Interview with Ricky Lee by Januar Yap
"I always believed that each one of us, the artist especially, is responsible for his fellow men. Our lives are all interconnected, and I don’t think we can escape that. Hindi ka nag-iisa. There is a thread that pulls you here and there, and you’re not the only one pulling."
Renowned writer Ricky Lee will be giving a lecture workshop on “writing” for two days at the Cebu Normal University, in time for the CiNeU Club’s film festival week. Simultaneously, he will have the Cebu launching of his novel “Para Kay B.” I have prepared a set of questions for him, but he preferred to give one long answer.
"Ayokong nakakahon sa iisa lang na medium o platform. Ayokong ulit-ulitin na lang ‘yung nagawa ko na successfully. Di bale nang mag-fail, basta bagong experience, at matututo ako."
If there is to be an overarching philosophy in all your writings, how would you describe it?
How did the novelist in you finally arrive after years of writing in other genres?
What sort of experience did you have in writing the novel that sets it apart from writing short fiction?
Can you please tell us how Para Kay B. was conceived?
Doesn’t “4 out of 5” seem like a pessimistic figure?
Some of the publicized biography of you says you never really had a family in the traditional sense. How much has this experience influenced the way most of your characters view the world? Or has it?
To simultaneously embark on a writing project of three novels seems to speak of a grand narrative intention. Is there one, I mean is there a kind of coherence at play among the three?
You have said in many interviews that you wish your writings can be read by ordinary people. However, in terms of accessibility between your works and your intended reader, scriptwriting seems to win over novels. What can you say about this?
Has there been a change in the kind of politics that you have shown in your works in Si Tatang at ang Mga Himala ng Ating Panahon and your recent works (Para Kay B and the other two novels)?
Trip to Quiapo is one very helpful creative writing reference for teachers. What sort of advise can you give teachers who are using it in class?
In a way my life has been very difficult—being an orphan at an early age, running away from relatives in Bicol and living on my own as a working student in Manila, being incarcerated for a year in Fort Bonifacio, and so on and on, the stuff that comics stories are usually made of. But in hindsight I look at it all as a gift, to have experienced so much in life, and not to have felt any bitterness, any grudge about it at all. In fact it has made me love people more. Which is very important for a writer.
I always believed that each one of us, the artist especially, is responsible for his fellow men. Our lives are all interconnected, and I don’t think we can escape that. Hindi ka nag-iisa. There is a thread that pulls you here and there, and you’re not the only one pulling.
This is the reason I have been conducting free scriptwriting workshops since 1982. Because I believe that I can only be as good as what I share with others, I can only keep writing if I help others write, too. There is no one great or best writer. I am only good because there are other good writers, too. And it is my duty to help both myself, and others, to write. They go together.
I am very open as a person. I am not judgmental. Hindi ko sasabihing ay, puta, o kaya ay masama yan. I always strive to look for humanity in a person. Maybe, this is because despite the harsh circumstances in my life, there have always been kind people around. Noong bagong salta ako sa Maynila, isa sa mga unang trabaho ko ay accounting clerk sa isang factory sa San Francisco del Monte. Iyong pinalitan ko, isang babaing may sakit na TB, stayed on for one week, without pay, to help teach me. Tuwing tanghali nagdadasal siya sa tapat ng isang puno sa garden. She didn’t know me. And she would never see me again after that. But she did help me.
"I always strive to look for humanity in a person. Maybe, this is because despite the harsh circumstances in my life, there have always been kind people around."
Gala akong writer. I never liked staying put in one place. In the course of my writing career I’ve written short fiction, journalism, plays, music lyrics, musical revues, scripts for concerts, film reviews, columns, TV and film scripts. Next year gusto kong magsulat ng graphic novel, at rock musical. Ayokong nakakahon sa iisa lang na medium o platform. Ayokong ulit-ulitin na lang ‘yung nagawa ko na successfully. Di bale nang mag-fail, basta bagong experience, at matututo ako.
At saka ayokong kung saan maraming nagpupuntahan, doon din ako pupunta. Kung pakaliwa sila, kakanan ako. Like these past years, all my friends and workshoppers were going into digital films. It was like a huge thing that has opened up. Pero ako, I’ve been writing films for, say, 30 years. Parang wala nang challenge. Samantalang sa novel, first time ko. Mas may thrill and fear na baka mag-fail ako. That sweet delicious feeling of uncertainty, in embarking on a new territory, I love that. It is what fires me up.
With Para Kay B, many of my friends were telling me, walang nagbabasa ng nobela, lalo na kung sa Pilipino. So that did it. Sabi ko, a, sige, gagawin ko, at gusto ko basahin ako. Sisiguraduhin ko na maraming magbabasa sa akin.
I mean people usually know me as Ricky Lee the scriptwriter. But I have done other writings as well. Maybe, even better. I am not just a scriptwriter. I am a writer. No offense meant to my colleagues, but I think that is a more difficult thing to accomplish.
Since 2005, I was able to finish very very rough drafts of three novels. I finally zeroed in on “Para Kay B” as my first. It had huge potential to be popular, I felt. And because in my non-film works I’ve never really tackled love stories.
"This novel has no fixed genre. Papatawanin ka, papaiyakain, papa-inlabin. You initially think it’s five love stories, na magkakaiba ang genre at ang style of writing. Iyon pala they are five love stories written by the character, Lucas, to be offered to the girl of his dreams. They are stories pala within a novel."
In writing Para Kay B, I listened. Really listened. I focus-grouped the first draft with various compositions of people. I also had about twenty readers who read, criticized, swung-left-and-right the novel. I even surveyed the title among more than a hundred friends. I really listened, because I wanted to be heard. I wanted to be read.
Ang dream ko noon, sana may nakita akong nagbabasa ng nobela ko sa MRT o kaya sa hagdan ng ospital, hindi dahil assigned sa klase, kundi dahil gusto lang niyang basahin. I’m happy to say that now, that dream has been fulfilled a hundred times over. Strangers have approached me and told me they read the novel in just one or two sittings. A number of them even read it many times over.
Nakaka-high ang feeling because they were approaching me not as Ricky Lee, the scriptwriter, but as Ricky Lee the novelist.
Para Kay B is a deconstruction of love, about what people do with the conventions of love, about how we love and don’t love. It is also about the process of writing, about what writing can, and can not do, in the face of social realities.
The novel is reflective of my personality. Kung pagkain kasi ako, halu-halo ako. My taste in music is eclectic. I don’t perceive of art as either high or low. Ayokong nakakahon. I like to try all forms of writing. This novel has no fixed genre. Papatawanin ka, papaiyakain, papa-inlabin. You initially think it’s five love stories, na magkakaiba ang genre at ang style of writing. Iyon pala they are five love stories written by the character, Lucas, to be offered to the girl of his dreams. They are stories pala within a novel.
Regarding Lucas’s earlier theory about the quota on love, na 4 out of 5 lang, if you look around you’d realize that’s true. Halos lahat ng kakilala at kaibigan natin mas marami ang nasasawi. But I don’t think that’s the point. By the end of the novel, Lucas himself realized that there is no quota. It is not a matter of winning your loved one or not. It is more about what you become afterwards. In his case he might still be pining for Bessie, but he has continued with his writing life. And with the quiet dignity that Sandra, another loser in love, also has. In the end they’re the two victors in the novel, even if they lost their loves, because in the more important sense they triumphed. Erica and Irene, who opted for a revised artificial ending, actually did not get real triumph.
"I never liked staying put in one place. In the course of my writing career I’ve written short fiction, journalism, plays, music lyrics, musical revues, scripts for concerts, film reviews, columns, TV and film scripts. Next year gusto kong magsulat ng graphic novel, at rock musical."
But my second novel, Aswang, certainly is more political than Para Kay B. It is about our present plight as a nation, from the point of view of a gay manananggal. It is also in Taglish, has humor and tears, and hopefully will make the reader want to embrace his fellow human beings.
JANUAR E. YAP 