A Conversation with Jamie Bautista: Tips for Mentors

This is part 3 of my conversation with Jamie Bautista which is also the last of this series. Here, he shares five tips for mentors, supervisors and teachers of young people. These are the links to Part 1: Art is Creating an Emotional Response and Part 2: Art as Force for Good.

What are your five tips for mentors who are mentoring young people (context is the creative industry but you can also add something for business people)?

My first tip would be to have the mentoring be framed as peer mentoring. I feel it’s important to let young people know that even older folks like me have a lot to learn from them, and that a mentorship benefits both parties. When I mentored Kat, while she learned from me writing and literature techniques, I learned more about how her generation thinks and what resonates with them. That is what was wonderful about our process for Triggered where both the mentors and mentees had to create outputs. I would ask her advice in my own creative choices, which I felt built her confidence and also helped her to see my own creative process without me pushing it on her. It also made the relationship feel more like one of mutual respect.

 Another tip would be for a mentor to spend more time listening and finding out what is important to their mentee. When Kat and I would meet up for our mentoring sessions, maybe half the time is us just chatting about our lives and getting to know each other. But in the process of her ranting to me about teachers and problems in class, I would learn about her fears about writing, why she found it intimidating, and what aspects of storytelling she found interesting. I would learn about her work habits and that helped me come up with activities and advice that could directly address those specific issues. One example was that she mentioned she was afraid of writing because some of her other teachers always put her writing down. So I made it a point to give more positive feedback and I would often share how even I often got criticized and was hard on my own work, but it was OK and that I still found ways to power through. By listening and learning more about a mentee, it also becomes easier to find activities that encourage them to find solutions and learn things on their own.

 My third tip is to find ways to change the way young people see the creative process (or even a business process). For many people, a lot of the slog of doing creative work or even running a business become evident after one starts. The excitement of doing something “creative” wears off and that’s when procrastination sets in. The challenge is to find ways that make the process seem fun again by finding new ways for a mentee to see a problem. In Kat’s case, she had a hard time visualizing the setting of her story and how her characters would move logically around the scene. So I proposed we actually draw a map of the setting and since her story was about a pair of assassins, we would plan out the assassination on the map as if we were the characters. It both helped make her story clearer in her mind and it was a novel and fun way to go about writing by pretending to be the characters themselves plotting a crime. For business, imagine making accounting or planning operations more fun by framing them in a different way. Then even entrepreneurship becomes creative (which it actually is).

L-R: Jan Ong, Patricia Narvasa, Samantha Chiu, and Amiel Deuna

Tip number four is give regular feedback and monitor constantly. Not only does this make sure a mentee is constantly doing the work and thus is sharpening their skills, it also is a way of expressing genuine care. I’ve had students who were surprised by how detailed my feedback was and how quickly I would give it since they said it showed that their work seemed valuable to me since I set aside time to check it. On the flip side, I’ve had students also comment how they felt their work seemed unimportant when I took too long to give feedback. Kat and I would schedule regular meet-ups and promise to send drafts to each other at regular intervals, which both kept us working but also kept our mentoring relationship consistent and strong.

Finally, my last tip is to have fun and always make clear what your shared purpose is. No matter what the expected output is for a mentorship (for Triggered of course it was stories that had to be good enough for publishing), the most important outcome are two people who have grown because of the mentorship. The relationship between peer mentors should be fun because it encourages both people to want to learn more. But beyond just enjoying each other’s company, the goal of any mentorship should be to have both parties come out as better people. So learning to enjoy the process and knowing what kind of people all involved want to be has to be clear and shared.

Where to buy Trigerred: TRIGERRED: Creative Responses to the 

Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines | Shopee Philippines

A Conversation with Jamie Bautista On Art and the Creative Process: Art is Creating an Emotional Response ( 1 of 3 )

A few months back, I had the pleasure of iniviting Jamie Bautista for an Author Visit in school. Thank God, he said yes. He delivered a fun and insight inducing session with our high school students. Apart from being an author and a graphic novel creator, he is also the publisher of Triggered: Creative Responses in the Extra-judicail Killings in the Philipipnes. 

I recieved a copy of Triggered a week after his talk and it took me a while to fully digest its gravitas. Also, I needed some time to collect myself, as I have been slugging through the toil and trouble of living during the pandemic times. The topic which Triggered covered and explored is indeed relevant. I found mysefl burdened, nonetheless, emboldened to move forward doing my bit as librarian and litearcy coach to young and adult learners. Triggered was not an easy read but it gave me the consolations of companionship and compassion. 

Equally striking is the process in which the contributors, the publishing and editorial teams went through. They labored together in conceptualizing and mentoring the writers and the artists who contributued content to the anthology. Editors Jocelyn Martin and Cyan Abad Jugo provided an introduction to the collection narrating their own despair and confusion to the issues of extrajudicial killings, drug addiction and law enforcement. As teachers, they too are very much affected by it. And so, they turn to the calling of their craft and mentored young writers and artists into creating litearature that makes for a valuable contribution to modern history. 

Here now is a three-part interview with Jamie where we conversed about about art in a time of conflict and disturbance; the value of mentoring in the creative process; and resources and recommendations for teachers, mentors and guides of young people who are pursuing a career in the arts and its delicate management.

I hope that you will also find a safe space to think and feel, sort out your thoughts and respond to them in the most creative and peaceful way possible.

SLIA: What informs an artist or a creative person in channeling a disturbance into something beneficial to oneself and the community? 

Jamie Bautista (JB): I think when an artist or creative wishes  to channel a disturbance into something that is constructive,  they are informed partly by their own take on what has caused  the disturbance and why it is disturbing to them, but also party by  what they think society or the community needs to offset the negative  effects of the disturbance.  It’s a balancing act between the artist's expression of their experience  with the disturbance and a positive outcome for the audience  or the community. Because it isn’t always the same thing. For example,  an artist can feel angered by something happening in society, but  if the solution to the disturbance requires art that is more welcoming  and anger only alienates those who can make a difference, the art cannot  be angry in its tone or message.  I believe the way an artist feels about a disturbing issue should be  the catalyst for creating the art and the wind of inspiration that  keeps them going. But the craft of the art itself, because there is a clear  outcome or goal to be achieved, should be informed more by what will  actually solve the problem that causes the disturbance.  In the case of our book Triggered, the issue of EJK of course disturbed,  frightened, and disgusted both me and my writing mentee, Kat. But we  both knew that simply writing stories that were explicitly anti-EJK   and that expressed our feelings would not cause those who may find  EJKs acceptable or even necessary to change their minds. In a democracy  where we have to elect leaders who influence these things, changing minds  is crucial. So we both worked to create stories that tried to see things  from the perspective of those on the other side of the argument,  so that it would show we were open-minded and listening and readers  from that side would find a common ground with us. But part of the craft  of the story is finding a way to show them our side of the argument,  using not just logic and facts, but  with empathetic characters and  situations. Then maybe they will see our point-of-view and try to work  with us to stop EJK, or at least try to offset the harm it has already caused. Art is about creating an emotional response in others. So for me, this type of  art needs to be informed by what emotions will get an audience to work  towards an outcome that counters the disturbance. That means going beyond  using art simply as a means of self-expression, of personal catharsis, and of  reinforcing those who already agree with us. Those help keep us going and  should be part of the process, but the final goal should be other-oriented if  it’s meant to benefit society or the community. Where to buy Trigerred: TRIGERRED: Creative Responses to the  Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines | Shopee Philippines

Journeys Into Reading: Top Ten Takeaways From the Author Visit of Ms. Cyan Abad Jugo

 

It is not everyday that young readers get to meet an author. My reading club over at The Learning Library was blessed to have a chat with Ms. Cyan Abad Jugo, teacher and author of Letters From Crispin (Anvil, 2016). Here are our top ten takeaways from her visit.

1. Stories take time to grow and develop. Letters to Crispin took three years to write and a few more before it was published.

2. Sometimes, a story has a life or a direction of its own. What was intended to be a sad, romantic story for a magazine/newspaper turned into something else - a ghost story that is connected to Philippine history.

3. Writing a story involves a process. 

4.  Writers often ask a friend or a colleague to read his/her story before submitting the manuscript to the publisher. It is good to listen to their feedback.

5. A manuscript is not always accepted for publication. This is a part of the creative process. 

6. Book making involves a lot of collaborative work. The author and illustrator are partners in creating a book.

7. Memory connects us to our past and present in some magical way.

8.  Look for the fantastic. For example, a person to live a hundred years and to witness two historical revolutions in his/her lifetime is  fantastic. This is the stuff of stories.

9. Exchange stories with your parents. Share and compare childhood stories with each other.  

10. Keep a journal.

As the teacher and facilitator of the reading club, I am still star struck from meeting Ms. Abad Jugo. She has such a comforting presence. Many thanks to Anvil Publishing for making this Author Visit possible.