Good morning, Cubao!

The day serves a a slice of chill pie.

TONY PEREZ\S GUIDELINES FOR HIS FACEBOOK FRIENDS FOR THE COMING WEEK (MONDAY, JULY 29 - FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2024):

1) Remember the heat and how it was unkind to you.

2) Live to the fullest without having to wait for any big break.

3) It is unwuse to rely only on your memory.

4) Do not be generous to a fault.

5) There will always be a work-related inconvenience.

6) Focus on your own concerns before focusing on those of your co-workers.

7) Give only in reciprocation.

8 ) Do not feel obliged to give in to relatives outside your immediate family.

9) The arrogant skeptic ends up with nothing.

10) Sherbet is a dessert for all seasons.

11) Long trips are a bad idea at this time.

12) Do not force yourself to attend a function if you are not feeling well.

13) A former classmate says goodbye.

14) Ensure that you have good finances. 

15) Supervisors will praise you only to a certain extent.

16) Do not ingest too much potassium.

17) A long-lost acquaintance surfaces.

18) Something red on your bed will protect you from roaming spirits.

Senior citizens and veterans should be taught creative writing beause they have many, interesting stories to tell. That is why they often yearn to sit with someone they can talk to.

If not, those stories will be gone forever.

Though you are a creative writer, learn how to veil your innermost thoughts. Your life should not always be an open book. Preserve a good amount of mystique in your persona. Both you and your writing will be more interesting that way.

The mastery of writing and painting is the result not of enrollment in an academy but of the correct and judicious exercise of one's powers of observation.

Painting and writing come into creation through one's personal passion, conviction, experience, habits, and preferences, not via what teachers impose in school.

That is why many brilliant painters do not have Fine Arts degrees, and why many brilliant writers do not have Creative Writing degrees.

And, after all, many Fine Arts graduates still know nothing about the rendition of correct anatomy, and many Creative Writing graduates still know nothing about the correct usage of idioms.

 It is the correct sequence to write first, and then paint later.

Because it is DIFFICULT to paint first, and then write later. You will literally be AT A LOSS FOR WORDS.

Of the hundreds if not thousands of arts graduates, how many actually made it after graduation?

--How many had to go abroad in order to be branded a success?

--How many are simply bumming around while waiting for projects to arrive at their doorstep?

--How many ended up working in call centers?

--How many resorted to self-auctions, selling minor works online for a pittance to a general public?

--How many are selling plastic ware and hosting Tupperware parties to survive?

--How many became depressed and even suicidal?

It is fine to be an artist, but one also has to have a sense of economics, not only for oneself but also for one's community. After all, what kind of nation would this be if everyone were an arts graduate?

And, in the last analysis, it is real talent that counts, never the fact that one went to an academy.

Hello Mark,

Thank you for the nine sonnets you sent me for critiquing. I appreciated them more than the first poem you showed me the last time we were together in the coffee shop.

My comments:

--It is all right to explore and experiment with forms established by earlier poets from Europe, but, always have the objective of developing your own, unique style of writing that can separate you from the rest. It can be done. I am referring not only to Western sonnets but also to Filipino awits and koridos. 

--Try writing more loosely rather than constraining your work to fit rhyme and meter. Do look for a copy of the 1969 Penguin Modern Poets 13: Charles Bukowski, Philip Lamantia, Harold Norse. The works therein are timeless.

--You are very young; your poetic sensibility needs to mature, like wine. I could tell, from your lines, that there were instances when you were writing not from your own experience but from your visual observation of the world around you and from stories told by others. Poetry is condensed truth. Do not attempt to write about a night with a prostitute if you've never spent a night with a prostitute--that is an example I am using not from anything of the sort in your writing. In short, do not be a man writing about having an abortion because you can never have one in this lifetime. (The latter can be done, but only through a complicated process called regression, in which you visit, on the astral plane, a previous lifetime in which you were a woman who had an actual abortion. Let me attempt to do a regression on you sometime. Not many writers can do that, by the way.)

--Do keep on writing no matter what. It's the only way to get where you want to be.

--Further develop your powers of observation using ALL YOUR SENSES. Read through my blog on developing powers of observation; the exercises there apply not only to young psychics but also to artists and creative writers:

http://tonyperezphilippinescyberspacebook19.blogspot.com/

I look forward to being with you again soon.

Write from your heart, never from your producer's or your publisher's cash register.

The artist who becomes truly immortal will always be the artist who takes pride in aging.

Always write for readers who are 30 years old and above. Your work then becomes truly timeless.

Draw a graph illustrating your journey of ups and downs over the 12 months of the previous year. Was your life on an upward trend?

Then draw a second graph illustrating your progress MINUS the emotions, and they will be two totally different graphs.

A writer who cannot articulate himself in everyday life is only half an artist.

When starting out a novel, write your first two pages, set them aside, and come back to them a day later to see if your lines sound right. If they don't--if they are stilted and the lines don't flow--it is because you are writing it in the wrong language. Switch to another language, such as Chinese, Bahasa, Hindi, or Tagalog.

If you INSIST on writing your novel in a preferred language, talk to yourself in a running monologue in that language while you are alone in your room. When you think your thoughts, think in that language. Only then should you resume writing your novel.

A book releases energy when it is opened and read.

A painting releases energy while it is hanging on a wall.

Due to readers' and viewers' memory, both continue to release energy in their minds and in their hearts.

Dialogue in playwriting can defy the rules of language and grammar.

I use "Hindi RAW" when I want the line to sound gentle and feminine.

I use "Hindi DAW" when I want the line to sound forceful and masculine.

Dialogue is also contingent on characters' mental and emotional states, levels of maturity, economic background, and age.

Never write or paint to "express yourself". That is the typical excuse used by K-12 teachers of their students, and by mediocre artists.

To find out if you are a world-class writer, draw or paint. Your drawing or your painting will give you the definitive answer.

To find out if you are a world-class artist, write. Your writing will give you the definitive answer.

The title of your novel should never be more interesting than the novel itself.

The writer seeks the mysteries of the day.

It is all too easy to write from the mind, for that is what everyone does at school and at work. The rules for doing this are available in classrooms and in books. 

It is also easy to do automatic writing. You simply hold a pen over a sheet of paper, let go, and let the writing flow from your unconscious.

You need a guide, however, when writing from the heart, because it is an art that harnesses your intuition and your emotion, and only a mentor who truly loves you can help you do that. When writing from the heart, your write not only from your present lifetimes but also from your past and your future lifetimes. When writing from the heart, your consciousness is the consciousness of love. No book or writing instrument, no matter how expensive, can bring you there on its own. 

The process of painting is a joy only when you know exactly what to do next in your work in progress.

Rediscover Edna Ferber and reread her works. Her power of description is superb. She is perhaps the only writer I know of who can arouse a gamut of emotions by sheer description alone.

When a writer cannot handle description well, his work will tend to be boring.

Then try this exercise:

Write a short story using description alone. For example, describe a tree. Or the night. Or the facade of a stranger's house.

See how you can infuse a descriptive paragraph with action, narrative, and conflict.

When a man falls in love with different types of women--and possibly even different types of men--it is because he has been unable to find a satisfactory identity and is constantly playing different roles in search of it. It is the same role-playing some writers do when they are creating and simulating the lives of different characters.

The mastery of writing and painting are the result not of enrollment in an academy but of the correct and judicious exercise of one's powers of observation.

Never save your best ideas for last.

The poetry of the heart follows no rules.

Always allow the painting to paint itself.

Always allow the novel to write itself.

It usually takes over after you've done 3/4 of the work.

Never be without a notebook and pen when ideas descend on you like a rainfall of golden light.

Labradorite on your writing desk allows your thoughts to flow without limit.

If your writing tends to be tentative and sketchy, switch to a darker ink or a bigger and bolder font.

Every single thought has one or more junctions. Be aware of all of them and explore the wonders of three-dimensional thinking.

When a writer's works are as yet immature, they will merely reflect what he wants very much but cannot have.

Academics will impose hard and fast rules about poetry for purposes of promoting it as a craft, but poetry is as diverse as personality, and the poems you write, no matter what forms they take, are fingerprints of your soul--they are unique and they will never be like anyone else's.

In every time of crisis, do not rush to record what is happening around you. Instead, exercise your powers of observation, especially through your physical senses.

It is after the crisis is over that you will be able to write about everything.

Many writers establish their careers as classroom teachers because their students, co-faculty members, and administrators not only provide them the support they want but also treat them as though they were the greatest writers in the world, but those kinds of support and adulation are hardly the gauges of being a successful writer.

Know that, when you are reading a creative work, you are riding the author's mental horses, but that, sometimes, those horses are not strong enough to carry you across the deepest streams.

Read "Faithful Johannes" this afternoon, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis: A dying king entrusts his son to his faithful servant, Johannes. After the king dies Johannes shows the young king all of the rooms in the castle, except for one room that the old king bade Johannes never to show his son. The young king, however, insists on entering the room, and Johannes has no choice but to let him in. The room contains a portrait of the Princess of the Golden Roof. The young king is smitten by it and swoons. When he revives, all he can think of is to find the princess and make her his bride.

Johannes suggests that they take all of the gold in the castle and have the smiths fashion them into exquisite items, since the princess is always surrounded with and is obsessed with gold. They sail to the land where the princess lives. Johannes shows the princess some items of gold and lures her to their ship, where Johannes greets her and shows her everything that they brought on board. Unbeknownst to the princess, Johannes orders the crew to set sail. In the middle of the sea the young king proposes to the princess, and she agrees to be his bride.

During the trip to the young king's home, Johannes overhears ravens foretell the doom that the young king and the princess are headed for:

1) Upon reaching land a horse as red as a fox will trot up to the young king, who will be tempted to ride off on it and will never see the princess again unless someone jumps up the saddle, takes the gun from it, and shoots the horse dead.

2) Upon reaching the castle the young king will find a bridal outfit in a basin. It is made, however, of sulfur and pitch, and the young king can be saved only if someone puts on gloves and hurls the outfit into the fire.

3) During a ball inside the castle, the princess will be stricken as though dead and can be brought back to life only if someone pricks her breast, draws three drops of blood from the puncture wound, and spits them out.

4) Anyone who reveals these to the young king, however, will immediately be turned to stone.

Everything happens as the ravens predict. Johannes shoots the horse with the gun, puts on gloves and hurls the bridal outfit into the fire, and draws three drops of blood from the princess's breast and spits them out. The young king forgives Johannes for the first two but not for the third, upon which he condemns Johannes to burn at the stake.

Once tied to the stake Johannes begs to give a final word before dying. The young king grants it. Johannes discloses everything he overheard from the ravens. Upon doing this, he turns to stone. The young king and the princess grieve over Johannes's fate. They eventually have two young sons. One afternoon, while the boys are playing, the young king wonders aloud how Johannes can be brought back to life. The stone statue says that the only way is for the young king to behead his sons and smear their blood on the stone. Due to the injustice he did Johannes, the young king does this. Johannes not only comes back to life, he reattaches the boys' heads to their bodies and they come back to life again. The royal family lives the rest of their lives in happiness.


My Commentary: Though written long before the birth of psycho-anthropologist Carl Gustav Jung, this fairy tale illustrates the first two stages of the psyche's development from Warrior to Lover to Magician to King. The dying king prohibits the prince from entering the forbidden room because the prince must first successfully complete his journey through the stage of Warrior. No one, after all, can enter the stage of Lover too soon without suffering its psychological consequences.

The motif of gold corresponds to purity and truth. Johannes must destroy the horse because it will take the young king forever into the Warrior stage and be hopelessly fixated in it. The bridal outfit comes too much, too soon before the Lover's maturity and will only lead to disaster. The princess falling comatose during the ball is an indication that she, too, will not benefit from an early entry into the Lover stage.

Beheading one's sons may come across as an act of violence unless we understand that the young king, the two boys, and Johannes are all parts of one, whole Ego. The Ego must learn to make sacrifices in service of the psyche in order to be integrated--perhaps pretty much as we find, frankly, in the story of Abraham and Isaac. 

Read "The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids" two nights ago, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis: Before leaving to find food in the forest, a mother goat cautions her seven kids to be on guard against the wolf, who will most certainly eat them up. Sure enough, as soon as the mother goat leaves, the wolf comes in disguise and asks the kids to let them in. The kids refuse him entrance because his voice is gruff, unlike their mother's. The wolf then eats a piece of chalk, goes back to the house, and calls to the kids in a sweet voice, but he makes the mistake of placing his paw on the window sill so that the kids see that it is black, unlike their mother's. The wolf next goes to a baker and bids him cover his paw with dough and sprinkle it with flour. When he goes back to the house the kids see that his paw is white, like their mother's, and they open the door to him, upon which he chases them round the house and swallows them whole except for the seventh kid, who hides inside the clock case.

When the mother goat returns she sees the devastation that occurred. The kid who hid inside the clock case tells her everything that happened. They go outside and eventually find the wolf sleeping soundly under a tree. The mother goat cuts open his belly and lets out the six kids inside. She then fills the wolf's belly with stones and sews his belly up again. The wolf soon wakes up in great thirst. He goes to the well to drink some water, but due to the weight of the stones inside his body he falls into it and drowns. 


My Commentary:

In this fairy tale all characters are parts of one whole, the Self. The mother is the psyche, the seven kids the vulnerable Ego, and the wolf the Shadow Self. Note that, as in the story of Red Riding Hood, the vulnerable Ego is swallowed whole and does not die, it merely becomes part of the Shadow Self; should it stay there a long time it is said to have merged with the Shadow Self, causing a life of neurosis, negativity, and depression.

By the same token, the Shadow Self also never dies. Although the story ends with the wolf falling into the well and drowning, we know that it will soon rise and roam the psychological landscape once again, pretty much as in the midrash of the Temptation in the Wilderness, where Jesus is the Ego and the shaitan, or Tester, is the Shadow. They confront each other but do not "kill" or vanquish each other. Instead, at the end of the midrash, the Tester says that he will come "another time", which he later did, as Judas.  

Read "A Tale About the Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" two nights ago, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis: 

A father has two sons, the elder smart and responsible, the younger slow and disinterested in many things. The younger son often listens to his elder brother's refusal to do errands at night, having to pass through a cemetery in the dark, because it makes his hairs stand on end. The younger son has never experienced having his hairs stand on end and makes it his singular objective to have that experience. The father willingly lends his younger son to the sexton, who assigns the boy to ring the church bell at midnight. One night, unbeknownst to the boy, the sexton dresses himself in white, goes up to the belfry, and waits for the boy to come up and ring the bell. Seeing the figure in white, the boy merely demands it to identify itself, and, when it remains silent, throws it down the stairs. The sexton breaks a leg, and the boy's angry father sends the boy away from home. 

The boy meets a man with whom he confides his desire to experience having his hairs stand on end. The man challenges him to spend the night below a tree where the corpses of seven criminals remain hanging. The boy does so and even lights a fire and takes down the corpses to sit round it to keep themselves warm. The boy attempts to converse with the men, but they remain silent. The corpses' pieces of clothing catch fire, though, and the boy hangs them back on the tree.   

The boy then meets a carter, who takes him to an inn, where he learns from the innkeeper that the king is offering the reward of his daughter' hand to any man who can spend the night in a nearby haunted castle. In the past, many suitors attempted to do this but were never seen alive again. Unfazed, the boy takes on the challenge.

On the first night inside the haunted castle the boy is attacked by huge cats and dogs, but he kills most of them with his knife and sends the rest running away. He lies on a bed that springs to life and zooms around and through the castle, but he thoroughly enjoys it and goes to sleep on the bed afterward.

On the second night, dead men come tumbling down the chimney and play a game of ninepins with skulls as balls. The boy not only joins the game--he turns the skulls on a lathe to make them roll  more easily.

On the third night, six huge men set a coffin on a floor. The boy opens the coffin, sets the corpse near the fire, and rubs its body to revive it. The corpse does come to life but attempts to strangle the boy, and so the boy seals it inside the coffin once again. An old man arrives next, and he challenges the boy to a test of strength. The old man takes an axe and rives an anvil in two. The boy, however, is able to do the same. He wedges the old man's beard in the split of the anvil and proceeds to beat him up. The old man surrenders and gives the boy three chests full of gold: one for the poor, the second for the king, the third for the boy.

Everyone is amazed that the boy survived three nights inside the haunted castle. The boy marries the king's daughter, and they live happily except that the boy still cannot experience having his hairs stand on end. His wife becomes exasperated, but their chambermaid thinks of a solution. They pour water with live minnows from the river on the boy's body. The little fish flap all over his body and make his hairs stand on end.


My Commentary:

This fairy tale is about the archetypal Warrior's journey in developmental psychology. On his quest, the boy encounters only men, who conduct his rites of passage to full manhood, the equivalent of the French "100 blows". Ringing the church bell at midnight seems to indicate the first awakening of the boy's body; his encounter with the sexton seems to be a failed seduction on the sexton's part. The episode that follows, involving the cadavers of seven criminals, reflects the boy's dealing with the Shadow Selves of his peers; he extends kindness to them but is forced to place them back where they belong because they are not responsive to him.

The three nights inside the haunted castle reflect the last three stages in the Warrior's journey: the cats and dogs are the vices one must combat and transcend before having a good night's sleep; the game of ninepins is the challenge of socializing in a world of deceit; the corpse in the coffin is none other than his own weaknesses and shortcomings, which he must learn to overcome, and the old man is his future self, the keeper of riches. Note that the Warrior is obliged to turn over a third of his booty to the poor and another third to the king.

Above everything, every story about a boy who leaves his father and his brother behind to go out into the world is basically a story of the Zero Card, the Fool, in any Tarot deck. It is also the antithesis of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, retitled the Parable of the Beneficent Father--I say antithesis because the Warrior, whether successful in life or not, DOES NOT GO BACK TO THE FATHER AND TO THE BROTHER and instead continues to live independently the rest of his life. The ending of this fairy tale actually suggests the straight path to individuation: it is through the archetype of Woman, not of Man, that the Warrior ends this stage in his life and begins his journey through the next stage, the stage of the Lover, whether he is contending with an actual wife or with the Anima, or Feminine Self, within.

Read "The Virgin Mary's Child" two nights ago, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis:

The Virgin Mary appears to a poor woodcutter and offers to take his three-year-old child with her to heaven, where she can properly take care of her. The child grows up in heaven, wanting nothing. When she turns fourteen the Virgin Mary decides to go on a long journey. She entrusts the keys to the thirteen doors to the kingdom of heaven with her, informing her that she may open all the doors and explore within except for the thirteenth door, which she forbids her to open.

The maiden promises to be obedient, and the Virgin Mary departs. Every day she opens a door and is delighted by the splendor and glory within. Eventually she is tempted to open the thirteenth door just a crack, but the door flies wide open, she touches the golden light within, and one of her fingers turns golden. She tries her best to hide it when the Virgin Mary returns. The Virgin Mary asks her whether she opened the thirteenth door, but she denies it three times. For her disobedience the Virgin Mary exiles her to earth, where she must fend for herself until the king comes upon her during a hunt and takes her to his castle.

The king falls in love with and marries the maiden despite the fact that the Virgin Mary rendered her unable to speak. She gives birth to a son, after which the Virgin Mary visits her and asks her once again whether she opened the thirteenth door. She once again insists that she did not, and so the Virgin Mary takes her son away to heaven. She gives birth the following year to another son, after which the Virgin Mary visits her again and asks her once again whether she opened the thirteenth door. Again she insists that she did not. She gives birth a third time the following year to a daughter. The Virgin Mary takes the queen and her daughter to heaven and shows them the two little boys living in happiness. The Virgin Mary tells the queen that she will return all three children if only she would admit that she opened the thirteenth door. Still, the queen insists that she did not.

The Virgin Mary sends the queen back to earth, where the people accuse her of being an ogress due to the disappearance of her children. She is brought to trial and found guilty because she is unable to speak and defend herself. While burning at the stake the queen's pride melts. She is suddenly able to cry aloud, "Yes, Mary, I did it!" The Virgin Mary then descends from heaven with her three children, loosens her tongue, and bestows happiness of her for the rest of her life.  

My Commentary:

In every fairy tale where the protagonist is female, usually a maiden, the arrival of a king into her life is not so much the arrival of a romantic partner and prospective husband as it is the emergence of the Animus, or Masculine Self, heralding the female's passage into maturity and psychological completion. This is the real message of the story: that the denial of truth prevents this maturity to happen. The female 's psyche, personified here as the Virgin Mary, must guide the female through a path of righteousness in order to deserve living a life of happiness.

It is possible that this story is one of the Grimm Brothers' notorious "Christianizations" of some fairy tales, and we can only wonder how the original was. Perhaps the Virgin Mary was some other goddess in the original. Many texts, such as the Tagalog Ibong Adarna, became victims to such unwarranted interventions as "Christianization", and it is up to scholars to try to return such texts to their original forms, pretty much in the same way that old paintings must be subjected to full and proper restoration.   

Your firsthand experiences, memories, associations, and dreams will always remain yours and yours alone, no matter how much you record them in your literature and in your visual art.

Write intelligently and with reserve, never compulsively.

Read "The Companionship of the Cat and the Mouse" last night, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis: A male cat makes the acquaintance of a female mouse, falls in love with her, and convinces her to live with him. He advises her to stay home and keep house to avoid falling into any traps in the dangerous world. They worry about the winter, when food will be scarce, and purchase a jar of fat. They decide to hide the jar under the altar inside a church where no one will be likely to find it.

Very soon the cat develops a craving for the fat. He tells the mouse that he must be godfather to a cousin's child, then secretly goes to the church and consumes a third of the fat inside the jar. This happens two more times over the following days: he consumes half the jar, and then all of it.

Winter comes. The mouse suggests to the cat that they go to the church and partake of the fat they stowed away. When they get there, of course, the jar is empty. The mouse reflects and concludes that the cat ate all of it. The cat tells the mouse to stop accusing him or he will eat her up. The mouse continues to accuse him. He eats the mouse.

My Commentary:

On the surface this fairy tale seems to be about the innate nature of different species and how it is almost impossible for them to coexist. Numerous examples can be found in other texts: the stereotype cat and mouse, the stereotype cat and dog, the stereotype lion and lamb, among others. On a deeper, psychological level, however, I perceive this fairy tale to be a story of mismatches in human relationships: there are selfish men who fall in love with women and end up deceiving them. In the end, when they are accused of their misdeeds, they become defensive, abusive, even murderous. This apparently simple fairy tale is a precursor of the theme of the battle of the sexes, a subject that playwright August Strindberg later addressed with amazing complexity.

Read "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" two nights ago, after finishing my recent portrait, from Volume I of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Synopsis: A beautiful princess plays with her favorite golden ball beside a well inside a forest near the king's castle. One day the ball falls into the well, and the princess is inconsolable. A frog pledges to retrieve it on the condition that she will love him, be his companion, let him eat at her table, and let him sleep in her bedroom. The princess agrees to all this, thinking that the frog could not be serious. The frog retrieves the ball. The princess runs to the castle with the ball, leaving the frog behind.

The next day the frog appears at the castle entrance and demands to be let in. The king asks the princess what it is all about. She tells him what transpired between her and the frog inside the forest. The king admonishes her because promises need to be kept. He orders her to let the frog in, allow her to eat beside her at table, and sleep inside her bedroom.

Inside the bedroom the frog insists on sharing the princess's bed. She hurls him against a wall and he turns into a handsome, young king. He tells her that a wicked witch cast a spell on him and that only the princess could break it. The princess accepts the prince as her companion. The following day a coach with eight white horses arrives to take them away. It is driven by Faithful Heinrich, the young king's loyal servant. After the witch cast a spell over the young king, Heinrich had three iron bands wrapped around his heart to keep it from bursting with grief. As the coach drives away the three iron bands snap off.

My Commentary:

Fairy tales set in castles near forests are stories set within the landscape of the psyche: the castle is the Ego and the forest is the abode of the Shadow Self. On the surface, this fairy tale seems to be all about keeping one's word and not breaking promises. On a deeper, psychological level it is about lust and relationships. The golden ball represents the princess's innocence. The frog represents lust, its temptations, and its dangers. When lust is hurled against a wall the frog transforms into a handsome, young king--thus does lust transform into love and romance.

The curious detail about Iron Heinrich, who even shares the title of the fairy tale, is quite intriguing. Though suggestive of homoerotic love, it presents the yang completing the yin: the young king was loved by his male servant as he is now loved by the princess. Liberated from the three iron bands, Heinrich's heart is also now free to pursue its own destiny.

If you are an artist, ask yourself the following questions now:

--Will my works outlive me for decades or centuries, or will they be forgotten after my death?

--Will the fans who admire me now be replaced by fans who will continue to admire me even if they never knew me?

--Is my socialization more important than my tangible works?

--Do I produce serious works or do I seek merely to entertain others?

--Does my art speak for itself or is it derivative of others' works?

--Does my oeuvre have a strong, philosophical spine, or am I just whiling away my time doing "cross-stitching"?

--Have I transcended the "self-expression" of children's art and am now seriously devoting myself to my craft?

--Am I able to solve painting problems that continue to stymie other artists?

--What is the critical appraisal of my works?

--What is my personal appraisal of my works?

--Are there pieces among my works that I would consider mediocre?

--Am I merely an amateur dabbler?

--Is my art a grand passion or an incidental hobby?

--After my works have changed lives, will the people whose lives I changed continue to value my works, or will they move on to other, urgent issues?

--Am I more interested in making money and in producing commercial works than in making breakthroughs?

--Am I painting the same thing over and over again so that viewers will say that, once they've seen any of my works, they might just as well have seen all of them?

--Am I using original techniques or am I merely copying the techniques of other artists?

--Am I skimping and saving on materials or do I use the best possible materials to produce my works?

--Am I foisting my works on others or do people naturally gravitate toward me to buy my works?

--After I've sold a painting, am I committed to its cleaning and restoration when necessary?

No matter how cluttered your desk is, it should be able to accommodate a tea light in a glass and cone incense in a proper holder, for these are sweet offerings to the writing gods and goddesses.

A true artist never loses momentum.

Before you write and before you paint, find and locate your stillness, for creation takes place only within it.

Whenever you come up with a new idea for a play, a novel, or a painting, do not work on it immediately. Let it ferment in your subconscious for three months. After that, it will simply flow from your wrist with perfect composition, structure, and content.

Never write a story with an overly clever twist. Readers and critics will eventually get tired of it, and it will not go down in literary history.

Visual art will always have great impact because it transcends language, but a creative writer's piece with a mastery of his language and his craft can always elicit images beyond any conceivable palette and shapes beyond the boundaries of the wildest imagination.

The location of your writing table determines how prolific you will be.

Stimulate your sense of sight by using a different ink color every week. The changes in color will also spark off associations buried in your Unconscious.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _The Promise_ by Ivan

Hello Ivan, and congratulations! Your play has developed from a mere sketch on two sheets of paper into a full-blown play.

If you still have your first draft, read it, then read your present version again. The reason you succeeded is that you began writing without guilt, which is the essence of writing from a state of emotional truth.

A few comments:

1) Only one scene is underwritten, and that is Scene 3. Introduce dramatic action in this scene to push the premise forward.

2) Proofread your work. A few examples of your oversight:

--Page 1, Line 8: Change "can be played by the same actor" to "can be played by the actor who plays Andy".
--Page 1, Line 9: Change "can be played by the same actor that plays Penny" to "can be played by the actor who plays Penny".

I have to advise you, however, that using the same actors in multiple roles destroys the audience's suspension of disbelief. It brings the work from being dramatic to being theatrical, and might not work with this particular play.

--Page 6, Line 2: Change "worst for wear" to "the worse for wear".
--Page 7, Line 9: Change "breath" to "breathe".
--Page 9, Line 7: Change "Creepy" to "Creep".

There are more, but I won't bother to list them here. Proofread also for punctuation marks.

Remember that, as a painting must be clean, well-executed, and framed, so must a script be presentable to an artistic director and a producer.

3) Resolve the issue of your flashbacks, which will entail costume and make-up changes. These will look good on a TV screen on a bar, especially since your play can be held in an actual restaurant. The here and now of the play is the here and now of the audience. Don't stage flashbacks that will only remind them of where they really are and that they are just having dinner and watching a play. It's like being served unexpected appetizers before dessert.

4) Relabel Scene 17 as Scene 15A.


On the whole, this is a well-written play. As I mentioned previously, it will be most effective in an actual restaurant where the audience is being served dinner and with actual waiters milling about.

Your writing has become less uptight and definitey more relaxed, most probably as a result of your honesty toward your subject matter. It was a pleasure to read this play, and, I am certain, it will be an even greater pleasure to watch it. I hope that  TheatreWorks will be willing to produce this in an actual restaurant, or in a set-up restaurant on the second floor of the theatre buiding, or in a cocktail party held in the same venue.

You may rewrite Scene 3 and polish this play and submit it to me again, if you wish, or you may do that and submit it to TheatreWorks for a possible staged reading or production.  

Literature is the transcription of thoughts and emotions, as the authors experienced and felt them, in words. So should their translations be.

Literal translations are devoid of the original authors' thoughts and emotions.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _The Burning_/_My Children Are Virgins_ by Helmi

Hello Helmi!

Just a few comments--otherwise your play is ready for a staged reading or, hopefully, a full production. It is dark yet funny and wonderfully Ibsenian. It is a commentary not on fundamentalism but on democracy (or the absence of it). As such it will be controversial and will upset many people in the audience (as all of your plays do anyway).

1) Page 7, Scene 4, 7th Line from Bottom: Might it not be funnier if you changed "LTG" to "LPG"?

2) Scene 13, Page 39, Line 1: MURAD is referred to as Brother again, rather than as Father. In his first appearance he was Brother, in later scenes as Father, and here once more as Brother.

3) Scene 15, Page 42, Line 4: Same comment as above. MURAD continues to be referred to as Brother even after this line.

4) Proofread your work carefully, especially for grammar.

5) Would your rather use "Pink Dot" or a fictionalized group name?

6) I understand that you are torn between titling the play The Burning (too Stephen King-y) and My Children Are Virgins after deciding not to title it The Fundamentalist Father. The word "Children" ties up this play with your previous "family" plays (My Mother Buys Condoms, My Father Wears Bras). The word "Virgins", though, is a bit off. Instead of the word "Are", choose an active verb, something like My Children Worship Me, My Children Come Home, or something contrapuntal and ironic.

Congratulations on completing a trilogy. I hope that the last two can be produced, after which all three can be published in their definitive, production versions.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Kor Kor Cheh Cheh Di Di Mei Mei_ by Flora

Hello Flora!

Your play is actually developing well. You now have a better knowledge of your characters and the issues that create the conflict they should be going through.

You are stuck because, for each set of characters, there should be one character who provides conflict to propel the play forward (either an additional character for Kelly and Wayne; and either Jessica to Josh or Josh to Jessica). As it is, Kelly and Wayne are mainly in agreement and merely planning for the future, and Jessica and Josh are ambling along to a prospective visit to their mother. When you laid down your plot, all of the points of conflict were in the PAST. Bring them forward to the present.

Balance the scenes between the first set of characters and the second set of characters by alternating from one set to the other. In your draft you initially did that, then followed through with the Wayne/Jessica set in a clinic, and then a mall, and then back to their house.

Visualize a generic set. As a scene ends for one set of characters, it should OVERLAP with the beginning scene for the second set of characters. The characters of the second set enter even as the characters of the first set are still there. However, the characters of the first set DO NOT SEE the characters of the second set, and vice-versa.

Follow all of these guidelines. I assure you that you will come up with an exciting play. 

In-Depth Writing Exercise #9: Your Personal Fairy Tale

1) Make a list of all the fairy tales and children's stories you can remember.

2) Go over the list and identify the fairy tale or children's story you like most.

3) Juxtapose the narrative over your life script. How is the main character like you? How are the other characters like the people who surround you? How are the conflicts like your present conflicts? How is the plot like your life?

4) Rewrite the fairy tale or children's story with you as the main character, keeping the narrative as parallel or as close to your life.

5) Give your plot a happy ending.

6) Keep a copy of your work as visible as possible in your writing area so that you are constantly reminded of it. (You may revise the narrative from time to time as you wish.)

Yes, you CAN author your life. All you have to do is go ahead and do it. 

A play, a novel, and a painting cannot be dashed off, no more than a chef can dash off a dish and serve it to whoever is there. They are products of reflection, of rumination, of contemplation, and summarize the artist's being from the moment he was born to the present time.

Never write for readers whose minds have been brainwashed by TV melodramas. They will criticize you for being incomprehensible, and, if you give in to their demands, your mentality will descend to a level as low as theirs.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks: "The Promise" by Ivan

Hello Ivan!

Thank you for completing your play. When I read it this time around, it came across as poignant and lyrical.

Here are my comments:

1) Scene 1, Page 1: Second to the Last Line: Change "It is dramatic!" to "It is melodramatic!' (Or tacky, or kitschy, or artificial, not dramatic).

2) Proofread your dialogue well. Some examples: You wrote "worst than" rather than "worse than", "loose" rather than "lose", and "Flashback to today" rather than "Flashforward to today".

3) In any script, don't write "What the f**?" Spell the word out. Otherwise the performer will pronounce the line as "What the F-Asterisk-Asterisk?"

4) In an early scene Andy says he is straight rather than gay. He was lying, then?

5) Scene 14 employs a flashback technique that does not go with the rest of the play. I suggest that you convert this scene to a video.

Additional comments:

1) You need highly credible performers for this play, but I am sure that your director will find them, because Singapore has many, talented actors and actresses.

2) The production is best held inside a cafe, with the audience seated round cafe tables and actually eating dinner. And with real waters going round between scenes.

3) This might be classified as an "Adults Only" play.

4) Your prospective producers could be groups like Pink Dot. HOWEVER, go over your play and decide what it is actually saying about gay culture.

If you are satisfied with the state that your play is in (I know that you mulled over it and reworked it several times), clean it up and submit it to TheatreWorks for a staged reading. While its audience is restricted, I found it very enjoyable, and I liked the interactions between the male characters and the one female character in your cast.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Final Call_ by Timothy

Hello Tim! (Still unable to call you Yam because the name reminds me of purple yams, which I like for dessert.)

Congratulations on completing a brillant and insightful play! TheatreWorks wll certainly give it a staged reading, but if they won't give it a full production and if you have theatre friends in San Francisco, New York, or Melbourne, I urge you to test the waters in those places. Travel by air--and all kinds of human movement involving bureaucracy, for that matter--has become a worldwide nightmare. Your play pushes it over the edge and converts it to a devastating night terror.

I agree that the play takes on different dimensions depending on whether the AIRLINE REP is a man or a woman. The REP, to me anyway, is best played by a man in order to function as a counterfoil to JONES, who is a man. Having said that, the entire play is a director's delight: it can be played by clowns in costume, it can be played by marionettes, and the set could be anything from nothing to black-and-white to a high-tech affair.

Consider "I'm coming home soon" instead of "I'm coming home now" as the penultimate line of the play. It is more intriguing and suggests further unpredictability.

Do a final clean-up before submitting your play to TheatreWorks. Trim it as best you can. Like Nanda's and Danial's plays, your play is LONG, and the sad reality about theatre in the 21st century is that audiences (and producers) are less and less willing to sit through protracted productions. Indeed, gone are the days of the hao-kah, which played from sunset through sunrise.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Two Halves Make A Hole_ by Danial

Hello Danial!

First of all, congratulations for providing the well-thought-out and well-located additions to your play.

I suggest that you rephrase passages that have question-and-answer dialogue. Characters speak because of a NEED to speak, not because someone asked them a question and they have to provide an answer.

Do a final trim before submitting this play to TheatreWorks. After they assign your play to a director, he or she will most certainly make cuts due to the constraint of running time. As I advised Nanda regarding his play, you might as well do the initial cuts yourself rather than disagree with what the director decides to cut later.

Other than those, good work!

I hope that I will be in Singapore to watch the staged reading of your play.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Satamilla_ by Aswani

Hello Aswani!

You've done a substantial amount of work on your play. The scenes are more stageable, the characters are more real, and you have the gift of writing compelling dialogue.

Just a few more comments on this draft:

1) Scene 3 seems underwritten. Make an effort to have all your scenes balanced--in content and in length. You also need to justify YOUNGER SUSEELA's presence. The audience won't know what's going on.

2) The presence of YOUNGER SUSEELA in succeeding scenes is also perplexing and apparently unjustified.

3) Each of your scenes is dynamic, but always be careful not to push the dramatic to the melodramatic.

4) Scene 7 is disjointed because you wrote this in chunks rather than allow the scene to write itself. Never think in terms of fragments--you will only end up with Procrustean, stilted results.

Same comment for Scene 12.

Whenever you are unable to follow a scene through, ask yourself whether the scene is evoking emotional truth within you. Go with the emotion; don't fight it off or block it. Remember our lesson on the defense mechanisms. You need to drop your defenses and allow yourself to be vulnerable in order to be an effective playwright.

5) Go through your stage directions again for clarity and economy. For instance, instead of writing "He returns back", just write "He returns". 

6) Scene 9 is static. You could bring it to life by giving cause for SANJEEVAN to have a breakdown. Externalize his internal conflict.

7) In Scene 10, well into the play, the presence of YOUNG SUSEELA is still unclear and apparently useless.

8) In Scene 12, for the first time the character YOUNG SANJEEVAN appears. Work him into the earlier scenes. Develop a dramatic, albeit metaphysical, relationship between YOUNG SUSEELA and YOUNG SANJEEVAN if possible. If you can swing this, your play will be truly masterful.

9) In the entire script, always identify YOUNG SANJEEVAN as YOUNG SANJEEVAN and not as SANJEEVAN.

10) Scene 13. I love your death meditation!

11) Scene 14 (B) is also underwritten. The symbolism of the peacock feather is lost unless a significant reference to it is made in a previous scene.

12) Scene 17. The ending of your play is too abrupt--almost as though you were afraid to touch it. Provide catharsis for your audience. You owe it to them. An elegy in which all of the characters (including SUSEELA) rise to address the audience is one solution. It is also the best time and opportunity for the voices of YOUNG SUSEELA and YOUNG SANJEEVAN to be heard. An alternative is to give the entire elegy to SANJEEVAN.

Be persistent, be tenacious, and always keep in mind that producing a work of literary art, like a huge tapestry, needs time and patience. Every color and every thread must fall in place.

I look forward to receiving the next draft of your play. 

Never fear rejection, for there will always be someone who will take you and yours in.

Rejection is always a manifestation of someone's withdrawal of friendship or good will, and never a manifestation of the quality of your work.

You write and you paint subject matter that is increasingly difficult to discover what your weaknesses are.

And you work on those weaknesses.

Never mistake melodramatic emotions as emotional truth. They are formulaic, mannered, derivative, and decadent.

Never stem the flow of creativity. It would be like trying to prevent a volcano from erupting.

Once you've found and estabished your original style, stop experimenting. Your own, individual style should be consistent through the rest of your life, though your subject matter may not be. That is how you will eventually be recognized as a major artist.

Writing is painting and painting is writing, and the twain often meet.

Every person is always in the context of his past, his present, his family, his occupation, and his dreams, and if you know none of that about a person, you really don't know that person at all.

Do you really know the characters you write about?

Do not deconstruct without good cause or rhyme or reason. A lot of material is best left not being deconstructed.

As such, never deconstruct on a whim. If you do, the work that results will be flimsy, derivative, and illogical.

Write and paint primarily because you love to, not because you need to in order to pay your bills.

Write to be read, and paint to be viewed, and that is really all there is to it.

I cannot think of better, far-reaching, joys than writing, painting, and magic.

Recalling Seasons And Occasions

Wake up in the morning as though you were waking up to Christmas Day, New Year's Day, your next birthday, your first day of school or work, or any special day of your choice.

Record first your feelings, then your immediate thoughts, then free-associations, then the persons you wish to share this day with.

Are you able to recreate this moment or this day with all five physical senses?

What are the body signals (tingles, buzzes, goosebumps) that come with your reflections? Can you activate these signals at will should you want to in the future?

What is the color of this day?

What is the symbol of this day?

What is the scent of this day?

What is your wish for this day?

You are never at a standstill as long as you continue being creative.

Writing is my passion.

Painting is my penance.

Create. Don't wait.

If you wait for a publisher to publish your books, an art gallery to showcase your exhibits, and collectors to buy your paintings, you will end up producing only 5% of your potential to unfurl the full magnificence of your works.

A masterpiece first comes into tangible being as a draft or a sketch on paper.

At the end of each day, before going to bed, write down everything you did and ate and said, everywhere you went, everyone you interacted with, and everything you thought from the time you woke up, and see how much you really remember.

This is an exercise in breaking down the defense mechanism repression, in strengthening your powers of observation, and in embracing both the pleasant and the unpleasant toward achieving inner balance.

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _Malavika_ by Nanda

Hello Nanda!

First, your play was already cleverly conceived before our first meeting. You are one of those playwrights whose plays are written in full inside one's head so that, when they are ready to be written, they just flow onto hard copy. After our discussion session, electronic dramaturgy, the videotaped, informal reading that I watched with you, and our restructuring, your play is finally finished. It was interesting to dramaturge because it is the second of a trilogy, the first already written and staged, the third, yet to be written. Still, it must be able to stand up as an independent piece--and it does.

A few comments:

--I noted the additions you made to contribute to the sensual atmosphere of the play.
--All of the roles are vehicles for fine, ensemble acting. I wonder, though, whether a static, staged reading will diminish their impact.
--The play is too long. Act 3 seems to have the most tolerable length. I suggest that you read it aloud (or do so again with the help of your friends) and time each act. Tighten the play: make your cuts now rather than wait for the director to make cuts you might not agree with.

Then proofread your manuscript, make a clean copy, and submit it to TheatreWorks for a staged reading.

Well done!