Heartbreak and Rogue magazine April 2012 (Katrina Stuart Santiago's article)

I am heartbroken. It’s over. He doesn’t love me anymore. After all we've been through, he decides he wants to move on. After leaving me dangling for a while he finally decides to leave. Okay, it’s not a guy I’m talking here. But it feels the same. It’s about a story that was rejected by an editor for an anthology.

It ended with a sugarcoated e-mail. I was tempted to answer with, “Though I was saddened that I wasn’t picked,...” . I didn’t. I decided to do a Karylle when Dingdong dumped him for someone. I tried to reply with class and exude nonchalance, so I wrote a polite thank you and wished them well, even if I was silently devastated.

I had stories rejected in the past and I had some essays published. But I don’t remember the published ones anymore. I only remember the silence that followed after laboring on my first piece of short story that I courageously submitted in the only remaining literary magazine in the country that is still in print. I browsed in the bookstore every week to see if my story was published but few weeks passed but nothing came up. Then I scrutinized every story that made the cut, observed their impressive eloquence and mind-rending descriptions and I knew my pitiful story won’t see the light of day.

Just the fact that I deeply labored  on it and was rejected was crushing. I didn’t cry copious tears and tore my hair out but I slipped to a melancholy phase like what I’m doing now. I was heartbroken, I just wanted to sleep, stare at the ceiling, mope and tell myself that the next time would be better, for now I have to pick myself and write another one.

I have tried to polish my craft, read books on writing and even attended one short story workshop where the facilitator, an award winning writer who was always late didn’t contribute much to give us tips on writing. He just told us to read the classics and watch Italian or French films to learn how to write descriptively. He was a little full of himself too. And I paid P4,000 to listen to this self-centered nerd.

My husband asks me, why do I waste my time writing for a literary magazine that has low readership, one the  so called “educated” intellectual snobs patronize. I don’t care. You’re not a writer if these literary gods don’t publish you, I tell him. I want that validation as a writer. Yeah, even if almost nobody reads it, he scoffs.

Well, if an actress in Hollywood salivates for an Oscar, I want a Palanca for myself. Why not? Can’t I dream? But I guess my gift for erudition is not as wide as the other Palanca winners, maybe I’m more of a genre writer whatever that is.

So here I am, telling myself to write as I am, emotional, sarcastic, did I say emotional again..to write as I want to not someone else’s idea how I should write. Maybe that’s not the best way to write short stories though because the “right” way according to experts is to show it, not say it, put forth nuances for effect. Duh, I don’t write that way, I’ll tell it as I see it. Well, I guess that doesn’t work for this medium. I don’t have to tell how the character is feeling, let the reader decipher between the lines, let them find their way in the story. Maybe I was wrong. Wow, that feels awful, thank you. The urge to mope is at it again.

And even if I write the way I want to, the dream of having a writing award someday will still haunt me.  Argh! But maybe being read by more people and appreciated for it will compensate for that. And the question I grapple with is, do I push myself in a medium that doesn’t accept me or do I stick to one that accepts me for me, one that I can be myself ? Should I give up my dream of writing a great story or push forward despite the rejections?  

That’s hard. As a writer, you want to think that you can not only write your thoughts on certain topics but you can tell a story too. I want to read my words on an effin paper not just on a computer or tablet screen. Maybe I’m being stubborn, sentimental but I want my name on paper, to be kept and held on to. That’s why I’ll keep on submitting these stories and reading on ways how to tell effectively it. It is a dream, my dream, but is it like a man I love that doesn’t love me back after I tried so hard?

Then like a balm to my broken heart, I came across this article from Rogue magazine(April 2012 issue) titled, “Burn after Reading” by Katrina Stuart Santiago about her take on the Philippine Literary scene.  I was wandering and moping in National Bookstore when I saw it on the cover and she writes:

“ There is much to be said about the probability that the writer who has not done any of the writing workshops, has not come out with a book with any of the commercial and academic publishing houses, has not taught at one of the four major Manila universities in the past five years, has not won any major writing prize…would be brushed off as a non-writer. Or just a not-one-of-us, the ”us” being the writing community-the literati-in the third-world Philippines”

Ouch. Okay, my prose may be far from seamless and still needs work but having a literary “mafia” as an added obstacle for publication is a bit too much. How can I ever find myself in the hallowed land of literary distinction, now I’m more depressed.

“The years have taught me that right here what operates is an unspoken/unconscious/unexplained set of rules that have nothing to do with writing skill or literary merit. Right here, what operates is a togetherness premised on friendships…a fascinating  display of parochialism and patronage”

Great. Maybe my work isn’t that bad, hmm…

“It is in these instances that it becomes clear that you’re not one of “them” and it takes a while before your realize that there is much freedom in being away-far far away-..from the house that literature built. …Because  it means that you dare grow up, you dare stand by writing with which not many might agree, but for which you do find readers.”

Maybe my realization during my moping moments was right, I should write the way I want to. Be myself even if others like it or not and if they do, if they do like it, it will both be a privilege and a pleasure to write for these people.

“This is why the Pinoy reading public doesn’t care about the literati. It’s because the literati doesn’t care about these readers. And that’s you, the Harry Potter, Hunger-Games reading public, you.”

Wow. My husband was right. Why should I whine and pine about these snobs who don’t care what the public wants to read. For these people, they define what the public should read. Talk about being high and mighty.

But I don’t want to solely blame this literati obstacle for the non-publication of my stories. I know I still need improvement.And knowing about this big literati opposition makes me want to become a better writer. Because being good is not good enough, it should be the best I can craft in, meaning more work, more time spent polishing my stories. And at the same time, I should also find other venues like websites that might be interested in my stories. I should not close my doors on internet publishing because I’ve also read in Rogue that Amazon’s ebook sales have surpassed the sales of traditional paperbacks. That’ something I should ponder on as well. Hmm…