“I like the way you write.” This is one compliment I’ll never forget. It was uttered to me by my teacher in college who was both feared and respected for her brilliance and high standards. I treasured what she said about me but never really got around to making her proud for my supposed writing skills. After graduating from St. Theresa’s College Cebu with a degree in MassCom, I immediately found myself in the world of broadcasting, having worked for a local FM station in our hometown and went on to become DJ Joey of 102.7 Star-FM Manila up until 2001, a total of seven years, In the DJ’s booth, all that is required of me is the ability to think fast and speak English fluently specially when interviewing the likes of Martin Nievera, Kuh Ledesma and foreign artists. It’s actually a paper-less job, being a DJ. You don’t have to write anything. You just need to be well-informed, be witty and good-humored when doing your adlibs or on-air spiels. Having a voice that speaks for yourself is also advantageous. So when I told my DJ friend that I am now a college English teacher, she wryly commented “ma-papel na pala ang buhay mo ngayon.” I couldn’t agree more.
Back then, I would receive compliments about my gift of gab rather frequently, from respectable individuals and most of the time, from autograph-seeking fans, While I am thankful to God for such a precious gift, the aspiration to be also good in writing never really left my heart. I am such a lover of good prose and literature and reading well-written phrases or sentences brings me great delight. I would often memorize remarkable lines from the novels or books I have read and wherever I go, I am always on the lookout for interesting food for thought written in posters, t-shirts, throw pillows or coffee sachets. I have such an admiration for writers and this perhaps, fostered my desire to be in the same fold, lofty it may seem. I know of course that writing is a bit more difficult than speaking. While a person can speak up to 125 words per minute, writing a good paragraph could you take you an hour or longer.
Good writing doesn’t happen overnight. It requires constant practice and a good grasp of grammar and composition. Most of the time, I would mentally admonish myself for not working on my secret dream. I have in my drawer lots of ballpens, notepads and high-quality notebooks comprising my collection but I am still to develop the habit of writing a couple of lines every day, be it in a journal or diary. One of the books I have is entitled “The Knowing is in the Writing” by Mr. Butch Dalisay. In it, Mr. Dalisay wrote that when fiction writers sit down to work on a novel or their magnum opus, they don’t have the whole story mapped out in their head. The twists and turns of the story come to them as they write.
As a teacher of English, I think it would be duplicitous of me to always be exhorting my students to pick up the habit of reading and writing if I myself don’t even turn a page or scribble a few lines. So I shall write, one idea at a time. And to keep my word, I’m putting it into writing.
ANNABELLE REYNA NAIG teaches Stylistics, Speech and Stage Arts, ComArts 1 and is the school paper adviser at the Surigao State College of Technology, Surigao City.