THE trouble with solid persons like me is that people expect great things from us.
And to maintain this greatness, I try to deliver.
All the time.
I show integrity, commitment, and productivity.
And that can be exhausting.
But not unfulfilling.
***
Occasionally, I feel that the world is ungrateful.
But people’s gratitude or ingratitude has nothing to do with why I do things.
I want to be honest because it is not a common virtue in today’s world.
I want to be dedicated because I feel that people need to be inspired to commit to a vision, and to persevere.
And I continue to produce because I still can.
***
Last week was Palanca deadline.
I have entertained the thought of taking a break from the competition this year.
But over the Iloilo Book Fair in April, I met some people who kept on bringing up the Palanca Awards.
Would I be judging this year?
Would I be competing?
Those questions made me write at least two entries.
***
To distract myself in May, I went back to writing erotic poetry.
While in Sweden last year, I started to write erotic poems.
I thought that I should write about the boys and men I met while on my post-pandemic travel.
The writing went slow.
I was minding the train stops, deciphering the language, learning the culture, and enjoying tourism.
And while I tried to hook up with locals, I could not really be sleeping with all the people I meet in my travels.
***
Of course, from the looks of it, I did f*ck my way around Europe.
Take for example the sex on the train poems.
Did they really happen?
Would ThePSN dare?
What if the answer is yes?
***
What if, in keeping with integrity, commitment, and productivity, I did have sex aboard the trains?
Is a quick hand job really so unbelievable in a midnight train to Hamburg?
And that, I think, is the beauty of my new 100 erotic poems.
Because unlike the 2005 erotic sonnets, these erotica of 2020s are my lived experience, not just flights of the imagination
***
Okay, it may happen that in some poems, I was just going to the toilet.
But if the erotic seduction is complete before I follow the gorgeous Bulgarian to the direction of the bathroom, isn’t that material enough for poetry?
***
On the day of the Palanca deadline, I was in the city with an idea for a story.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon, eleven hours before the deadline.
I was with friends, and I couldn’t decide if I should write the story or not.
I showed them the first two pages (all that I’ve written), and they asked, Where is the rest of this?
I told them, I haven’t written it yet.
So, they set up a chair and a table for me, even put the air conditioning on, closed the door, and admonished me to write to the finish.
***
I was a little tired from all my writing already—this column (no breaks, three times a week), the weekend Frontpage (whether they are printed or not), my erotica (in the lower 90s now, for a goal of 100), and my 2023 Palanca entries (plural).
Did I want to further pluralize my Palanca entries?
But the adrenaline rush during the Palanca deadline is different.
The ideas are just all glowing in their brilliance.
My brain is about to explode.
***
And the writer in me is crying, Why are these great ideas coming now eleven hours before deadline?
Why didn’t they come to me like two days ago, or a week ago, or two months ago when I had time?
But as a contest writer, this is what happens.
Some of my greatest works are products of cramming and last minute magic.
***
And still, I would advise revision, polishing.
Because it has also happened that a rush effort did not land a prize in the year that it was written.
And in the following year, I worked on it, tweaking it a little bit, resubmitted it, and it won first prize.
Caveat: maybe last minute magic only favors the veteran writers who already know their grammar and craft.
***
By 7:17 in the evening, I have finished the first draft.
Formatting, grammar check, file conversion from word to the required PDF took a while.
But I couldn’t concentrate.
While checking for grammar, I was also expanding the story as ideas fed me more ideas.
Until I said, Enough.
By 9:30, I was on my final draft.
***
My writing journey for Palanca 2023 continues in my next column as “Great Expectations 2: The Poet” (To be continued)/PN
