Marcelo in the Real World has been out there since March and I have been overwhelmed by its reception both critically by the professional reviewers as well as by the many, many people who have reviewed the book in their blogs or have commented upon it either publicly or by contacting me personally through this website. I am so happy that the book has already touched as many people as it has. I know that it will continue to do so. And yet, I confess to feeling a certain detachment from all the good things that are happening to the book. Maybe it is the length of time involved between when an author finishes writing a book and when the book is published that creates that distance - the sense that the book is no longer one’s own and all the praise (or criticism) that are heaped upon it are not to be taken, well, personally. Did I really write that book? I remember the years and the days and the hours of struggle and joy but they seem so far off now. I feel as if the images and the words came to me, were given to me, and that I was fortunate to have a good editor who set me on the right path. I’m not trying to be humble. I’m trying to convey what happens after a book is written. I think this natural separation from the work is sort of what a woman goes through in forgetting the labor pains of the prior child so that the next child can be conceived and born. Maybe in the case of writing, it is not only necessary to forget the pain of creating the previous work but also the praise received for it. It is just as easy to get stuck in pain as it is in praise. But forgetting pain and praise is not the right term. What is needed after a book is out is the gentle remembering of the gift-like qualities of the book’s creation. It is this remembering that will carry us steadily into the next work.
May 13, 2009
April 7, 2009
Frame of Mind
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether good writing is preceded by a particular frame of mind. Do you write better when you are calm or do you do your best when your mind is moving fast and thinking hard? The question came to me in the midst of some editing that I was doing. There was a particular scene in the book that I knew wasn’t right, my editor knew wasn’t right as well, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to solve the problem. For a couple of weeks there, I wondered whether I would ever be able write again. How do you pull out of that kind of muck? In my case, I was fortunate enough to go on vacation to a warm place for a couple of weeks. I didn’t touch the manuscript at the suggestion of my editor and in the middle of the second week, while I was pouring myself a glass of ice tea and not thinking about my work at all, the idea, the piece that was missing came to me. I think that along with the relaxation, what I needed to recover was a sense of humility – an inner comfort that what I have is good enough to share. It seems now as if I got stuck because I was trying too hard and the manuscript missed a subtlety and naturalness that comes when you write with the knowledge that all you can do is write from the depth of your heart, listening all along to a kind of music that guides you.
February 28, 2009
Beginnings- Marcelo in the Real World
March 1, 2009 is the official release date for Marcelo in the Real World. I was looking in my journals the other day and ran into an entry written back in May of 2005 that talked about writing a story from the point of view of the son of Aurora, the protagonist of the novel I was then in the midst of writing. A few weeks later, I started experimenting with a story about Marcelo, the son of Aurora. What happened in the four years that followed can best be described as “false starts that got me closer to where the story wanted to go.” I would say that at least three versions of Marcelo were produced over a three year period before the right one chose to reveal itself. I wonder sometimes whether there was anyway to have gone straight to the final version and skip the pain of not getting it right. I’m inclined to think that with some books you can and with some you can’t. Marcelo was one of those books that required trial and error. I can see now that the character of Marcelo didn’t change that much all along and that is a good sign. It means that throughout, I somehow managed to remain true to the initial vision, the force that impelled me to create a character like Marcelo and to write about him.
You may be a young person who has a book you want to write. But you want it written and published like right now. You have the idea for the book in your head and maybe forty typed pages written already. You want to finish it and publish it before the school year is over if possible. You get the picture. In those forty pages of yours, there is a seed that may follow its course and grow into the book you are writing or maybe it will grow some place else. Please know that it will not be wasted. The probabilities that you have a “false start” in your hands are high. But it may also be a false start that gets you closer to where the story wants to go.
May Marcelo do well in the Real World. I send him out with all the blessings of a proud father. He persevered and kept insisting, even clamoring to be born, and so he did.
