Some time ago, my friend Arnold, who was a Team Leader (equivalent of a supervisor) in our call center resigned from our office. As of this moment, he’s a full-time writer/historian. We’re currently working on our first book which is about the biography of our town’s mayor. Not really something that one might call scholarly since it’s basically an “ego-booster”, so to speak, for the said politician. But despite all that, this politician’s a nice guy. And he’s the one who gave us our first break to get published. We’re not from some fancy school. We don’t have scholarly credentials aside from the four-year-degree diplomas we got from our respective universities. And we don’t have other connections to get published. This “break” we did on our own because we’re the ones who went to him in the first place — well, not to ask him for us to write his biography, but to write the history of our town.
I envy Arnold because he’s working full time on this project. Me, I still have to fight away the sleepiness after my night shift. Good thing Arnold gave me the password to his internet access here in the office. But the problem is, right after my shift at 10 AM, my head either dreams about the land of sleep, or the land of porn (hyuk-yuk-yuk!). I sometimes rest my head on whatever CSR desk I choose, fall asleep, and then wake up an hour or two with an aching back. Like what I’ve said before, I can’t afford to leave this job especially since my wife’s pregnant again (ang sipag namin, ¿no?).
So that’s what has been keeping us busy all these weeks. We’re trying to beat a self-imposed deadline because the mayor wants his biography to be launched just in time for the town fiesta this coming February. According to my partner Arnold, who’s got friends in the printing business, it takes up to two months just to publish even a minor book! Man, this politician mustn’t have any idea at all about the length of time it takes to publish a book! Now, we’re in a time quandary. But still, I think we’re doing progress.
We only got to start out last 29 August, making this project –as I’ve boasted once to Arnold– one of the most fastest-written biographies in the world. Another problem we have is that the Mayor is one of them “unlettered guys.” He’s not an avid reader. He didn’t even finish the samples of the book we’ve written about him. And worse, he wanted his book written in Tagalog. He told that to us when we’ve already written much about him.
Arnold and I weren’t trained to write in Tagalog. I think most Tagalog-speaking Filipinos today aren’t well-trained to write in their vernacular. ¡Caramba! I believe the case is much worse for other non-Tagalog Filipinos. Are they even being trained to write in their vernacular. Look at F. Sionil José. He’s an Ilocano, but he’s not articulate in his native language, being trained in English. And he admits that sad fact.
Anyway, the Mayor doesn’t seem to be all worried about that. But worried us is that he said he’s got a translator friend, a Tagalista, who can help us to translate his work. That didn’t sound right for us. We couldn’t even get out of this project anymore since he already paid us P30,000 grand. Of course we had to accept; we’re not rich kids in the first place. And that’s not bribe money, as well; it’s our first pay check as writers! Yay!
But back to the sad part. The uncertainty of seeing our names printed in this book looms in the air. What if he double-crosses us? The suspicion couldn’t be waived off because of the immediate trust he gave us in publishing his life story. I mean to say, he’s a longtime politician, a rich businessman, and one-time general manager of a prominent governmental department. He could’ve easily gotten himself a prominent writer to the job for him, right? Or maybe he trusted us that easily because he’s a friend of an uncle of mine.
Is this kind of anxiousness normal for writers who’d get published for the first time.
