I AM OKAY writing my columns in silence.
Not that I really need to concentrate.
I mean, I do my thinking and reflection while having coffee.
Then, I write my columns.
And ideas just flow because I’ve already processed them.
I just need to word them in my signature newspaper voice.
To hammer away in my computer, or laptop, or iPad.
From beginning to end.
***
For the Palanca Awards, it’s a different process.
The work stays in my computer for a while.
Maybe a week, maybe a month, maybe two months even.
Well, formatting alone takes a day or two.
Editing, like computer-aided editing, can take 2 or 3, or even 5 days. Because I tend to argue with the editing suggestions. Haha.
I don’t subject my columns to computer-editing check.
So, last Monday’s ‘just’ came out as ‘juts’.
***
I also don’t have autocorrect in my iPad or computers.
Because I write in various languages, I don’t want to deal with autocorrect.
I have autocorrect in my iPhone for texting though.
***
For my Palanca entries, plural, at least for this year, I’ve used a lot of background music for writing and editing.
For writing, I used a lot of Philip Glass.
Try to listen to his music in the soundtrack of The Hours.
That movie that rewarded Nicole Kidman an Oscar for her turn as Virginia Woolf.
***
For editing, I listened to Hans Zimmer.
Music from the motion picture Inception.
That sci-fi movie with Leonardo DiCaprio entering people’s dreams and stealing their secrets.
I don’t know. These kinds of music just increase my concentration for creative writing.
***
I like how they focus me to the words that I write on the page.
But also how they inspire me.
How they touch me emotionally, stirring memories that are often useful in expanding or replacing certain scenes or points in the plot.
I have been blocked for quite a while.
No doubt affected by the frenzy of the recent elections.
***
It was a stressful campaign.
I promised myself not to be involved as much again in the future.
I mean, I was very vocal about it in the beginning.
I said that it could be my last real election.
That after that, I will leave the future of the Philippines in the hands of the new generation.
***
In my life, I could point to supporting three women in their bid for the presidency.
Cory Aquino, Leni Robredo, and… Hillary Clinton! Haha.
Recap: I was underage and couldn’t vote in 1986, but I campaigned for Cory running under the yellow banner.
I also couldn’t vote for Hillary, but I supported her candidacy with some donations.
As for Leni and her pink movement, I did tour the UK and Europe campaigning for her among expats.
So that’s that.
***
I’m still at my cousin’s in New Jersey because I really didn’t want to be mobile while working on my Palanca pieces.
I wanted a steady internet connection, a secured lodging, and just a sense of security and stability because the submission to the contest this year was online.
I know of some people who lost their mind because they tried so hard to write for the Palanca and ended up unable to submit because they didn’t have good Internet.
Haha. Poor people! Haha.
I mean, poor as in unable to pay for good internet. Bwahaha.
***
I submitted an early entry in mid-May, and I could have promptly left for my next destination.
But after the Palanca two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, I said I was going to push it and challenge myself to write and submit more entries.
I was in search of a good subject to write about for days.
My musical inspirations were the a capella boy groups.
Notably BYU Vocal Point, Vocal Spectrum, and the Vanderbilt Melodores.
***
Finally, five days before the deadline, something hit me.
Truly inspired by a song featuring the vocal stylistics of the Vanderbilt Melodores.
I cannot name it now, because I promised to keep my mouth shut regarding my Palanca entries.
But the title of one of my entries is really the title of the Melodores song.
I only added a subtitle to make it really mine.
Although, thinking about it now, I can actually do away with the song title and just keep my subtitle. Haha.
***
Anyway, after listening to that Melodores version of the song a number of times, I was so excited about the ideas contained therein and their possibilities for my work.
So, I dared myself with a 72-hour writing challenge.
I sequestered myself in the basement of my cousin’s house, had a coffeemaker handy, and hammered away a masterpiece subsisting on coffee, bananas, and peanut butter./PN
