fiction

From my bookshelves: The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (ebook)

In his book on horror fiction, Danse Macabre, Stephen King describes Hill House, written in 1959, as one of the best horror novels of the 20th century. His praise was glowing and I vowed to read it someday; and now, thanks to the miracle of e-books, I have and it is all that King said it was.

He particularly pointed out the first paragraph as a stellar example of an opening:

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

Ebook file available from Ebookna here. Book cover image here.

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After a wait of many months, there’s finally a schedule set for the launch of the novel Patriots on the Street.

The book serves as a platform for the thoughts of property developer Rex Drilon II and was written by Manila Standard-Today opinion editor and columnist Adelle Chua.

Patriots on the Street explores the issues of nationalism and poverty and offers Drilon’s solutions to the economic and political challenges facing the country.  It is a gentle and wry commentary of social ills and a search for social justice and change that should, at the very least, incite critical thinking and propel a revolution in the way one perceives Filipino politics and culture.

The book launch is set for January 20 at Bestsellers bookstore, The Podium, Ortigas Center.

From the book, on the true state of Philippines politics:

The truth is, they – administration or opposition – are all the same. Political parties? They don’t mean a thing in terms of policy positions. Politicians identify themselves with parties so they can take advantage of resources during elections. But at the first instance of disagreement, somebody can easily bolt a party, join another, or establish one of his own.

Furthermore, the country’s political elite, both on the national and local levels, flaunts the wrong values. They feel entitled to deferential treatment. They assert their influence in big and little things alike. Most of them believe they have the monopoly on good intentions and treat political office as a family enterprise – and nobody from outside can challenge their starring roles.

As a result, the governed feel both disgusted and powerless. They become resigned to their fate so they do just what is necessary to survive from day to day. They don’t see any value in participating in the building of the community, much less the nation. Why bother?

The book will be available at Bestsellers and National Bookstore branches.

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From my bookshelves: EM (Edward Morgan) Forster: Three Complete Novels (Gramercy Book, NY: 1993).

This was a Christmas gift from my mother last year – a special edition of Forster’s Howards End, A Room With a View, and Where Angels Fear to Tread.

It is beyond handsomely bound – it is upholstered. The front and back covers are generously padded in green faux leather and decoratively stamped with gold foil.

As an artifact, it is a beautiful book.

The edges of the pages are gilded, like the fine books of long ago, when books were cherished as containers of knowledge.

The endpapers were custom-designed.

The fonts echo those used in vintage books. A cream ribbon marker is glued into the binding.

Even in this age of e-readers, there is nothing to compare to the satisfaction of holding a well-made book in your hands and turning the crisp pages over, your eyes devouring the lines of text as the story takes shape in your mind.

A far more satisfying treat than the external beauty of this book is what lies within – the concepts that present age-old human themes in alternative ways.

An excerpt from Howards End speaks of the differences between the ways men and women love. Margaret discovers that her fiance Henry had a mistress; she tries to comprehend how he could have been unfaithful to his late wife:

She tried to translate his temptation into her own language, and her brain reeled. Men must be different, even to want to yield to such a temptation. Her belief in comradeship was stifled…Are the sexes really races, each with its own code of morality, and their mutual love a mere device of Nature to keep things going? Strip human intercourse of the proprieties, and is it reduced to this? Her judgment told her no. She knew that out of Nature’s device we have built a magic that will win us immortality. Far more mysterious than the call of sex to sex is the tenderness that we throw into that call…We are evolving, in ways that Science cannot measure, to ends that Theology dares not contemplate.

Forster wrote Howards End in 1910. One hundred and one years later, no one has found an answer yet to the questions he posed. But his belief in what he called the “magic that will win us immortality” is also what sustains those who cast their hearts into the ring – the belief that love and tenderness is stronger than all, and that in the end, it will prevail.

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From my bookshelves: Tales from the Arabian Nights (Avenel Books, New York: 1978), a selection of the choicest stories from The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (Alf Laylah Wa Laylah) translated by Sir Richard Burton and privately published in 16 volumes in London in 1885-88.

I bought this for fifty pesos, which was my Christmas money I think, on 9 December 1982 at the now-defunct Alemar’s bookstore in Makati. I had just turned 15 and at the time it was the most expensive book I owned. This volume is a limited edition run and contains illustrations from the 1859 edited edition of the EW Lane translation.

Editor David Shumaker says in the foreword that the tales, while spoken of as early as 944 by Mas’udi, may have been collected in Cairo by a professional storyteller in the 15th century and recast in the form familiar to us now – of the clever princess Shahrazad avoiding death by telling a story each night to King Shahryar.

From the story “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”, a description of a shopping expedition to the market:

…she stopped at a fruiterer’s shop and bought from him Shami apples and Osmani quinces and Omani peaches, and cucumbers of Nile growth, and Egyptian limes and Sultani oranges and citrons; besides Aleppine jasmine, scented myrtle berries, Damascene nenuphars, flower of privet and camomile, blood-red anemones, violets, and pomegranate-bloom, eglantine and narcissus, and set the whole in the Porter’s crate, saying, “Up with it.”

So he lifted and  followed her till she stopped at a grocer’s, where she bought dry fruits and pistachio-kernels, Tihamah raisins, shelled almonds and all wanted for dessert, and said to the Porter, “Lift and follow me.”

So he up with his hamper and after her till she stayed at the confectioner’s, and she bought an earthen platter, and piled it with all kinds of sweetmeats in his shop, open-worked tarts and fritters scented with musk and “soap-cakes”, and lemon-loaves and melon-preserves, and “Zaynab’s combs”, and “ladies’ fingers”, and “Kazi’s tit-bits” and goodies of every description; and placed the platter in the Porter’s crate….

Then she stopped at a perfumer’s and took from him ten sorts of waters, rose scented with musk, orange-flower, water-lily, willow-flower, violet and five others; and she also bought two loaves of sugar, a bottle for perfume-spraying, a lump of male incense, aloe-wood, ambergris and musk, with candles of Alexandria wax…until she stood before the greengrocer’s, of whom she bought pickled safflower and olives, in brine and in oil; with tarragon and cream-cheese and hard Syrian cheese…

The device of using lists to add description, depth, or provide background to a story was also used to great effect by many other writers in both fiction (for instance, Oscar Wilde in his collection of original fairy tales, The House of Pomegranates, 1891) and non-fiction (Sei Shonagon in her memoir The Pillow Book, 1002).

The Arabian Nights tales are exotic and bawdy, set in a time and land so far removed from our own that many of the references would be incomprehensible if it weren’t for the footnotes Burton thoughtfully provided. Yet the themes – of love and betrayal, passion and pleasure, heroism and humor – are archetypal and resonate to the present day.

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POP GOES THE WORLD, By Jenny Ortuoste for Manila Standard-Today, 7 October 2010, Thursday

Culture Stock

Where resides a nation’s heart and soul?

This was the question that several university professors, media professionals, and I discussed the other night during a PhD class at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication. It stemmed from College of St. Benilde professor Rod Rivera’s report on theaters in Manila that screen films bordering on the pornographic.  There are those, he said, that claim that such theaters in Quiapo and Recto are a front for male prostitution.

From there, Dr. Jose Lacson segued to commercialism in television and film. Advertising executive Chitchat Diangson said that much of television content in dictated by what producers believe will sell, leading to the creation of mind-numbing programs like “Wowowee”. Professor Bea Lapa deplored the entertainment media’s unwillingness to raise the programming bar in standards and taste, while writer Nina Villena brought up the issue of media gatekeeping. Women’s development professor and staunch feminist Julienne Baldo decried the media’s reinforcement of negative stereotypes of gender and class, perpetuating cruel cycles of prejudice and bias that further retard national social development.

Prof. Julienne Baldo analyzes the poster of  ”Serbis” at a theater in Quiapo.

Which brings us back to our question and its possible answer. It is in art where commercialism does not hold absolute sway and the discourse on social issues may be expanded without the taint of capitalism and the imperative of profit. There are those of us who write, paint, make music, and sculpt not for money, but because we need to express the meanings and concepts that burn within us and cry to be expressed and physically manifested in forms that may be shared with others.

These forms – books, songs, paintings, theater plays – often do not translate into income for their creators, but that was not the point of their creation anyway. It is in a nation’s art that current social events and issues are poked, cut up into bits, and licked to find out what they taste like. What’s important to people? That is what floats up in the content being made nowadays, and is disseminated over channels such as the Internet.

Dulaang UP scored one such intellectually-shaking triumph with their recent hit production “Shock Value”, written by Floy Quintos and directed by Alexander Cortez. It’s been given a positive review by MST opinion editor Adelle Chua, who focused her piece on the play’s theme of the commercialization of television, and how producers of celebrity shows of mass attraction artificially manufacture the scandals and intrigues that make up its content.

“Shock Value” cast members sashay across the stage. (Dulaang UP photo)

Among its stars in its cast are John Lapus, Mylene Dizon, Andoy Ranay, Christian Alvarado, and the awesomely talented Sabina Santiago. As “Little Tweety Girl”, Santiago’s hilarious on-stage simulation of an orgasm, eyes rolling back in her head, demotes Meg Ryan’s performance in “When Harry Met Sally” to amateur status.

Dulaang UP’s next offering is “Isang Panaginip na Fili”, “an edgy, dreamlike interpretation” of the Jose Rizal novel El Filibusterismo by writer/director Quintos, which will run from November 24 to December 12 at UP Diliman’s Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater. Call (02)926-1349 or (02)433-7840 for tickets.

“Isang Panaginip na Fili” publicity still, courtesy of Dulaang UP.

A fresh take on heartbreak, loss, and recovery comes from writer Carljoe Javier by way of his non-fiction book The Kobayashi Maru of Love, with artwork and design by Adam David of the Youth and Beauty Brigade. It’s available at avalon.ph.

Says Carljoe: “I wrote The Kobayashi Maru of Love because, first, I was trying to understand (a recent) breakup, and I was trying to work through my feelings about it. Like any breakup, there are nasty emotions that follow, and I was going through all that. But I thought that if I was forced to apply aesthetic distance, if I was forced to try and be funny about it, that I would be able to cope better. And as I got back into the dating game, well, things were just funny and had to be written about.”

The book is indeed funny, but beyond that, it dwells on themes that nearly everyone who reads it can relate to. “I think that I’m talking about something universal,” says Carljoe, “and that’s loss. Pretty much everyone has gone through a heartbreak or a heartache. I guess that I was just trying to connect to that, to make the book not just about my own personal heartbreak, but to make it for everyone who’s ever been through it. Our individual experiences are different, but the hurt is the same. So I wanted to write a book that talked about that.”

Carljoe’s next book, Geek Tragedies, will be published by UP Press next year. “I have a number of projects in the works,” he says, “among them a book I hope to write about the Filipino diaspora and the effect that having parents abroad have on kids; a book about me, a fat man trying to get healthy; and a novel.” A freelance writer and editor of the Philippine Online Chronicles, he is also taking his MA Creative Writing at UP’s College of Arts and Letters.

Art in this country is alive and well and a thriving part of our culture, a part that is not a slave to commercialism but is free to speak out on social matters, the human condition, and what lives inside the Filipino heart and soul. ***

Photo above, L-R: (front) writer Bambi Harper, UP professor emeritus Dr. Cristina Hidalgo. (back) writers Waldo Petralba, Jeena Marquez, and Carljoe Javier.

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I was looking for old files in my computer when I came across this short story I wrote in 2008. I had forgotten all about it. But I remember the impetus for the narrative was my finding a sad note like this one in the story. I put myself in the place of the scribbler of the note, and imagined “What if…?”

SIRE OF SIRES

It was 2008, and Danny was forty.

He felt old. It wasn’t that long ago when he was fifty pounds lighter with a full head of hair, jauntily entering the state university’s Malcolm Hall law school as a student. Where did time go?

Do the math, mocked Rina. How old will you be by the time your youngest child has finished his university degree? I loved you, Danny. I still do, a little. But you got yourself into this situation. Not me.

As much as his hand itched to slap her, he couldn’t do it, couldn’t even find the words to reply, because he knew she was right.

After she had gone back into the house and slammed the door in his face, and after he had driven back to his and Thess’s apartment where she, tired of waiting up for him, tired of putting up with his promises to leave his wife and excuses why he hadn’t, couldn’t yet, was asleep on one side of the bed, her bulk taking up fully two-thirds of the mattress, he went down to the living room and sat at his desk.

Drawing a piece of paper toward him with trembling hands, he made a list of his offspring. Lissette, born 13 November 1990; Migs, 25 October 1998, Marco, 29 October 2002. His youngest by Rina, Manolo, was born 8 March 2004, barely a month after Thess had given birth to their firstborn, John, on February 16. His and Thess’s youngest, Matthew, came along on 8 August 2005. Roselle’s baby was due in December.

In 2010, Lissette would be in her fourth year of college; Migs, in sixth grade, Marco in the second, John and Manolo both in Prep, Matthew in senior kindergarten.

In 2015, Lissette should be working, unless she took it in her head to attend law school; Migs would be in his first year at college, Marco in the first year of high school. John and Manolo, the almost-twins, in fifth grade, Matthew in the fourth.

By 2020, Lissette would be 30 years old, presumably working and with a family; Migs, at 22, should be working also. Marco would be 18 and in his second year of college, John and Manolo, both 16 and in their last year of high school, Matthew, at 15, in his junior year at high school.

By 2025, John and Manolo would presumably be in their last year of college, Matthew in his third. Roselle’s child would be 17, and perhaps newly-graduated from high school.

And Danny? He would be 58, with four children still in college. He would still have to be working and earning; there was no guarantee that Lissette, Migs, and Marco, his older children, would contribute towards their half-brothers’ education and upkeep. They would, of course, help out with their brother Manolo, but with John and Matthew? His child by Roselle? He didn’t think so. On the contrary, he felt that they would tell him in no uncertain terms to go to hell, dragging his own tail.

Buntot mo, hila mo.

The jokes comparing him to the prolific stallion Conquistador who sired countless colts and fillies weren’t funny anymore. No, the entire situation had lost its humor long ago.

He wondered where now were the drinking buddies with their ribald challenges of his manhood, where his employers, the racehorse owners with the expensive young women on their arms, where were they now that his life was falling apart?

Danny placed his scribbled list on the desk, weighed it down with an old horseshoe. His  neck hurt. The house oppressed him; it was as if he could hear Thess snoring, John and Matthew breathing heavily, even though they were yards away from him, in their own rooms. Oh, but he loved them so, and Roselle and their unborn child, and his older children, and yes, Rina too. He was never one to stop loving, he could only love more people, add to those already in his heart. Didn’t the old rascals say, “Magdagdag ka ng minamahal, huwag kang magbawas?”

He had always fancied himself a stallion like the late great Conquistador, and he was, with his six progeny, a filly and five colts by two broodmares, with a third dam in foal, and he was magnificent in his sexual prowess, a stud just like his father, they all said so.

His old man died at the track, watching races till his breath caught in his chest and his heart gave out and whose last sight was of horses running till his vision narrowed to a pinpoint and dissolved into darkness, at whose funeral two wives showed up, the first wife sharing bitter whispers with a woman whose jockey husband had left her for a slut: “They come back to us when they’re dead.”

But there was still one more way Danny could be like Conquistador.

He got out of the house, locked the door carefully behind him (it wouldn’t do at all to have an intruder or a burglar come in, an akyat-bahay who would not be content with stealing the plasma TV or the few pieces of jewelry he had managed to buy for Thess, but who would stab his family where they slept, turning them into another “Massacre In (insert name of city here)”, tabloid-fodder for the masses), got into the car, and drove to the racetrack.

The night guard was surprised to see Danny there so late, but waved him through and went back to sleep. Danny parked as close as he could to the first bend. Sitting in his car in the driver’s seat, the seat pushed back as far as it would go so the steering wheel wouldn’t dig into his gut, the moon shining into the car and filling it with silvery light, Danny unzipped the black leather case beside him on the passenger’s seat.

Inside was the bolt gun he used to put all those horses to rest.

It was heavy, the rubber grip rough in his hand, the barrel cool against his temple. He gazed at the track, it was aglow in moonlight, each particle of sand luminous, and over this brilliant surface he saw Conquistador’s legs pumping, galloping for the turn home.

Smiling, he pulled the trigger, and ran to meet his hero.

It was 2008, and Danny was forty, forever. ***

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Once upon a time, in a big city on one of the big islands of a tropical archipelago close to the equatorial belt where the best coffee in the world grows, there lived a pair of feet.

They were happy feet.

The happy feet loved to walk. Oh, how they could walk! The right happy foot and the left happy foot would take turns being in front, one after the other, walking around the city, getting from one place to another, doing what they were made to do.

But the happy feet were attached to the ankles of a lazy writer who stayed indoors for weeks on end, her bottom growing roots into her armchair as she typed boring articles and surfed the Intarwebz for hours and hours.

The happy feet didn’t get to go out much. That made them sad.

One day the lazy writer’s doctor-classmate-from-school said: You must exercise. I recommend walking. Everyday.

But how, the lazy writer asked.

Baby steps, he said. Take baby steps.

One day, the lazy writer put on a pair of wooden sandals. They were also called “Happy Feet“. The lazy writer’s happy feet loved them because they were light, which meant they could move faster.

They were cool, so the happy feet would not feel hot even on a blazing summer day.

They were open, and the happy feet loved that best of all! Because that meant the happy feet’s toes could wiggle and jiggle and wriggle like toes love to do.

The lazy writer took a cab to work because she was late for a meeting, as she usually was. On her way back home, she remembered her doctor-classmate-from-school’s advice. Baby steps, she told herself. I will walk home.

The happy feet were so excited!

The right happy foot and the left happy foot took turns taking baby steps, one in front of the other, walking towards home, as their toes wiggled and jiggled and wriggled with joy.

They walked dusty gray pavements, but they didn’t mind; there were many things to see along the way.

The happy feet met a plant that grew close to the ground. Its stalk and leaves were very green and they reached out to passing feet. Clip-clop, clip-clop, went the happy feet in the wooden sandals past the plant-in-the-pavement.

Along the way there was a sign for the lazy writer’s favorite energy drink on the facade of a sari-sari store in an old house. Beside the store was an old church. It had red-painted walls. Clip-clop, clip-clop went the happy feet past the store-in-a-house.

When the happy feet first set out, the sun was hidden behind gray clouds. After a while, the sun came out. It shone on the lazy writer’s head. A tall tree’s leaves glowed bright green against the sun, making the lazy writer squint and blink. Clip-clop, went the happy feet past the tree-in-sunlight.

They passed the site of an old racetrack. Once there were loud fans cheering race horses on. Now there were no more fans, no more horses, and no more track. Big noisy construction machines had leveled the place into the ground. Clip-clop, went the happy feet past the once-a-racetrack.

The happy feet met another plant. It was growing in a large metal can that once held infant formula, but now had holes punched with nails all over its bottom while inside it was soil from the old racetrack. The plant was healthy. Its leaves were pretty. Clip-clop, went the happy feet past the plant-in-a-can.

They rounded a corner and saw a big concrete horse’s head. It once sat on the gate in front of the old racetrack. Folks had taken the head down, cleaned it, and put it on a pedestal covered with tiles. This was so that people would always remember the old racetrack. The happy feet knew they were near home. Clip-clop, they went, taking baby steps a little bit faster, past the horse’s-head-marker.

Before them was a long stretch of road. Green tricycles lined up under big old mango trees wrapped in a rainbow, waiting to take passengers where they wanted to go. The drivers asked the lazy writer if she wanted to take a ride. No, thank you, she said. I’ll keep on walking. Clip-clop, went the happy feet past the tricycles-in-rainbow.

At last they came to their street. Close to the corner were two fighting-cock farms. Inside the red gate and the blue gate were many scratch pens of wood, like triangles set into the ground. There were also tall fly pens of wood and plastic mesh. There were many fighting cocks, crowing tik-ti-laok. The happy feet knew they were very near home. Clip-clop they went past the cockpits-in-city.

At last the happy feet were home! The lazy writer was happy too. She had taken baby steps to exercise and it wasn’t bad. It felt very good. And she saw a lot of interesting things along the way. She decided to take a walk more often. The happy feet were glad they got to do what they were made to do. And the toes wiggled and jiggled and wriggled for joy.

~ The End ~

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A can of Pepsi Max sits in front of me and gives advice.

“I know what you want,” it whispers. Beads of cold sweat roll off  its rouge et noir exterior. “I know how you can get it. Just do what you’re thinking right now. Go for it.”

I take a sip. ” It’s not a very good plan, and I don’t have a backup.”

“You don’t need one.” Chuckles coldly.

I turn Plan A over in my mind. It is possible it could work, like any scheme using brute force.  ”Perhaps,” I say.

The Moleskine chimes in. “Wait,” it says in a rustle of paper. ” Have you thought about the consequences and possible scenarios?”

The Sheaffer Balance makes marks. Numbers, words. “Holes in the plan,” it agrees,  ”here and there, where the mission could fail.”

Another sip of Pepsi Max. “You’re right – Plan A lacks finesse. And Plan B does not exist.”

The drink rallies. “Unnecessary, I swear.”

Anxious looks from the Moleskine and the Sheaffer. “This is too important to trust to chance. Preparedness is key to achieving the desired outcome. Remember how it hurt when you smacked concrete after jumping from a plane without a parachute? You need an improved Plan A. And a Plan B. And C, and D.”

I think of what I want and how badly I want it. The prize is worth waiting for.

I drain the drink. “But…!” it squeaks. “Think instant gratifica…!” I crumple the can and toss it, open the Moley, take up the Sheaffer, and think.

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Someone once asked me, “What would you be doing if you weren’t a writer?”

I couldn’t think of anything else I would rather do.

I grew up in homes full of books. Wherever we lived, there were always bookcases stuffed to bursting with my mother’s self-help books, collection of hardbound classics, and mystery, fantasy, horror, and science fiction paperbacks, or low shelves on the floor with my father’s choices in literature – Somerset Maugham, Gore Vidal, Sholom Aleichem.

My parents never consciously encouraged me to read, but surrounded by books and little else to do, I gravitated towards the shelves that were always open to me. I thrived on a literary diet of Enid Blyton and Louisa May Alcott, Nancy Drew and The Bobbsey Twins, Bulfinch’s Mythology and old-fashioned poetry, the rhyming kind like Gunga Din and The Ballad of Sam McGee.

In time, words and the putting together of them in sentences to convey meaning came as naturally to me as breathing. In school, my favorites subjects were the ones that used a lot of words – English, Social Studies. Math was anathema. In college, I took up Journalism. It was either that or English Studies, and I figured I’d have a better chance of earning through writing if I were a journalist, although my mother always said that there was no money in writing.

Today I make my living from it.

Often people ask, “Can you teach me how to write?” It’s a difficult question to answer, because the process is different for everybody. Some say that the talent is inborn. Perhaps to some extent that might be true; I believe some inclinations come naturally to people, like musical talent or athletic ability. But writing is also a skill that can be learned and cultivated, and anyone can do it. For the philosopher Jean Jacques Rosseau, “However great a man’s natural talent may be, the art of writing cannot be learned all at once.”

Some thoughts on writing that I’ve formed over the years:

1. Writing is a form of communication, just like speaking. Having problems starting your piece? Pretend you are talking to someone about it. Write it down that way. Then go back over what you’ve written and edit.

2. Writing uses language. To write effectively, you must know the language and its rules. Words are the construction materials, grammar the nails and mortar that hold them together. Immerse yourself in the language to build up your vocabulary. Even if you are writing in your mother tongue, don’t take it for granted that you know all the words or even enough of them. Read books and magazines. Watch television shows and films. Listen to native speakers and soak up the rhythm of their speech patterns. Choose a usage and composition guide – I was introduced to Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style in my freshman year of college, and have adhered to its tenets ever since.

3. Less is more. I’ve always clung to Strunk’s Rule Number 17: “Omit needless words.” Bombarded as we are on all fronts by information vying for our attention, why make it harder for your reader to decode your message? Related to this is White’s advice: “Avoid fancy words.” If there exists a simpler word that conveys the same meaning and nuance, use it. But in the end, always go by your ear – use whatever sounds right. As Matthew Arnold said, “Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.” The exception would be if you were deliberately using the fancy word or words to achieve a certain effect.

4. Organize, organize, organize. I believe this is the most important part of the writing process. It doesn’t matter that you can use big words like venustation or ptochology if you can’t put your thoughts and facts down in a sequence that will help the reader understand the message you wish to convey. Pay attention to the flow of your ideas; for your piece to be effective, it has to make sense, one thought leading to another in a logical manner.

5. Practice, practice, practice. Writing is a skill, like bicycling or blacksmithing. Write something everyday. Said Doris Lessing: “You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.” Or take Mary Heaton Vorse: “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” It takes discipline, but it pays off, I promise.  Take advantage of today’s technological advances and the myriad means of self-expression. Write your feelings down in a journal, or publish your opinions on a blog. One of the easiest ways is microblogging using applications like Twitter. If you can text, you can write!

6. Edit, edit, edit. Few, if any, first drafts are perfect. Go over what you’ve written and clean up typographical errors, spelling and grammar mistakes, factual inaccuracies, conceptual inconsistencies, and sequence flow. Science fiction writer C. J. Cherryh asserted, “It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.”

7. Be yourself. In the beginning, writers tend to copy the style of the authors they admire. But the most natural and authentic voice is your own; have confidence in yourself. Said Bill Stout: “Whether or not you write well, write bravely.”

8. Write from your heart. Whether you seek to persuade or inform, the reader responds best to pieces that are sincere and honest.

Winston Churchill, one of the best statemen and writers that Britain has ever produced, once declared, “Writing is an adventure.” It is a journey anyone can take. May yours be filled with the thrill of discovery and the joy of creativity!

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