JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

The original title of this piece was “Don’t Be A Writer”. The plan was to discuss the aggravations of being a professional writer—someone who makes a living off writing, as opposed to someone who does it as a hobby or a form of “creative self-expression”—and dissuade anyone who doesn’t have the discipline (or compulsion) from even attempting to write. However, I was reminded that irony is dead and I would have to use emoticons next to my title to make myself understood. Hence the less compelling, but clearer title.

1. No job security. So you embark upon a writing career and figure you can support yourself by writing articles for magazines, newspapers and other media. “Freelancing” sounds adventurous, like being a ronin or samurai for hire. You get to write full-time, and only about the subjects you care about. In the words of countless refrigerator magnets and calendars, you are following your bliss. Good for you—if you’re independently wealthy or living off your parents.

Freelance writers’ fees have not changed substantially in two decades. In some cases they have declined, and in other cases the writer gets paid not in cash, but in gift cheques from advertisers. You don’t get paid upfront. You wait till your article is published, and then you wait another month or two to get paid. In the meantime, how do you pay your bills? Oh, and you don’t get benefits. The prevailing mindset seems to be: You’re doing what you love, and you expect to get paid for it? Grow up like the rest of us and get a proper job.

You could get a day job in a writing-related field, like the academe or advertising or journalism, and write your novel/poetry/plays at night. If you have the energy left. I hear screenwriting used to be lucrative—not anymore. (By the way, what’s the deal with those Wattpad novels? Can the writers actually live off the proceeds? When they’re sold to the movies, do the writers make big bucks?)

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

The Bodleian Library photo by Greg Smolonski

On the whole, I disliked school, sitting in class, receiving instruction; information seemed to go in one ear and out by the other. I could not be passive—I had to be active, learn for myself, learn what I wanted, and in the way which suited me best. I was not a good pupil, but I was a good learner, and in Willesden Library—and all the libraries that came later—I roamed the shelves and stacks, had the freedom to select whatever I wanted, to follow paths which fascinated me, to become myself. At the library I felt free—free to look at the thousands, tens of thousands, of books; free to roam and to enjoy the special atmosphere and the quiet companionship of other readers, all, like myself, on quests of their own…

Read it at The Threepenny Review, via 3 Quarks Daily

It’s about Violet, the half-Chinese daughter of an American woman who runs a courtesan house in Shanghai. The Qing dynasty is falling, anti-foreign sentiment is rising, business is failing, and mother and daughter are fighting. Like mothers and daughters everywhere. There’s also a fat, cranky cat named Carlotta. We started reading it yesterday and now you’ll have to pry it out of our claws.

Before The Valley of Amazement, we read Monsieur Pain, a short novel by Roberto Bolano, three Guardians of the Galaxy compilations and The Age of Ultron. After The Valley of Amazement, we’re reading The Bone Clocks, which Noel bought for us in Singapore. (Didn’t want to take chances with the port congestion.)

Not Drogon, he’s only two.

JessicaRulestheUniverse.com will have its eighth birthday on Wednesday, 24 September 2014, and we’re marking the occasion by giving away a bunch of prizes. Check in on Wednesday to find out how you can get some of the loot. This is our way of thanking you, our readers, for joining our ongoing discussion on Books, Movies, Cats, Tennis, and other singularities.

We spent a few hours at the Met Open 2014, a benefit exhibition on contemporary art. Five eminent curators selected 208 artworks focusing on abstraction, painting, seriality, pop culture, myth and symbolism.

Robert Langenegger

Leo Abaya

Jaime De Guzman

Paulo Vinluan

Napoleon Abueva

The five pieces shown above are among the artworks for sale. Proceeds will support the museum’s education and exhibition programs. Met Open 2014 opened today and will run until Saturday, 4 October 2014.

At the second floor galleries is the survey, The Philippine Contemporary Art Exhibition: To Scale the Past and the Possible.

Junyee

Roberto Feleo

Patricia Eustaquio

Alfonso Osorio

Gabriel Barredo

Rodel Tapaya

Alfred Esquillo

Winner Jumalon

The Metropolitan Museum of Manila is at the Bangko Sentral complex on Roxas Boulevard, Manila. The museum is open Mondays through Saturdays from 10am to 530pm. Entrance fee: Php100 for adults and students, Php80 for senior citizens. Visit www.metmuseum.ph or call (02)7087828 for more information.

As usual, we don’t know where to start reading.

The Last Saturday. New installments published in the Guardian every Saturday.