The Writing of State of Happiness: Writing the Archipelago

• Main Author: Militante, Clarissa V.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: archipelago; archipelagic; Mikhail Bakhtin; postcolonial; Philippine historical novel; Creative Writing; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Pacific Islands Languages and Societies; South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/akda/vol1/iss3/3; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/akda/article/1020/viewcontent/2_Militante_State_20of_20Happiness_Akda_201_283_29.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

A novelist’s main task is to re-imagine and re-present worlds, re-construct time and space, create new novel forms. But there are three things that a novelist resists as much as they can. A novelist would rather not talk about their own work, as it should not be upon them to interpret what they wrote. For this writer, it should be intentions, not meanings, that should matter. Second, to tell the story of how one began and wrote their novel is also something to be avoided if one can, unless as Umberto Eco said it could help enlighten others in terms of technique and method. It has to be noted that similar to writing a novel, the novelist also needs to re-construct a cohesive narrative about process, because in reality it is not always as organized or neat. Third, to find a theory to describe one’s novel is the task most resisted, unless the novel is one’s dissertation and therefore the novelist has to oblige. For a novelist, the “theorizing” is the novel itself and/or the process of writing it. The “discoursing” may happen through the narrative structure and linguistic style, and generally in how the literary devices at one’s disposal are used, rejected, innovated.