WiP [Work in Progress]

Thoughts and ramblings of a Filipino author

My Hero

• Leave a Comment

* pic from Google Images

It’s awesome to read of heroes with exceptional characteristics – moneyed, successful in his chosen field, really popular or extremely a snob, ultra-good looking, a god. THE ultimate dream man.

But I think I love reading of heroes who are simple men. Ideal yet realistically existing men. One you could possibly meet on the streets, at the grocery store, driving the beat up old van beside your shiny new Ford Ranger, your neighbor who sings off key. Simple men capable of great love for their women that you find yourself falling for him as well.

That, to me, is the perfect romantic hero. Simple. Real.

True Confession

• Leave a Comment

What am I really afraid of as a writer?

No, not writer’s block. I don’t ever experience writer’s block. I am lazy, that’s all. And I know that.

Rejected work? Been through a lot of that. Though I get jitters, I could even get sad and depressed, I’m not really afraid of getting rejections. As long as I get notes on how I should improve.

Detractors? Bashers? Nah! Am not afraid of them. They might tick me off. Maybe I’d put them on my hit list for saying bad things about my work. It’s different, you see, when one is given criticism vs. plain old bashing. Bashing’s malicious, seeking only to smear dirt on one’s rep.

Dissatisfied readers? Hmm… That would be a sad occurrence but one has to accept, readers have different tastes. But wait, if the reader is dissatisfied because I am suddenly producing below quality work? Knowing this would probably be a wake-up call for me. To be more on my toes. Yeah, I guess this is something I would be afraid of.

Ultimately though, what scares me is that years later, when the readers who have come to love my stories go back and reread my books in their more mature years, they’d smirk and admonish themselves and say, “I used to like this stuff?”

Yep. That’s what I am actually afraid of. So I try my darnedest to make my stories cut across all ages. So that later on, even if in a reader’s advanced years she would think the story is no longer for her, she would still recall with fondness how happy and how kilig she felt when she first read the story.

What about you? What are you afraid of as a writer?

Harmony ang tawag diyan

• Leave a Comment

To be a good composer for a musical, it’s not enough to compose one song, and another, and another, and then put them all in sequence. A musical is like a very long song split into several portions. There must be continuity, motif and an emotional thread that stitches all these musical portions together.

The succeeding song picks up from where the previous song left off. Of course, you have to have a good sense a of melody. Pero alam mo na… hindi porke’t maganda, effective na.

~ once upon a time FB status of Vincent de Jesus, award-winning composer and arranger

* image from darktimeschronicle.wordpress.com via Google Images

Ganito rin ang nagiging proseso sa pagsusulat ng nobela. Andiyan ang basic plot mo – simula, gitna, wakas. Pagkatapos, papalamanan mo ‘yan ng mga eksena sa pagitan. Siyempre, sisiguraduhin mo na magkakarugtong at relevant ang mga eksena sa isa’t isa. Pero hindi iyon sapat. Dapat din, may tamang pagkakatugma ang mga eksena mo dahil ang isang nobela, hindi lang ‘yan koleksyon ng magagandang eksena na tinahi para pumuno ng 96 pages na nire-require ng publication. Hindi din sapat na sumusunod iyon sa formula ng romance dahil kumusta naman? Paano na ang logic? Ang pagkakaroon ng sense?

Sa pagbuo ng nobela sana tandaan natin, ang pinakamabisang pantahi ng mga eksena natin ay damdamin. Think harmony. Think unison. Nasabi ko na noon, uulitin ko ngayon. Masarap ang chopsuey. Pero sana sa hapag-kainan lang. 🙂

Grammatically credible

• Leave a Comment

Proper grammar and vocabulary usage (and spelling) are a big deal for me. By vocabulary, I don’t mean having a penchant for using big words. More often than not, the user does not know what they really mean but since these make them sound so intelligent, they go ahead and use it. Intentional or not, these ambitious writers do achieve some sort of success in that their reader ends up in awe of the elaborateness of their composition, totally overlooking what the missive truly meant. (Wow! Ang galing niya magsulat! …. er, yeah. Whatever.)

I, on the other hand, who has a fairly good grasp of vocabulary, and more than just a fairly good grasp of grammar ends up dizzied because I could not, for the life of me, understand what the author wanted to convey in the first place.

Why am I bothered with these? Well, see, wrong grammar, for me, takes a bit of the credibility out of the writer when he/she composes grammatically wrong stuff. Wrong grammar tells me the person doesn’t really know what he’s talking about or maybe if he does, he does not possess the right amount of aptitude to convey his thoughts.

I guess it does not matter as much if the composition was written plainly to express oneself as when the opinion is published such that the public is supposed to pay attention to them such as status updates on Facebook and Twitter or a personal blog. Really, badly constructed sentences makes me doubt not only the credibility of the one who made the statement but more so his/her intelligence.

This statement sums it all up:

Learn spelling and grammar because no matter how well you write, if your mechanics are lousy, so is your writing. ~ Nat Segaloff, movie publicist, journalist/critic, TV producer, teacher, and film historian

Oh, and uhm… Yeah, yeah. I’ve been told time and again, and even I will tell you, I’m a grammar nazi.

Just a thought

• Leave a Comment

Being passionate and being enthusiastic do not need to equate to being emotional. Passion and enthusiasm are what makes you relentless in pursuing a task, working hard and even repeatedly on a project until you achieve perfection. Injecting a little too much emotion, except when practicing your art as an actor, singer, writer, painter, or such, takes away objectivity as seen from the point of view of the observer. If you profess to be objective and unbiased, it pays to rend in your emotions. You will be perceived to be more professional and more credible that way. 😉

Instagram

Instagram has returned invalid data.