It is disadvantageous to every writer to be unable to see things from the point of view of other people, especially people they do not like, for every writer's world has its share of antagonists.

We work off our minds and sometimes off our hearts, but we should always listen to our bodies, because only then do we know when to rest.

A writer's mind is like a building with many levels and many rooms, and your connection with him depends on which level and which room he takes you to.

At the age of 15, everything you write and paint is autobiographical. After that you journey through the paths created by different philosophies, movements, modes of spirituality, and current events, and then mark a path of your own.

At 65, everything you write and paint becomes autobiographical again, this time with the maturity and deep insight that were not there when you were but 15.

Never dread doing a major revision on your writing or painting. If it needs to get done, DO IT.

It is like unraveling rows and rows of your knitting to correct a stitch. After the piece is finished, it will have been well worth it.

The painting will tell you when something is still missing or not right.

The painting will tell you to keep on painting it.

The painting will tell you when to stop.

The play will tell you when something is still missing or not right.

The play will tell you to keep on writing it.

The play will tell you when to stop.

When painting from the imagination, ensure that no two faces look alike.

So it is with writing. Ensure that no two characters are alike.

It's called good orchestration.

Never stop working on a painting or a piece of creative writing as long as it tells you that it is not yet done. The more you glaze it with your diligence, the more it will shine. Keep working on it until there is nothing more to work on.

Remember this, that there is no such thing as an overworked painting or piece of creative writing, though there is such a thing as an overworked painter and writer.

Talent and training are a wonderful combination, but it is better to have talent without training than training without talent.

Literature and art are the best nourishment for the soul. Keep the soul well fed, for it has a healthy appetite.

A painting in progress reaches its point of no return when it looks completely different from your initial drafts, when it begins to take on a life of its own, and when it tells you everything it stills needs to complete the picture.

So it is with writing.

In-Depth Writing Exercise 7: Transrenditions

1. Imagine a fantasy object in your mind. Activate your five physical senses in doing so.

How does the object look like in the round?

What are its textures?

What sound(s) does it make?

What does it smell like?

What would it taste like?

2. Write as vivid a description as you can of the object.

3. Make a drawing or painting of the object.

4. Without showing your written description, show the drawing/painting to another writer and ask him/her to write a vivid description of the object.

5. Compare both descriptions.

Which description is more vivid?

Which, more comprehensible to the average reader?

The objective of this exercise is not to compare your writing skills with those of another writer--it is to determine how much fidelity of communication there is in yours.

Never create in competitive mode. You will only find that your most destructive competitor is yourself.

In painting, the addition of any line, plane of color, shape, or figure immediately changes your entire painting.

So it is with creative writing, and remember so as you add sentence upon sentence in completing your work.

It matters little if you spend years painting a portrait, even if your artist friend can paint a portrait in one month, as long as both products are exemplary.

It matters little if you spend years writing a novel, even if your writer friend can write a novel in one month, as long as both products are exemplary.

It is your painting or your piece of writing that will tell you that it is finally done, never the other way around, for the created work, having taken in the mind of its creator, will always have an intelligence of its own.

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.

Always remember this, that a single painting is much more important than the exhibit it is in, and that it should be able to stand alone outside the exhibit and outside of everything else associated with it.

So it is with every work in a literary festival or anthology.

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.

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.

"Writing should be an act of love, otherwise it is merely a scribble."

--Agatha Christie, in Nemesis

Literature is like food. It can be made of the best ingredients or not, it can be cooked well and with love or not, and it can be digested either only by the intelligent or by everyone including the dense, the shallow, and the stupid.

There are gourmet writers, experimental writers, home-cooking writers, and fast-food writers.

Writing The Dream City

Writing The Dream City

BENJAMIN ZAMORA SILVA·MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2016

Writing The Dream City

Keynote for Philippine International Literary Festival at Ayala Museum

November 15, 2013

By Tony Perez

Good morning, everyone. This is the first time I’ve been invited to do a short keynote, and I’m very honored. Thank you for having me. This is also the first time I’m addressing colleagues after three years of conducting workshops for underserved audiences in different regions of the country: religious minorities, the underprivileged, the disabled, prison inmates, gang leaders, drug rehab residents, and children in conflict with the law. There are many promising writers among them. Given further guidance, they can all be practitioners like you. I wish they could be here with you today at “Text and the City”, the Ayala Museum leg of the Philippine International Literary Festival. This will be an exciting day for everyone, with internationally-known author Krys Lee and the Filipino writers here who produce not only short and long fiction but also write for comic books, graphic novels, and independent films.

My message is titled “Writing The Dream City”. I will give it in five, two-minute corollaries.

Number One: We write because we dream.

We write because we dream, and by dreaming I don’t mean being in the waking state and consciously wishing for something, or structuring a project, or planning a future. I mean dreaming while we are sleeping.

Other people often see us sitting and staring into space or quietly contemplating something. From their point of view, we are doing nothing. They don’t see that while seeming to be sitting around, we are actually writing while we are thinking. We develop characters and plots in our mind until we feel we’ve gotten them right, so that, by the time we actually encode everything, the work just flows—onto sheets of paper or onto a laptop screen. If we can write while we are thinking, it then follows that we can write while we are dreaming. In both cases, creative writing is accomplished in the subconscious, that state that bridges the conscious mind with the unconscious mind.

In much of the earliest literature available to us, including scripture, dreams are metaphorical stories relayed to the dreamer by the higher consciousness. The Hebrews listened to their dreams. They were some of the first dream interpreters. Dreams became material for decision-making in waging war, taking a spouse, moving tents, and migrating. When people today say that they cannot remember their dreams, it is because their strongest defense mechanism is repression. Since writers must frequently be in a state of vulnerability, they cannot afford to nurture such defense mechanisms. The successful writer, then, is a successful dreamer.

Number Two: Dreams are where our stories come from.

In countries where lower parts of houses go underground, the unconscious is likened to a basement or a cellar, but the unconscious is a lot more infinite than that. It is the source of all creativity. It is the open floor that extends to other open floors, the river of the unconscious that connects with the ocean of the collective unconscious.

I keep dream notebooks. I’ve been doing that since I was a child. I review those notebooks at the end of each year. I take special note of the locations of my dreams, houses I grew up in that look somewhat different, schools I went to that look somewhat different also, hotels and offices and beach resorts I’ve never seen in waking life. By studying those locations I was able to come up with my dream city, and I was able to draw a map of it. It frequently changes shape, but many of its elements are constant: the dream characters who live in the dream houses, my dream family, my dream friends. My dream city is comprised of the settings where my characters and stories happen.

I have come to believe that everyone has a dream city, and will master it if they would only bother to study it closely and draw a map of it. I have also come to believe that these cities interlock like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and that they ultimately form a globe of dream cities, and that the people whose dream cities are adjacent to ours are the people whom we love, and whom we spend most of our time with, whom we are obsessed with, whom we want to be with, if possible, forever.

We can travel from one dream city to another. We can be characters in other people’s dreams, as they can be characters in ours.

Dreams are why we understand what other people write.

Number Three: Our powers of observation should extend to our dreams.

We are trained to harness the five physical senses in exploring the world around us. In teaching the visually challenged, I discovered that they can see images in their mind, and that their dreams are filled with the same images that our dreams are filled with. That is because they also are connected to the collective unconscious of those who can see. We can train ourselves to harness our five senses in our dreams. There are writers and artists who have weak powers of observation. Their works hardly contain truth. We dream first, and then reflect on the dream after. In recalling the dream, we re-experience it in waking life. The powers of observation may be activated in one or in both cases: during the actual dreaming and during our reflection on the dream. In this manner we can revise and eventually author our dreams. We can give our dreams the endings that we like.

The objective of dreaming is to merge our dreaming life with our waking life. It is the same objective of writing when we take the reader on parallel planes of reality.

Your dream journal, then, is your writing journal. An idea that you write in your journal germinates both on paper and in your mind, and then it emerges as a creative work that you can share with others.

Number Four: When a dream recurs it is because the dreamer has not yet written it down or woven it into a story.

In our dreams, characters and stories jump out of their skins to be written down. For dreamers who are not writers, dreams recur when the dreamers do not taken the proper action required by the psyche. A dream that is not written recurs until you write it down. A dream can stop recurring only by two ways: when you have transformed it into a work of creative writing, or, if you refuse to transform it into a work of creative writing, when it moves out of your dream city and occurs in someone else’s dream city. In the latter case, it becomes someone else’s dream. If that someone else happens to be a writer, he or she will write that dream instead.

Number Five: Writing heals because dreams heal.

We succeed as writers whenever we write from our dreams. We fail whenever we write not from our own dreams, but from the dreams of others, when we write not from our own truth but from borrowed truth. Some even choose to write not from their dreams but from their nightmares.

We dream because our dreams heal us. We write our dreams in the same manner we write to remember different kinds of medicine, so that, after they heal us, we can use them to heal others too.

Again, we all welcome the visiting and Filipino writers to this gathering—published or unpublished, and, perhaps more importantly, those who are here as members of the audience who think they won’t make it but who love writing anyway. But, every writer makes it. All you have to do is dream. And then remember your dream. And then write it down.

A good writer always proofreads and polishes his most trivial social medium posting, for even that is a reflection of himself.

A good writer will always be a good writer, and so he need not fearing losing his talent, for it is an acquired ability to observe and record that, really, every human being should have.

Writing specialty stores are reviving and selling old-fashioned manual typewriters. Quite tempting to buy one, but it would be more decorative than functional for me because supplies such as ribbons, carbon paper, circle erasers with brushes, and correcting tape are no longer as available. (I even remember that I used to have two-color ribbons!)

Dramaturging for TheatreWorks Singapore: Shen

Hello Shen!

I am glad that you finally finished writing this play. You will recall that it was incomplete when I read it in Singapore and had a long, overseas phone conversation with you while you were in Tasmania.

You have written a very interesting, multi-media play verging on Theatre of the Absurd, incorporating stage, video, visual art, and sculpture. (I was tempted to mention also puppetry but the stand-ups never actually interact with the players.) The final production design should be equally interesting. You will need, however, two directors to make the play succeed: a video director and a stage director, or someone who can be both.

All of the methods you used in this play are methods of alienation, and I can see why: the subject matter and dialogue are so brutally frank that some detachment on the part of the audience is necessary. The truth will remain, nonetheless, that the entire play entails raw honesty. This will work only in a venue that encourages intimacy, such as a night club or a chamber theatre with a small audience on sofas and throw pillows.

Be mindful of the length of your videos. They should not overpower the stage play. The video that opens Scene 3, for instance, is too long.

Like Isaac, whose play I dramaturged before yours, your dialogue tends to be comprised of questions and answers. That is not really how people converse in real life. Avoid the interview format, especially since it usually elicits mere exposition and not dramatic tension. Try doing writing exercises with small scenes in which NO ONE ever asks a question. What would they say to each other?

Your ending is abrupt. Ensure that there is adequate closure for all characters, including characters who are not onstage. Also, although the play opens with a video, do NOT end it with a video. It is emotionally unfair to your stage performers. In theatre, the live performance always rules.

Finally, I hope you are aware that this is a hard play to cast. You will need to sit in on readings and rehearsals and constantly adjust your dialogue to the truth, the choices, and the personality that every cast member will put forth. This is not a vehicle for an auteur director. It is one in which the cast must participate in the creation of the play.

Dramaturging for TheatreWorks Singapore: Isaac

Hello Isaac!

First of all, I was very much surprised that you submitted a completely different play. This is not the manuscript that I read and discussed with you the last time I was in Singapore. It is, however, a very well-crafted, sensitive, and moving play, and I enjoyed reading it. It is certainly more serious than the first play (which you should keep and develop in the future, although, while it was so much fun to read, I realize that it is harder to sell to a producer). Moreover, the new play that you submitted is quite a nasty vehicle and will prove extremely challenging to its prospective actors and director. For some reason I felt that it was written for Lyon, who was one of your co-participants in the workshop I conducted.

My comments:

This play is best staged without blackouts and scene breaks. The music videos are completely superfluous and will only end up like mini-episodes from The Voice. The technical breaks are cruel to your performers, who will have to pick up their focus and concentration each time a new scene begins. Note that, in the beginning of each scene, you yourself as a playwright are picking up by means of warm-up dialogue. One long, uninterrupted play, like August Strindberg's Miss Julie, will be more emotionally fulfilling for your actors.

Such breaks also shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief.

It takes too long for the audience to learn why the son has come back and must stay. The audience will be able to take only so much suspense, after which it will decide to get bored. Your final exposition is dished out in the end as a twist, and remember that every twist is a betrayal. This prolongation thus makes the father more real and the son two-dimensional, so that the story comes across as being told from the point of view of the FATHER.

Indeed, it seems that the father is well-rounded all throughout the play, but that the son is not a character--he is AN IDEA. The dialogue therefore comes out as dialogue between a person and an idea. As a writer, did you feel defensive and that you had to be over-rational in building up the son?

Avoid interrogations, such as the son asking questions and the father answering them, like interviewer-interviewee repartee. If your characters don't NEED to say anything, then keep them silent. As I have said elsewhere, silence is a line.

Over-all, you have written a beautiful play. A reading should clarify exactly where you need to balance your elements.

There IS one drawback to this play: you need extraordinary performers to pull it off. Yes, I believe that Lyon is one of them.

Jewelers and watch repair persons are capable of operating fountain pen hospitals. They can even fix nibs or grind them to produce italics.

Never throw away old fountain pen converters. They come in handy, and universal models usually fit different pen brands.

Every cosmic writer authors works outside the frames of reference of religion and nationalism.

A Valentine's Day Eve Memory

In 1993, approximately a year after the release of my book Cubao 1980 At Iba Pang Mga Katha, I received a letter from a Chinese man named W. who said he'd read my book from cover to cover and wanted very much, in so many words, to meet me. No one had ever written to me like that before, and so I agreed. As it turned out, he took me to restaurants and to movies and showered me with all kinds of gifts. The whole thing, however, was a mess. I never liked romantic commitments, and it eventually became clear that his image of me in his mind was that of Tom, the protagonist of my novella who was some kind of male prostitute. I felt so sorry to end our friendship, and, wherever W. is now, I hope that he is happy and well and has found the love of his life. He had no idea at the time that he was actually up against a well-read intellectual whose interests were quite esoteric and far from Tom's. This episode in my life may have made me feel subconsciously guilty, and that may be why I am extra kind and generous to my Chinese friends.

I am sharing this with you because you will inevitably come across people who think that they love you--you as a person--and only because they love your work, and therefore you must always be wary of your falling into awkward situations.

Many readers think that they know their favorite writers so well. They cannot conceive that writers' works span the entire heights and depths and breadths of life, and sometimes cannot believe that, while we are indeed writing from The Heart, we are also creating worlds populated by entirely fictional characters with fictional lives.

All art has historicity. Yet, while literature cannot be hung on a museum wall like a painting, it infuses itself on all of the walls and corridors of readers' minds.

Every writer who fears being misconstrued ends up writing nothing.

After a writer cracks the mystery of a character, he tends to move on to another.

Caution: Do not apply this pattern to your personal relationships.

Phenomenology Exercise 1: Somewhat Unplugged

Live through a day off the Internet, TV, and your mobile. Be aware of the passage of time, your feelings, your attitude to breaking habits, your relationships with people, and what you choose to do in the absence of electronics.

Write your reflections in your journal.

An article by Ime Morales, a former student in creative writing:

https://moralesime.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/do-writers-lie/

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.

If you can practice sleeping without silence, you will eventually be able to write without silence.

It is your duty as a writer to be unstoppable with your writing.

Never write while consciously eluding revelations about yourself. Writing is truth. If you must disguise yourself from your readers, edit and tweak your work much later--after your creative process is complete.

As a writer, keep yourself steady in the background. Do not desire pomp and publicity--they are bad for your mind.

Writers and artists download all sorts of references for everything. Go ahead and do so, taking care to delete stuff and clean up your reference storage from time to time.

Many writers make the mistake of thinking up a great title and then proceeding to write the work. This is a glossy-magazine, non-literary, method, and is the very sequence that leads to writer's block and Procrustean thinking.

Write the work first. You will discover that the work will give itself the right title after you are done.

The same is true of painting.

Dramaturging for TheatreWorks Singapore: Beverly

Hello Beverly!

It was a great pleasure to go over your play once again. From beginning to end, I felt that I was reading the work of a modern Singaporean reincarnation of August Strindberg.

You worked so hard on this play, and all of it was worth it. Your characters have more depth, and your lines are crisp. I see that most of your major changes are in the second half of the play, and, this time around, the ending is upbeat and uplifting. It is also very clear that you have actually been visualizing the staging of the play because of the new movement of characters and your indications of lighting.

One of the issues we discussed was whether to include the other woman or not. You deliberated writing two versions--one with three characters, the other with four--and opted to give me this three-character version as your final manuscript. You were right: this is the better and the most sensible version.

The last time I met you, you were tormented about how much you desired this play to be a masterpiece, and you couldn't pinpoint why it was such an important work to you. You could not understand why this felt to you like an epic work--this story inspired by a real-life, relationship situation.

I think I should already tell you why, now that you have completed writing the play and it has finally taken shape.

This play is not just about a woman and two men. This play is about your country, Singapore. GIRL is every Singaporean who looks like she is torn between two men and cannot understand why she cannot be allowed to be devoted to both. As to what the two men represent, I leave it up to your imagination and interpretation. Well done--I hope that students study the definitive, post-production version of this play in every classroom.

A few minor details for improvement:

Scour the play and see where you can exercise economy and realism in dialogue. For example, in Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 8-9, the line goes "We can have your favorite chocolate cake I bought from Blossom Bakery" can really just be "I bought your favorite". Between husband and wife, that the favorite is chocolate cake should be understood and unspoken, also that they usually buy this at Blossom Bakery and nowhere else.

Also, Last Line on Page 2, "Don't call me Tinkerbell!" should actually be just "Don't call me that!" since she should not articulate the name and hear it all over again. DAN's reply, "What? But you love it when I call you that..." could also just be "You love it when I call you that."

On the other hand there are vague lines that should be more specific, such as on Page 29, in the 3rd to the Last Line, "I was hurt when you went home". Give it more impact by rewriting it into "I was hurt when you went BACK home TO HER."

Act 1, Scene 2 contains too much exposition. I know that it is for the benefit of the audience, but you need to figure out how to introduce and sustain dramatic tension in an otherwise dreamy, romantic scene.

Opening of Act 2, Scene 3: Why is the miming necessary? It doesn't go with the rest of the form. Just proceed to GIRL's first line. Otherwise this is a case of double exposition.

All of these will be clarified by a reading, which will open your ears, and so go ahead and set up a reading with blocking. Since it seems that I will be in Singapore again this year, I want to sit in on the reading, if possible.

My warmest regards to all.

Never squeeze your mind. Just relax, keep still, and wait for ideas to flow.

Never squeeze your heart. Love is either there or not there. It comes, it goes.

The mind and the heart are like tributaries with a higher source. They have seasons. Sometimes the sun blazes, sometimes it rains.

Many thanks to Meeko Marasigan for the design and execution of the new banner for this blog!

Write not to be famous but to touch the lives, minds, and hearts of people in the farthest parts of the world.

In-Depth Writing Exercise 6: Gender Change

The reason we are able to write from the multiple points of view of men, women, children, the aged, the disabled, the disadvantaged, the advantaged, and persons of different races, religions, and lifestyles is that we have been all of those in previous lifetimes. Creative writing is a state in which, by drawing from the Unconscious and the Collective Unconscious, a writer is capable of extreme memory recall and able to draw from experiences beyond his/her childhood and further back in time.

During the creative writing process, a writer is "possessed" by a particular character not because he/she is actually "possessed" by an alien spirit but because that character and its personality already comprise a facet in the writer's subconscious--because he/she has already been that character in the past.

Do this exercise for two hours when you are completely alone and nothing can possibly disturb you, whether physically or electronically.

Focus on a real or fictional character of the opposite sex and, in your mind, allow that character to gradually take over you. The best way to do this is to step into the bathroom as that person would and take a shower, allowing the water to shape your body as that character's body. Just feel it. Go through the movements that character would while taking a bath.

You need not dress up as a transvestite after that. Simply walk around the room--either wrapped in a towel or naked--and look around you through the eyes of that character. Contemplate issues your character would contemplate. Note that, at this point, you are taking your identification with that character from the level of physicality to the level of your mind and your heart.

Move about the room as that character would. Speak out aloud as that character would.

Now sit down and write something--anything--keeping that character's mindset and heartset within you, in order to immediately apply the exercise to creative writing. If you can't think of anything to write, here are a few suggestions:

--a love letter
--a day in the life of your character
--your character's favorite things
--your character's history (The easiest way is to begin with "My name is X. I am Y years old. I am a Z..."
--a brief curriculum vitae.

After everything, don't forget to go back to yourself and ground yourself!

No one can tell you to write or to not write.

No one but yourself.

Principal Discipline

We love to write, but we prevent ourselves from writing.

All too often we have exciting ideas for short stories, novels, and plays. Yet, we subconsciously command ourselves, "I'll start this:"

--"when I'm good and ready"

--"when I'm in a completely relaxed state"

--"after all the chores are done"

--"after I get myself a new desktop"

--"as soon as I am able to help my brother overcome his problem"

--"as soon as the weather clears and I am able to repair the house"

and so on.

Discipline yourself to write two hours each day, as schoolchildren study two hours each day, NO MATTER WHAT. Choose a time when you are able to drop everything. Just write--with or without an objective in mind.

Even when I am not working on a painting, for example, I sketch two hours, whether on a professional grade pad and with an art pencil or on the backs of discarded receipts with a salvaged pencil stub.  

Don't wait for the circumstances to get right. Just write.

Everything is a book that is waiting to be read: a face, a palm, a spread of cards, a piece of jewelry, an antique, a potted plant, a grove of trees, the sky, a crack in the floor, and more, for Nature is the most prolific storyteller of all.

There is nothing like a simple notebook or a sheet of paper. They do not need to be recharged, can be used without electricity, and do not have to be upgraded.

Never compare your career with a pop singer's.

While an old pop singer's voice deteriorates, an old writer's mind matures.

When undergoing a crisis or when something upsets you, write something immediately. Channel your feeling into your creative work. This is the best way to experience and create that elusive type of Greek love, pathos. (The other types of love being eros, philia, and agape).

The feeling is the wind, your writing is the sail, the boat you are in is your writing career, and the water is literature.

In Your Writer's Notebook

Write at least one paragraph a day in your writer's notebook.

And don't stop there. Draw, paint, collage, or stitch something a day in the same notebook.

You will soon find that your visual art improves your writing, and vice-versa.

If the way to walk a mile is to take the first step, the way to write a novel is to pick up your pen.

Picking up your pen is the moment of Creation, the moment of the Big Bang, the moment of conception.

A writer always wakes up in the morning to a new day and a new life.

Never wake up to the past, to losses, to bereavements, to broken relationships. That would be equivalent to reading the same chapter in a book over and over again.

Always turn the page and move on.

Each day of your existence is a spiritual reincarnation. Face the blank canvas and the blank sheet of paper every morning with love and with hope, for there will be time enough to enjoy the gifts of the universe as well as make up for your shortcomings before the sun sets once again.

In-Depth Writing Exercise 5: Train Stations

This exercise does not have a time limit. It cannot be completed in one hour or at one sitting, and it requires your honesty and your introspection.

Take a box of crayons and a sheet of clean manila paper. Pin or tape the sheet on a board.

Draw a train line with several stations marking your journey and your accomplishments, big or small, as a writer. The track can be as long and as straight or as winding as you like, and you may locate as many stations as you like.

Which parts of the tracks are on level ground, in tunnels, spanning rivers, and going up and down gradated slopes? What do they represent in your writing career?

Name the stations and add on to them as necessary. Which stations were pleasant, which unpleasant? Who were the significant people you met on the train, who at the station?

What were the important lessons you learned at every trip and at every station?

Did your train ever get delayed or break down? If so, why?

Very soon you will see that you've come a long way, and that every success and every failure was well worth it.

The pen is mightier than the sword provided that you use the pen.

The pen is mightier than the sword provided that you are adept at both, for you must know how to fight for your body as well as for your spirit.

The pen is mightier than the sword provided than someone else's sword does not get to you first.

It is always the book rather than its movie version that changes your life, for it is the words, not the visuals, that wrench the hearts of readers within personal frames of reference beyond any producer's imagination.

A picture may be worth more than a thousand words, but those words in the proper combination are far more eloquent and far more lethal.

Perfecting penmanship is easy. Like any other skill, all it takes are passion and exercise.

A clean, empty desk is like a Word document from which everything has been deleted.

Most people fear solitude because, in solitude, they are haunted by their shortcomings and their past offenses.

Writers and artists, on the other hand, gaze into the pool of solitude and see not scenes from their tortured past but a treasure trove of ideas that fuel creativity.

In-Depth Writing Exercise 4

When writing about a character, are you capable of thinking, talking, and behaving like that character in real life? If your answer is no, then you are incapable of fully developing that character for your work.

Go through a day in the life of your character and think, talk, and behave like him or her: from the time you rise from bed through the time you go back to bed. You will find that your preferences in food, in clothing, in colors, and in items for personal use will conform to those of that character. So will your vocabulary and your speech pattern. Explore the interests and activities of that character.

Needless to say, I hope, you do not go over the edge if your character is a psychopath, a sociopath, a serial killer, a rapist, a drug addict, a nudist, a prostitute, or anything that will bring yourself or others to ridicule or to harm.

After you have successfully performed this exercise--using a hopefully normal, wholesome character--you will find that you have acquired more empathy with and a better ability to connect and relate to others, not to mention a deeper understanding of yourself, for every character you create is really a facet of your Self.

Keep a shelf or an etagere to contain all of the objects that stimulate your writing.

Writer's block does not exist. Whenever you feel stymied, simply switch from computer to paper (or vice-versa), switch pens, or temporarily move to another room in your house.

Collect magnifying lenses and learn how to use them and discover wonderful thngs with them. They are not exclusive to the artist and the antique collector.

Tin cans of different shapes and sizes serve both the artist and the writer well. For the writer, they function as containers for nibs, monolith erasers, spare parts of pens, staple wires, binder clips, and such.

A monolith eraser has a soft, white half and a rough, gray half. The latter is used to gently erase ink marks, instead of using a pen knife.

When working on multiple projects, do not put everything in one notebook. Devote one specific notebook to each project.

Some types of paper, such as newsprint, are highly absorbent and will cause your ink to feather. Do not dispose of this type of paper. Use a fine-point sign pen on it, and you will find the sensation to be quite enjoyable.

Night persons are active at night because they actually fear the night, which pronounces everything that makes them sad.

The worst ever scenes in wuxia are those that showcase petty flirtations, which seem to have been written and directed for the low-IQ sector of the audience.

Public clamor is a form of disrespect.

The Real Message of Pygmalion

When I was working at ________________________________, I had a young staff member named Noel who once confessed to me, in a semi-drunken stupor, that he cannot stand any kind of imperfection in a woman, be it a skin blemish, a slight deformity, or a habit, and that, once he notes such an imperfection in any woman he is dating, he abandons her completely and for good. That was in 1978. I wonder if he has found his perfect woman, and if he is married now. The irony is, he is not unique. Many men are like that.

Despite all the deconstructions the story of Pygmalion has gone through, the real message is not that a creator can raise an inanimate statue to the level of humanity. Sadly, the real message is that the creator of a perfect work of art expects humans to be as perfect as his work of art, and nothing less.

Doctors who continue to believe that their penmanship should be illegible are victims of writing superstition. That is why only a few doctors are creative writers.

At this day and age, anyone who insists on using illegible penmanship has a great fear of transparency.

It is all right to judge a book by its cover if the writer himself designed and executed the cover.

Never let other people touch your pens. Two years ago I was in an office staff meeting, and the co-worker beside me idly picked up one of my dragon pens. Instead of carefully unscrewing the cap she pulled it off as though it were a cheap ballpoint pen.

Ultimately, it is how you judge your own work that really counts.

If you are an incorrigible pencil user, collect all of your sharpened, one-inch, pencil stubs and place them in a clear, glass, demijohn. It will make an interesting conversation piece.

Use only one side of a sheet of paper when writing notes for a novel or play. That way you can lay all of your notes side by side without having to flip sheets over.

You can always use the reverse sides later.

Old notebooks normally have unused pages within them, and so, do not throw them away. You can use them to write notes and draw sketches on. If the notebook covers are soiled, simply cut off the unused pages and put them in a sheaf inside a leather folder.

Just In Case You Still Don't Know

We can all go back to text-messaging in ANY CORRECTLY SPELLED LANGUAGE again, and there should be no more excuses not to do so. Years ago our mobile services charged us PER LETTER AND PER SPACE, forcing everyone to abbreviate and truncate their words. All of that is now a thing of the past--you could text entire chunks of War and Peace if you wanted to.

So, laugh out loud. Don't LOL--it makes you a low-budget relic.

Let's communicate with correct grammar and spelling again. It maintains our dignity as writers.

Try writing in different parts of your house: in bed, on the floor, at your study desk, in the kitchen, in the dining room, on the front porch overlooking the street, in the garden, even on your toilet seat. Explore the physicality of actual writing. Identify for yourself which condition is most conducive to writing.

What works for you will work for you alone, and not for other writers.

The effect of any piece of creative writing on any reader is irreversible.

Your Vowels Propel Power

Did you know that the usual vowels A-E-I-O-U are the fuel that propels your words forward?

Though seemingly unrelated to creative writing, this is one of the principles in modern Philippine magic. Vowels taken in different combinations are expressions of the 72 Hebrew Names of God, and are worked into spells.

Take I-A-O-U-E, which, when enunciated, translates to Yahweh. Or I-E-O-U-A, which, when enunciated, translates to Jehovah. Can you then see how "A-E-I-O-U" is really "Yahweh-Jehovah" if you connect the string of vowels in a circle?

Can you think of other combinations of vowels that secretly contain words of power?

Depth Writing Exercises 1 - 3

Write the entire alphabet on a sheet of paper in upper case and in lower case using your normal, cursive style.

1. Which letters do you enjoy forming most? What do you visually associate with those letters?

2. Which letters do you enjoy forming least? What do you visually associate with those letters?

3. Reflect on the letters you like least. Are any of these in YOUR NAME? If so, how do they affect your self-esteem?

3. Take the letters you enjoy forming least and make an effort to improve them. Be subtle, be drastic. Be whimsical, exaggerate. Continue doing so until you form the letter shapes that please you most.

Then write words, phrases, and sentences using those letters.

4. For a complete change in your life, write the entire alphabet differently. You don't have to consult calligraphy books to do so, just use your associative memory and your imagination.

Use your new penmanship for a few days. Write down your reflections in a journal. How does the change affect you? Do you feel like a different person?

You can always switch back to your old penmanship whenever you want to.

To apply #4 to actual, creative writing, use a different style of penmanship for every character in your novel or play. You will find that it affects each character's vocabulary, tone, and speech pattern. That is because penmanship is a direct extension of the mind. Unbeknownst to you, it literally spells out all of your failures and successes.

Never write to give readers what they want.

Write to give them something so different and unexpected that they will never be the same again.

Writing is the art of revealing to your readers not what is illumined by the arc of a lighted lamp but everything that is beyond the circular periphery of the lamplight.

Writing is never a form of escape. It, on the other hand, puts in black and white concrete realities about your innermost fears, and everything you ever wish to escape from.

Writing, then, is a form of confrontation of the self.

Write to relish life, not to survive. All you need is a paying job for the latter.

While it may seem unacceptable to struggling young writers, my advice to every writer is to write for oneself and one's readers, and never for a publisher. Publishers will handle writers' works like commodities, pretty much like pancakes for movies and TV.

This, however, is a realization that comes to every writer only upon maturity--the maturity of himself and the maturity of his works.

The worst thing I have known editors to do is try to change writers' lifestyles and values.

It is the duty of the writer, not the editor, to shape the world.

Even crime is a writer, for policemen and detectives arrive upon a scene to read what it has written.

Whenever you read another writer's work, first open your mind and appreciate it as the writer wrote it, not as you would have written it or as how you wish he had written it.

A playwright's first play will always be autobiographical, no matter how hard he tries to disguise it.

A novelist's first novel, on the other hand, will always be about everything he wishes he ever had but does not have.

Any piece of paper is worth saving as long as you can still write on it.

It is good practice to sit in front of a blank sheet of paper and a pen in your hand or in front of a blank Word document and wait for something to come through. The more you do it, the more your subconscious will become facile writing for you.

Rain writes, as does everything in Nature, for Nature records her history and her thoughts more prolifically than human beings do. You can read Rain's writing on the barks of trees, on stones, on wet earth, and in scribbles that she leaves on every dusty surface.

Learn from the intelligence of Rain, for she reads your writing too.

A writer's note pad is an accurate reflection of his/her mind.