The Hounds of Writing and Coffee

My favorite Filipino cartoonist Pol Medina, Jr. mentioned something in his tenth anniversary book issue of Pugad Baboy that struck a chord. He said it took him ten years to learn to really love what he was doing as a cartoonist. I can honestly say that I know how he felt.

I never wanted to be a writer. It just so happened that every single job I got gave me a boss who required me to moonlight as a writer on top of my major work load. It was as if the art of writing was hounding me and would not give me peace until I had dipped my pen in an inkwell and drank my daily gallon of coffee. It’s not that I hate writing. It’s just that I don’t like it as a job as much as talking volumes in a seminar, hiring and firing people and draining my brains dry in labor disputes. So what am I doing here in a new job where I have to sit for most of the day writing numerous articles that are so long that War and Peace is considered comparatively short? Gee, I don’t know. It’s either I want to punish myself in reparation for my sins or writing is growing on me like fungi.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as any of those Carlos Palanca awardees who write so well that anyone who reads their works ends up thinking he’s stupid. I think though that I have finally accepted my lot in life. I will always be a writer and people will always expect me to write.

This is probably why I have decided to use my skills while waiting for a better opportunity to once more strike terror in the hearts of job applicants and employees. Seriously, a group has kindly offered to take me in so I can feed them literary fodder of my own concoction that even my own mother probably wouldn’t like to read.

Yes, I have yet again broken a personal rule. I have shoved my arms deep in the bowels of Friendster and decided to call a truce. If you know me, you would also know that I loathe Friendster and have waged a war against it since the irreverent virtual web gave birth to it. I am however solely in it for the group bolpen@kape and my handful of other friends that I can literally count in one hand. The members of this group are thankfully not literary titans who could eat me whole like a fetus. I take comfort in the fact that I at least have some borderline normal people I share something in common with. Just like me, they are also prey to the hounds of writing and the allure of coffee. We will not have any peace until we take up a pen (or laptop) and scribble (while drinking coffee).

That’s our table over there (although it does look a little too peaceful to be a writer’s table). If you want to own that table too, check out bolpen@kape.