On Stealth Writing and Some Concerns

A relative long silence broke in this blog, interspersed with sporadic short posting that meant nothing but gibberish talk pointing at nothing.

I mentioned about the process of stealth writing: the process of hiding and keeping to oneself what he is writing at the moment. This is far from the so-called “guerrilla writing” where the writer does his work anytime he sees an opportunity. Well, stealth writing poses as a silent bomber, a kind of a puzzle or anticipation-maker for the reader what the writer is working on.

Don’t show a rough draft of your piece to anyone. Never. This is a lesson Gabo learned when he was establishing himself as a story teller, unencumbered with the expectation of his growing followers. The act has nothing to do with the readers. The beneficiary of this contained humbleness and secrecy is the writer himself.

Letting the readers, even one, get a glimpse of what the writer is pursuing somehow, and probably for sure most of the time as experienced, get the inspiration to write blow like a bubble. When somebody a rough draft, prior on finishing the piece, especially if the writer is wrestling with himself the jumbled storyline thrown at him, the story get stuck up, or worst never reach the culmination of being finished.

I would say the catharsis, the inner driving force of the writer, is vented too early. Some steam has escaped and the momentum to go on is lost, if not forever.

Straying from this discourse, though not totally out of line, I tried to keep my mouth shut from telegraphing the projects that I had been trying to finish last April. But sad to say, out of the three major projects that I had set, only one was able to beat the deadline of submission. (I mentioned in the previous post that it was mainly because of lack of internet access/PC brought by financial difficulties.)

Nevertheless, rummaging without reason inside my room this afternoon, I found old stories I had written four years ago. It was a surprise for me. I never thought that I had written a number of stories then and now is ready-made material to be my new projects. Of course, a wall-to-wall rewrite is needed to polish it and apply whatever lesson have I learned so far since writing them.

Furthermore, there are several new stories, essays crowding and vying for my attention like bees buzzing in my ears and mostly the thoughts try to stir me during the wee hours of the morning when household rules forbid me to turn on the lights.

Anyway, I’m still in the process of holding myself from writing essays and journals and the likes. Whenever I feel the urge to write those kinds of stuff, I bury myself in my bed and try to sleep off the inspiration. The time for practicing is over. I have to control myself now on taking head on the task which in the first place is the reason why I’m writing.