One of the most memorable points in my life was when I had this chance to enter a masteral study in writing at DLSU.
I know I had to make a thick face on this. As a part-time writer, a part- time teacher, and a full-time housekeeper I had to make way for a better me, as I age and start to wrinkle. Writing is a prize for my homely life, as to how I could write (worse or better), is a gift from God to share. My major comes with numbers, although writing was my first love; I'm aware I have to do back-steps and advance slowly again like doing the waltz. Watch the first beat!
In my writing journey, I met many good people that shared more than I've expected. After getting almost all (and more) of the subjects, and in my "failed and passed tests"; I have learned to appreciate how one pious writer weaves his/her work with passion. More than these, those writers I've read and just met in books came close to my heart.
And so, from a magazine writer, to a PR writer, to a lifestyle contributing writer, to a web content writer, and of course, that first writing group that got etched on my bones: the "KATINIG," a writing group of Filipino fiction writers (from Liwayway with Sir R. Duque and Dan Meneses). I am indebted to the professors, editors, writer friends, and book authors who inspired and challenged me. I have arrived intact, focused and armed for the next sets after me, though I still have to row unstopping.
Meanwhile on Facebook, Collete's words as posted by Professor Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, says "Only describe what you have seen. Look long and hard at things that please you, even longer and harder at what causes you pain. Try to be faithful to your first impressions. Set no store by the unusual expression. Don't wear yourself out telling lies."
As usual, the bright professor gets keen at guidelines for writers. One master poet, my teacher "Ma'am Marjorie Evasco- Pernia, introduced good books to us like the books of Cristina Pantoja - Hidalgo, and other devoted writers. I've even searched for the books at Power Books, way back.
Writing, many writers say is a lonely life. It is in fact, a life so harrowing. Every time, you go deeper into it, you would feel the vastness of its meaning whether happy or sad. From Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, to Stein on Writing: all the words reach a climax in the writer's soul, then down to denouement, then rises up slowly to come back and face the normal bugs of life. At least, to write the truth or not to write the truth is the question. Later, something would come to be discovered. But that's not what matters; what matters is the writer's work and how authentic he/she went into its creation. What can you say about Shakespeare then?
In my life, my words are small offerings for anyone. Those words must come from the depths how I lived life, and how others became part of that life. I cherish all that is in my heart, so shall I write for eternity.
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