The Tarot Writing Challenge: A Post-Script
78 days.
78 fucking days.
And it’s over — the Tarot Writing Challenge is OVER.
I am not a tarot reader by profession. I dabble, sure, every now and then, during parties and the like, or when a friend requests. I did want to increase my skill with the tarot and part of it lies on extreme familiarity with each of the cards. Lots of tarot books recommend meditating on one card a day — I took it one step further by writing about each card every day.
At the same time, it is put side-by-side with the concept of a “writing challenge” — months ago, by the challenge of fictionist Anna Sanchez, I engaged in a 30-day writing challenge. For that challenge, I used poem-plays exclusively. Hence, I decided to use the genres I am not most comfortable with as a playwright: prose fiction and verse poetry. Probably why the first three posts (The Empress, Muscle Addiction and The Verdict) are flash fiction.
To be honest, it was both a success and a failure. A success, mostly because I was forced to write everyday. From my 22nd birthday all the way up to yesterday — that time period covered the submission of my thesis proposal, a production of my play, acting for a music video and a national commercial, revisions for laboratory festival, yoga and being in a “love-hate” relationship that could never be. All those are valid excuses not to write — but I never used them and I just wrote — the one exception become Charge Through The Rain but my internet was down that day — I was able to write it on the day itself but upload it the day after.
A failure, too, because of a few things — (1) The entries should be the product of the card. In other words, if I have story inside that wants to come out, it should come out in the context of the card. For this challenge, it was a bit sacrificed because there were so many things I wanted to talk about. (For example, Awkward — based on a real incident of the day, a series of theatre pieces I wrote after my plays was staged [Curtain Call, Project: NEW, The Next Project and Judgment], and a series of erotic works near the end of the challenged based on this guy that I’m…uhm, friends with [A Pragmatic Man, The Fool, Empty Ashtrays, An Empowered (wo)Man, The Tower, Trust in Tests, Temperance, Honest Fighting Drive, The Sun, Bed of Roses, Post-Coitus]).
I was not expecting to come up with work I’d love. To be honest, all of them STILL do need revisions. However, while there are lots of pieces I hate (Des-o-lute and Sparkling Rod, for instance) there are some that I am quite proud of. As such, give me a month or so, both to revise and to familiarize myself with QuarkXPress and I will RELEASE A FREE EBOOK CONTAINING A REVISED VERSION OF THE TAROT CHALLENGE. Please do support.
What is next for Deelaytful?
To be honest, I need time to focus on two things: (1) The submission of the first draft of my playwriting thesis (HARDER~FASTER~WETTER) on May 4, just because it’s International Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you!) and (2) The upcoming Palanca awards (the highest literary competition in the Philippines where I will be spamming most of the categories). However, this does not mean that I will neglect Deelaytful — I have been compiling works that I have written this semester (under the poetry class of Paolo Manalo) plus revisions of previous poems (such as Biomechanics) and I will be uploading them, perhaps, one a day as well. And if it feels right, I might even upload excerpt from my playwriting thesis. 🙂
Thank you so much for the support, for the kind comments, for the likes, for the e-mails, for the messages. As a budding young playwright, who to be honest, doesn’t really understand much of fiction and poetry, it is nice to know that, although it is still a long road, I am on the right path. Sincere gratitudes.
Now, my ten favorite works from the Tarot Challenge. I have decided not to include the latest posts I have since a lot of people have read them and they are easily accessible. I chose to include earlier works instead:
To the Beautiful Boy who Sat in Front of Me
Once again, many many thanks!
The World is a great post. Thanks also for stopping by to appreciate Art. Look forward to your new posts.
Many thanks for reading and dropping by! 🙂
Many thanks for reading and dropping by! Don’t forget to pick-up the tarot challenge when it comes out as a free ebook soon! 😀
Loved reading this thaanks