MY FATHER used to jokingly call himself the “horizontal columnist.” It’s because he literally wrote his weekly opinion columns while lying down. This may seem impossible but this was how he worked for several months while recovering from a near-fatal heart attack.
Whenever I visited him and mom at lunchtime or early evening to check on them, Dad would ask me to get his laptop and sit beside him. He would then clasp his hands, close his eyes and go into a trance-like state.
I have watched my father make a living since I was a little boy and I knew exactly what was happening. He was composing the column in his mind, a complex process that amazed me for the sheer mental effort that was involved.
After about 10 to 15 minutes, Dad would open his eyes and dictate to me his 700-word column in full. But what I found most remarkable was the clarity, coherence and substance of his thoughts considering his physical condition.
There were times that my fingers could not keep up with the pace in which my father’s mind churned, as he dictated sentence after sentence without hardly pausing. I would then see the column taking form, as the blank screen quickly filled up.
Those who knew my father well wouldn’t at all be surprised by this seemingly extraordinary feat. He was a veteran multi-media journalist who had been in the business more than 50 years, handling jobs in print, radio and TV since he was in his late teens.
He was also a multi-awarded producer and director of documentary films. He had travelled throughout the country and across the globe, as he shot features for private and government clients.
Dad had a deep, soothing baritone voice akin to veteran broadcasters Ted Failon or Rey Langit. He used this God-given gift in doing voice-overs for radio commercials or during his public affairs program aired over a local cable channel.
It’s quite rare for communicators to be equally proficient in both the written and spoken word. But modesty aside, Dad was highly competent in both, as how he talked was exactly how he wrote.
My father had a very distinct style of writing, which I tried to imitate when I decided to pick up the pen. He wrote in a very simple and straightforward manner but packed a lot of punch and hit you in the gut.
“One thought, one idea,” he would always remind me, as he would read my work and critique them. “Do not make things difficult for the reader. Write to express not express. Write as if you’re talking to a fifth grader,” Dad would tell me.
I remember a heated exchange he had with a fellow columnist who criticized his columns for being too simplistic. Dad shot back, telling him that it was useless to write if one’s readers were scratching their heads, trying to decode prose disguised as a column.
Dad and his fellow columnist would eventually patch up their differences and sit side by side during media events. They catered to different audiences, who preferred one’s style over the other.
As novice writers, we model our writing based on those we admire. But eventually, as we gain experience over the years and hone our craft, we develop our own unique style and tone of writing.
And that tone, dear readers, can never be replicated by AI.
