Personal

The key word is personal.

In the genre called Creative Non-Fiction, subjectivity is highly encouraged. It is, in fact, the key element that sets it apart from mere journalism. And, I believe, Nick Joaquin totally believed in this when he wrote Journalism Versus Literature. Don't get me wrong here. When I say "personal", it doesn't imply pure ranting and raving, such things are trash and not worth any of your time. It is "personal" in the sense that apart from researching using the qualitative method, you insert your own experiances of the issue at hand. Meaning, you just don't tell the readers about the issue, but you also show the readers what you were thinking, what you were feeling, what you were smelling, what you were hearing during the time you experienced the thing you wanted to write about.

Among, the sub-genres of Creative Non-fiction, social commentary is what I love the most. Not only because it involves both intensive and extensive researches, but you get to weigh your opinions of the matter and, of course, you get to find out about the truth behind it and not just get a glimse of a half truth. Most importantly, in social commentary, you don't talk much about you. Not like the other sub-genre, the memoir.

Last Tuesday, my professor pointedly ask me why I avoid talking about myself. He said that I am too much enamored by social commentary and he thinks that it is a problem, a hindrance, in fact, in developing the craft of writing a creative non-fiction. Thus, I lamely attempted to tell them - it happened in the class, by the way - about my life starting from the time I didn't know I had a father to the death of my father.

My professor applauded. He loved my story and told the class that my story is the "winner". He even asked me to let him publish it. I was in a dilemma, and still am. I know I have a very interesting past, a horrid, a painful one, in fact. The truth is, I am still not reconciled with the pains of the past that whenever I write about it I couldn't stop the tears.

Only a few know about the things kept hidden in my closet. You see, I am not safeguarding myself from the opinions of the public rather I am protecting my mother and the memory of my Dad.

Creative Non-fiction, my favorite genre. I guess I'm caught up with it now. Can I not stick with social commentary? For now, nope. In the future, yes. Who knows? I might excel in the sub-genre I'm dreading right now - the memoir.

For the sake of completion, I will write about a part and parcel of my past. When I could finally manage getting pass the tears, I promise to have it publish whether here or elsewhere, whether under my real name or under a pseudonym.

So, Godspeed to me.

BLANK

Can't write. Can't think. Oh well.


TOMORROW I WILL WRITE.

A totally BIG project

God's grace is really humbling and uplifting.


Last week, Sir Paolo gave me an emphatic NO to my thesis proposal. It was about deconstruction of heroes through character sketch and profiling. I hit rock bottom. I was speechless for a while, trying hard to swallow the reality that what I thought as the best project was rejected. To add to that, he lectured me on not knowing my subject - my love, creative non-fiction. It was devastating.


Giving up is not in my vocabulary. I then prayed real hard about it, asking God to just grant me strength to endure the trial, to embrace it and allow it to teach a fast-becoming sluggard like me. You see, I love reading. But because my course is literature, everything I read is required. And I hated it. I really don't like it when my passion, my way of de-stressing would become a requirement. The idea of it relaxing me is long gone. It actually stresses me out.


But because reading is what I love to do, it did not take long for me to get back on track. Yesterday, I did a lot of researching. I borrowed creative non-fiction books and actually read all of the four books plus the one that I own well before midnight. This morning, after having been backed with so many facts, I knew what I wanted to do.


I decided to show the types of social commentary in creative non-fiction. I definitely love profiling and it is handled very well by Kerima Polotan and Sylvia Mayuga in the essays entitled Love Never Gives Up and The Rise and Fall of Pasay. Mayuga also used the letter type. In her book entitled A Spy in My Own Country, she wrote Letter from Ermita wherein the place Ermita is supposedly writing to two persons about the condition of the Philippines. Conrado de Quiros and Randy David pretty much handle satire very well what with their broad knowledge of current issues and their implications. All of these I presented to Sir Paolo just this afternoon complete with information and my own analyses of every article. He, finally, said yes to my proposal.


The thing is, he wanted me to trace the origin of each and compare each article with another, of course, both being in the same sub-genre. It is quite a big project, lots of reading and writing to do excluding the analyses of each essay. I would be examining at least a hundred essays and at most a hundred and fifty. Notwithstanding the fact that I would have to read the history of each sub-genre.


I believe that God is with me when I started and He will finish this with a bang. I am definitely excited. Imagine what God can do!

Time

I need time.

I have two papers due tomorrow.

I have tons of reading to do, four books, no, make that five.

I have to do some research on the net.

I have to analyze a sociological something.

But, ironically, here I am ranting about not having enough time while writing on my blog. I wanted to write something sensible today... About time and the essence of time plus the implication of time seemingly wasted. Because I have no time, I can't brood on the topic of time. All I know is that time really does fly so fast when you seem to have your hands full and time runs so miserably slow when you want something to get over and done with. The best examples would be horrible, sad memories, forgetting pains, forgetting someone, taking an exam you have no idea how to answer, the anxiety of waiting for graduation day....

I wonder. Could I write a story on time? Could I somehow write an essay on time? A personal narrative perhaps? I believe so. But I would need time for that.

So much for long entry. Had I been given much time, I would have written an entry worth your time.

I hear the clock ticking, saying, shouting: It's time for you to begin writing your paper.

Until next time then. Ciao!