MY FRIENDS and I have long been talking about it among ourselves after a few pitches here and there to academics capable of producing publications upon publications fell on deaf ears.
Our common dream is to have Mindanao books that are readable even to the masses and will interest all types of readers, and not just the academics.
This brings up a short discussion I had with a fellow writer when I reminded them that they have to write with brevity, where every word is of value. His reply for his tendency to write long is that because he is with the academe.
That is where he lost me. I guess that is why I never liked school.
Yes, as friends know, I hated school. I was just lucky I had a nice intelligent brain in my head, it made passing grade levels a breeze. But it didn't mean I enjoyed it. I was always looking forward to summer vacation, and every school day is a day closer to the end of the school year.
I used to just tolerate it, something I had to do and get done with that was until fifth grade when our teacher made us memorize our textbook.
That was when the seed of hatred and aversion to anything inside the classroom was planted. But of course, I'm still of the old school, and so I did not stand up and argue my case. I simply did what I do best, cruise along, and just earn enough to pass without doing as the teacher wanted. That freaked my mom out of course, because that cost me my honor student status. Mom just had to get used to that afterward, because after having the taste of not having to aspire for honors, I never did.
For me, it was such a bother. And so, I cruised along...
Until the time when I can afford to buy the relatively more expensive Philippine publications that I am hooked at and realized that it takes this indescribable addiction to even finish one. Reading Philippine publications is such an agony as you tiptoe through words so full of the author's ego, I mean, knowledge, I mean... academic expertise.
What does that leave us? A population that is not even interested to read about their own country and books that cost a lot. No readers, no books, but since publications add a feather to one's academic cap, then you print a few, and that jacks up printing cost.
Back to my friends and my dream... we dream of publishing books that aim to uplift an ordinary Mindanaoan's knowledge of his land and his people and be enjoyed at the same time. This means we will have to gather materials that are not just informative and interesting, but can sustain the reader within every person without going the way of Wattpad.
Tell the story and the readers will come.
Remember, before J.K. Rowling, children could hardly be caught picking up a book much less collect them the way we used to read and collect Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys. Even the color-coded books of Enid Blyton enjoyed massive reprinting after Harry Potter breathed magic back into book-reading.
Writing became tedious, such that reading followed suit, and soon readers petered away... leaving the bookshelves untouched, until a J.K. Rowling brought back mythical creatures in her own prose and storytelling style, everybody took notice.
We're seeing the moribund state now as Wattpad and all those romance novels dancing on the fringes of porn taking over a major space of our bookstores. We can't blame the readers. We blame the authors. Rowling wrote her stories, page per page, getting lost in the story, not in the words, not in the process, not in the loftiness of any ideals, just the story.
saestremera@yahoo.com