Butch Dalisay's Top Ten

I am a Certified Wannabe Professional Writer!

Before the advent of Internet Version 2 and during my student days (but I never really stopped learning on my own) I have always thought that I have what it takes to become a good, published, professional writer.


Please ask me why, just once! I'm begging you, down on my knees! Please let me hear you ask me, why?

Back in grade 4, I wrote something on a piece of paper.  My teacher in English class brainwashed us with rhymes, stanzas, rhythm and sways. I was surprised to see the masterpiece (I call it as piece of &#*$&%^  nowadays) with a heartwarming title, Dear Teacher printed on our school newspaper which by the way was the first ever victim of La Nino.

High school era provoked me even more, made me believe that I am in fact a wannabe pro.

My teachers forced me. Actually they chose me from a gazzillion of underachieving groupies of Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder to join the essay writing contest. It was fun and at the same time horrifying because I was given the license to skip classes (teachers call this pull-outs) and join the Gang of Cerebral Elites. The organizers crammed us in ll a place with long tables, shelves with books and women from Elderly Heights to force us to write.

This activity was big time for the participants and I can see on their faces how honored they felt for being part of the Cerebral Elites. As for me, I felt humored and fortunate at the same time. Skipping classes to go through one of my favorite pass-times and rituals:

1. Imagine with words

2. Write it down

3. Read it aloud in your head

4. Erase the words that doesn't seem right

5. Read aloud in your head

6. Write it down

7. Imagine with words

All this time I would ask myself how my readers would react to what I'm saying. How I love to be lost with my imagination. Be enchanted with what my pen and my thoughts would tell me. What my heart yearns, my pen writes.Writing, writing, writing... 

The writing theme for the contest I have forgotten but God must have played with my fate. Because after a week, I have sensed that our would-be valedictorian and salutatorian, belonging to section one, were suddenly smiling at me as if we have known each other since preschool. I was a transferee the year before and in high school, you don't easily get the smile or the nod you imagined you deserved.

I won first place with the teachers giving me the grin and smirks only they could have given it best.

Oh well!     

The other day I bought Philippine Star's Issue where Butch essayed his Top Ten Tips for Wannabe Pro Writers. I have to say that his top ten is my top concern and yes, I have been wishing (with some working and a lot of dreaming!) on becoming a professional published writer.

What was included in his Top Ten for Wannabe Pro?

Please forgive me Butch for not sending you an email before I do what most of us amateur-wannabe-writer-hiding-in-the-guise-of-a-blogger-but-has-to-work-full-time-and-steal-some-precious-blogging-hours-when-opportunity-comes, copy and paste keyboard, one hit-motion, a lot of wonder (and wanders!):

1. For starters, master the language.

2. Be versatile.

3. Learn to write bilingually.

4. Leave the juvenile angst at the door.

5. Cultivate an interest and some expertise in fields beyond literature and art

6. Be a good listener, and learn how to ask the right questions.

7. Establish a network of contacts.

8. Think, look, and act like a professional.

9. Deliver quality work, on time.

10. Don’t forget what you’re doing all of this for. 

Mr. Butch' numero uno is in fact the bread and butter of any writer wannabe. I have worked on numerous blogs of my own and I get so embarrassed whenever I see my blogs littered with typos, grammatical errors and too much written-down thinking aloud thoughts (just like this one?). 

Versatility is something we Filipinos think we have but when it comes to my writing, I'm nowhere near it. When I started my pet project here, I interviewed Roberto "Bobby" Ang and had a very nice email exhanges and a chance encounter with Manny Benitez. These two men gave me their precious time and nuggets of wisdom about writing. We all know that Bobby Ang is a chess columnist at Business World while Tito Manny is a veteran journalist and has had a chess column too.

I remember very well when he told me in writing:

"Francis, you have a good writing style, witty, humorous. You just have to continue writing, reading and writing..."

I can say it's easier for me to write farther away from news reporting. I had a sports column in one of the weekly newspapers here in Cavite and the experience proved one thing for me: news reporting is uncreative.

Now that's inflexibility!

Writing bilingually is difficult. During my previous life in Morocco, I had the utmost desire to write in Filipino after my successful Philippine Chess Chronicles blog project but after some tries and fries I went into writing in English.

Oh yes Butch! I can tell you with all honesty that I have left my teenage angst way past behind me and I now go for live and let live and tomorrow gotta be the day mantra. I used to think that I need a trigger to inspire me to write but now it's just ,write, right and write.

Cultivate interests in various fields. That's very true! With my background in occupational therapy, special education and clinical educational testing, plus my experience in school set-up, I thought I have all the necessecities to write about anything and everything under the 3 stars and the sun and the whole wide universe.

Damn I was wrong!

Would you believe I have been reading Paulo Coelho books since I was in my mom's womb? (I'm lying about the womb part) and I blame his writings for my belief that life is all about his beliefs. No, no, no! Life in this world involves espionage, economics, humanities, violence, cultural activism, literary reviews, Ampatuans and Lacson hunting, Ondoy and Mayon Volcano, Obama ,Osama and Hossana's.

Kaleidoscope world it is!

Giving good questions and listening well. Here's a very common description I often get get "perceptive!" I know it's a tool any writer can make use of.

Establish a network of contacts. That I am very bad at because I should know which contact I should make. The contacts I should nurture and the contacts I should promote. The blogosphere has shown me the good and bad sides of networking.

Think, look and act professionally. Until I get to the point where I know I'm ready to rumble with the pros...

Deliver.

Never forget the reason.

Dear Butch,

In a nutshell I am a work in progress! Thank you for writing the Top Ten and I'm sure you have enlightened the darkness that shadows the writer's mind.

Sincerely yours,

The Brown Man.

P.S. Sorry if you had to go thru the most sickening article you have ever read in your entire life due to all the technicalities only masters like you will ever understand and appreciate. To air my side (again!), I started working on this at around 430 in the afternoon but had to buy IV fluids for my sick young son, wash the dishes, give bath to my two sons (one is sick, one is not) and have dinner with all of them. Of course I have not informed you that I am also a certified chess addict and had to spend 3 hours of lightning chess at FICS 
while figuring out on how write this aha-moment of mine:  Pro Writer!