Writing is lonely for National Artist Ricky Lee, but why does he keep doing it?

“May hikbi, may nguynguy, may hagulhol. May atungal, nagwo-walling sa dingding, o kaya’y nakalupasay sa sahig.”

(There’s sobbing, there’s weeping, there’s loud crying. There’s wailing, walling, or lying on the floor in despair.)

Inside a packed cinema during the tail end of Cinemalaya 2025, filmmaker Dwein Baltazar reads an eight-minute excerpt from Pinilakang Tabing, one of the two new novels by Ricky Lee. She leads the pack of directors who’d interpret parts of the new book — as well as Agaw-Tingin, the National Artist’s freshly released archive of decades’ worth of nonfiction work — through only their voices and stage presence.

At this book launch, it was the only excerpt that eventually had a visual supplement. The audience was immersed in a supercut of various faces of crying in Filipino films — from Jolina Magdangal in Labs Kita, Okey Ka Lang? (1998) to Gina Alajar in Moral (1982), both of which Lee wore the screenwriter hat for.

After all, this arrangement resonates with the world orchestrated in Pinilakang Tabing, as it revolves around the effect of Philippine cinema on the lives of the book’s characters in a span of 40 years. 

Working on Pinilakang Tabing

Despite the story’s long stretch of a timeline, Lee admits that this is the quickest he’s written a novel.

“I think partly because taga-movies ako (I think it’s partly because I work for the movies),” he tells Rappler.

“I used Lino Brocka as a character. Just a brief appearance, but I know him, so it’s easy to incorporate,” he added in Filipino. “There’s Nora Aunor — again, I know Guy. So, in a way, I know these people. Even the fictional characters, the world they inhabit, I know them. In a way, it’s much easier to write than the other novels — I think four or five months of writing, so I could have it ready in time for the Manila International Book Fair last September.”

Loneliness in writing

What makes the crying-focused excerpt extra impactful for me, though, is the realization that I should’ve expected this high attention to vulnerability from Lee, who’d call even writing — his passion — a lonely job.

I heard this live in 2019. Inside the University of the Philippines Film Institute, I studied screenwriting with a multigenerational group during his three-day masterclass. I was still in my first year as a full-time professional in my publishing job, and felt like I was getting acquainted with writing from square one despite being passionate about it for years. Hearing a living legend verbalize my deep-seated emotions was strangely satisfying.

In 2025, Lee stands by his truth: “I think we need that loneliness.”

“Hindi ko alam kung nabanggit ko nun — we need both the solitude and the multitude, kung gusto natin maging writer. You need the multitude kasi kailangan nakakabit ka sa mga tao. Kailangan nakikita ko sila, kailangan naaamoy ko sila. So, kailangan akong sa mga tao naka-immerse, nakikinig sa kanila.”

(I’m not sure if I mentioned it that time — we need both the solitude and the multitude, if we want to be a writer. You need the multitude because you need to be attached to people. I need to see them, I need to smell them. So, I need to immerse with them and listen to them.)

He continues, “But I also need solitude to touch base with myself. Otherwise, everything I write will be awkward. Nothing’s going to flow inward. In a way, it’s sad because you’re set apart from everybody and then you’re writing something very painful, for example, about society, and you think, ‘What do I do?’ It’s like I’m alone when writing. So it really is sad. But it’s not a hopeless thing. I’m a very optimistic person.”

Showing up for work

This solitude, it seems, is greatly influenced by how he creates his mornings. 

“The latest I wake up is 5 am. Immediately after waking up, I go to the computer and start writing. So whether or not there’s a deadline, [whatever] reason, whether I’m in the mood or not, I go and write. it’s like I report for work, because that’s my work, I’m a writer. So I write every day at dawn.”

Unlike others, Lee doesn’t need a cup of coffee for his early productivity sprint. But he does listen to Cup of Joe, with songs like” Patutunguhan” and “Estranghero.”

Interestingly, he’s more of a music fan than he is of movies and literature. Barging into his playlists would reveal his favorites like local Gen Z bands Lola Amour and The Ridleys, to decade-spanning foreign acts like Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison. His car music rotation, he shared, would even jump from Broadway tunes to Filipino musicals.

The vast music choices perhaps reflect the colorful process.

“I’m a very disorganized person. I cannot stay put. I cannot focus easily. I get restless,” he admits. “I usually tackle two, three projects at the same time. I outline everything; a process, so I can control my chaos. There’s a biography for each character, I have notes. I’m very organized because I’m very disorganized.”

An in-depth process

After all, he sees every material demanding a unique kind of process. When he put together his 2024 novel Kalahating Bahaghari, he interviewed the trans community, plus people who identify as bisexual, genderfluid, and gay, among others. The research and immersion stage also involved sitting in a class in UP, just so he could relive the experience of being a creative writing student, as well as going to a spa.

This is what makes Pinilakang Tabing different — a set visit wasn’t necessary to rekindle the feeling of being soaked in shoots. Agaw-Tingin, however, was another ball game.

“Medyo madugo kasi ang dami (It was a bit overwhelming),” Lee says about the selection process. Agaw-Tingin is a collection of his published and unpublished nonfiction work, starting from the ’70s, when he was also working as a journalist.

Through gestures, Lee shows me the thickness of his repertoire through the years, and how only a little portion of it was included in the book. But there were pieces he didn’t think twice about, like Mga Batang Lansangan: Sa Taft ang Simula, sa Luneta ang Wakas (1986), which has become a required school reading.

Rummaging through old work probably felt like meeting past versions of yourself, I say, to which he instantly agrees. Was there any realization out of this?

“When I wrote these article before Martial Law, it turned out I was too polemical. I have many articles that feel like I was clenching my fist, like ready to punch. I’m not like that anymore. I write more obliquely now,” he says.

A long-term relationship with the novel

It always seems to boil down to the multitudes. This word reappears when I probe his long-running relationship with the novel. His storied career has pushed him to explore various forms of writing, but what motivates him to return to it?

Novels allow a different sense of control — unlike in movies or stage plays where the material is bound to change or evolve because of the multiple minds that come to play, or even the participation of actors.

“I don’t mind having no control. But in novels, how nice that there’s one medium where I’m in full control?” he says.

Lee then adds, “I can listen to other people’s suggestions and comments. I can reason with them. But in the end, I’m the one doing it from beginning to end. It’s all mine”

When it comes to present-day readership, the rise of #BookTok is an interesting case study. While it’s created a community of readers both old and new, it’s also been plagued by criticism for promoting consumerism (through hoarding and not actually reading) or “reading” becoming merely an aesthetic or a performance.

Lee doesn’t have TikTok. But he’s aware of its power — one day, his team received around 30 to 40 orders of Kalahating Bahaghari, to which they eventually attributed to a TikTok user posting a tearful review of it beforehand. The same thing happened with Para Kay B, his debut novel, achieving 80 orders in a single day.

“Yes, there’s a good side and a bad side. But I’d rather acknowledge its good side than it not existing at all. It’s just a matter of regulating it, making it more correct, making it more honest, and ensuring we actually read. Most of the people do. Some of those who review my work, they read the lines, so you’ll see it,” he explains.

“I think hayaan munang mag-grow lahat ng tanim tsaka tanggalin yung damo. May maiiwang mga bulaklak at gulay,” he argues. “Pero kung sabihin natin huwag magtanim, maging puristic tayo at malinis ’yung grounds, wala rin mangyayari. So, allow muna all that. Inevitably, may mga konting damo na lalabas diyan. [Parte ’yun ng] paglago ng lahat.”

(I think we should let the seeds grow first before pulling the weeds. Flowers and vegetables will remain. But if we say that we shouldn’t plant at all, and we should be puristic and let the grounds be spotless, nothing will happen. So, just allow all that. Inevitably, a few weeds will come out. That’s part of the growth of everything.)

How nonfiction powers up fiction

It’s not usual for Lee to spot the silver lining of the most unexpected things.

“Our life is already creative as it is. So don’t worry about not being creative. The only thing you have to do is be open to yourself and to experiences. Everything in this world invites you to be creative,” he says.

“The kids who would ask you questions while they play; that would already make you creative. When there’s gossip, we fill in the gaps too, right?”

Novels give Lee the freedom to “go wherever [he wants] to go.” But that doesn’t mean he’s just floating on air. “I realized my nonfiction articles greatly helped in my writing of fiction, because I interviewed a lot of real people and I immersed, like the street kids of Avenida, Recto, and Luneta,” he recounts.

He would return to them night after night. Sometimes he’s alone, other times he’d gone with someone from his highly anticipated workshops, which he’s been holding for free since 1982, producing today’s biggest names in the TV and film industry.

“Mas kilala ko ang mga tao, kilala ko ang mundo. Na-ground ako. And yet, because na-ground ako sa realidad nung nakita ko, nagkaroon ako ng laya na lumipad maski saang lugar gusto. Na-ground ako and yet naging groundless din. Nagkaroon akong freedom to be groundless. So, ’yung laya na ’yun, hindi ako magiging confident kung hindi nagsimula sa pagiging grounded. ’Yun yung usually sinasabi ko ’pag may nagpapa-dedicate sa ‘Amapola,’ na pwede naman tayong lumipad na nasa ground ang paa.”

(I get to understand the people more, the world more. I got grounded. And yet, since I’m grounded to the realities I saw, I had the freedom to fly anywhere I want to go. I got grounded, yet became groundless. So that freedom, I wouldn’t have been confident had I not been grounded. That’s what I usually tell people who ask for dedication for Amapola, that we can fly even with our feet on the ground.)

Harnessing the power of words

How has Lee’s relationship with writing changed — especially since he was named National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts in 2022? 

“I think the responsibility of a writer has gotten bigger now. Me and others — to be in tune, to be aligned with what’s happening in our surroundings, not to be tone deaf. Because I think the urgency of what’s happening around us has tripled,” he says.

“In today’s social media age, one of the most important instruments of both sides are words. So, you need to tell stories if you know how to use words. It’s like, if there’s a savior in our midst right now, it can be words. But if there’s a monster in our midst, it can also be words. This is a clash of narratives. So it’s really important now to tell stories; to tell your story.”

“Every story, may the ending be sad or grim or cynical, may the ending be unhappy… Every story is a wish for a better world,” he adds. “So, I’m optimistic. Otherwise, why would you write if you feel everyone is doomed? So even if people are doomed in the ending, it’s because you’re wishing for something.”

In the case of wishing, I see a glimpse of this as the National Artist signs my copy of Pinilakang Tabing.

“May films keep reminding us who and what we are,” he writes on the first page.

As he finishes his message with his go-to sign pen, Lee recounts the spelling of my name through our Messenger chat, where I formally invited him for the interview.

“Kayo po pala talaga ’yung kausap ko nun? (I was actually speaking directly to you?)” I quip, genuinely expecting it was entirely his team.

“Yes.” – Rappler.com