Writing is my main craft. I’ve cultivated an intimate relationship with writing since the depression diaries I kept in 2012, the notebooks I wrote on to cope with my health issues, the blogs I’ve updated, the journals I’ve been keeping since 2018, the talahardin, the writing I’ve done with others—FLOW, Rem, Tungko, Writing with Uwa and Lea, Nilay, Poetry Fridays, and even the writings I’ve sent for workshops and publications. I remember how I learned to write and what lengths I had to take to get this far. When I do so, I can’t help but feel amazed that this thing is what I say I do.
While I can’t fully articulate it, there is a measure of sacredness I attach with my writing (for example, see journaling is sacred). Because of this, while I enjoy it, I’m aware that confronting the blank page is effortful. Unfortunately, this means, I will always feel resistance with my writing. One of my objectives is to lessen these moments of resistance, so that I could write what must be written.
The main question I’ve been asking myself recently about my writing is the following: how can I build a writing life inspired by my religious quest, enjoy it, and at its own best time produce nurturing work?
That question led me to an intuition that the writing I do in private is my most important writing. Journaling and note-writing in my talahardin are the forms of writing I take the most seriously and spend most of my time in; not creative or performative writing. Of course, I still want to learn how to write better poetry and essays for publication. But publication is secondary. My priority is how I can make my writing practice as authentic as possible, how it could reflect the meanderings of my life in as an honest way possible. The talahardin facilitates this as it publishes the meanderings of my mind.
Aside from helping me to be more authentic, I want my writing to feel good and fun. I also hope it is helpful to others in some way.
More thoughts on writing
Some of the following thoughts could be developed and included into my poetics:
Feel free to practice different kinds of writing.
You holding back from descriptions is a sign that you want to get to the point. It is impatience, an unwillingness to slow down. Your experience of providing more details to a scene is revelatory. Slow down.