SO, YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

SO, YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?

"Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before,
get up and bite on the nail." That statement comes from the pen of
one of America's most celebrated authors, Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway is one of my favorite authors. And although I never read
his books when I was growing up, I came to "know" him only after I saw
the film adaptation of his book, The Old Man and the Sea. Forget the
fact that he committed suicide at the height of his career, but his
timely tips about writing are still being quoted just like his novels
which are still being read all over the world.

A person who does not work every day is dead. You have to do
something in order for you to live – even breathing and eating are
works. And thinking and writing, too. That's why I write every day.

Writing is just a like a hobby to me. And to think of, it's part of
my job. Imagine, doing your hobby every day and still being paid for
doing so. What a privilege, indeed. I am sure there are many people
who are working but don't like what they are doing. Too bad!

Anyone who knows how to write can be called a writer. But the
difference between those who just write for the sake of writing and
those who do living on writing is writing well. Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow once said, "The talent of success is nothing more than
doing what you can do well and doing well whatever you do."

In writing well, you have to consider your grammar (you must know when
to use "is" and "are," the difference between "me" and "mine," etc.),
your vocabulary (appease, soothe, mollify, placate, and pacify all
mean the same thing), and the ideas you expound. Words are your tool
and you must have lots of them. "What's this business of being a
writer?" Irving Thalberg asked. "It's just putting one word after
another."

But you have to put those words in a perfect manner that could be
understood by anyone who reads it. "A perfectly healthy sentence, it
is true, is extremely rare," Henry David Thoreau said. "For the most
part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be
satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their
colors, or the heavens without their azure."

I started writing well when I was in high school. My English teacher
observed that those I wrote for our formal themes were different from
those written by my classmates. "You had a style of your own," she
told me. She impelled me to write more -- on various subject matters.

When I watched Finding Forrester a couple of years back, I was
reminded of what I went through. The words of Sean Connery's
character came into my mind: "Write your first draft with your heart.
Re-write with your head."

But it was not until I was in college that I started writing for
magazines and newspapers. My very first national article was
published in a weekly magazine. It was a short piece on what children
say about doctors.

From that, I started writing for other publications as a freelancer.
At first, I wrote lifestyle features and when I joined a
non-government organization as its staff writer, I started writing
about agricultural stories. After attending a workshop convened by
Philippine Press Institute, I found my niche: science reporting.

It was also at time when I wrote for Ang Peryodiko Dabaw (which later
became Sun.Star Davao). I also started contributing for Press
Foundation of Asia, with Paul Icamina and Erlinda Bolido as my science
editors.

And before I knew it, I was winning one journalism awards after
another. In 1999, the Philippine Press Institute elevated me the hall
of fame in science reporting, the first and only Filipino journalist
to accomplish the feat. That year also, the Rotary Club of Manila had
chosen me as Journalist of the Year. Now, I write for the Asian
edition of Reader's Digest and other national and internal
publications.

Through these years, what have I learned as a writer? First and
foremost, don't wait for inspiration to write. Just write whatever
comes into your mind – as long as you know what you are writing.
Raymond Chandler suggests, "The faster I write the better my output.
If I'm going slower, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words
instead of being pulled by them."

Don't forget to read. When I go to other countries, I usually buy
books, magazines and other publications. "Read, read, read," urges
William Faulkner. "Read everything - trash, classics, good and bad,
and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an
apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then
write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of
the window."

There is nothing new under the heat of the sun, the Ecclesiastes
writer said. Everything is already written. All you have to do is
make the subject fresh. "If you steal from one author, it's
plagiarism; if you steal from many, its research," observed Wilson
Mizner. Award-winning author James Michener echoed the same sentiment
when he said, "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent
rewriter."

Now, here are some great rules of writing from William Safire. "Do
not put statements in the negative form. And don't start sentences
with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on
rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading
and editing. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all. De-accession
euphemisms. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
linking verb is. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Last, but
not least, avoid clichés like the plague."

Now, why I like to write? As Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, Richeliue,
II puts it, "The pen is mightier than the sword."