Paola Lee

What was your favorite book as a child?

Little Women was probably the first book that made me feel like a book could be arguing with the world around me. I loved the sisters, obviously, but I think I was especially attached to Jo because she seemed deeply unwilling to become the version of a woman everyone had already decided she should be.

I read it before watching the 2019 movie, so the book is still how I remember it first: messy hair, arguments, ambition, sisterhood, money, marriage, and four girls trying to figure out what kind of lives they actually wanted. I was fascinated by the fact that marriage could be presented as both romance and a practical necessity. The older I got, the more I started noticing that in Jane Austen too. Women weren’t always choosing between “love” and “no love.” Sometimes they were choosing between different kinds of security in a world where their economic and social freedom was incredibly limited.

That eventually sent me down a completely unnecessary but very enjoyable rabbit hole about the history of marriage, religion, property, and women's labor. I think Little Women was the beginning of me asking why certain things are treated as natural when someone, somewhere, had to invent them.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I don't think I had one. I was ten.

I was a very quiet kid, and after an elementary school teacher called me “insane,” I remember going home with this horrible feeling that I couldn't really explain. What made it worse was feeling like my parent didn't believe me when I told them what happened. I had an orange notebook, so I started filling it with diary entries. Very serious ten-year-old journalism, basically. I wrote down things I couldn't say properly to anyone else.

I didn't think, Oh, this is the beginning of my writing career. I was just trying to put my thoughts somewhere outside my own head.

I still like writing for that reason. People can live in the same city, sit in the same classroom, even experience the same event, and walk away carrying completely different worlds inside them. We all live inside our own very specific version of the world, and our subjectivity is one of the strangest things about being human. Our world is embarrassingly large, while our minds and our time are embarrassingly small. We can't possibly experience everything ourselves. Writing lets us borrow someone else's eyes for a moment, or offer someone our own.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

Honestly, I think my life has been adventurous in very stupid ways.

When I was fourteen, some of my friends and I used to hang out outside when it was already ridiculously late at night. One time, I was rushing to make coffee before going out and accidentally put salt instead of sugar in it. I didn't notice until I took a sip outside and wondered why my coffee tasted like the sea. I still think about that coffee sometimes.

Then, just a few months ago, I was sitting there typing on my document when my dog, who was beside me, suddenly started staring at something. I looked over and there was a snake right in front of me. Like, actually right in front of me. I hadn't even noticed it. My dog apparently had better observational skills than I did. I was so scared and panicked that I swear I wasn't fully myself for the next few days. I kept remembering the exact moment I looked up and saw it.

I've also spent years commuting a long way to school. I would sometimes get home at around 11 p.m., then wake up at 2:30 a.m. every single day to get ready again. I've gotten lost alone in Quezon City several times too, which is especially funny in retrospect because I somehow kept finding my way home.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing? Why/why not?

Yes. Absolutely. Probably too much.

I am one of those people who can listen to a devastating song while having a completely normal and happy day. I love Phoebe Bridgers, Mitski, Ethel Cain, Searows, and a ridiculous number of other artists, although I promise I do listen to happy music too. My playlists just have a slight emotional bias. 

When I’m writing, music sometimes gives me the atmosphere I can’t quite find by staring at the blank document. There are songs that make me want to write something furious, something tender, something completely unhinged. Sometimes I’ll have one song on repeat for an hour because I need the particular feeling it creates.

Reading is different. If I’m really absorbed in a book, I usually want silence because I don't want another voice interfering with the one I've created in my head. But if I’m reading somewhere noisy, I’ll put on headphones and let the music blur into the background.

I think I like music while writing because it reminds me that emotion doesn’t always need to be explained. Sometimes you can just feel the thing first and figure out what it means afterward.