intertwined in my narratives get woven into my texts without their consent.

The risk in writing CNF is that someone will always get hurt.

The wrong in writing CNF:

For me it is if I write other people’s life stories for them. For example, “Room 22 B” or “A Virgin Joke” itself would feel like a violation if it were written by Collins, Selena or Carl.

Why? Because that is not their story. That is my story to tell. I was the one who experienced those very specific circumstances and details. They couldn’t possibly write of those as they had happened as “nonfiction”.

But if they choose to write on the same topic or theme, what they have read in “A Virgin Joke” would or may be intertwined in their narratives.

That is the risk we take by living, reading, writing and taking events and people inside of us.

Here, I am writing my life stories.

I apologize for hurting people whom I care about.

They got hurt.

Hell, I hate hurting people I care about and I have to own up to causing that hurt, whether or not I think that the “hurt feeling” is valid.

I care about them so I apologize for the hurt.

If I didn’t care for them: kebs, mangisay kayo sa sakit.

But I do not apologize for writing something wherein they were included [and they got hurt because they were included] because as I have said: whatever is written is never another about nouns and pronouns.

It is about the story.

The story is according to my perceptions, my maps. Nobody can tell me what I see, what I smell, what I hear, what I taste, what I touch, what I feel, what I think except myself in relation these:

An idea. A fact. An event. A point. A possibility. An insight.

For the sake of these, I will use whatever I have to write of it. Why? Because I deem these as necessary to the text.

Now, when something is shared to me by someone and the person says, “Atin lang ha?” of course I do not speak of it.

If and when I speak of it, I would only do so to people I trust. If what is shared gets out, that means that I and the person with whom I shared it have trust problems.

How do I protect that trust and that preference for anonymity? If it’s such a sensitive topic, I don’t write of it or if I had included aspects of it in a text, I don’t give out too many details.

If and when I write instead of telling people directly what I think-- because what was shared to me or what I had witnessed is an important point or a valued insight-- that means I’m not writing of you or the person:

I’m writing of the idea, fact, event, point, possibility, insight in relation to me.

It then becomes my story because I am the storyteller, not any noun or pronoun’s.

Whatever comes out in my CNF is anchored to my I.

The texts unfold according to my I.

And if I get hurt or people get hurt, that is the risk someone who writes CNF takes.

How many are really willing to take that risk?

I wouldn’t take that risk that’s why it took me 10 years since I started consciously writing to decide to get published.

It took me a workshop in Dumaguete last year to come out and really write.

It took getting really sick and understanding what “You think you have forever but you don’t” means to start writing openly.

It took nurturing from Ma’am Marj Evasco to start writing of life wounds: the stuff of creative nonfiction.

And the greatest risk I take every time I put a word down is that I may lose my family, my boyfriend, my friends-- my life as I know it.

They do not tell me to stop and they do not think I should apologize. They endeavor to understand the BIG PICTURE: there are many things that need to be written or that I need to write them.

To write of them make these things attested: they happened and writing makes sure that they will be remembered.

To write of these things took learning detachment: I had to learn to stop taking things and writing personally and write personal while raising it to objective.

I had already blogged to personally hurt someone.

Once.

On July 19 2005.

I lost my best friend that way.

My best friend lost me that way too.

My best friend for whom I wrote in my thesis acknowledgment:

To Ayn--- When death tempts me too much, I always ask you: If I die, will you cry? No, you say, I will weep. I cannot stand to see you weep. If I had a daughter, I would want her to be like you. If I had a son, then perhaps he and Tristania would marry someday. Thank you for knowing me; for always coming for me in room 22-b; for teaching me how to trust once more after being betrayed; for being the keeper of my secrets; for bringing me joy; and for telling me that you love me. “Two Purple Lines” is for you.

And Ayn never really tells anyone “I love you”, not even those she really loved or even her parents. That’s how much she loved me, that she could say “I love you” to me.

She and I— in our own ways--- are still grieving and living that loss.

We took that risk of losing each other for the sake of writing our points to each other, out of hurt and to hurt, and in front of an audience.

And we lost each other.

We had already learned that lesson in blogging.

So every time I take that risk--- the risk that someone I care about might get hurt because of something that I blog--- I always remember how I lost my best friend because of writing.

Since July 19 2005, I don’t write personally.

Personally means:

The stuff between two people only.

To take it outside of the text.

I talk to you face-to-face about personal issues.

I care enough about you to talk to you about it at whatever risk.

Since July 19 2005, I don’t write personally to hurt someone.

And this is something that I hold true (and makes me really laugh) until I die:

If I really wanted to hurt someone personally:

I won’t write about it.

I do it personally and I make the person’s life hell.

I don’t care if there’s a point to the hurting.

Nothing will save the person.

And if I really wanted to hurt someone personally, I will tell my persons like Ayn about it:

Nothing will definitely save the person.

And I know for a fact that I am already getting soft because I no longer take a lot of things personally.

When you get hurt because you take something personally, you don’t mind the cause or cost.

Taking something personally:

I could have simply walked away but---

One night while drinking in UP in 1999 with the atheists, Cef had told me something about her.

I had said, “Stop. She hasn’t told me about this. Leave it alone.”

And because I said that, he had said, “Anong klaseng best friend ka? Di mo alam yun ginagawa ng best friend mo?”

I had said, “If she hasn’t told me about it yet, she has her reasons. We don’t go demanding to know all that’s happening in our individual lives. Leave it alone.”

He had said that because I was older, it was my “moral obligation” to know and to tell her that what she was doing was wrong.

I had said, “Gago ka pala eh. Sino ka at ako para magsabi sa tao na mali yun ginagawa niya? May mga rason yan. Di ko nga ‘to alam eh so please hayaan mo na mapag-usapan muna namin.”

Then Cef started blaming me for whatever it was he thought she was doing “wrong” because I was ignorant of it and that by being ignorant of it, I wasn’t being her “best friend.”

I had said, “Pare, tama na. May pinapasukan ka na mga bagay that’s none of your business.”

On and on it went for about three to four hours. Finally, I had screamed at him, “You self-righteous prick! Whatever it is she’s doing, that’s none of your fucking business! Our friendship is also none of your fucking business! Stop it!”

And of course I started crying because he just wouldn’t stop badgering me and I couldn’t beat the crap out of him because it would make my best friend look bad. At that time, crying led to anxiety attacks and anxiety attacks led to suicides and suicides led to hospitalizations and hospitalizations hurt people I care about.

I made sure that I wouldn’t cry and my persons made sure that I wouldn’t cry.

I was in UP that night and Ayn was at some shindig. I had called her and in between sobbing I remember telling her these:

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If you love me, stop doing that.”

“You can die doing that and I don’t want to lose you.”

“If I lose you, I have one less reason to live for.”

“Cef had made me cry because of you.”

She said, “Hintayin mo ko diyan.”

I had thought that she was coming to argue with me about it. When she arrived, she went straight to Cef.

She kicked him.

I had screamed, “Ayn!”

She kept on kicking him until he was on the ground and had almost fallen to the ditch.

The whole time, she had just kept on kicking him and screaming at him, “Bat mo pinapaiyak si Mia ha! Bakit! Bakit mo pinapaiyak si Mia! Tang ina ako paiyakin mo wag siya!”

And I just stood there--- in shock--- until I screamed, “Tama na! Baby! Tama na!” And I had run to her and hugged her, “Tama na.”

She stopped.

Oh di ba, parang movie!

Yun title niyan, “Kicking Pinay”.

Puede rin “Juliet and Juliet: The Gossiped-Lesbo Story”

Years later, I had joked to her, “Di mo inisip yun Nine West boots mo.”

But see, that is how people like me or her take things personally. I make damn sure I don’t take things personally because personally means people can get kicked to death by me or my persons.

CNF is writing with that kind of love and learning about risks in writing because of that kind of love.

Or as one of my fellows put it: “Tough love.”

Damn, I still can’t remember the title of that essay I submitted in 1999.

Oh well, I’ll remember it one of these days.

WORDSTARS—let’s all try to distinguish between writing personally and writing personal while raising it to objective.

WORDSTARS--- let’s all try to distinguish between writing to attack something and writing to attack someone.

WORDSTARS--- let’s all try to distinguish between writing to attack and writing to criticize.

The text is a weapon:

a pointless weapon to use just to hurt someone,

que se joda yun text mistulang tirador o bazooka.

Kung may tinatamaan, sorry na lang.

May kasabihan: “Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan wag magagalit.”

With people like me, it’s “Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan pak shet!”

Meaning:

[Loving voice] Friendship, bakit feeling ka naman kasi tinamaan?

[Tough loving voice] Friendship naman eh, bakit ka naman kasi di umilag?!

Hay, buhay…parang life.

Ganyan talaga yan.

Write on na lang!