A WRITING TIP: writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on writing on

April 24, 2008 8:40 pm.

It was supposed to be “a love letter” but yesterday while doing errands in this weather (that makes us “heat zombies”, my cat said) the words just vanished in between you are more cruel than I am in your ignorance but I am more ruthless than you are in my knowledge---- melted by the heat, probably went to the North or South Pole.

In the course of chillaxing last night (what an ugly word, makes me think of a laxative, not using that again) around with a beanstalk, a cat, a pixie and I (as a lunatic masquerading as a moon that turned into a synthesis of a female Algernon and Stuart Little that metamorphosed into a porcupine and is now some kind of a flower for the dead and perfume for old women) we spoke of stories.

I said to the beanstalk, “I wish sometimes that (my favourite editor) would just tell me what to write.”

The comment was brought on by a text conversation I had with another editor that afternoon that went:

M: Hi S...! It’s Mia... How are you?ü I was blogging abt the material for “wishes do come true”(the story i submitted to you last year)& i was wondering if it has been published? Just asking. Thanks!ü

S: Hi mia, new number? Yes i think i have. Lemme check. Otherwise, i will. HeeJ

M: Hahahahaha!ü the other number’s ok but this is my private number. Pls let me know (kahiya kasi if i put on my resumé that it’s published na&it’s not). Thankee!ü

S: lagay mo na! Asus

M: Hehehehe. Anong lalalgay kong date?

S: Oo nga ano. O sige text ko sayo mamaya

M: Hahaha, crazy man. Text me later. Ok lah.ü

S: Ako also can, lah

M: Hahahahaha! Selamat!

S: terimah kasi

The last four messages were puns based on Malaysian English. I acquired “ok lah” because Egg keeps on saying that when I talk to her. The “can” is their version of “yes, of course, I can, doable, or anything that is on the affirmative”. Like “Can you do this?” you answer “Can!” or “Want to have lunch?” you answer “Can!” or even “Are you hurt?” and you answer “Can!” And in that country, they pronounce “shit” as “chit”.

The beanstalk said, “You can write a fairy tale, that’s our assignment.”

I said, “Uy, yeah! That fairy tale! Yun When The Sorceress Went To Fairy Tale School.”

In that story, there’s a pixie who’s into brownies, not the magical brownies like in the movie “Willow” (I think) but the other magical kind that a pixie eats and transforms a pixie into something like Tinkerbell-on-E. Then there’s the activist dwarf who wants the dwarf nation to go into a revolution for free beer and likes peeing on orchids and then leaving his fly open. Then there’s that ladybug who wants to be a butterfly. Then there’s that philosopher-elf who’s into kinky sex but turns out to be a virgin. Then there’s a cat for their teacher. And the sorceress...

We laughed about that and other things.

Later on (after we took the beanstalk home because it was his time for bed) we spoke of our jobs and the jobs we’ve had and the shit we went and go through because of jobs. I was concerned for this one friend who’s in a funk, a goddamn quagmire in fact because of a job. I had consulted another friend about things like that but he said, “If I were the employer, as much as I want to give what the employee needs, I can’t because I would lose money. Give it to the employee now and I fold in 6 months.”

I said, “You’re not helping. I know that already but we’re talking about our friend here, the employee. I can’t take the employer’s stand on that!”

So: You had “my memo for first-time-employees: a graduation gift”.

And you have it good nowadays. Joey’s first job in 1998 paid him 7 500 gross. At that time, almost-middle-management people in banks were being paid 10 000 gross. In 2004, my first full-time job paid me 10 000 gross. And at that time, guess how much Philippine Star or magazines like Tattler would offer full-time writers gross. (Gross is really beginning to sound like “eew, gross”.) I suppose not much has really changed except nowadays you can opt not to graduate from college and still get gross pay by working in a call centre.

Also, writing will get you 150-750-1 000-8 000 per story/essay/poem--- really not much money there, too. It was better when I was writing in college: I would charge 500 pesos per 3 double-spaced pages for me to write your expository paper (and that you have to be the one to do the research). I had to interview my clients first because I would modify the paper’s form according to their (and their teacher’s) requirements, intellect, personalities, etc. I stopped doing that because one day I woke up and I realized that I was just making dumb students dumber...so I stuck to gambling.

I’m thinking about what I heard on the radio yesterday, “I love my job more than my girlfriend”. Man, did the DJs have a fun time calling the sender all kinds of “stupid”. Then I think about Skid Row’s ...remember yesterday, walking hand in hand, love letters in the sand, I remember you... I think about what people exchange love for. To the tune of this little piggy went to---

This love was exchanged for a job.

This love was exchanged for another woman.

This love was exchanged for drugs.

This love was exchanged for a bottle of brandy.

And all the loves said “wee-wee-wee-I’m-not-that-cheap-you-son-of-a-bitch!”

I’m really writing two short stories and an essay in Filipino NOW while I’m writing this. This is what you call writing sideways and you do that when there are too many blocks and you have a deadline and the damn fuckers for words won’t come out.

You write... them... out.

C’mon, come out and play.

(Damn fuckers.)

They’re probably not coming out because I’m calling them fuckers.

(Damn fuckers.)

“Fuck you, bitch!”

May sumulpot pero minura ako?! Ay pucha your mother you damn fuckers ha!

For that, shut down.