HOW DID you discover that you have the passion and the talent for writing?
In life, we all compensate in one way or another. If we are not pretty enough, we try to be smarter and/or talented.
In my case, I do not just compensate; I always overcompensate! I knew I was not going to be voted as Class Consort in Grade 1, so I ran for Class President. And to prove my worth, I tried to be the smartest, and most talented.
I couldn’t sing as good as our class singer, but I could move my hips a la John Travolta in “Grease” and “Saturday Night Fever.” Also in Grade 1, I won some national competition in poster making, but I knew I got the prize more for my ideas and slogan than for my drawing skills.
In Grade 3, I was first published in our school paper. It clarified for me then (before we had video cameras) that literature is permanent; dance is ephemeral, transient, temporary.
I started in competitive writing via the essay writing contests from Grades 4-6; and in high school, it was the whole gamut of campus journalism. I was winning these writing contests left and right, and it effectively boosted my confidence and literary ambitions.
I was editor-in-chief at the University of the Philippines when I was in college! But in college, I also met people who were more literary than journalistically inclined. That began my journey in writing literature like poetry, fiction, and plays.
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What do you usually do when you write? Could you share with us your routine when you’re writing your plays, poems, and stories?
There’s literature on the go (which I do a lot on social media), and there’s big letter “L” Literature for me that involves a lot of planning and revisions because I want them to survive 20, maybe 50 years. It can happen that I may start and write an instapoem for social media, but the poem idea can be so inspired that a few days or weeks later, I may work on it more to make it perfect for a museum, or a literature class discussion.
I think a lot in the morning after my prayers, usually when I’m having my coffee. I don’t go with all the ideas that buzz around me; some of them are clearly just crap. But when something new or refreshing or innovative crosses my mind, I make notes.
I brew these ideas in my mind for a few days. I try to imagine how the story unfolds. And when I have a complete story arc (beginning, ending, and maybe some middle), I start to write. I do a lot of research as I write.
Wikipedia and online dictionaries are my friends. The New Oxford American Dictionary is the default dictionary that Google search provides me. Sometimes, what I discover in my research leads me to a different direction, maybe even a different ending. That is fun. If it leads to nowhere, I just go back to my original story arc.
If the piece is for a competition, I spend more time revising and editing it. One or two times for paragraphing, punctuation, and font styling. (Does a certain word need to be italicized, or should it be in quotation marks; single, or double, quotation marks?). Three or four times for grammar check. Two or three times for vocabulary and nuances of the word. (Is it ‘transient’ or ‘transitory’? Why not ‘ephemeral’? Why not use all three?).
Then, I give it a rest for a day or three, or even a week. Then, I edit it again with cruel new eyes, like a loveless editor angry at the world, and just out to find the littlest mistakes.
I can stay three days with a poem; maybe a week to 10 days with a short story; for a play, maybe two weeks for one-act, and three weeks to a month for full-length. A short film script is like a poem to me: either I have the idea down in two days, or I don’t have a story. A full-length feature is like a full-length play; I need at least 21 days to get everything down.
I almost always don’t get bogged down in the middle of a story. Because I don’t start until I have my complete arc (even if it is just the beginning and the ending, and a vague middle).
Usually, I just wait for my instincts to tell me that I have a story that already insists to be written. So it can happen that an idea comes to me on a Monday, and I think about it until Wednesday, maybe research more about it on Thursday, and then rush to writing on Friday, maybe work until Saturday, so that I can be done by Sunday.
I like a sense of deadline. And Sunday is good for me so that I can open up myself to a new idea by Monday. I am a writer 24/7 that way, even if I just sit and do nothing (except thinking of possibilities and story arcs) until about Thursday.
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At a young age, you have already achieved what someone else would take a lifetime to accomplish. With all of your achievements, do you think the Peter Solis Nery still has something to prove, and why?
The noble answer is, “I do not have to prove anything to anyone anymore.”
But really, as an artist, I still feel driven to substantiate all the praises and honors given to me, and all the claims I have made myself as a literary celebrity.
What keeps me young as a person, and as an artist, are my great enthusiasm to create, and my drive to challenge stereotypes and status quos. Part of me still wants to prove that I can adapt, and even thrive, in this new century.
As a writer and reader, I have seen how literature and readership have changed over the last 30 years, and I am determined to stay relevant in the literary discourse of this new century. I think such tenacity has earned me the iconic particularizing determiner ‘the’ in The Peter Solis Nery.
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Of the dozens of poems, stories, and plays that you have written, what would you consider your magnum opus, and why?
I really think that it should be “Kakunyag: The 100 Erotic Sonnets in Hiligaynon.” Its English translation “100 Erotic Sonnets from the Hiligaynon” is fine. But the scandal and audacity of the original 100 erotic sonnets in Hiligaynon is something that I really cherish as Western Visayas’ premier agent provocateur. I mean, the 100 erotic sonnets is a record-setting achievement in Hiligaynon literature!
A lot of people want to bury that sonnet-sequence feat, so I promote “Lirio,” the most successful (and now often copied) short story in Philippine magic realism.
“Lirio” is taught in Philippine high schools so I have no complaint. Although I must add that some ballsy teachers of 21st century literature are actually teaching some of my erotic sonnets as these are actually popular with high school students, and teachers (!).
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What tips could you give to aspiring writers?
The greatest is this quote of mine that has already made the rounds of social media: “In order to change the heart and mind of your readers, you have to write about your truth — your own truth, borne of your time.”
At 52 now, I have clarified that all great literature must aim to transform its readers. But writers can only achieve great literature if they imbue their writing with authenticity, compassion, and generosity of spirit.
I think I have become an icon of literature because readers can recognize and feel these elements in all of my work, even in my most mundane Facebook posts. Readers can imagine, for example, the humiliation, ridicule, and rejection that I had to endure to produce and publish the erotic sonnets in the early part of this new millennium. But I was willing to sacrifice myself and my reputation (!) so I could liberate my readers, and even inspire the new generation of writers with my audacity and passion, with my commitment to Literature and not to the ephemeral and fast-changing morals of the society from where I write./PN
