00:00 Music is my passion. I keep telling people.
00:03 I worship musicians, not writers or directors.
00:07 Wherever I am now, everything started with diet.
00:23 Even if I had a love-hate relationship with diet,
00:27 especially when I stopped eating diet,
00:29 but in the end, it's all diet.
00:31 My first paycheck was when I was in 4th year high school.
00:34 I read in the Filipino Free Press that they will pay.
00:38 Even though they are new writers,
00:40 they are looking for short stories that they can publish.
00:43 I adapted the legend of Mayan Volcano into a short story.
00:47 I didn't know how to type.
00:48 I was typing in Typewriter Repair Shop in Canto.
00:51 I also typed a letter to the editor of the Filipino Free Press, Ben Medina,
00:57 saying that I was just an orphan,
00:59 and that I really wanted to write,
01:01 that I really wanted to go to Manila.
01:03 I think she felt sorry for me because of the beauty of my writing,
01:07 more than the beauty of my short story.
01:09 I'm sure there are a lot of corrections in short stories.
01:12 She accepted my short story,
01:14 until eventually I saw the magazine.
01:18 When I opened it, I saw my byline.
01:21 It was the first time I saw my name printed on a page.
01:26 I looked at all the copies,
01:28 I grabbed all my names on all the copies.
01:31 And I think that's what changed my life forever.
01:34 When I saw my name on the page,
01:37 I knew who I would be.
01:39 I knew who I would be.
01:41 I knew where I would go in my life.
01:43 I paid 50 pesos that time.
01:53 I used the 50 pesos to go to Manila.
01:56 To get a chance.
01:58 We didn't know where we would go,
02:00 what job we would get, or what would wait for us.
02:02 But what we knew was that we wanted to do something in a bigger world,
02:07 something we wouldn't do in our daily lives.
02:09 I read and read and read,
02:20 but I remember when I read in the public library,
02:24 the first one was Dostoyevsky's work,
02:27 Russian author,
02:29 Brothers Karamasov,
02:31 and then Crime and Punishment.
02:33 And then later, the works of Nikwakin,
02:36 and then William Faulkner.
02:38 I saw that I could tell a story this way.
02:41 Like, Nikwakin would go to different periods,
02:44 past, present.
02:46 He would enter the soul,
02:47 he would go out to the face of the character,
02:50 then he would go to the other side,
02:51 then he would come back here.
02:53 He would play with time, space, and words.
02:57 So I thought, "I can tell a story this way."
02:59 And then Faulkner, when I read it,
03:01 it was hard for him to read,
03:03 but the moment I understood,
03:05 I felt like I entered a world of different kinds.
03:10 I write every day, in the morning,
03:18 actually four in the morning, or five.
03:22 I write continuously.
03:24 So I'm a morning person.
03:26 I don't drink coffee in my entire life,
03:28 I don't drink alcohol,
03:30 I don't smoke cigarettes.
03:32 So I don't have any vices that I need to put in the mood.
03:36 But music, I play music.
03:38 The beat of the music pushes me,
03:42 especially if it's rock.
03:44 It pushes you,
03:48 it triggers you to be inspired to write.
03:50 It makes you go, "Go ahead, write."
03:52 I make it a point to write every day.
03:54 I always tell my workshoppers that it's my job,
03:57 I'm a writer.
03:58 It's not dependent on mood or mental block.
04:01 If I don't have a deadline, I just keep writing.
04:03 If I'm not in the mood, I'll just keep writing,
04:06 even if the result is ugly, but I love to write.
04:08 I'm all over the place.
04:14 I'm not an organized person.
04:16 When I write scripts, I write two, three scripts at the same time.
04:19 When I wrote Para Kay Bi,
04:21 I was writing Amapola and a political novel
04:24 that I haven't revised yet.
04:26 They're all at the same time, just moving around.
04:29 I can't focus on one job up to now.
04:33 As a person, I'm all over the place.
04:36 I go all over the place.
04:38 So my writing is like that.
04:40 My formula is to write from who I am.
04:44 Which means there's no formula.
04:46 To write from my personality and to embrace who I really am.
04:52 If I keep resisting, if I keep saying I have to focus on just one script,
04:56 that's not me.
04:58 So it won't come out.
04:59 So the formula is not really a formula.
05:02 It's just to be honest with yourself.
05:04 Accept who you are and write from whoever, whatever you are.
05:14 I have an entire cabinet of unproduced scripts
05:17 that Adele, my assistant, and I are going through.
05:20 I said, "I want to do this. I want to go back to this."
05:23 It's like there are a lot of stories that haven't been born yet.
05:28 Through time.
05:29 And then there are a lot of ideas that I haven't had a director yet.
05:33 And then I have so many books I want to write.
05:35 So now, I'm writing them all at the same time.
05:37 I can't finish them all.
05:38 Crypto Capital 2, Part 2 of Amapola.
05:40 I want to do a gay novel.
05:41 Stage plays. I want to do a stage play.
05:43 I want to write songs.
05:45 Music is my passion.
05:47 I worship musicians, not writers or directors.
05:52 And yet, I don't have a talent in music.
05:55 But lyrics, I've written a few.
05:58 So I want to write a song.
06:00 Just lyrics.
06:01 So, if you look around, there are so many things you can write.
06:05 Amapola.org.
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