Writing for others
I was asked again a couple of times last week if creative writers can make a living off their writing. And as I have for ages, I again had to say, sadly, no. And it’s true: no matter how brilliant you are, in this country, you can’t make a living from writing poems, stories, and essays, which is what most writers want to do. You might survive, and even prosper, writing screenplays, komiks, speeches, and biographies, but these genres require not just talent but connections to the industries, networks, and special clients that require them; they also tend to be seasonal, and certainly won’t offer you any social security or retirement benefit.
Despite this uninspiring reality, scores of students apply every year to get into the creative writing programs of such schools as UP, Ateneo, and La Salle — many of them thinking that, somehow or other, a fortuitous combination of talent, luck, and perseverance might lift them up above the crowd and turn them into the next J. K. Rowling. Many others will be resigned to a lifetime of furtive forays into poetry, in moments snatched between changing diapers, commuting to the office, fixing leaks on the roof, and pleasing the clients. And there will always be that starry-eyed few for whom art is its own excuse for being, and next month’s rent a trifle beneath one’s calling (for which Mama and Papa will inevitably provide through clenched teeth).
It’s for this reason that I designed, and have occasionally taught, a “Special Topics” course called CW 198: Professional Writing, which teaches CW majors and anyone else interested some basic skills and attitudes they’ll need to fend for themselves in a world “hostile to romance,” as James Joyce put it, demanding not ballads but brochures, not sonnets but speeches, and not aubades but AVP scripts. I also teach these undergraduates basic editing skills — rewriting, proofreading, press production processes — that should serve them in good stead whether they’re working by themselves or in an organization.
There are actually many jobs for writers out there — our bulletin board at the department is peppered with wanted ads — but they require technical rather than creative writers, and it takes a certain mindset (not to mention a skills set) to switch between the two. Time was when creative writers thought of themselves as God’s own children, when even journalism was looked down upon as an unworthy alternative. Nothing burns me up more than this attitude; having worked myself as a journalist for the pre-martial law Herald and Taliba, and as an occasional contributor to and editor for newsmagazines, I value the discipline, the commitment, and the attention to detail that journalism demands of the writer. I remind my students that they have only to look to Nick Joaquin for the finest example of a writer who saw no contradiction and only complementation between creative writing and journalism (which he, echoing Matthew Arnold, called “literature in a hurry”).
Sadly if curiously, the transition from one mode to the other isn’t an easy one to make. While creative writers used to producing one short story or a handful of poems a year may find the journalist’s daily deadlines punishing, journalists — those whom I’ve had as students in graduate class — typically find it difficult to switch off their “fact” buttons and let the logic of plot and character — not “what really happened” — drive the narrative. I may advise them in that case to specialize in creative nonfiction, something of a hybrid between journalistic reportage and the personal essay, but even then some journalists still find it difficult to insinuate themselves as characters into the unfolding story.
There’s just as much resistance in some young creative writers to the idea of writing for money — or rather, let me qualify that: not to money itself, which everyone needs to pay the bills and buy the iPod, but to compromising one’s cherished beliefs to sell a bar of soap or that hardest of sells, a politician. My response to these anguished cries is a form of tough love (and an old cliché): if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Advertising and PR (whether corporate or government) require a strong constitution and a stomach made of boilerplate steel.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in the 35 years I’ve been writing for a living is that there’s writing you do for yourself, and writing that you do for others, and you should never get the two mixed up. Anything that doesn’t go under my byline is writing for others, and is mainly meant to satisfy a client’s needs and demands; if the work requires my byline — say, a commissioned biography — I should still be able to stand by every word I say, and not willfully peddle a patent falsehood. Mostly, I think of the writing I do for myself — my stories and novels, my columns and commentaries — as a form of payback (or, sometimes, of revenge) for everything else that I have to do for everyone else; it’s a healthy release of all the bilious sentiments that build up in your bones, not to mention a reminder of what you read John Updike or Dylan Thomas for — the sheer thrill of the well-crafted phrase.
When it comes to writing for others, “compromise” isn’t a bad word; it opens doors and gets you jobs. But you should choose or know, from the beginning, whether this or that client or project is worth your talent and time, and not merely in financial terms. In other words, questions of principle should be settled at the door, because once you step in, you implicitly accept the ethos of the place. Compromise will then mean, say, a willingness to adjust to their norms, to convey their message, and to employ your skills in the service of that message. It’s theirs, not yours; signing the dotted line means you’ll do your best on someone else’s behalf, and the sooner you accept that, the better for you and your client or employer. I’ve done work for some politicians, but not for others; some of my choices turned out be poor ones, but those choices were made willingly, and I have only myself to blame.
I hope my students make better ones, in their own time. I’ll be teaching CW 198: Professional Writing again this second semester, and I’m looking forward to — in Pablo Neruda’s words — getting the hands of my student-poets dirty.
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Let me devote the rest of my space to an invitation from another professional group I belong to, the Philippine Studies Association, which is co-hosting the 8the International Conference on Philippine Studies (ICOPHIL) from July 23 to 26, 2008 here in Manila.
Since 1989, the ICOPHIL conference has been held every four years, the last one at Leiden University in the Netherlands in 2004. With the theme “Philippine Studies for the 21st Century: New Meanings, Critiques and Trajectories,” ICOPHIL aims to bring scholars together from around the world and all over the Philippines to discuss issues across a broad range of concerns including Philippine history, politics, and culture, the Philippine economy, the Philippine diaspora, globalization population studies, education, the Philippine media, and Philippine Studies itself as a scholarly discipline.
The Program Committee is soliciting conference presentations from Philippine Studies Association members, affiliated societies, and local and foreign scholars in all disciplines. The committee particularly welcomes interdisciplinary or border-crossing proposals that complement or depart from conventional historical, chronological, geographic and disciplinary boundaries. Younger scholars are especially encouraged to participate.
Please submit proposals to the 8th ICOPHIL Secretariat at the Philippine Social Science Council via e-mail (icophil@pssc.org.ph) or fax (632-9244178 or 632-9229621) by Nov. 15. Proposals must include a 150-word abstract of the panel/paper as well as the name, affiliation, and contact details of the proponent. Complete panels by potential chairs will be given priority, but individual proposals will also be considered.
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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and visit my blog at http://www.penmanila.net.
