Do not abstain from “A Celibate Season”

Ilia Uy is a Communication Arts graduate from University of the Philippines, Los Baños. Still currently frustrated by her present inability to find appropriate endings to her stories.

I am a bit indignant about the lack of information — not even a Wiki page — on this delightful book I picked up in Booksale because (1) it’s half-written by the brilliant Carol Shields and (2) I found its premise intriguing: husband and wife of more than 2 decades are separated for ten months due to work and opt to write each other letters to save money. Granted it was published in 1991, so the reviews may not have been archived online but this book deserves some praise — even if it comes from someone like me.

The last time I enjoyed — and not to mention learned from — a book of fiction this much was probably more than a year ago. A Celibate Season was written by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard, both Canadian women writers who happened to be good friends. At the time they were writing the novel, they were also sending the manuscripts back and forth to each other — just like the characters in the novel were trading letters. Carol wrote the letters of Chas (Charles), the husband, a currently out of work architect living in Vancouver, B.C.  The letters of the character Jock (Jocelyn), a lawyer recently signed on to work on a commission in Ottawa, was written by Blanche.

As a reader, I relished the subtle intricacies of the characters’ marriage being stretched by distance, career trajectories that neither of the spouses understand, sexual disasters, and the occasional infidelity. Jock and Chas were living characters: I see them move, talk, speak. And almost all the minor characters are whole and 3-dimensional. The experience is akin to watching a really good sitcom — and all these achieved through the epistolary form.

Why reading books is so much better than watching TV

Ilia Uy is a Communication Arts graduate from UP Los Baños and is now currently working in the Public Relations industry. She writes for Words From the Land of Juan every week.

I don’t believe people when they say “wala kasi akong oras magbasa e.” I guess, it’s because for me, reading is not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle. When it is an integral part of your life, you don’t have to find time for it, it’s just there by default.

I have been attached (physically and all the other ‘llys’) to books for as long as I can remember. I don’t eat alone without reading, sometimes I even read while cooking. I can’t sleep without reading first and I wouldn’t dare travel without bringing a book. 

 So it saddens me that reading is fast becoming obsolete – resulting to equally deteriorating skills of critical thinking and analysis. Reading does not only give you new information, it also teaches you to contextualize, read between the lines and make analogies. I believe the reason why Filipino kids are not as smart as the rest of Asia is because all they do is watch TV for hours.

 Too much TV, I think, dulls the brain. You don’t have to think that much, everything is fed to you. I am not anti-TV. I watch a lot of TV. My life would not be complete without Lost, Grey’ Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, House, CSI, NGC, and Discovery Chanel. But I still think that books are the best because:

 1. Books are portable. You can bring them anywhere – in the loo, in a restaurant, in any kind of transportation be it for land, air or sea, and you can even bing it to class and hide it under your desk while you turn the pages.

The importance of mentors

Sorry for the rather late post – must meet deadline next week!

Ilia Uy is a Communication Arts graduate from UP Los Baños and is now currently working in the Public Relations industry. She writes for Words From the Land of Juan every Thursday.

Although they never verbally acknowledged their influence and contribution in my writing, there are three people I consider my “mentors” – without whom I would never have spent most of my college years writing fiction and would probably not be making a living out of writing today (sadly, nothing literary). Their faculty cubicles, that oft-walked road to IRRI, and other cherished places around campus are all witnesses of how their presence in my lives shaped my writing and my value of the craft.

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For the duration of this post – we shall collectively call them “Sir D.” I chose the male form of the title because two of them are male.

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Early during my second year of college, a few friends invited me to this poetry group led by one of our professors. To be honest, my initial motivation was more for the camaraderie than for the poetry. That changed in time – I soon grew fond of the genre although not particularly adept at it. (I will probably never have a poet’s sensibilities.)

Around that time, another writing group was started – led by the collective Sir D, among others – this time focusing on short fiction. After submitting a story I would be ashamed now to call my own, I joined the group and became active in it until I graduated. Our group regularly held workshops, imposed a minimum output, published folios twice a year, and allowed us to have access to best literary minds the university could offer. That kind of interaction was further cultivated by the community-at-core environment of UP Los Baños.

At one of our workshop sessions

And sometimes, they write back

Ilia Uy is a Communication Arts graduate from UP Los Baños and is now currently working in the Public Relations industry. She writes for Words From the Land of Juan every Thursday.

I was supposed to write something about punctuations today. But reading one of Neil Gaiman’s tweets changed my mind. He twittered a link to his assistant’s blog where she wrote about how she spends her day as his assistant. Reading that eventually led me to her post on what not to send your favorite writer. And that switched a lightbulb in my brain and gave me an idea for today’s post.

So after Rem’s rather “heavy” post, I will now attempt to write something lighter and proceed to tell you of the one and only time I ever wrote a writer I liked.

There’s this stall (if you can call it that) right after the EDSA entrance to Star Mall and I often pass by it to look for good finds AKA quality books at cheap prices. It was there that a book called “Other Fish in the Sea” by Lisa Kusel wouldn’t leave me alone until I picked it up. So even if it wasn’t in the most perfect condition – there were creases and stains – I bought it.

A reader’s grumble

Ilia Uy is a Communication Arts graduate from UP Los Baños and is now currently working in the Public Relations industry. She writes for Words From the Land of Juan every Thursday. (The following, however, is a delayed post)

 

Now I know a lot of people would say that you should write for yourself and not need to have readers to feel gratification. However, I happen to love being read. That was one of the things I loved the most when I was part of two writing orgs in UPLB: having the avenue to share what you have created, having someone or several someones available to read/hear your stories (no matter if they liked it or not), and receiving criticism which helped me see things I might have missed when I was typing away in white heat.

I see myself really as a storyteller, not so much as a “writer” (I am honestly scared of that word). And to me, stories are meant to be passed on, to be retold. I have been a voracious reader all my life and reading of stories from different people scattered all over the world sparked in me the desire to tell my own.

I started writing stories when I was 12 – I never really thought of it as a career or a talent. My first three stories were actually written as a birthday gift to my then best friend (unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to keep copies and I think the stories got lost in my friend’s move to the Visayas).