Driving My Novel

12 April 2007

These days I divide my time between
practicing my driving and revising/rewriting my novel. And because I
am one of those people who like relating certain things in her life
to make them a coherent whole, I have been thinking about how the two
things are the same in concept.

For several mornings now, I would be
found in the driver’s seat, taming a wild green beast to abide by
my instructions. Go right, damn beast, and slowly, s—l—o—w—l—y
stop. There, there. My father tells me that it is all about control.
I should know where I’m going then learn to control the beast so it
could go where I will it.

I have long ago already diagnosed
myself with having a problem with my motor skills. This is the only
reason I could come up with for my eternal clumsiness: bumping into
inanimate objects, dropping glasses and things breakable, tripping on
my own feet. I never learned to dance. Any kind. I do not play any
sports despite my best efforts to try and live up to my “athletic
built.” I could never coordinate the arm movements with the leg.
Somehow I could focus on the arms and do it perfectly, or the legs
and again do it perfectly, but put them together and I’d be a
complete mess. In truth, I am just grateful that PE classes ended
years ago.

And so knowing all these things about
myself, I have mentally prepared myself for long and grueling hours
to train my arms and legs to work in coordination. It has to be done.
The beast has to be tamed and conquered for it to serve me. And I
will be served.

In the afternoon I sit in front of my
computer, taming words and images and thoughts and emotions. I will
them to listen and obey. They are beasts of my own doing and I have
to guide them to go slowly lest they hit something so precious that I
could not bring back to life. And so I have to be careful with words
as with cars.

Taming of words is something that I am
more used to. It is graceful dancing at best and trying not to trip
on one’s own feet at worst. It is making an effort to not be clumsy
in handling one’s characters in various situations lest they get
offended and all run away. It is being aware of what lacks in each
scene and how to go about filling it, just like driving is being
aware of all that is happening outside the comforts of the
air-conditioned car and how to go about responding to them.

It is ten years now since I first made
a vow that mine will be a writing life. I still bump into imaginary
objects more often than I care to remember, get stuck, break things
that shouldn’t be broken. I have not yet stopped learning the
maneuverings of words, putting them together so as not to come up
with a complete mess of a story. I have accepted that it will be a
life-long process. I will have to coordinate arms and legs and entire
lives of people who breathe and hurt and weep in my mind even as I
eat and sleep and weep in my own life. It is like feeling the
steering wheel in one’s hands again for the very first time every
time in every story. My novel feels like a journey that I started
with much excitement feeling its immense power tingling at my
fingertips, and yet that same power scares me with its very
potential. Its destination is still unsure until the last word has
been written. But I will get there.

It is perhaps no coincidence that I
should meet with my thesis mentor on the 9^th of April,
Araw ng Kagitingan. I needed all the kagitingan I could muster to
finally discuss my most ambitious literary undertaking so far with
the man who would be the judge of its worthiness. This beast of a
novel that I have been wrestling with for some time now and still
won’t let me rest. After pointing out some inconsistencies, a
number of unclear matters, technical issues, my mentor answered most
of my questions with, “It’s up to you. It’s your story.” I
whined but I knew that I will have to do the taming myself even
before the questions were out of my mouth. He tells me I should know
where my story is headed. That’s the only way I can control the
beast and let it be what I will it. Everything is in my control,
after all, as long as I know in which direction to steer.