Afternoon Tea: In conversation with Miguel Syjuco

Winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize long before it found a publisher, Ilustrado is Filipino author Miguel Syjuco’s debut novel. It has been, before finding itself in print described as “brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed” by the judges of the Man Asian. It made such an impression that new Picador publisher Paul Baggaley made it his first acquisition when he joined the Pan Macmillan imprint.

But here on my dusty, cramped desk, we strive for impartiality. So I’ll pretend I didn’t read those two vital snippets of information when I review the book here.

Miguel has kindly agreed to what might have been to less patient authors an interrogation of sorts for a profile I did for a magazine. Having asked Miguel so many questions, I didn’t get to use all his answers, those of which I’ve published below.

Offered a nice cup of (virtual) tea,  he tells us about the life of a writer:

How did you find out about the Man Asia Literary Prize and what compelled you to submit your manuscript?

A friend told me about the prize, and I figured nothing ventured is nothing gained. I’d applied for the prize in 2007, but the work was very much unfinished. I didn’t even make the longlist. So I went home, and spent the next year taking the book completely apart, cutting characters, deepening ideas, refining the writing, and revising until I just couldn’t revise any more, and I converted the book into its present fragmented form. It was the revised manuscript that I submitted in 2008 to both the Palanca Awards [Philippine literary contest] and the Man Asian Literary Prize.

What’s your writer’s schedule like?

I’m a creature of habit. I wake up without an alarm clock (usually around nine or ten), eat a bowl of cereal and have a cup of tea while reading the newspapers online (as a news junkie, I read the Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Montreal Gazette, Al Jazeera, the BBC, Le Monde, the Guardian, and the New York Times). Then I get into my writing work, or whatever project I’m working on. I work until lunch, and then I have lunch while reading The New Yorker. Then I work until about five or six (or ten or eleven, depending on deadlines – either imposed and self-imposed), then in the evening I try to work out a bit. Have dinner with my girlfriend Edith. Take a walk if the weather’s nice. Maybe watch some crap TV, or rent a movie. My day normally ends with me reading the books I want to (for me and my work) or need to read (for my radio column). It’s a simple life focused around my work. When I’m working on a project or on my writing, I don’t take weekends or holidays – I’ll work 20 or 30 days straight, uninterrupted, and then I’ll take a couple of weeks off to read, maybe travel, and rest my mind so that I can return to my work with a fresh perspective and renewed energy.

Take us through the writer’s former life.

In 1998, I was one of the co-founders and the editor-in-chief of Localvibe.com, which was a seminal online city guide and lifestyle magazine [in Manila] that was bought and became GetAsia.com.ph. I later moved to New York, and interned in the fiction department at The New Yorker, helping them select short stories for publication. I was a research assistant at Esquire, where I was able to write a few short articles. I did fact checking work at The Paris Review. I was a staff writer and then copyeditor at The Independent Weekly newspaper in Australia, as well as a creative writing teacher at the master’s level. Later, I was a copyeditor at The Montreal Gazette. In between jobs I was a freelance writer, a medical guinea pig, an assistant to a bookie at the horse races, an EBay powerseller of ladies’ designer handbags, a doorbitch at underground parties in New York City, and I’ve painted apartments and bartended at catered events. Being a fulltime novelist is perhaps the most satisfying job I’ve had, though it’s certainly the one that requires the most discipline.

You’ve worked as a copy editor for the Gazette in Montreal. Has that fed into your fiction writing at all?

I wouldn’t be the writer I am now without having worked in journalism. I used to have such a self-indulgent, highfalutin view of the written word – art for art’s sake and all that crap. I thought I’d be a poet, or a short story writer. I never thought I’d be a journalist, but it’s changed my life. It taught me to write to a specific length, to deadline, and to write succinctly. I learned that words are not so precious, that revision is the best skill a writer can have, and that a writer should always be open to constructive criticism in order to learn to be a better craftsman. Working as a copyeditor doing the headlines and captions and preparing pages taught me the value of snappy writing, and an appreciation for newspaper design. And being at newspapers and magazines gave me a broader view of the world, showed me the nobility of the press as the Fourth Estate, and made me fall in love with the publishing industry.

Is a second novel in the pipeline?

Yes, a second novel is in the works, and has already been bought by Penguin Canada and Farrar Straus & Giroux in the US. But I’d prefer not to talk about it except to say that it’s about the Philippines and is a meditation on the different forms of a society’s power and how they play off each other.

What has changed since writing a novel?

I’m less angry. And the funny thing is that I’ve now got a very Zen attitude toward life – because I know now that everything that happens to me, or that I see, can only help make me a better writer.

And finally, tell us a little bit about your cats.

My cats are named Conrad (after the first hotel Edith and I stayed in, in Hong Kong) and Laurent (after the main street and the big river here in Montreal). We got Conrad from a shelter in Australia, and Laurent from the SPCA here in Montreal. What does having two cats say about me? I really don’t know. That I like cats, perhaps? That I don’t like the commitment required of dog owners nor the slavish love that dogs give? I’ve always thought that loving cats is very much like loving women.