Literature in the age of blogs, Facebook and YouTube

AUG. 30, Wednesday, I will be at Northern Iloilo Christian School in Balasan to give a lecture called “Literature in the Age of Blogs, Facebook, and YouTube.” It is a lecture to help students, me by my college teacher who was teachers, and writers understand also a writer. the forms and functions demanded Thank God, I did not listen to that of literature in the digital age. part about waiting for my best work.

I hope it is going to be an eye *** opener in the teaching, writing, What can I say? I am impatient. I sharing, and consumption of want to do things. And I want to see literature in our third millennium. results while I’m still alive. While I’m

still young. I will tell you this: I do not have a That’s why I teach “how to be a

*** degree in Literature, or in Writing. I famous writer before you are dead”. am not connected with any academic Mediocre writing? Check out institution. my newspaper columns written on

And although I know the formal a deadline. I’m sure you will find theories and classical elements of plenty. traditional writing, I would not even But I’m sure you will also find dare and presume to teach them. growth, evolution, and at least

I mean, sure I teach these, too, but gaining, if not achieving, mastery of it’s not like people haven’t heard of the craft. these before. I merely review what Anyway, between me and those other teachers have been teaching, who took my teacher’s advice, or even AND THEN… between me and that writer-teacher,

*** I’m pretty sure I command more And then, I diverge like a road attention now; and I’m seriously in a yellow wood. And then, I teach not deteriorating, or going down, in what I know from my experience of terms of quality of writing. the real writer’s life in this new age Oh, believe me, I am just starting of internet technology. to reach the fullest of my greatest

I know i t i s meaningful to potentials! teach that real talent will get you *** somewhere. That you should just In fact, early publication (I wrote concentrate on mastering your craft my first book in 1990, published in first, and wait until you are ready 1993) gave me so much confidence with your best work, because you that I became the boldest, and most don’t want to regret a mediocre first daring ( transgressive, if you will) book. writer of my generation.

I mean, that was a lesson given to What happened was, I was published. And then, I felt a bigger responsibility as a published writer. I wanted to outdo myself.

Notoriety was my entry point to the world of literature and publishing.

Notoriety was my ticket to fame, and, as we see later, my great fortune.

*** And then! And then, the digital age came. Blogs happened. Social media happened. Facebook and YouTube happened. Self-publishing happened. Publish-on-demand happened.

Now, now, now, who has been teaching these phenomena in the Philippines? Who have been teaching writers and student-writers to cope?

Last time I checked, fiction classes still spend weeks discussing Aristotle’s “Poetics”, and the Freytag pyramid for dramatic structure.

*** Quick questions: What’s hint