Every summer when I walk into a book store, I see a table with all the books that teachers have assigned or recommended for their students. I spend a lot of time at this table even though most of the books that I see there are the same every summer. I don’t have to mention them, you know which I ones I mean. Every year a few new books make it to the table, but it is rare to see those books there the following year. I confess to you, that one of my greatest aspirations is to write a book that makes it to the table and stays there for a long, long time. Trust me, I’m familiar with impossible dreams, but I also know the energy and power that comes from them. I would like to think that when I sit down to write I am writing with all my strength, mind and heart, going so deep in search of beauty and truth because writing this way is the only way that my book will make it to the table. It is not that the books on that table have sold thousands of copies or won awards all though many have. It is what the books stand for that attracts me the most. Some of the books on the table are there because they provide valuable lessons and themes that teachers love to teach. But there are others, the ones I most admire. These books are the books that last because they offer nourishment and comfort to the human spirit. These are the books that challenge us to grow by the unanswered questions that they raise. They touch on the universal and they do it with beauty and grace. That is why I would like to see one of my books on the table.
September 13, 2009
August 1, 2009
Crimes Against the Spirit
Last week I was invited to speak at the Simmons College Young Adult Literature conference. The theme of the conference was “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and I talked about the different “crimes” that Marcelo encounters in the real world. There were those personal crimes committed or intended to be committed by unsavory characters in the book. There were “institutional” crimes, for lack of a better word. These are sanctioned actions, all perfectly legal, committed by institutions or systems which cause suffering. An example of this in the book is the encounter by Marcelo of a legal system that protects a manufacturer of faulty windshields. The third kind of crimes are what I call “crimes against the spirit” These are the sometimes very subtle “crimes” that seek to demean Marcelo, to thwart his goodness, to prevent him from growing and developing. Basically, these crimes against the spirit are reflected early in the book when Marcelo’s father tells him that the key rule of the real world is to watch out for “number one.” This ingrained belief that self-centeredness is normal and even necessary to live in the modern world is the source of all “crimes against the spirit” that Marcelo encounters. What follows are some of the remarks on this topic that I made in my presentation.
Literature that is enjoyed by Young Adults has always had that joyful sense of rebelliousness against the crimes of the spirit perpetrated by adults. The crimes of the spirit manifest themselves in many ways. Sometimes, they are depicted in characters that approach caricatures. But sometimes, the crimes of the spirit are subtle and it takes the eyes of the young to detect what the adult eye has become accustomed to.
The beauty of writing young adult literature, and the challenge, is that crimes can be as obvious or as subtle as we want. The young will always delight in the triumph of the good over evil. And I do believe that in young adult literature good should triumph. That is not to say that the young adult book need not be realistic in its portrayal of evil. Rather, I believe that it is a matter of focus. Good and evil are both here in this real world of us. I believe it is my job as young adult writer to affirm the good.
In my one and only adult I have written, crimes are treated differently than in my young adult books. The difference I think is one of attitude in the writing. In the adult book, there is ambiguity as to whether the protagonist is redeemed or chooses to redeem himself. In my young adult books, hope plays an important role. It is hard for me to envision writing a book where the young protagonist doesn’t reach a stage in life where there is growth or the hope for growth.
The presentation of crimes and misdemeanors can be as complicated in a book as it can be in real life. The book can present criminal intent in its various gradations. A young adult book can have monsters that represent evil and it can present subtle attitudes that with time will corrode the spirit. I’m hoping that there will be many diverse young adult books that deal with the complexity and the subtlety of evil while still remaining exciting books to read. Even if these books are not best sellers, if they’re good enough, I guarantee you that they will be read by and appreciated by many young people. To a certain extent we as authors need to put aside considerations as to how many will read our work. We should write as if only one young person will read the book, but the book will change that person’s life. I think that as authors we may sell our young readers short if we don’t write with all our hearts, if we don’t go beyond the entertaining surfaces and present young people with the real world in its totality, the good and bad, to the best of our ability.
June 21, 2009
The First Novel
Periodically I get inquiries from young people (and older ones too) who want to write or publish their first novel. By way of response, I would like to share with you some thoughts about the writing of my first novel, The Way of the Jaguar.
I started writing Jaguar about seven years before it was published. Of course I was not writing continuously. In terms of time frames, the process of creation went like this. I wrote pretty much every day for about eight months and came out with what I thought was a best seller and which I proceeded to send out to agents and publishing houses and in the process picked up dozens of rejections. Besides sending it out to publishers and agents I gave the book to a few friends and one or two gave me helpful comments. I think that at this time I put the book away for about three years. When I picked the manuscript again, I started to re-write the whole book. I would begin each writing session by reading a scene of what I had written before and then I would start writing from scratch. Many of the same scenes were kept, but they were embodied in different language. But more significantly, many more scenes were added. This re-writing took about a year. Again I sent it out and again amidst the many rejections I received a letter from a publisher who told me that the book was an “unpolished gem” and she was specific about what did not work for her. This is when the third version of the book came into being. In this third version I did not re-write totally from scratch I re-structured. I connected. I changed where the story started, organized chapters into more logical common themes and time frames. By this time I knew that the book was not the type that would be picked up by a commercial publisher so I sent it to the type of small non-profit literary presses that specialized in Hispanic-American literature. That’s when Bilingual Review Press out of Arizona State University decided to publish it. A few months later, the book won one of the Chicano/Latino Literary Awards.
This is sort of the external history of the book. The internal history is more complicated. I have always wanted to be a writer. When I was nine years old my father bought me a typewriter, which I still have. But wanting to be a writer and writing are two different things. I majored in English in Philosophy in college. I studied Latin American literature at Harvard because I thought graduate school would help me write. I have kept a journal since I was in high school and I think that that’s how the book was born. The book is the daily journal of a person on death row. One day when I was writing in my journal I decided to imagine that I was a prisoner who was about to die. So then I just started inventing. The book is a grafting, a mixing of reality and fantasy. For example, the law firm that I used to work at had these yearly outings at a country club and I took that and created a scene where the main character was at a similar outing in the pool with the person he loved.
In thinking back, I see that I wrote this book at a particularly difficult period of my life. Writing is good therapy. But, of course, good therapy does not always result in good writing. The book was published because I was able to transform the writing that was helpful to me into good writing. The Way of the Jaguar was published in 2000. My attitudes toward writing have changed somewhat since then. Now I write books whose main characters are young people. But the experience of writing that first book showed me how to discover and accept the purpose of writing in my life.
