Now, round 4 is coming up. But, my daughter just woke up, no doubt because of the cats. Ugh.
Back to bed for me @ 2am. If you are up late check out my samples or newest poems. (I'm about to Tweet one out @Realpoetry.) *** So it's 9a.m.-ish, now. I have to say that although I was really satisfied to finish another revision of my long story, I didn't have that cathartic sense of completion. You know that almost orgasmic finish of pure joy that sometimes comes when you finish a project. (Ah ha ha ha. No pun meant.) Maybe that is because I was pretty happy with the second revision. Anyway, as soon as I get the editor to give it a read over and the copy editor who is getting paid in chiles rellenos to look at it over the weekend, I am going to finalize the cover. I have to lighten the image some, or I may use the orange grove image, but I am not going to touch it until I submit my grades, which are due tomorrow at midnight. I plan to have them done before noon because I am a little punked out and just want to clean the house and write. Write, always, despite your cats' shitty behavior. #Resist
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I guess a story is never truly done; otherwise, I wouldn't be serializing these stories. (The next one is probably going to be about Cindy, since I really don't know shit about Canada, which may warrant a trip to Canada, ey.) Even so, "La Bruja del Barrio Loco" is almost done! The revision process has been a real joy. I did add a few more scenes to humanize Elisa, the main character, and I am slowing down the pacing of events. Plus, I plan on talking to my friend who is a sociologist about ethnographies and historians, to do some actual research into that discipline. Elisa needs to step up her academic analysis. Otherwise, she is a fake. That's all I got because I woke up at 4a.m., and I am dragging this morning. I have been hitting my writing hard every day, which is an amazing feat. Still, I have to finalize grades, so I can revise my summer syllabi and get on with my novel The Harvest. (Speaking of that other writing love, I have to ask my friend's son if he wants to design the cover of my novel. That young man is an amazing artist. How old school is that? For sure.) Do what you love, hard, like you are ever-bored in the barrio. #Resist Well, that seemed like the appropriate thing to do, especially since it's American Mother's Day. The tension between Elisa and her mother hits close to home. I mean, if you are a Chicana academic, and your mom hasn't called you out for pursuing your career, and "neglecting" your partner and/or children, count yourself as the exception. My mom still tells me my husband is neglected. Whatevs.
In "La Bruja del Barrio Loco" which is now hitting 86 pages (yeah!), I amplified that tension, but also had a longer interaction with La Bruja when Elisa visits the shop. Well, my daughter summons, emphatically. Be the best Mom version of yourself. #Resist I am going to give myself a pat on the back, or several. Guess what happened organically? I am back on a regular writing schedule! I have no idea how this happened, other than my ass gets up early, and I show up to write. An hour or three may not seem like a lot to folks who make a living doing this work, but that is a lot for me. Plus, I still word vomit most days, and I do so with great joy.
Pat, pat, pat. Anyway, I have been re-imagining how the magical realism sections would work in the short story I am revising for the third time, and I decided to add more run-ons and the supernatural to key scenes. The segment below is the first time the narrator of "La Bruja del Barrio Loco", Elisa, confirms without a doubt that she is dealing with a bonafide vile witch. Or that an evil witch is utterly fucking with her, for reasons the narrator doesn't quite understand. (You can read one of the revisions of this long short story in the Antojitos section, but the final version is loads better.) I hope you enjoy this rewrite. *** The smell of citrus groves woke her up, “What?” She saw the stars clearly and heard the haunting tune of cicadas, they were normally fast asleep in their ethereal insect dreams. But the night was pulsing with the rhythmic ascent and swirl of insects, in unison. A familiar delicate formation of moths floated past her face, and one almost landed on her nose. She almost jumped up when a jack rabbit walked right up to her right foot and sat on it. She knew this place. This was where her father had taken her in Orange, Arizona to go to work, when she was around eight. It was their grove where they would have late-night meals when he worked the night shift patrolling the orchard. She had lived there in that boring town with her parents, until the orchard was sold and the industry moved to Brazil. Her family, parents and abuelita and her sad little self also transplanted to Chicago. She was ten when they moved, but this place was the one she missed. This was home. “Oh shit!” she cried truly afraid, “I’ve lost my fucking marbles!” La Bruja had stolen her son and killed Gregory, and now she was bat shit crazy. The rabbit was thumping Morse code on her foot, as if to answer an enormous lechuza, a white owl that she knew was not native to the southwest landed right in from of her and gave her a defiant glare, if animals could glare. Elisa’s heart rammed against her chest. Then she heard her, “¿Ya vez? Ahora si me quieres pedir perdón. Es. Tu. Pi. Da?” La Bruja laughed and then howled like a tortured coyote and laughed louder. The rabbit and the owl both seemed to shake in unison with her ugly crescendo. “Fuck you!” she cried, “Give me my son back.” Elisa turned towards the voice, the rabbit still glued to her foot. La Bruja was wearing a gauzy white gown, her hair loosed. In the dark, Elisa couldn’t quite see her features, but she felt that hateful glare. The old woman wore the same silver earrings, when Elisa had first met her. She sat on a well-crafted dirt border, someone had made to keep the water from flooding the streets. Elisa noticed the red nail polish on her shoe-less feet, as the old woman curled her toes like a fist. The rabbit hopped off her foot and went towards the woman, and the owl gracefully landed on her shoulder. In any other moment, it would have been a beautiful image, like the paintings of saints she had seen as a child in the library. Elisa almost peed her pants, but still, out of love for him, she rushed at La Bruja, not caring if the owl scratched her eyes out. The woman vanished, the animals vanished. She tripped over the border, launching over it for what seemed like an eternity and crashing into the branches of a bordering orange tree, hard. The thorns scratched her face and arms, as she landed face first into the unforgiving, cement-like dirt. The orchard hadn’t been watered in weeks. She breathed in some brittle grass and tried to get her bearings. A solitary bee that had no business in the night gingerly landed on her arm that was twisted awkwardly over her head and stung her left elbow. That got her up. La Bruja growled and filled the night with her grating voice, “Oh pues, no spic Spanish? Pendeja, di ‘I’m sorry’ perra. I. Am. Sohrrry. Estupida, say sohrry.” Elisa spun around ready to fight. Her arm began to throb and swell, yet she couldn’t help but focus on witch’s thick accent and crappy English pronunciation. It almost made Elisa laugh, but she ran and lunged again. Once more, the woman vanished, and Elisa hit her chin, this time on something invisible, harder than cement. Her chin split, and lip wound widened more. Then, in the distance as the far-off call of a white dove, she heard her Alex, “Mommy? Where are you, Mommy?” “ALEX!!!!” she screamed with her whole might and paused swallowing blood, “I’M SORRY, BRUJA! BRUJA!!! PERDON!” * She woke with a start screaming her son’s name. She searched the dark cell, groping at phantasms, but the grove and La Bruja were gone. She swallowed thick bitter saliva that tasted like iron and struggled to rise. Something was itching in her scalp, and when she ran her fingers through it, there was a twig with an orange blossom. Her elbow also smarted; she felt it, and it was swollen. She thought maybe she had banged it, but she found a painful thorn embedded in it. She dug it out and held it, then, dropped in the dark. Cursing, she felt for it in the emptiness, but what did it matter? Who would believe her? Feeling even more stupid, she winced again, making the pain in her chin radiate all the way to her neck. Part of her wanted to cry, like she used to when her mother would hold her, but she refused. Gritting her teeth and saying her mantra she held back her tears, “I am a tough Chicana from the Barrio,” and added, “fuck that old bag.” She stared at the clinical metal bunk and refused to rest on it. Instead, she sat on the cold dirty toilet and counted the meager amount of toilet paper. There were five squares left. Elisa wondered if the paper was organic because it had that brown hue. She looked at the room and then at the security cameras. There was no way to line up the toilet seat with what she had, so she swallowed her pride and germ phobia and just sat contemplating the events. *** Hit that writing stride. Hit it harder than ever. #Resist I find it fascinating that these short additions—per my editor's request, well she indicated the main character was not likeable—are taking much longer to craft. I spent a good hour on the short segment below.
I am trying to humanize the main character, Elisa, more so I can move on and work on my novel, The Harvest, and other revisions. But, these short sections, really do add more depth to Elisa, I think. They also help with the pacing which I recognize is too fast right now, and I don't want my story to read like a ridiculously fast-paced movie. So, here is a segment I added between flashbacks to give Elisa more depth, maybe even add another layer as to why she is so fucking angry. === * As she agonized in her boring, blank cell, Elisa missed the university library. She loved reading random books. Once she had spent hours learning about Julia Child’s history for no other reason than she was intrigued by risotto. She learned that Julia Child’s had an ideal marriage, sadly childless, but the empress of cooking made up for that in success. Julia Childs like Elisa had to put up with men, who looked down on her, but Childs was also stubborn and unwilling to bend to their will. For Elisa, it was one of her professors Mr. Leon, of Puerto Rican descent, and if she thought a fellow Latino in the academy would treat her with respect—she was utterly wrong. He thought her study of women was not marketable and wanted her to study Chicano history, even Mexican history. Elisa had stormed out of his office and almost run back to section P in the stacks, where she read about searing meat and choosing mushrooms at a French market, between tears. But at least she had her Gregory who supported her academic achievements, even though he himself hated to read. At least she had her little boy whom she was going to raise to love and respect women. Maybe she would even teach him to cook like Julia. === So I had this aha moment about how to format the magical realism in this story: comma splices. Real Spanish magical realism has these intensely beautiful, ornate sentences that often include comma splices and fused sentences, but they work. The tone of these segments also needs to be elevated, somehow, to emphasize certain aspects of the magical realism. There is this connection between nature and La Bruja that needs to be enhanced. I am also doing the same for Alexander, Elisa's little boy, who is more tuned into his surroundings at a heart level. Normally, when I include magical realism, the events are seamless, like anime. But, I want to do something different between what the main character is experiencing, the magical realism, and the flashbacks. For now, though I want to finish adding the segments to round Elisa out a little more, and then add more description, as my editor suggested. I am not a fan of describing everything visually, but there needs to be more sensory detail. Reinvent something new today in your writing. #Resist How is this for a book cover? I took Eric Yankee's advice and I used Canva to design this piece. I like that image a lot; the image I got from pexels by samer daboul. I still want to use my sister's painting, but I have to reduce the glare. I actually don't know where it went, so it may be forever immortalized as part of my blog. Anyway, I will see what Eric thinks. He's the expert after all. This morning, I have been working on this scene a little more for my novella "La Bruja del Barrio Loco", which you can sample a full version of in the Antojitos section. I am trying to humanize my main character, Elisa, based on the feedback I got from my editor, Elizabeth Marino. (Who is fucking brilliant if you need an editor. She's on FB.) The scene is a contrast to the horrible situation Elisa finds herself in, in prison, angry at herself, angry at her dead boyfriend. I'm trying to show the love-bond she has with her son, Alexander.
Oh, and I got some sage advice from my friend Eric Allen Yankee because I was debating whether I should use a pseudonym or not. He said only if I wrote smut, which I won't write. He is working on an RPG short story, and I am totally crafting a plot line to write one myself. My little sister and son (8) are going to go ape shit for that! Ø Ø Ø The last time she had taken him to the park, which she did every chance she could between exams and assignments, he had made all of the moms laugh. They were a group of Lincoln Park Trixies, most of them, with their perfect blonde hair and designer outdoor wear. One woman always wore what Elisa thought was a Swedish name brand with the emblem of the light blue and yellow flag, tastefully placed on the shoulder. They always had their Starbucks latte mocha-whatevers in their shiny steel cups, a fancy phone in the other hand, while their children played on their own. Elisa and Alexander had been playing for hours, mostly by Elisa chasing him around, barking like a high-pitched dog in heat. His chubby little legs made Alexander look like a bobbing troll doll with a big curly mop that moved with the rhythm of his joy. It had been Elisa’s delight to hear him laugh, his laugh, that laugh that was so contagious it brought the most reserved stranger to crack a smile. She had scooped him up and given him a long raspberry. He had said, “No doggie! Bad doggie.” He had run around greeting all the flowers, which Elisa thought was funny. Some of them even seemed to turn their heads toward him. But when they had to leave, his face had contorted into what she was sure was going to be an epic tantrum. His body shook like a cheap plastic sun toy from the Dollar Store. Elisa braced herself, not for his fury, but for the judgement coming from the gueras. Instead, he had run to the middle of the mommy coffee latch, dead center. He had stuck up his little finger in the air, an emperor of justice. Then, he started going round and round to each of the moms wagging his finger, spouting an angry litany of gibberish, peppered with “bad mommies” between random breaths. The moms had laughed so hard, they cracked their perfect foundation, and Elisa thought she would never go back to that park. She paused, scooped him up in her arms, settled him in his stroller, and walked home with a bounce in her step, barking every now and then. Alexander clapped and continued with his gibberish making sure to acknowledge all the flowers on the way home. Today, stretch your imagination. #Resist I'm goofing around with the cover, before I marathon grade, but I got a link to free design program and free stock photos from Eric Allen Yankee. I think, though, I am going to try to cut down on the glare in the cover.
On Monday, my friend Eric Allen Yankee came to talk to my creative writing class. He did an awesome presentation on self-publishing and read some of his amazing poetry from his books Riot and Bees Against War. I have heard this presentation before, and always learn something new, but one thing he emphasized, which I am still sitting with, is the idea that you should use a pseudonym if you self publish. Now, because I have this blog, and have been blabbing about my projects, I think it's a moot point. However, not many people have read my collection of stories. (Shit, thousands of people don't visit this site either.) I guess my question is if I am not writing smut or some popular fiction, do you need a pen name? Or do you launch your work into the universe, and hope it doesn't suck? I don't know. I don't think my ego is so fragile that I need one, but what the fuck do I know? Well, I'm off to make chicken rice for my students. I was going to buy them friend chicken, but I am broke. Oh, what a glamorous life I live. Meditate on important questions, then cook for your students. #Resist Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! And a New Scene from "La Bruja del Barrio Loco" You Can Read8/5/2018 First, to all teachers, especially those striking and/or fighting for educational justice, Happy Teacher Appreciation Day! Under a different society, with different economic priorities, you would be national heroes. I applaud all you do, and send you a warm solidarity hug from Chicago. This morning, I worked on new scenes to humanize the main character, Elisa, in my novella "La Bruja del Barrio Loco" which you can sample in the Antojitos section; that is the second revision, and I am working on the final version now.
These new additions came at the request of my awesome editor, Elizabeth Marino, who thinks the main character is fundamentally unlikable. My other poet friend, Eric Allen Yankee, disagrees, but I think Elizabeth is onto something. Sadly. See, the backstory is in my head, and I know how much Elisa loves her son Alexander, but the story starts off with her in an intensely angry place, in prison, accused of killing her boyfriend. Her son is also missing, and what mother would not devolve into a hateful creature if that happened to her? Or any parent, for that matter? Below, is the first draft of that scene. I would love some constructive comments below in the comment section. Otherwise, if you've got nothing nice to say, shut your stranger mouth. ==== Ø Ø Ø The last time she had taken him to the park, which she did every chance she could between exams and assignments, he had made all of the moms laugh. They were a group of Lincoln Park Trixies, most of them, with their perfect blonde hair and designer outdoor wear. One woman always wore what Elisa thought was a Swedish name brand with the emblem of the light blue and yellow flag, tastefully placed on the shoulder. They always had their Starbucks latte mocha-whatevers in their shiny steel cups, a fancy phone in the other hand, while their children played on their own. Elisa and Alexander had been playing for hours, mostly by Elisa chasing him around, barking like a high-pitched dog in heat. His chubby little legs made Alexander look like a bobbing troll doll with a big curly mop that moved with the rhythm of his joy. It had been Elisa’s delight to hear him laugh, his laugh, that laugh that was so contagious it brought the most reserved stranger to crack a smile. She had scooped him up and given him a long raspberry. He had said, “No doggie! Bad doggie.” He had run around greeting all the flowers, which Elisa thought was funny. Some of them even seemed to turn their heads toward him. But when then had to leave, his face had contorted into what she was sure was a going to be an epic tantrum. Instead, he had run to the middle of the mommy coffee latch, dead center. He had stuck up his little finger in the air, an emperor of justice. Then, he started going round and round to each of the moms wagging his fingers, saying an angry litany of gibberish, peppered with “bad mommy” between random breaths. The moms had laughed so hard, they cracked their perfect foundation, and Elisa thought she would never go back to that park. Instead, she scooped him up in her arms, settled him in his stroller, and walked home with a bounce in her step, barking every now and then. Alexander clapped and continued with his gibberish making sure to acknowledge all the flowers on the way home. Keep revising, even if it hurts your fragile ego. #Resist |
Jesú Estrada
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