m a n i l a g i r l

I'm borrowing this style from one of my fave writers, rainier maria rilke, from his book "letters to a young poet" (see the moving stephen mitchell translation at http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html). I write to my friend and fellow fledgling artist Dadah Lopez about the experience of recovering our creative selves:


Hey, Dadah! Oh my God (OMG) - that was my reaction while reading your email or "testimonial" (as they call it in our christian circles). When you get back to work tonight, you might say OMG too. Yup...someone's listening and someone's very, very happy reading about your thoughts and your state of being right now...me! I am sooooooo happy for you, Dah! I came to pretty much the same conclusions and the same turbulent emotions you've written about during my last few weeks in Peoplesupport (PS).

Dear, GO FOR IT!!! I believe there is no one who can say "no" to what we really want to do, if we really WANT/NEED to do it and we work ceaselessly at it. I put emphasis on those two words because, in the last few days i've been out of PS (and out of work for the meantime) i've realized some very important things. You really have to want your vision, your dream very badly, envision it as your way of life or a part of your life. YOU, first and foremost have to BELIEVE IT WILL HAPPEN and YOU can make it happen. You drive your dreams, but you most likely will need help from other people making them come true. you can get depressed because of what your mom/dad/sister/best friend says about yur dreams, but after that episode, you gotta pick yourself up and get going again, get a move on towards those dreams. you have to screen what voices you're gonna listen to, and the most important of course, is your own true artistic voice. these are what I've been gong thru the past couple of days after PS.

There are many excuses not to do the things that we want and need to do for ourselves and for other people. We have to constantly remind ourselves that IT IS MORE THAN WORTH IT. I believe, in essence, artists are people who see possibilities and work towards making those part of our reality. Just go ahead and keep seeing your possibilities, Dah!

To start you off, you might be interested to know that the Adarna Publishing House is calling for all-new children's stories. I'm interested in writing a story, maybe my older sis will want to do the drawings or maybe you'd want to give it a go yourself? Maybe you'd want to write and draw an entire children's story on your own, too! Why not?

You might also be interested in writing or arts classes this coming semester. There are also short courses (like in ayala museum). If you'd like to go for the college setting instead to get your feet wet for now and see where your road leads you, ask the Ateneo de Manila University's (AdMU) Loyola Schools' Communications or Fine Arts (FA) departments for course offerings. I know for a fact that the FA Dept. will have painting classes this coming semester, by the way. There's also the Creative Writing Dept. of the University of the Philippines. These are all great support in your dreams, but ONLY YOU can gauge which will be best for you. As you go along, if you have questions or just want to shoot the breeze with someone to narrow down your options, I will be there for you. WE ARTISTS HAVE TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER!

If you go for the AdMU, I'll see you there this second sem! I've been accepted back for audit courses and I'll pick up my special student form from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (ADAA) by Tuesday. I'll also confirm my slot with the FA Department (1 creative writing non-fiction seminar by Karla Delgado-Yulo and 1 class in Philippine Visual Arts that's held in the UP Diliman campus. Those two classes, a photography workshop AND writing work for now. So far, haven't emailed any resumes to dailies, mags or publishing houses. If worse comes to worst and absolutely NONE of them take me on as a fledgling or writer-in-training even, then I can do english tutoring for foreigners for the meantime. That ought to be interesting and flexible enough while i do more writing. That's another thing i'm learning about - contigency/backup/plan B plans are an absolute MUST for artists!