Writing on furlough

Seven months hence, I finally brought myself to write again. Of all my life’s activities so far, I have a passion for two things. The second is graphic design. The first is writing.

I’ve realized this early on but I find myself preoccupied in earning my keep by way of my second passion. I’ve found a small but steady market for my talent in this that has kept me financially afloat. This affords me to buy my bread, and butter it as well.

On the other hand, my first love and passion has a huge market but with an equally enormous supply of talent. As in any industry, monetary returns are high for established writers regardless of the degree of talent. Lesser mortals in this universe of the written text must content themselves with the dregs.

This is more evident in my chosen genre – fiction. In recent memory, I’d consider JK Rowling as the most elite among those in the top tier. Although I considerably doubt any superlative adoration for her talent, I do like the tale and the characters she wove in her Harry Potter series. Albeit fiction with a hodgepodge of rehashed themes, I cannot deny that they are an engaging read. They have moments or sparks of creativity here and there. My only point is that she found a market and her niche, and built an empire. If it pleases her, she could now very well afford to hone her talent into a higher degree of skill.

If talent in creative writing is to be the basis then Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for one, would be leagues apart. His brilliance and stroke of genius has been defined by his singular commitment of magic realism to text in our day and age. This sublime marriage of the supernatural and fantastic with the mundane has not been etched in our literary consciousness since our ancestors earlier on recited and then later on read our folklores, myths, legends and epics.

Next on my list of modern fiction icons is JRR Tolkein for creating Middle Earth and commencing my ongoing amazement with fantasy. Then there is Stephen Donaldson for weaving text to craft Thomas Covenant. Orson Scott Card is at par for Alvin Maker and also for extending his reach to science fiction bringing Ender to word and hence to life. Of note in my list is Anne McCaffrey for transporting me to Pern and other planet types and, like Card, for introducing countless possibilities in and between fantasy and sci-fi writing.

(I have to take a client’s call. Please hold this point for a moment. I’ll resume in part 2 of this post.)

Blogging My Life

Oh, yes. I have reservations in starting this blog. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of chronicling my life in the public domain. I have this iffy feeling in taking on the responsibility of presenting an unadulterated view of my self. My posts may be just snippets of my life, but the thought of building my own aquarium is, to me, a bit unnerving. I do have the option to edit, but I choose not to.

My idea of blogging my life is close to how Orson Scott Card characterized Ender Wiggins as the Speaker for the Dead in the sequel to Ender’s Game. This sounds morbid but as life goes, death completes it. Until humankind finds a way to genetically engineer immortals, which won't happen in my lifetime, I am confined to the pragmatic view of my own mortality.

Card’s concept arose from his experiences with death and funerals. He writes, “suffice it to say that I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.”*

I do not want to be edited. I do not want to be erased. So, as I embark on this journey to chronicle my life, I want my words to reflect a person who actually lived.

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*In Orson Scott Card’s Introduction to Speaker for the Dead (1991 edition)

Orson Scott Card’s official website: http://www.hatrack.com/