When I still worked as a teacher and librarian it always saddened
me to hear students say they hated to read. This was unimaginable to me. As a kid
stories sustained me and were often my only friends during my family‘s frequent
moves. Books were my guides to the world, a dialogue in an otherwise empty
room. They were a message in a bottle.
It’s no accident I became a school librarian, English
teacher, and later, a full time writer of YA. The seeds for our identities in
the world are planted during middle grade and high school years. It's the first
breath of independence from your parents. They may try to imprint their ideas and
values on you, but during this time your personality forms its own framework. You discover what you’re good at, what you
suck at, who your friends will be, and if you’re lucky, what inner passions
will drive you toward your life’s work.
I didn’t pay attention to the details of my identity, or
perhaps I wanted to erase the Book Nerd stamp etched on my personality, so I wasn’t
so lucky. Throughout my late teens and twenties I floundered around trying on a
litany of college majors and half-assed jobs, and dating guys who, for the most
part, were bad news.
Yet maybe I was lucky. These muddy side roads added layers
to my experiences. Writers create alone, often sequestered in a small room in
the back of their home or in a corner table in a coffee shop, but in order to
create authentic work, writers also need experiences. We need to talk to
people, work with our hands, know how it feels when someone breaks your heart.
In the late 80s, after finally earning my Bachelor’s degree with
enough credit hours to have a PhD, I started writing. I wrote bad stories, wretched
poems, and a really terrible novel. Most of that work is hidden in a file
drawer. While my early work will never see daylight, to throw it out would
dishonor the progress I have made. All writers start out being bad writers. Our
work is derivative, filled with cliché, and often inauthentic. We haven’t
learned to trust the process, to slice your heart open and bleed into the work.
We get better by writing, reading, writing more, writing deeply, reading, revising,
taking workshops, writing, writing, writing….
Good writing is driven by passion. I’m not talking about
Harlequin romance lust, though many fine writers write romances. By the time I
was thirty I realized books and words were my passions, and in quick succession
earned a masters degree in library and another in writing. As a certified Book
Nerd (aka school librarian and English teacher), my work opened up a new arena
for writing.
Everyone has a story and writers are story magnets. If we
listen, people strangers share their heartbreaking,
tender, funny, sad, incredulous, and authentic stories. They are my
muses.
As a teacher my heart was further broken to hear students
groan and roll their eyes when I broached the subject of poetry. To them, poets
are all dead white guys who use too much flowery language and write about
things that have nothing to do with their lives.
They had yet to encounter Pablo Neruda.
By teaching Neruda’s poems, my students learned “the word
was born in the blood.” They were attracted to the violence in how the knife assassinates
the tomato pulp and “how the sun floods the salads of Chile, beds cheerfully with
blonde onion, “and parsley flaunts it little flags,” the in Ode to a Tomato.
One can't teach passion, yet my fervor for Neruda’s poems
elevated my students’ concept of what poetry is, and opened the door to reading
and writing poetry. It’s also no accident Pablo Neruda simmers at the root of
my novel.
My characters in BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA aren't real (except to my readers and me,) yet their inception comes from an authentic place. My life experiences
inform me, and allow my imaginary friends to channel their stories through me.
Digital publishing and social media have allowed everyone
and his brother to easily promote their books, so a recent phenomenon for
writers is to promote their ‘platform.’ Initially this concept left a bad taste
in my mouth, as if I’m a product like running shoes or a bag of chips.
Platform can be defined as what we stand for or what causes
we support. I believe in Pablo Neruda, poetry, books, and stories. Stories are
the thread binding us together, peeling back the mysteries of our own
existence.
Words are my platform. Happy Reading!!
