Writing a novel by hand... how novel! by Odilia Rivera-Santos

I started a new novel or novela and will write the whole thing by hand. There is something about pen and paper early in the morning that jives with the sinews of my brain and the brawn of my intellect. It is 4:30 in the morning and the swish of traffic is sluggish and not as oceanic as it gets at around six, the small lamps are on illuminating bits of wall here and there, and the drip of the faucett -- which seems to be like the building passing gas -- is steady. I get up to tweak it and make the drip stop, it stops, I sit and it starts, another building fart.

The coffee is here to my right and a new collage devoted to ambition, stakes its claim, stares back at me, and tells my mind to write something commercial... no more La Diana-inspired ephemera, no birds'nests of urban blight.

Although birds'nest, urban blight, pastoral novels and fantasy are at the tip of my tongue. No, I resist the un-being of me. And I wrestle with ambition and pin it to the linoleum floor. The novel is being written in the wee and I'm good. Be-ware peaks and valleys and surprises and ellipsis to fill in spaces for yourself for your own self. 

Right now, I am feeling the cool breeze between my toes from the terrace. And the novel?

There are two women named María, one Mexican and one Puerto Rican to be played by a Mexican and a Puerto Rican in the film, and there is an elderly Chinese lesbian, an alcoholic super/carpenter/electrician, and the Jewish surrogate grandmother of course. It is set in New York City. 

I will be reading from this new novel, new poetry and new short stories at Uptown Roasters on September 27th from 3 to 6 along with some other very talented women writers/performers

Uptown Roasters

135 East 110th St between Park and Lexington Ave

Artist Interviews: Charlie Vázquez, Author, Poet, People-Connector, Bon Vivant

1.     What have you learned by watching Youtube videos this week?

Funny you should ask that. I use YouTube for both entertainment and research (sometimes they are the same thing!) and last night I investigated the “urban fantasy” literary genre, as people close to me have told me that my fiction could be classified as such. One of the writers interviewed explained how “the dark forests” of older literatures have been replaced by even darker urban spaces, such as foreboding alleys and subterranean environments.

This transition and the need for it fascinate me.

And that a major distinction between classic fantasy and the new more brazen urban style is that the urbanized genre permits a lot of space for sex in the plot, whereas in the older style sex was nearly taboo or just omitted. So now my imagination is really unraveling! I began writing my next novel, which is set in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and as I started out as an erotica writer and drifted away from that to explore other things, all the threads are coming back together now.

2.     How did you connect with Puerto Rico?

I connected with Puerto Rico later in life, in 2009 actually, and stayed on the western coast. During that trip alone I saw San Juan, Arecibo and La Cueva del Río Camuy, Quebradillas, Aguadilla, Rincón, Mayagüez, Cabo Rojo, Boquerón, San Germán, Sabana Grande, and Ponce. We almost made it to Juana Díaz where my father was born but didn’t quite make it. And most of those places have since become locations for a series of short terror stories I’m developing alongside the new novel.

The Puerto Rican writer Mayra Santos Febres called me in 2011, regarding her Festival de la Palabra, and how she really wanted to bring programming to New York. So I met with her and José Manuel Fajardo, the programmer, and was hired to coordinate dates in New York after the San Juan dates wrapped. I’ve since made numerous friends on the island that have helped me to reconnect to it Puerto Rico in various ways. I connected to Puerto Rico, in short, through writing and my love of literature.

3.     What is your favorite music to write to?

I like writing in silence, as much as New York City will allow me. But when I do play music it cannot have vocals. Symphonic music, electronica, I’ve used before.

4.     Describe your favorite writing and why this appeals to you (novelists).

This is a tough one because I read all over the place. But to give you an example of one style I like, I’ll refer to the great Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon. What I love about his style of writing (20^th century) is how he, with such filed down economy, can paint a scene, the characters in that scene, and the feeling that permeates it, in half a paragraph. He’s just genius.

I’ve read about six or seven of his Inspector Maigret Parisian crime novellas and novels in the past and recently came across one of his more better known “romans durs” (hard novels) called The Strangers in the House. The romans durs were existential and dark forays into the crime itself and the characters surrounding it, but also of the narrator’s psyche.

That’s how I like my fiction. Thrilling. Not just in the tone and voice that can make it tantalizing, but the philosophical threads that keep it feeling fresh for years to come. And that’s why so many 19^th-century novelists will never go out of vogue, because life and the world keep recycling our miseries and anxieties and Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Goethe, and Melville will always have something eternal to teach us about our own humanity.

5.     What are your 3 favorite rituals to ignite your creativity?

Walking, reading, riding the subway. I do all three a lot!

6.     What did you wake up loving today?

Me desperté amando la primavera, darling. And life.

10.21.11 Blip Journal; the progress of a NYC Writer, writing by hand, by android, by the light of an all-night diner

Odilia Rivera Santos

Last night, I watched part I of Ken Burns's Prohibition and part of a PBS mystery with an actor whose name escapes me but he is incredibly talented. It was a mystery that remains a mystery, because I fell asleep before the end to wonder who the killer was. It was early when I awoke, too early for anything but undocumented workers headed for construction sites, restaurant kitchens, hotels and illegal factories.
Despite this earlyness, I had my cup of coffee and began my visualization exercises accompanied by Samba Triste performed by Baden Powell and slipped into the train station at 5:45 a.m. to watch NYC from another angle. We have trees and silence and people who greet you with smiles not wanting or lacking anything.
I discovered another all-night diner; the Mexican busboy wears a crisply ironed white shirt and burgundy apron, his slicked back hair makes him look like a country boy who's making first trip to the big city and I expect him to start dancing and singing of the virtues of his village in Mexico and his love for our gritty little cityworld. I am sitting in a big booth by myself, but it doesn't matter because it's too early for booth people -- it's counter people time. Everyone is congregated around the counter with the TV blaring some morning news and tips on how to become more utilitarian.
The coffee tastes like instant with ground up cardboard. I am writing some new poems for reading on October 29th with Charlie Vázquez and sending out writing to different journals. Writing and editing and submitting and overusing the gerund.

I am working on a collection of essays about work entitled Work Chronicles to be published as an e-book on Smashwords in November; in the meantime, you can check out my creative nonfiction essays Latinalogue Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part I and Latinalogue Puerto Rican Nonfiction Part II: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69697

Writers, be careful not to die of exposure.
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