Category Archives: Blog

Long live the Latina (R)evolution

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I’ll admit, this is exciting.

A new blog. A new focus. A new chance to say something spectacular. So, you can imagine my hesitation for even starting this blog.

My name is Icess Fernandez Rojas and you may know me from another blog about telling stories. I’m a writer, a journalist and a blogger (obviously). I have an alphabet soup full of degrees and I am ridiculously active on Twitter.

I’m also Latina but not in the typical way you may think.

That’s the exciting part! To explain, I have to start with this quote from writer and columnist Juan Gonzalez:

“Mine is the perspective of a Latino who has grown tired of having our story told, often one-sidedly, without the passion or the pain, by ‘experts’ who have not lived it.”

I first read this quote in college–the first time–when I was studying to join the main stream media everyone seems to hate. I was young and didn’t understand that quote though I knew its significance.

Fast forward a couple (alright several couples) of years later. I’m in the dreaded media, I’m on this thing called Twitter, and all is well…kinda.

The public attention on immigration, Latin American politics, heck, even J-Lo and Shakira feed a stereotype about Latinas that drove me up the wall. No, all Latin@s are not from Mexico. No, we don’t all look like Sofia Vergara. No, we are all the hot, spicy, passionate stereotype that we have been known to be.

And no, we don’t all have have caramel skin.

Some of us actually look normal. We have big bellies and even bigger asses. We aren’t all from Mexico or have parents who are from there. We are not all hot and spicy (do I look like a chicken wing) and no, for the love of all that is good and holy in the world, we don’t look like J-Lo. Heck, J-Lo doesn’t look like J-Lo.

And, hold on to your socks, some of us are black.  (Insert car crash sound here.)

Yes, some of us are Afro Latin@. We have the curly hair and the dark skin. We have the big lips and the big hips.

I have all of these traits. I am Afro Latina and for decades I’ve allowed other people to tell my story, praying for the day that they care enough to understand its nuance enough to tell it correctly.

“Mine is the perspective of a Latino who has grown tired of having our story told, often one-sidedly, without the passion or the pain, by ‘experts’ who have not lived it.”

I finally grew tired when I saw my own people continue the stereotype. Afro Latin@s don’t exist in novelas. One magazine puts Zoe Saldana on the cover every year as part of its diversity of Afro Latinas.

It seems we are forgotten from that beautiful rainbow of Latin@ existence sometimes. Non-Latinos don’t help either.

I live in the South and to them it doesn’t matter if I can roll my “r”, I’m just another black girl, even though I don’t share the history of the African American (however we share the painful repercussions of slavery.)

With all this exclusion, I wondered…where was my story?

That’s how Latina (R)evolution started.

Yes, it’s a revolution, a fight to have my voice heard. It’s an evolution because where once I stood on the sidelines, I am now in the lucha with words like daggers at the ready.

I want to celebrate who I am and evolve into who I want to be, whatever that maybe.

That’s why this is exciting but scary for me. There’s so much to say and I want to say it all with the passion and the pain because I’ve lived it.

Join me.

A day without social media. Lessons and a tale of how.

NOTE: A version of this blog post was written as a column for The Times of Shreveport. 

The Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News was awesome.

After two huge national stories this week, my brain was liquid. 


See, I’m more plugged in than the average person. Aside from working in a newsroom, I’m also the social media person for my newspaper. That means I am in charge of not only giving people the news but making them talk about it on social media, Facebook mostly, which means I had to be plugged in.
By plugged in I mean REALLY plugged-in. I have two cell phones (work and personal), an iPad, and a laptop, all of them going and all of them set up to alert me of every little thing. 

After this week, I needed a break. A break, break. The kind where you call your boyfriend over the phone or take him to lunch in a public place and break the news gently.
“You’re smothering me. We need to go on a break.”

Not sure how my boyfriend, Social Media, took it but for me, it was difficult to live without him.
facebook

Damn it. 

Let’s start at the beginning, when I got this ingenious idea to go on a break. It was before this week’s epic news cycle. I heard about this thing called Analogue Sunday a while back. The goal was to take one day our of the week and rough it, 1982 style. No cell phone, TV  Internet, nada. Just you and your thoughts to entertain you.  This was intriguing and I never really committed to it until now.

On Friday night, after the suspect Boston bomber was captured, I said no more. I’m done. Analogue it is.  

So the adventure then started Saturday. I slept in and pulled out my typewriter. Yes, I own one. It’s awesome but it needed ribbon. Typewriter ribbon. Who in blazes still sells this stuff? Here I had a story rattling in my head and I needed ribbon. 

How did Hemingway and Fitzgerald write without typewriter ribbon? On the other side of coin, how was I going to write without my laptop?  Was this insane? Yes, it was but I wasn’t going to call off my analogue day without a fight. I’d figure out how to get that ribbon or figure something else out. 

A Facebook buddy suggested Office Depot. Bless their hearts they had some, however, not the ribbon I needed. That would have to be ordered through their website. 

typewriter

You’ve got to be kidding me. 

“You can go to the yellow pages and see if any of the non chain office supplies has what you need,” the red-shirted Office Depot “associate” said after speaking with his manager. 

No, he wasn’t kidding me. 

Rolling my eyes, I drove to my next destination, a symposium at the local arts council on zombies, vampires, and essentially everything cool you can talk about on a Saturday afternoon. 

This is when I missed my boyfriend the most. While everyone was waiting in between speakers, they texted and Facebooked and Tweeted. I sat there, looking around. I felt naked not being able to check in or Tweet some snarky comment or share a picture of this crazy alien wall art that was freaking me out.  It was as if my fingers were cut off and my tongue was tied with rubber bands.  Communication for me was difficult, more than I wanted to admit.  However, it became painfully obvious after the symposium ended how my ability to start and engage in conversation had gone to near extinction levels. I wanted to congratulate the presenters on an excellent job, but I felt awkward and timid. I was the social Bambi learning about to relate to people again.

Disappointed in myself, I left. Had social media taken so much of my life that I could no longer interact with people unless it was liking a comment or picture? How did this happen? When did this happen? I took out my phone when I got to the car. Without touching a button (so I wouldn’t see the alerts on my phone), I thought about how a device, which was originally conceived to make our communicating easier, was in reality destroying it, conversation by conversation. I no longer needed to have long conversations with my friends, they follow me on Facebook and Twitter. They know what I had for lunch and how happy I am (or not) at any given moment. The mystery of life’s little moments are given away in pictures and quotes. Memes do all my opinionating. I not longer laugh, I LOL. The art of conversation had become as difficult for me as it is for an infant. 

Writing. How has this impacted my writing? I wanted to find out in my little experiment whether my writing went the way my conversation skills had. Already failing to find ribbon for my typewriter,  I drove to Target to take it back to the old school, as the kids say. If I couldn’t use my typewriter, I could use paper and pen. But even this proved to be trying.

I didn’t own paper at home. Printer paper, yes, but not sheets of notebook paper. It took me ten minutes to weigh my paper options — legal pad, spiral notebooks, steno pad, composition notebook. Then another 15 to consider gel ink and ball point pens — gel writes better and ball point doesn’t smudge. Then another 10 to consider capped vs click pens. And yes, the blue vs black vs another color self-conversation was epic.

Having barely been able to make a decision on paper type, the ink pen decision was too much. I was exhausted from it.  I walked away a bit ashamed about the entire experience. I remember a time I’d spend an hour in the stationary aisle admiring the pens, knowing which ones I liked the best. Now, I couldn’t decide. It was a complete brain block. 

However, the writing part wasn’t as bad as the experience of it all. I could still sit and write something, silencing my inner editor, though I couldn’t write as fast as I type. As I was writing this story (a noir-inspired tale) I felt more connected to the prose. Though I already know that once I transfer it over into my laptop I’ll revise, I am a bit pleased with the first draft of it, or what I like to call the “bones.” 

So after 12 hours of my experiement, I decided to finally look at Facebook and Twitter. There were more than 20 notices waiting for me. Yes, my boyfriend Social Media was smothering me. But I wasn’t ready to cut him lose. I recognize it’s impact and its purpose. Since I have friends scattered everywhere, I like being able to see what they’re up to even if it is a picture of what they had for breakfast. I like that people who don’t know me follow me on Twitter and they get to know me by the Tweets I write. However, this experiment did teach that despite all the good, there were other things I didn’t want to lose touch with. I want to still have conversations and look people in the eye when I do. Reading a newspaper, a NEWSPAPER, is still pleasurable for me. While  during the week, I have to be connected to every news push notification, on the weekends I want to get the full story from my morning paper, not my iPhone or computer screen.

This experiment has showed me that it is time for social media and I to set up some boundaries.

So would I do this analogue day? Heck yes! I learned so much of myself and what I’d like to change. There needs to be time for more conversation. Reading should happen in paper form because sometimes convenience is just laziness. 

PUBLISHED: Marathoners happy to be home

My story about Boston Marathon runners made the front page today

Since becoming my organization’s social media person, I don’t get to write as much. Yesterday, however, that changed…at least for the day.

With so many people at training, there wasn’t many people to send out on assignment. So I volunteered to go meet a couple who was returning from the Boston Marathon.

I got to talk to them about their experience, their view of this horrendous act.

I’m glad I went. I began the day in so much pain because of the explosion. Boston for me is like a second hometown and know that it was in so much pain made my heart hurt. Listening to this couple’s story made me feel better. They were smiling and happy and grateful for Bostonian’s hospitality. That made me feel better.

This story was easy to write in the fact that I knew what my lede (how an article begins) was before sitting down and I knew how I wanted to structure it. When that happens, it’s easier to write an article.

To see a bigger version, click here. To read the story click here.

Six writers I admire and what they taught me [DISCUSS]

There is nothing like admiring a writer so much that you emulate them.

And you should, for a bit, until you figure out who you are as a writer. It’s like copying your big brother or sister when you were you young–you admire them and want to be just like them when you grow up but you end up growing into your own person.

Those writers you emulate are actually your teachers. If you read them and analyze them, you can break down their writing, figure out how they do the things they do, then you can try it out in your own writing.

For me, these “teachers” have much to teach me about writing and I am so ready to learn. So, here you have six of my favorite teachers in no particular order.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A.k.a Gabo. By far this man has taught me more about writing than any other writer. His novel, “Life in the Time of Cholera”, and his novella, “Chronicle of a Death Foretold”, are my go to art pieces when I need to remind myself of why I do this. He has been able to create stories and worlds that bypass my imagination and make me delight in the joy of storytelling.

I read a biography about him by Gerald Martin to know more about him. Gabo is a journalist like I am and he wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller. I understand him. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be, too.

Isabel Allende

What else to say about this great lady other than … she rocks my world. “House of the Spirits” and “Island Beneath the Sea” taught me that everything is possible in my world.

However, the biggest lesson she’s taught me is to respect my characters enough to let them become who they need to become, even if they do things you don’t like or understand. There is a discovery process in writing and you need to let it happen. It’s the character’s ride as much as it’s yours so let them do evil things if that is who they are. You don’t have to love your characters but you do have to respect them enough to allow them to exist in their own skin.

Junot Diaz

This dude right here woke me up. The “Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” breathed air into me at a time when I was dying from the inside. Reading that book was like reading life, it brought me out of my slump and shook me to my core. If there was any book that brought me back to the writing life, it was that one. And if there is any writer who inspires me to work harder, it’s this cat.

Walter Mosley

Does this choice surprise you? It shouldn’t. From this writer I learned the art of discipline. He writes for an hour and a half every day, even on vacation. That’s dedication, folks!

He also taught me that it’s okay to straddle the line between genre writing and literary writing. Not only is it okay, but you should play hopscotch with that line whenever possible. It’s not about literary or genre, it’s about telling a good story with depth and soul and meat to keep you reading from page to page.

Clarice Lispector

My favorite saying is from one of her books: “I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.”

That quote is engraved into my laptop! From her I learned simplicity and effortlessness. No, not to write simply but to work hard and make it look simple. Make people say, “I don’t know how you did it but it seems so easy.”  The secret is that it is not, but you shouldn’t be able to tell by the prose.

Edwidge Danticat

Edwidge Danticat taught me that it’s okay to be exactly who I was. I didn’t have to apologize for it or explain it. She taught me that I was who I was and that what I had to say, my experiences and my world view, deserved to be heard.

This was a powerful lesson to someone who spent a lot of time explaining how she was the way she was. Reading Danticat was my liberation.

Who are the writers you admire? What lessons did they teach you?

Five ways to beat a deadline

I love deadlines! Yeah, no. Not really.

 

Oh, deadlines. How I love thee in my weird yet obnoxious way.

Recently, as I was reading articles on my Zite app, I came across this post at Writer’s Digest by another writer. In it he gives tips on how to make your deadline. What a brilliant post idea! Every writer has to deal (or not deal) with deadlines in one way or another. Whether you’re a journalist or a novelist or even a grad student, deadlines are everywhere and the necessary evil of our profession.

I’ve had a relationship with deadlines for the past 10 years as a reporter, so I’m well accustomed to its demands. While I was a grad student one of my strengths was being able to write with a deadline looming.

Like I said, I’m good with deadlines.

So, if you’re not good with them or if you want some advice, here’s five additional tips to deal with deadlines that may help.

1.) Embrace procrastination…to a certain point.

We are creative people and part of being able to create is to have some sort of freedom. In fact it feeds it.  However, don’t go all crazy with this–limit your freedom. Give yourself a deadline before the deadline to end the procrastination.

One of the ways I deal with this is through cleaning. It’s the weirdest thing. When I’m up against a writing deadline, I wash dishes and clean the kitchen. By the time I’m done picking up the living room, it’s time to get some work done. For me, doing something that doesn’t take much creative thinking allows my brain to ponder what to do when it is time to get some creative juices flowing. It’s part of my process.

2.) Take advantage of your natural writing rhythm

Do you write better at night? Early in the morning? There’s a reason for that. Creativity has a favorite time to come and play. Now, I’ve never been a complete fan of write when you feel like it. I believe that you should develop a writing habit and train yourself to do so. However, you do have to listen to your rhythm.  If you do better at night then make that (your nightly writing) your habit: “I will write for an hour starting at 10:30 every night.”  This is the dedicated time to write and work on your writing project so use it well.

When I was reporting regularly, I knew that my natural rhythm to turn in a daily story started around 3:30 or 4 p.m. I knew that my reporting needed to be done around 2 p.m. The time in between was to do all the non-writing things I needed to do — meetings, talk to editors, etc.  But like clock work, when the time came to write, I tore up the keys to make my 6 p.m. deadline (5 p.m. if things needed to be done early.)

3.) Schedule bite size pieces

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Have you ever heard that? It’s true. If you have a deadline on a big (or bigish) project, don’t expect to get that done in a day or even a week. Whether it’s a novel, a short story for a competition or journal, or or even an essay, think about the process and what you think it will take to get there.

However, be careful to evaluate your project correctly. You may under estimate how much time you need to get things done and then you’ll miss your deadline, or worse, make your deadline with a sub par product. No bueno. Always evaluate your writing project as you work on it. Make a list of what you need to do if needed. And always, always, always, give yourself time for revision.

4.) Talking about revision…schedule that first.

One of the biggest regrets when I turned in my thesis during my grad program is not scheduling enough time for the actual revision. I had given myself one week and I really should have scheduled two.

Revision is one of those things you hate to do but love that you did it when you’re done. It’s hard for me to reconcile this in my brain since so much of my professional life has been about reporting so I had to write most things as perfect as it could be the first time. But now, as a fiction writer, I have to go back and revise. There is no getting it right the first time. Since first drafts are crap, the writing is in the revision, therefore this takes more time. Polish takes effort, and time, and, well, more time. You have to let the piece sit, and then polish, and sit, and then re-polish. Therefore, schedule this time first and work backwards from there.

5.) If all else fails, bribe yourself.

That’s right. Bribe yourself. “If I make this deadline, I’ll going to have chocolate cake.”  At the end, you’re about to run out of steam and, really, you need something that’s going to get you over the finish line, a second wind. Promise yourself anything you can get or afford — new music, new clothes, food, a workout, a phone call to a friend, ANYTHING!  You’ve done all this hard work and you need to reward yourself. Bribing yourself could be the thing you need to get things done on time.

My favorite thing to bribe myself with: jewelry, food, or a movie. Shopping is good, too. Mostly books.

Alrighty, folks. Ironically, I have a deadline (or is that a coincidence?) Gotta go!

Self-publish or traditional publishing? [DISCUSS]

Self publish or traditional? What to do?

Here’s a question I’ve been mulling over.

With it getting easier to put your work out into the world, is the traditional path to publishing becoming  extinct?

There are great arguments on both sides of the coin. Self-publishing gives the writer power– they are in charge of everything for better or worse. Sometimes, it’s worth a bit of money. With traditional publishing there are fewer fees and better editing but the path is a not for the faint of heart.

So what do I chose? I have no idea.

What do you guys think?  Which is the better path to take — self publishing or traditional publishing? Write your opinion in the comments below.  


*A shout out to ProBlogger for the idea for this post.

What is a Latino(a)?

Which one is Latino?


Now that’s an interesting question, isn’t it? 

And it’s interesting that this question is being brought up as Pope Francis has been named the head of the Catholic church. The son of Italian immigrants, is he Latino? What makes one Latino?
In a perfect world, this would not be a valid question. Does anyone else ask what is a Black person or a White person? (The fact that they are races while Latino is an ethnicity is moot.)  Of course, not.
But maybe we should. 

It seems that, in absence of real conversation, the general public depends on stereotypes as a knowledge crutch. So when you ask someone what is a black person, you could get a myriad of answers and of those, a portion would be stereotypical.
What is a Latino then? Should we work to find a definition? I don’t know about you but I tell my own stories, I define my own life. I don’t allow anyone else to do it for me.
This is how I define Latino(a):

  • I am emerging, with my toes on the edge of a cliff toward greatness. 
  • I am educated. I can make my own decisions — good and bad — without rhetoric or the help of pundits.
  • I am a fighter. I come from strong stock; my parents wanted a good life for me. It’s my responsibility to ensure their dream which is also my dream 
  • I am the future. My children and my children’s children will know about the hardships of my parents and their parents because it will be told to them as the verbal history of a people. They will be proud because they know all this was for them. They are the next level Americans, the kind that will never ask what is a Black person or a Latino person. Those questions will not have a place in their world. 
  • I am the past. It does not matter how many tablets, computers, and phones I will have or use, I am my ancestor.  Their blood flows through my veins, their features are on my face — Indian, African, European. 
  • I am not the stereotype. I speak Spanish.  I was born in the United States. I was one foot firmly in one culture and the other in another culture. I am bilingual and bicultural. 
  • And above all… I exist and I will not be ignored. 
I can define Latino because I know who I am. I can define myself without help of stereotypes and assumptions. 
So, what’s your definition of Latino? 

Soledad O’Brien signs off her CNN show

In Spanish “soledad” means lonely, solitary.

I am reminded of that when I watch Soledad O’Brien sign off from her final show of  “Starting Point.”

That’s not a bad thing at all. In fact, it’s a good thing. A very good thing.

See, in the news business there are several types and I’d like to think that Soledad is a storyteller and that path can be solitary. It has to be because observing the human condition is a solitary act.

Long time readers of this blog know that I am a storyteller too, even before I knew it, and as a reporter, I feel a kinship to Soledad.

I don’t know the reasons for her departure. I don’t care. I just know that she will be around and I am excited to see what she’ll do. In a time where technology is readily available and affordable and where the world yearns for stories, this is the era of the storyteller.

Soledad is about to rock the world all by herself.

Fantastic writing links this week

To write is divine. To read is obligation.
Wow, there were tons of writing links this week! And they are all useful. I couldn’t decide which ones to use so I decided to use them all and even then I think I may have missed a couple.

Here’s some of the more interesting, useful, mind-bending links about writing I found this week. Let me know if any of them are useful for you!

The Inspiration of a Writer

Inspiration

I just finished writing the most recent newsletter. To those who subscribe, thanks! To those who don’t but want to, here’s the link.

This issue of the newsletter was called the Inspiration Issue. There’s lots to inspiring me lately so I shared my thoughts.

For one, my students inspire me. Did I tell you that I am instructor at a college?

I am. I don’t really want to write too much about it since it could be a sensitive thing to write about, (FERPA and all) but what I can say is that they inspire me. They make me want to be a better writer and teacher. I want to write and publish so they can say,”Hey, my teacher knows what’s she’s talking about cause she’s actually doing what she’s telling us to do.” I want them to be proud of me and proud of themselves.  I see them working hard, which makes me work hard. They are inspiring.

I’m inspired by the weather. It’s finally spring and I don’t have to hide in my apartment with the heater on.  That’s enough to make me smile nearly everyday.

Music inspires me. Lately, Alicia Key’s “Brand New Me” is inspiring me. It forces me to look back these five years, when I started this blog, and see where I came from. It also makes me focus toward the future. What I want to become? What do I want this blog to become?

I guess I’m saying all this to say that there are changes afoot. Not sure what they will be but one thing is certain, I’m going to be writing about more than just writing.

I feel the need to broaden the focus of the blog, to reflect the change I’m going through. Yes, I’ll continue to write about writing. In fact, I have a post on some of the common mistakes I’ve seen made in writing coming up soon.

But I’ll also focus on what is important to me. See, part of being a writer is being an activist. Some are more active than others. I’m not saying that I’m going to be living in trees in protest of one thing or another but I will be writing on some important issues for the Latino community and for education, which are my passions.

This is what happens when you open yourself up to change, you change.

Inspiration is change, a way to go down a different path–a re-dedication.

So, let the change begin!