[CLASS] #5: Wednesday July 29th Class

1st Section: Lawrence Ypil & Approaching Vulnerability

Our class began with another guest speaker - Lawrence Ypil, a Filipino poet, essayist and nonfiction teacher based in Singapore. He likes to create musical essays and focuses on the rhythm on a line-by-line basis.

I was delighted to discover he was a Filipino author. While I know they certainly exist out there, I haven't actively searched for them. I think this is because of my misguided belief that they're "rare".

A stereotype about Asians is that our parents encourage (at the lightest, anyway) us to pursue careers with 'guaranteed' success, like doctors or lawyers. They generally have an aversion towards creative careers like art and writing, because there isn't guaranteed success in those areas. But it is quite amusing to see that my sister and I are pursuing music and writing, respectively.

Back in Year 12 when I was applying for university courses, I was disappointed when my parents encouraged me to stray from my writing path, instead to go for Graphic Design or Architecture, since I had expertise in drawing for both of those forms, and an animation style too. I was especially dismayed when an Asian female teacher discouraged me, albeit in her light-hearted way, from writing because I had a fantastic Visual Communication and Design folio. It truly felt like they... just didn't believe in me.

So seeing an Asian guest speaker, much less a Filipino one, was a very well-appreciated event in today's class. Similar to Nicole Walker, I wrote up a small Pomodoro-timed reflection. Here it is!

"In his interview, Lawrence's piece of advice for nonfiction beginners was that powerful writing comes from things that leave us a bit vulnerable. We have to get to the precipice of saying something we know will be painful, but it means you're on the verge of writing something great. I actually realised this advice yesterday, when writing up draft fragments for what I think will be my memoir essay.

I've always strayed from writing sincere, raw emotion, because I was afraid of exposing myself in that way, like it's somehow wrong to do. It's like admitting a bad habit to the world - what could I expect to receive than shame and exile? I think this sentiment grew from the way my mother used to lecture me, "Do you want your classmates to know you're still doing (bad/childish habit)?! What do you think you're going to say?" as a technique to get me to stop.

Ironically, me censoring out that bad/childish habit is exactly the opposite of what I should be doing. It's probably drinking baby formula in Grade 1 when I was making it for my sister, preparing two bottles for the both of us. There. Better.

I used to be more interested in just the normal fantasy-type stories, usually preaching friendship as the Most Powerful Force(TM) of all time (see My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) but since reaching Year 12, I've become more invested in slice of life stories, exploring the complexities and interconnectedness of human relationships. It grips me to see raw emotion on the page, even if it might be a taboo thing, because honesty is very gripping and hooks the reader in. After all, writers usually tend to write what they know so it seems likely that their content (fictional or otherwise) comes from their own experiences.

I feel like in yesterday's post of drafted fragments, I really opened myself up. In the Impulse section, I felt like I had revealed the "shameful" side of me, a person in a committed long distance relationship, growing desperate in quarantine and using a gay guy friend she crushes on for her own desires.

It's truthful. Painfully sincere. Possibly even relatable.

A similarly relatable sentiment is seen expressed in the previous section, Temptation, when the writer "switches to Chrome on her phone and opens an incognito tab", clearly implying that masturbation is soon to follow. It's a normal and natural human activity. While it might seem like a lesser thing in comparison to the writer's usage of a male friend for her desires, it is still a big leap for me to write about, especially coming from a fairly conservative Asian family. It means a lot to have it down on the page.

After writing all of those paragraphs just now, it makes me really want to perfectly capture the conflict within the writer's self as part of the irregular, yet relatable behaviour she's examining/observing in Covid-times... hmm. Something to keep in mind, in any case.

Gah. I kinda just realised this Pomodoro just turned into reflecting on yesterday's post. I mean, I guess it's a productive thing. Knowing you're at the precipice, wondering whether to write that thing that's making you uncomfortable, means you're on the right track and you should go for it. I hope to experience more of that feeling in my writing in the future."

2nd Section: Check-in with Justine

Today I got to have my first one-on-one check-in with my editor, Justine! I know she's reading my blog, so, hi Justine~! Hehe. And if you're not Justine, well hi to you all the same!

We exchanged some great ideas on how I could approach my writing, such as using the Pomodoro technique. I was flustered that she noted, from my very passionate Pomodoro piece about Nicole Walker's interview, that I was an architect in the Architect versus Gardener divide, that I prefer to go into my work with a plan. But admittedly, over musing on it more after the session, I'm a little bit of both, I think. I tend to overwrite immensely (last semester, scored about 3000 words on a 1500 word essay, hehe). I have to rewrite and scale the original bloated piece to a much nicer shape, like a gardener trimming down a nice hedge.

I was especially struck by Justine's advice that trying to force research in now, at this early stage, could cannibalise my natural writing. This was particularly thought provoking as I explained the catch-22 it was easy to get trapped in - "I should do research but I can't be motivated to and I just want to write, BUT I'd feel bad doing the writing BEFORE doing any research"... this sentiment came from Lawrence describing how conducting research was usually the last thing he would want to do, treating it as a last resort sort of deal. For now though, I think approaching the Friday class with just what I have to offer should be enough for this busy week.

The last noteworthy point was Justine asking me how language has evolved over the past year, and where it was moving. She referenced "social distancing" and "contact tracing", two terms that I said in my first post that have entered our vernacular, which in turn was I believe inspired by one of Shane's semester 1 pieces. She asked me to consider how the language in this piece would compare to how I wrote last year at the same time.

I'm... not necessarily sure as of yet, but I do feel there would be an undercurrent of frustration and a somewhat defeatist attitude in the essay I plan to write in the upcoming weeks. That's the feeling I believe has gotta be running through it. I want the reader to feel as frustrated as the narrator. I need to establish that emotive link that should be easy to do, given we're all living through similar times.

Anyway... it's now Thursday, 12am. Time to wrap this up. Hyper link my references and I should be golden. Goodnight!!

-Katie, the Plague Wanderer