Wednesday - November 30, 2005
Too many courses spoil the writers.
"Dear Leigh,
This is a slightly unusual invitation. You have been specially selected to join a private, roundtable dinner on the 29th of November, 7:30 PM, at PEPATOS, Greenbelt 3, Makati City. We will be celebrating the launch of Story Philippines (you might have heard of it, a beautiful magazine that presents purely local short fiction. I have agreed to be their "Guest Editor" for the 2nd issue (due out in January 2006), and here is what we've hatched.
We want to come up with one story in the most unusual and exciting way: Tag Writing. Writing as a team. You, me and a few other well-fed and slightly inebriated storytellers will seek to build on a few paragraphs (“story stubs” from one of the best fiction writers in the country) and make an interesting story out of it..."
The letter came from Emily Abrera, mavenus maximus of the Philippine ad industry.
The Story Philippines team (Jade and Vanni), had gathered a motley, mad crew. Gilda Cordero-Fernando arrived bearing air kisses and a pair of white sneakers painted with branches and blooms. Krip Yuson sat beside Patricia Evangelista and Tweetums Gonzales wore pearls and a crocheted shawl. Tim Yap was as blonde as his press pictures, and funnier in person than on print. Sarge insisted he was just the minutes-taker, but happily for the story, he lied.
The first story stub had a wounded woman and a gun. The second story stub had a smoking woman, a similarly-dressed posse of executives and a narrator who seemed very interested in both. The third story stub, everyone at the table decided, was the evening's menu. It featured capiz scallops and savory pannacotta, lemon-basil sgrappino and a spinach raviolo, among many other melodiously-named dishes, and I assume that's why they didn't put in "black balls," the ante-antepasto, because it would have scuttled the menu's literary aspirations.
Getting award-winning writers with very different voices to sit down and craft a story together seems like a recipe for disaster. And at first, it seemed to be headed that way. No one agreed on which stub to work on. A couple wanted to trash the stubs and just go with the black balls.
Eventually, the free Bailey's and the Filipino instinct for harmonious meals prevailed. A stub was chosen. We laid down a process - each one of us had to build on whatever the person beside us included in the story. This made us begin by listening. We also decreed a deadline: the story had to be done by the time coffee and tea arrived.
I think we did the menu justice. The rest is up to Sarge, who has to wrestle with interjections, side comments and snippets of story. Buy the January issue of Story Philippines and try to figure out which crumbs of the story are mine.
This is a slightly unusual invitation. You have been specially selected to join a private, roundtable dinner on the 29th of November, 7:30 PM, at PEPATOS, Greenbelt 3, Makati City. We will be celebrating the launch of Story Philippines (you might have heard of it, a beautiful magazine that presents purely local short fiction. I have agreed to be their "Guest Editor" for the 2nd issue (due out in January 2006), and here is what we've hatched.
We want to come up with one story in the most unusual and exciting way: Tag Writing. Writing as a team. You, me and a few other well-fed and slightly inebriated storytellers will seek to build on a few paragraphs (“story stubs” from one of the best fiction writers in the country) and make an interesting story out of it..."
The letter came from Emily Abrera, mavenus maximus of the Philippine ad industry.
The Story Philippines team (Jade and Vanni), had gathered a motley, mad crew. Gilda Cordero-Fernando arrived bearing air kisses and a pair of white sneakers painted with branches and blooms. Krip Yuson sat beside Patricia Evangelista and Tweetums Gonzales wore pearls and a crocheted shawl. Tim Yap was as blonde as his press pictures, and funnier in person than on print. Sarge insisted he was just the minutes-taker, but happily for the story, he lied.
The first story stub had a wounded woman and a gun. The second story stub had a smoking woman, a similarly-dressed posse of executives and a narrator who seemed very interested in both. The third story stub, everyone at the table decided, was the evening's menu. It featured capiz scallops and savory pannacotta, lemon-basil sgrappino and a spinach raviolo, among many other melodiously-named dishes, and I assume that's why they didn't put in "black balls," the ante-antepasto, because it would have scuttled the menu's literary aspirations.
Getting award-winning writers with very different voices to sit down and craft a story together seems like a recipe for disaster. And at first, it seemed to be headed that way. No one agreed on which stub to work on. A couple wanted to trash the stubs and just go with the black balls.
Eventually, the free Bailey's and the Filipino instinct for harmonious meals prevailed. A stub was chosen. We laid down a process - each one of us had to build on whatever the person beside us included in the story. This made us begin by listening. We also decreed a deadline: the story had to be done by the time coffee and tea arrived.
I think we did the menu justice. The rest is up to Sarge, who has to wrestle with interjections, side comments and snippets of story. Buy the January issue of Story Philippines and try to figure out which crumbs of the story are mine.