poet, storyteller, educator
I love my apartment. Seriously, if I could marry it…
That’s probably why I’ve been dragging my feet to pack. I love the sliding door to the balcony and the fast that I could sit on the couch of my living room, Indian style and write a couple of lines before work. Ahh, the joy.
I have not idea what my apartment in Louisiana looks like. I just know it’s in a nice area and one of my co-workers lives in the same complex.
I will miss you 1806 and your super cheap rent.
This past weekend was as it should be – learning about serial killers vs mass murderers (there is a difference), an award winning writer’s trick to better scenes, and a tour around a CSI truck.
I went to my first fiction writers conference and it was….AWESOME! Seriously, I wish I could have gone that second day because I was taking it all in.
The Scene of the Crime conference (in Wichita, of course) is organized nearly yearly by the Kansas Writers Association. It’s a genre specific conference all about writing mystery and crime. Speakers are long time police officers, detectives, fire department captains, CSI, and forensic psychologists (that one was my favorite). There are also authors there talking about the craft – Nancy Pickard (I loved her since middle school) among others.
I have never been to a conference, and I’ve been to more than my share, where I have felt so invited and in the right place. It’s hard to explain but I felt a kinship to all the participants, like they understood me in a way that few people, even my friends, understand me. They get the late night marathon writing fests or the characters that wake you up in the middle of the night or that overwhelming urge to write and write and write and read and write some more. They get it and I’ve never felt so understood.
Yeah, I’m already saving for the next mystery conference, the Southwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America in Dallas in June. From the program flyer it looks like it could be a BLAST!
It’s a little known fact that writers are crazy. Certifiable. 100 percent. We are the only profession were it’s okay, even encouraged, to have voices in our heads. Those are our characters. They scream at us when we don’t accurately portray them. They keep us up at night when they feel neglected. They talk to us on long drives home. And, when they’re really generous, they tell us our plots and what happens in their lives.
I personally credit Anabel Suarez, one of four characters in my book, with helping me finish it. She woke me up at four in the morning with a new beginning scene. From there it was a piece of cake. Upside down (Stand and Deliver reference, sorry.)
But the current adventures of Anabel and her friends Patricia, Cindy, and Sara is going through the third rough draft edit. While that is happening, I’m researching and listening to the current voice in my head, Charity or Caridad (in Spanish). She’s complex and needs time to ripen and the only way to do that is to write down what she tells me. But these four ladies SO get in the way!
My friend Rachel had to hear about it Tuesday night.
“What do I do? These bitches keep talking to me!”
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. Write stuff down?”
See, not even another writer can help me with this. Someone please call the loony bin, those chicks are driving me nuts.
Two hours ago Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao!
For the Bloomberg story click here.
Popmatters.com story click here.
To hear Junot talk about the book click here.
I am so happy for Junot and excited for what this means for American Latino writers. We are coming into our own and becoming accepted and honored for our distinct voices and experiences. How we see the world is valid and where once there was resistance, there is now reward. I am so proud of this achievement. Wepa Junot!
Wouldn’t you know it? It was the most fun I had all week. And Naughty by Nature performed before Bow Wow (Omarion had a death in the family and couldn’t make it). Of course an old skool chic like me was LOVIN‘ IT. It took me back to my geeky days in middle and high school.
But above all, the concert reminded me how much I love hip-hop, not so much for the lyrics or music (although they’re hot too.) but for how it makes you feel. How it gave power to the powerless and voice to the voiceless. I love how every beat, every lick, every joint (song not herbal refreshment) is a call to arms and stirs something inside of me. It’s the truth set to song. Hell, it just makes you feel good.
Yeah, I had a Brown Sugar moment. I was Sid Shaw in the middle of it all and I had to ask, when did I fall in love with hip-hop. I don’t remember. It might have been one of those things that just happened like a comet hitting the Earth or when your body collides with someone in a dead run. It just one of those things.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. This is a writing blog, not a I-love-hip-hop-blog. But love is love and truth is truth. Writing is both as is hip-hop.
My writing circle loved her, too. They loved her probably more than me. It was one of those moments that made me so proud to be a writer, like everything just made sense.
But what’s more astounding is that these folks are from Kansas. They’re not Houstonians or New Yorkers or even LA folks, they’re Kansans where its flat and so different from anywhere urban. So very different. Mariana is obviously not Kansan but they saw her, who she was and what her life is like.
It just goes to show you, despite geography people still respond to a good story. That’s why being a writer is best job in the world. Hands down.
And now, in the words of Mariana Cortez (like the conquistador) adios chicos!
I created Mariana Cortez, a character from my recently completed short story, a couple of years ago. She was suppose to be this nerdy girl who undergoes a transformation. Hers was a basic story of changing… a makeover if you will.
But her tale has changed. I don’t know what made me decide to change her story. Maybe because I wanted to challenge myself. (My short stories are where I get to flex my literary muscle.) Or maybe because at the time I was reading Woodcuts of Women and Oscar Wao and I wanted to write something with some meat. (Don’t get me wrong, I love writing Chica Lit but sometimes, I just want something a little darker.)
So I decided to write this story about a girl, in that in between stage of teenager and adult where you think you know better but you don’t, who is made over by an addiction. It’s probably one of the more sinister stories I’ve written lately.
My writing group is set to critique it next week but some of the members jumped the gun and read it early. I took my friend Seti’s copy home on Tuesday. (I have dubbed Seti the squid killer since everyone’s story comes back dripping with ink from Seti’s pen. )
So the big thing Seti commented on was the character’s voice. She liked it! And so did some other people. Mariana talks like my homegirls in Houston with the chopped up English and the attitude effused speech. Writing in Mariana’s voice was so EASY. Super duper easy with ice cream on top. While I was writing the short story, I realized that I enjoyed writing in her voice more than I did in the narrator’s voice. It makes sense to me like Oscar Wao made sense, like the cheap Mexican paint line in Woodcuts made sense. It just clicked.
Could it be that my alter ego could be… Mariana Cortez ?
Well, I think that still remains to be seen but writing in that voice felt good. I felt like I was 19 again, starting out in Houston’s literary scene and making a name for myself. Thanks, Mariana!
Icess Fernandez Rojas