One book I’ve been eyeing for the longest time is Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing. The first time I saw the cover, it looked–felt–distinctly Filipino. Or perhaps it was the title, too. Whichever the case is, I knew even without reading the description nor the author’s name that it was of local culture.
I had the book left on my wish-list from the last time I went online window-shopping for new titles. Today, I finally did my research and chanced upon this article about the writer and a serendipitous reminder for all the reasons to do anything:
“The things I didn’t like about the world, or about other stories I didn’t like in the world, didn’t have to be that way. I didn’t see any Filipino Americans in the stories I read. I could create those stories…
“If you’re a writer or somebody from a marginalized background who’s operating in a privileged space, your job is to be like Prometheus — steal the fire and bring it back to the people. In some ways, I hope I’m stealing fire and taking it back to my community in whatever way that is, whether that’s creating more space for writers, whether it’s inspiring people to become agents or editors [or] widening that world for such a way that makes the stories we create more reflective of the diverse realities of our world.”
Randy Ribay
Writing is undeniably a self-centered endeavor. I mean that literally: all the words come from inside, the self, and, therefore, are centered around it regardless of the idea. Hence, it’s easy to get caught in that whirlwind, whether that’s through crippling perfectionism that stops one from getting the words out or through a forgetting of what it all means in the bigger picture.
And it’s especially difficult to deal with the latter when one’s life or family’s survival is on the line–to remember that writing is more than just writing enough words on paper to get something down on the table.
Oh, it’s difficult alright. But let us, writers, write truly anyway.
(Postscript: absolutely cannot wait to get my copy of Ribay’s novel!)