dixie, this is for you.
i had always dreamed of writing a novel based on my parents' experiences growing up, during the war, and the hardship they had overcome through the years, until my mother's death in 1975. that dream had been inspired by the bits and pieces of stories my mother would tell me on our long walks from town to town peddling her bottled shrimp paste, mostly instigated by my innocent questions. i have written those stories and information in pieces of papers and kept them in a cardboard box. when in high school my english teacher told me i will never be a writer because my essays were flat and i refused to use "big" words because she said it was due to my very limited english vocabulary (recalling that, i could imagine my late writing mentor arnie's face as he recoiled in horror upon hearing that little tale!) i sort of set aside the dream of writing.
i wrote poems instead and some of them got published in a teen magazine. then in 1999, i wrote an essay at the college and it won a thousand dollar prize and it sort of inspired me to enrol in a writing course so i could learn how to properly write. the instructor, upon reading my first assignment, wrote on my paper: "have you been writing all your life? your characters are powerful and so alive and your settings so real i feel i am that fly on the wall seeing everything!" i almost fainted. so when i told her about what my high school teacher told me, she said, i should look that teacher up and show her my writing as well as her comments.
when i started to get into real writing in 1999, the dream of writing that novel seemed not too far fetched after all. my next writing professor, arnie, was all agog about my stories and assumed the role of mentor. before he died, he told me his one dream is to see my novel finished and published. in his class, expressive writing, we were to write stories that are 'autobiographical' and to him, no matter how mundane a story, there is a way to tell it to make it interesting. he extracted from me the details: how a muscle twitch, the smell of burning paper, the rustle of one's breathing. "get me right in the middle of the story, and make me not want to leave!"
in 2004, i visited manila with the full intention of interviewing my father. for three straight weeks, i heard stories from him, some he had already told us when we were young, but listening to those stories with fresh ears and certainly deep interest, i thought my plot was going to take shape. some of my 'suppositions' from listening to relatives' conversations in previous years were confirmed. sometimes i got carried away and would tell him how or what i thought happened and he would clam up, or he would look at me and told me, "your mother was right, you are a witch!" whenever he told me that, i knew my suppositions and my theories were right although he would not confirm or deny it.
fast forward to 2014 and dixie's self-stories challenge. a deluge of information started to flood my brain since monday when we started the project. my friend ann had asked if, in particular my parent's story from yesterday, it's the real story of my parents or if i've added some details for fiction's sake. the answer is yes, that is their story and no, i've not added any details to fictionalize it. this here i hope will form the basis of the actual novel, and the embellishments will then be infused (and longer to get to the minimum 100,000 words for a shorter novel). when i write, i always remember arnie's mantra: it's in the telling, engage your audience, get them there.
thank you, dixie, for kicking my butt, albeit gently and unknowingly on your part.
