Writing For Bread... Not Anymore

I can't remember the last time I've written for pleasure. When I said "pleasure" I meant outside the perimeters of the obligation of work. Most people have the common misunderstanding that writers always love what they do as long as they churn out words, thus factoring out concepts of interests and mood. The latter item, I am more weary. I remembered the time I asked Prof. Charlson Ong, my creative writing instructor, about his greatest inspiration in writing. With no regrets, he spat "deadline" on our faces. Truly, I who've been working in the publishing industry have been struggling to love deadline as inspiration. And it's hard, freaking hard.

It's weird that the creative industry has shifted its focus from what people can produce to how fast they could churn out products. I envy artists who can take the backseat and impose own deadlines for their creations without the fear of getting broke the other day. For one to become a full-time artist, it's either one's born with a silver spoon in his/her mouth or one's a great risk taker - "the stereotypical I don't give a fuck on money as long as I love what I do" artist. It pays to be idealistic and subversive but how can we pursue our passions without money to back us up?



In my previous blog (which I hid), I've been vocal about my dreams of becoming a filmmaker. I revealed my first steps e.g. my acceptance to the UP Film Institute as a MA Film student, and documented each production that I enjoyed doing immensely. Inserting my filmography in my curriculum vitae was nirvana but there came a time that I should slow down and check out what's practical. Getting a job first came into mind and leaving the program was never in my option.

I entered the whirlwind magazine industry as a writer. It was overwhelming; I felt I wasted two semesters of enrolled subjects, not to mention, the cleanliness of my transcript of records in graduate school.

How would I write a screenplay, a theoretical framework of my masters thesis production, if at the back of my head is a great question mark, a big puzzle piece of what I should write for the publication, including for weekends? (I have enough reasons to applaud journalists.) Suddenly, I couldn't write the things I really wanted to write. I feared that I'd start to hate writing, the art form that kept me stood still during the time I was wallowing in college. The words wouldn't flow. I would say I deteriorated and I felt helpless about my own capacity as a writer or as a creative human being.

Balancing my idealism and commercial ruminations is a death-defying ordeal. It's either I'll join the dog-eat-dog world my film-colleagues loathe or get contented with what the mainstream world I usually criticize. The mainstream world gives me dough, my passion for films gives me the reason to have that dough. But then, I won't write for a living now. My words will start flowing for this blog and my script. Maybe this time things will work good. My fingers crossed.