My answer to this frequently asked question.

 I know I don't usually do these long, photo-less posts that tell more than they show, but I thought that this would be worth the flack I could get for writing an opinion-type post on a blog like this to be able to get people to stop asking me this question and hopefully help a brother or sister out  because I know this question is being asked out of want to know.

Lately, the question I've been asked the most is "How do you write?" This is not asked in the context of the actual process of writing but in terms finding the will power to sit down and write. The hilarious thing is that I'm getting asked this by people who are part of writing organizations and who already claim to be "in love" with writing--great people who frequent booklaunches and readings and make up a huge part of the book community. And yeah. This is my answer to that.

There is nothing to it but to do it. The difficult thing about writing is the tedious work that goes into looking for words and trying arrangement after arrangement but if you really want to write, it shouldn't be difficult to sit yourself down and do it. The thing about writing is that (contrary to this upsetting image of the writer as someone with a constant influx of inspiration) it is meticulous. Work is .005% inspiration (seriously, I abhor this word) and 99.995% hard work and taking time to engage in the text you're trying to produce.

But I'm so busy is one of the complaints I've heard most often and all I can say to that is that yes, everyone is busy. Yes, we all have jobs or school or are unemployed and/or are too busy being students of life. I don't mean to downplay how little time we have, I mean to question what you are doing with your time. If you have time to go on Tumblr or to spend an hour and a half telling me about your story concept--complete with character backgrounds, how you were influenced by Tolkien and portraits of the ancestry of House Targaryen and how this could be a spin-off of that--then you have time to sit down and write a couple of paragraphs a night. If you have time to spend in Character Creation mode deciding the distance of your Sim's nose from her mouth, you have time to sit down and write. Think of how many times a week you go out with your friends and sit down and order a beer and talk about something you already talked about yesterday and try to lessen that by one or two days. Or get up an hour early to write; you could also go to bed thirty minutes later and scribbling down a couple of things a night.

Next to this, the next most frequent complaint (I don't want to use the word excuse) I've heard is But I don't like being alone. Well. Whether you like it or not, writing takes place alone. Ours is a craft that deals with arranging words and getting in your head and immersion in the details of what you're trying to create. If you're wondering why you can't write while playing video games or while head-banging at The Collective it's because you are being distracted by the situation you put yourself in. Writing (and creation in general) is not a means to the end of being happy and wonderful--it's an end in itself and I think sometimes people forget that. More than desire or lightning-bolt ideas you need discipline.

[Also, I don't mean I'm not open to talking about work--I'm amenable to talking about work you have already created and let me read, but I don't like editing concepts where you have made no choices yet. Elvis said it most accurately, I think: A little less conversation, a little more action please.]

Lastly, I'd like to address the It's so depressing though reaction which makes me feel like hacking off my toes and dropping them into someone's iced tea. One of the things I like about writing is that it allows you to meet sadness or whatever emotion you can't deal with half-way. It allows me to deal with difficult ideas and terrifying fears and I don't know what you would write about without that (as David Foster Wallace put it) constant, gnawing pain that human beings are going through. My Harry Potter professor, Ms. Sangil told us that fantasy fiction is about facing your fears and not about running away from them. Harry doesn't run away from the Basilisk, he runs toward it. So to write you must also be brave enough to face your fears. 

And if you don't want to do that, then maybe writing isn't for you. I don't mean that in a mean or condescending way either--I just mean it honestly. To each his own. There are so many other ways to get creative and keep learning and thrive as a human being. I think a lot of the time we nerds put ourselves in these roles or positions of pressure--we hang out with people who create so we feel like we have to as well or we join writing organizations and we feel like we've signed some kind of contract in blood even if I've found, a lot of these people are interested in literary work but don't really enjoy writing it. And that's okay. I'm saying this for you to at least consider--I'm asking you this so that you can make a choice (because writing is a choice) and live by it. The literary community is made up of both writers and readers and writers who are readers and the great thing about it is that you can choose what role you want to fulfill. Meditate, evaluate, do it. Life is short so why spend time complaining about how you can't write when you could be writing or doing something else you find fulfilling? 

Anyway, if you've read this I hope that this was helpful. I tried to be as frank and as honest as possible. I will also no longer be entertaining questions like this (How do you write? Where do you get inspiration from?--the answer to which, by the way, is that I don't believe in it--How do you get past writer's block?) as well as comments synonymous to: Buti ka pa, may oras magsulat ako nga rin sana kaso--hirap ng corporate eh, busy or You're so lucky you can still write. I would write but gah, I keep getting drunk and falling asleep. :)) I really hope this helped!