Author's Thoughts: On Creating A Book

...from second thoughts to a first-rate dream...

"Writing a book is a leap of faith; you never know where you’ll land" that's how Hillary Clinton, who herself wrote a book, sums it up. It is a risk that all authors must take, not knowing whether the book will be appreciated  by its potential readers or abhorred and thrown into a gulch so deep and far-flung to be out of reach of humanity. The attention it gets will always extend to the author: burn the book advertently and you turn its author into ashes, alter egos to each other.

Yet failure never seemed to have stopped humanity’s love of printed pages bundled between covers to immortalize man’s thoughts, to focus attention to a subject that possessed the author. Libraries continually archived tons of volumes, online blogs and web pages increase geometrically by the hour; proofs incontrovertible indeed.. Every creator, every artist takes that leap of faith, each one of us endures the uncertainty… still we plunge on. Whoever said that all the darkness in this world would never be enough to obliterate the light coming from a single lighted candle was damn right!

When the coffee table book Marinduque – The Heart of the Philippines was on its conceptual stage, my vision of it was hazy. It was like looking at a rekindled campfire through the glutinous, pre-dawn fog at the upper slopes of Mt. Malindig.   Oh sure, you can see the yellow glow of the flames outlined blurrily by the inky black of night, even feel its reassuring warmth -  you're pretty sure know it’s there but it wouldn’t show itself clearly through the syrupy mist from as near as two meters.

Vague, hazy, muddled. When objects (or visions) looked this way, it makes us wary, even scared. Yes, I could go closer for a better view but the flames will hurt me. So for a while, I just sat there on the grass wet with a night’s dose of dew, absorbing everything with my senses, finding temporary contentment with a cigarette, for the meanwhile.

The chilly night air turned into a light but bitter icy breeze disrupting the peaceful status quo. Either I crawl back inside the tent, zipped up its flap doors against the icy wind, and abandon the rest of this blessed dawn snuggled in the warm comfort of my favorite wool blanket...

Or...grab a hot sartin of coffee (it would make the nippy air a bit more endurable).

My thoughts turned to the lowlands where I live, enduring the height of dreadfully muggy summer at that time of year, an overdose of which perhaps drove us to ascend the highest peak on the island and get a brief reprieve.

And I chose coffee; at best, not an easy option at the 3000 foot level of Mt. Malindig at 3:30 in the morning. You're on a potholed, tilted slope covered with waist high thicket of highland grass covered with a night's load of heavy dew, while envelope in blinding darkness wrapped in copious, murky clouds.  It rendered my reliable Maglite torch virtually useless.   

What if Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, or Figaro had an outlet near the summit of Malindig?

To give you a fresh cup of brew, they would have to hunt for damp deadwood on a ground covered with a 3 foot growth of wild grass in the dark.  After some time [seemed like eternity], they'll have a respectble cooking fire ready [patience is really a virtue here] comes enduring its heat to set up a pot of water and its barako grinds atop a wobbly woodman's stove, rinse a sartin from the now acrid smell of Tanduay T5 it contained from the endless tagays of last night’s story swaps by the campfire. When the billy (as friends from Down Under calls a pot) begins to boil, you give it another minute or two allowing  the water to extract the coffee flavor from the barako grind. (Coffee connoisseurs advice, however, that we should never use boiling water for our coffee, brewed or instant. Use water several degrees lower than the boiling point – about 95 degrees C (boiling water extracts the unwanted acids and oils from the coffee grinds, ruining its taste.)

So much trouble for a mug of coffee.
[It never entered my mind at that time that writing (and creating) a book would be a thousand times more].

Yet I swear that those initial couple of sips of its robust aroma and brawny taste gave me a caffeine hit seldom experience on the lowlands, if at all.

Perhaps because there were no distractions (no put-putting from the endless tricyles plying the streets, no ringing phones) so all my senses were focused on that exalted brew and its welcome warmth. I was in tune with the universe! Elated and contended. And it dawned on me [no pun intended]  this was the kind of  peace that Mount Malindig bestows for those who seek refuge in her slopes. The hot brew (and an extra layer of wool sweater) made the biting dawn breeze near the summit more acceptable.

It allowed me to enjoy the rest of this glorious dawn literally on top of Marinduque, the sweet anticipation of light changing from dark to dawn amidst a rising cacophony of cheery tweeting and unbridled hooting of wildlife (May God and man protect you from extinction) in full surround sound, far more superior to Dolby or THX 3D audio systems.

Dawned finally broke the vague darkness; I began to see my perspective in a different light.

It was then that I promised myself that someday, I will do something to immortalize this blissful island, one way or another,  I will pay her back for all the wonderful stuff she have given us through all these years.

When the opportune window showed itself, I reminded myself of that promise on the hallowed slopes of Mt. Malindig:  Time to turn my fumblin' second thoughts to a first-rate dream.

That dream is now a book...

Because “Marinduque deserves a niche in the altar of the stars.” (Quotation from “Marinduque – The Heart of the Philippines” Coffee Table Book; Author – Dindo Asuncion)

Malindig's Western Slopes

(Photo by Author, commissioned by
www.chiptalk.com.ph, used with permission)