poet, storyteller, educator
What’s the best part about being close to home? Going to a 2-year-old’s birthday party because you remember when her mom told you she was pregnant. And you were there when her parents got married. And you were one of the first to hear of their engagement.
Yup. Being closer is starting to pay off.
I’ve gone through a road block with my book only to find myself with another one — Cuba 1959 and race relations.
I’m finding some web stuff but not alot that would lend its self easier to what I’m writing.
Looks like I’m going to have to go reporter on this now.
Not looking forward to it.
Hola Carolina,
My name is Icess Fernandez and I LOVE your books, more specifically the Lupe Solano mysteries. They are awesome. Beyond awesome. So far beyond that the dictionary doesn’t even deliver to that area.
For me, Lupe was the older sister I have but don’t talk to because she lives in Cuba. If my sister, Viviana is her name, were Cuban American, living in Miami, with a jones for cafe con leche, and could speak English, she would be Lupe. Which would make me her gay cousin or her nun sister but let’s not get into that.
Growing up in suburbia hell, err North Shore in the 1980s/early 90s there weren’t very many people who looked like me — gorgeous, Afro-Latina with a voice like an angel. There were even less that looked like me and spoke the Reyna’s Spanish. The nearest Cuban? In Jacinto City about 15 minutes away but those folks and my folks, well, you know how Cubans do.
Anyway, I don’t remember when I picked up the Lupe Solano mysteries. It might have been at Sam’s Club or somewhere where they sell books, but not a bookstore because hell, err, North Shore, doesn’t have any bookstores. Hey, we just got a Starbucks like a year ago and we’re STILL super excited about it. Regardless of where or how I came to know Lupe Solano, I fell in love with her. But the healthy non-obsessive love. I saved that for Joey from NKOTB. (Hey, boo!)
She was my guide in a tunnel filled with sameness. She taught me that to be part Cuban was okay and that cafe con leche was good on any day or time. Lupe’s world was my vacation. I knew that a place like Miami existed but I wanted Lupe’s Miami and I wouldn’t accept imitations.
When it comes to writing influences at a young age, it was you, Lupe, err, I mean Carolina, that I wanted to be like. I wanted to write mysteries longer that I wanted to write anything. Even poetry, which is where I got my start. You, Joan Lowery Nixon, Nancy Pickard, hell even the Nancy Drew authors and those damn Box Car Children lead me down the road to wanting to be mystery writer. (Add Encyclopedia Brown in that and we’re in business.)
But in the past couple of years, (since 2001) there hasn’t been a new Lupe story. Instead there have been some chick lit books. And, even though that was the genre that was making money at the time, a part of me died when there was no Lupe in sight.
But then, in a 2006 interview from Ft. Lauderdale during the National Association of Hispanic Journalist convention, which I attended but didn’t know your were there because I SOOOOO would have been there with books to sign, you said that there would be a new Lupe story in a year or so. Carolina, it’s been two. Where is the story?
I know you have a lot to do and a book takes time, (Hello! Five years here.) but I NEED me some Lupe Solano. I crave Lupe Solano. Lupe and me need to have a catch up session, over cafe con leche.
If you could find it in your heart to make this happen for me and the countless other Lupe Solano fans, I would be in your debt and my first born or next pet, which ever is first, will be named Carolina (with the “r” roll and everything.)
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
Just like the return of Jay-Z to hip hop (retirement? please!) come back and set the world right again.
Your humble reader and fan,
Icess Fernandez Rojas
This post has been along time coming.
Not because we have elected our first president of color. Not because we as a nation have united. Nov. 4 is the catalyst I needed to make some changes.
Mostly, what to do about grad school , writing, and the like. When I thought about going to get my MFA, I was in a very bad place and needed to get out. This was a way to do it.
But now I’m in more familiar company so now the idea of going to grad school and being poor for two to three years no longer appeals to me.
Then I saw the above video. And I cried. Yes, I can.
The true reason to go back for the MFA…. I have something to say and it’s valuable. Someone, at one point of my journalism career, didn’t think my voice was valuable, that I didn’t have something to say. And most frustrating, that writing about Hispanics wasn’t something I should be doing.
No one tells me no. I’ll find a way to do it anyway.
On some level, that is what has driven me to make Singlenochaser.com the best it can become. With seven voices of different colors, we can not be denied.
The pen is mightier than the sword. I believe that more than almost anything, but journalists, reporters, etc., don’t have a monopoly on ink. Especially since a handful of them should have 1) taken the damn buyout and left 2) are so unreasonable 3) have stopped caring about what the news is.
No one tells me no. As an author (future), I write stories about characters who usually don’t have voices — Latinas, Latinos, sensible men, etc. Where are THEY in the mainstream tapestry? I’m sure some would point to the maid, the construction worker, the butcher. I’m talking about the CEO, the mother, the teacher, the lawyer, doctor, writer, college student, recent grad, business owner. They apparently only have one skin color. Unfortunately, I use to live in a place where people with titles believed and preached that.
But here I am, with something to say, and doggoneit, I’m gonna say it. I’m gonna say it, and writing it, and blog it, until my hearts content and then I’ll wake up the next day and do it again.
I just need to step out on faith and do it. Faith is powerful. Faith will lead me through this. Faith gave us our new president. And a day of change is now upon.
Once upon a time on another blog, I wrote about sweating and how it can clear the mind – like Native American sweat lodges.
A lesson relearned.
Tonight, as I was on the treadmill reading Pen on Fire, I pondered the two new characters that were hatching in my brain. I try not to rush the process and let them pop out on their own. Of course during that time I’m in creative process PAIN. Thankfully, they’ve come out.
My two female characters. Sofia Martinez and Natalie Barrett. I’m in the process of creating their world. They join PIs Jennie Manning and Sherlock Drew as “detectives” in the genre I will eventually move to – mystery.
Love it when this happens. Of course in the middle my second book is a bit inconvenient but whatayagonnado?
As a writer, characters pop into my head all the time. Right now, the space between my ears is home two two, maybe three, character seedlings. That means that they aren’t completely fleshed out but it’s only matter of time before they pop onto the page.
But Alberto, my favorite character in my book, was one of those characters that matured on the pages. In my mind he was a side thought. But now, he’s the one I identify with.
He reminded me of this guy.
Well not exactly this guy but this character in the musical Chicago. Amos Hart, the loveable pushover who, at the end, finally understands who his wife really is.
My eyes are tired most days. I don’t remember that last time I slept at a decent hour. My fingers know only how to type and move a mouse around.
These are the characteristics of a woman on a mission.
There is a fire inside of me that has people worried. Worried that I harvest that uncontrollable fire, that passion. And for years, I felt that someone one day will listen to me, give me my due, let me unleash this fire contained within.
I have good ideas. I can lead. But I have been told my ideas are not good. And then when someone else has the same ideas… you know how that story goes.
I have been dependent on an idealized dream of success.
But as my friend Elpheba (picture on top) says: It’s time to trust my instinct, close my eyes and leap.
I have this new resolve now that I have never had before. I want to figure out things, new things or paths, that I never considered before. Mostly because I have to change, and partly because I want to.
I’m going to finish my book. I’m going to drive to different places in Louisiana and take pictures. I want to learn to play the piano. I want to launch successful blogs. I want to have my own business.
I want to defy gravity.
That’s what a woman on a mission does. My mission is to come out of this economic crisis stronger than when I went in.
Here’s to gravity.
Lately my writing has not come easy at all. I’ve been doing everything else but writing actually.
I, as well as seven other women, have just launched a new blog called Singlenochaser.com. It’s essentially a blog about being single.
It’s taken more that what I realize to put it together and to launch it. Ironically enough, I liked managing it.
I loved putting the ladies together and working out the logistics about things. I love the power it gave me to execute my ideas
But it’s taking a toll on my writing. Soon I’ll have to disconnect from it long enough to continue my writing.
For right now, however, I want to be Alice and see where the rabbit hole goes.
One of my stories was picked up by Good Morning America on Friday. Here’s the link.
The problem with having side hustles is that you work all the time.
It’s Sunday late morning. I’m in my bed, curled up with my lap top, working on side hustle 3. Hustle number 2 — my book in progress will be worked on today after errands.
Hustle 3 is a project that I’ll be announcing soon. It’s set to launch in a week.
But that’s all I can tell you for now. I gotta get back to work.
Icess Fernandez Rojas