Anthony Otero

Five Years a Blog

I have been racking my brain to come up with a good intro to this blog and I simply can’t. There is no better way to say that I have been a consistent writer. I have found time for myself over the last five years to continue something that I once considered a hobby. Now this blog is simply another facet of who I am.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a time (when I was a Padawan) when I wrote a blog entry every day for four months. Now, my blogs are sparse because life has changed for me. I think that my writing and the overall look of this blog has evolved along with my outlook on life. I’m just glad I have this outlet that people occasionally read.

What these years have taught me more than anything else is that I need to maintain my sense of humility. I have made mistakes that are not like typos that I can just fix with a keyboard. I will carry those for as long as I need too. However, there have been successes. I think that I have gained more support since I left Blogger to come to WordPress and I’m very happy about that.

The future is still unclear though. There is a serious thought about stepping my blog game up once again. I currently do not pay for this site and to me, it shows. I remember at one point I had my own domain name. My ridiculously amateurish blog from the late 90’s was under my full name with a dot com. I asked myself, “why would anyone search for me under this url?” Nowadays, that doesn’t sound so crazy, but I’m still not using my first name. If I do decide to go down this road, I will have many names to choose from.

For the near future, I’ve decided on lending my blog out next month to independent Black/Latino Comic Book writers. I made the call out to them in various channels and I will be emailing them with the next 12 hours about logistics. The goal is to promote writers of color that many people don’t know about.

I’m hoping year five will be better than year four. When the book comes out, this will be the hub of all the business. Let’s just hope that business will be good.

Thanks for your support over the last how many years, months, or days you have been reading. I appreciate the support.

Blogging, my life, Novel

Woven

The novel has slowly been making its rounds through the test readers and it makes me feel more excited about this particular journey. I can sit here, in front of laptop, all day and spit out blogs but I don’t think the act of writing little e-journals can highlight the total potential of someone’s literary skill. Nor do I think having 37.2k in tweets (which is how often I have been on Twitter since I joined) determines if you are a superstar. Yet, I’m always taken back by the amount of positive feedback I get from people who have read my entire book all the way through.

My editor (who is an SU alum because that’s how we roll) constantly tells me that I need to stop being surprised that people like what they’re reading. There were several conversations that I had with her where I confessed that simply thought this novel wasn’t good enough. Shit, there were time when I actually hated what I was writing. I thought that perhaps my writing was too crude, too sexual, too crass, and too honest. But, she knows me well enough to remind me that fear has a way of distorting the way we view our own work.

Sure, I have talked about fear in length but the subject never gets old to me. I think its because there is a part of me that fears everything. I fear both failure and success but interestingly enough, I’m more prepared for failure. I’m almost 40 years old and I still don’t know how to prepare for success. What’s that supposed to look like? I can have avid dreams about winning the lottery and fictitiously plan out how I’m going to pay bills and live this super fantastic life. But that is just as fiction and the novel I wrote. There is no class in college that prepares you for success.

But then there is the more realistic side of my thoughts. What’s there to prepare for? We are talking about a self published novel and I’m completely realistic about the number of people that may actually buy this book. I will do my social media pushes but I do not anticipate my life changing much. I didn’t start writing because I wanted to become famous. I started it because this is something I just want to do.

That first story I ever wrote in 8th grade still lingers in my head. Writing was the one thing that I could do better than any one else in that class. My fellow classmates read this story that was based on a dream I had about how werewolves attacked the school. I was 8th grade famous for about a week. In High School, I wrote smut stories about some of my female teachers (ok, it wasn’t a proud moment…I was 14) that spanned pages and pages of loose leaf. I threw them away for fear that my mother would find them as she did the stash of Playboys I had in my drawer that I stole from my dad. lol

The point is that writing is something that I have always had time for. I still think about the comic book universe I created all those years ago and how I might, one day, still write about them. All my writing are woven together in some strange way, I just cannot be afraid to unleash it.

Race/Ethnicity, Racial Profiling, racism

Again…Race is Everything.

Everything is about race. If you don't like that answer then it's because you don't know/understand the question.

— Tony Snark (@Latinegro) January 13, 2014

I just needed to take some time out to point something out to people that think or believe that racism is over or doesn’t exist. I wanted to take my personal time away from work and doing the book thing to send a message to those who think white privilege is something that was made up by a bunch of Black/Latino people who complain too much. I wanted to take this time to explain to all the the knuckle heads of any color, race, sexual orientation, gender, and religion that everything is about race.

It’s simple. The moment we (or you) decided to internalize the imagery of Jesus being a white man despite the fact that the story of the bible takes place in the current day Middle East is when we (or you) began to think that anyone of a darker color was inferior. If God is white then how are we in his image right? Let me put it in modern terms for those who are not in the religion thing. When we (or you) decided to internalize the standard of beauty to a unhealthy looking, less than a hundred pound, frame of a (normally) white model that will never eat rice and beans (or wont keep it down). If that doesn’t work for you then think about the fact that we have Black president that constantly gets disrespected in ways his predecessors never have.

How about the lack of Black coaches in the NFL? How about the fact that it is ok the swoon over a show called Scandal? (Omg! what is wrong with that show?) Wait… let me make it simple. How about we (or you) think about how a college educated person of color can sound white (or be called articulate)? Or if we decided to go camping or go see the symphony that could be considered a white thing to do. Is that not good enough?

How about we (or you) think about how Blacks and Latinos are the face of the Welfare system when the majority of people who are on it are white? Let’s think about the stop and frisk policies that focus on people of color. Better yet, look up the statistical ratios of Black/Latino males in jail versus those in college? Do you really believe that we are predestined to be criminals?

I can go on and on about this and quite frankly the list will be too long. So do me a favor and read a book. If Fox News is where you get your information than you are already lost and they are retrofitting the Vader armor for you.

Let me take a moment to laugh because the people who need to read this will probably never care to read it. If they do stumble upon this, they will make more excuses and think that people like me are delusional which only proves my point. If you can seriously dismiss things that are said about race in general than you have bought into the system of oppression and white supremacy.

This is not hate speech. It is my speech and the speech of people like me who see the world for what it is. For now I will just leave you with this picture below to symbolize our (yes you too) oppression:

Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would have trouble going past the wires to get anywhere. There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, none one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon. – Marilyn Frye “Oppression”

my life, Novel, writing

The Urge

Waiting is the hardest thing I can do right now. I have gotten to a point where I’m so used to writing and working on this novel everyday that it feels incredibly awkward not to be writing something. I guess the proper word is antsy.

I feel the need to create. Is it bad that I want to start on the second novel now? I have this urge to just open a new Word Doc and start on the next one. This is despite the fact that I already have a novel I have yet to complete. Yeah, let me just go over that. Hanging Upside Down is the novel I just finished that is being currently edited. I have another novel that I started called The Angel of Death that I have yet to complete. Look at me trying to just start another book!

I know that I write what I feel and this feeling is coming on pretty strong. I want to keep my eyes on the prize but I just have this urge to write. I have been able to quell that urge a little bit by reading. I started reading Song of Solomon. I was very moved by Toni Morrison last month and I felt the need to reread some her books. The problem is that I love the way she uses words so much that I’m getting a fresh new supply of literary motivation.

This is not to say that any of this is a bad thing it’s just interesting how I’ve gotten myself into the habit of continual writing and creating. I don’t want to lose that. The urge just gets stronger when I see the books on my shelf or I pick up my Nook. That is why I had to stop all the self editing to the current novel. I know that I could continually find something to change just for the sake of change.

Although, I do blame myself for this because I got the idea for a new novel while writing the current one. I had to brush that idea aside until I was done but the book spirits in me are calling. I have a plethora of ideas that I want to put on (virtual) paper but I figured that should wait until I published my first book before I start on the next. I don’t think I can do that now. I am too regimented in my own ways to let my creative juices go to waste.

I guess at some point I made a transition from blogger to novelist and didn’t really know it. I was just writing for me because I always had a goal to write a book even when I was a little kid going to Holy Cross School in the Bronx. This is my way of living forever because I can’t let this urge pass.

I will now march my way on to book two.

Novel, writing

Next Steps

Back in the early days, when I would toy with the idea of writing anything, I always cringed at the idea of writing a first draft. That simple word, draft, gave me the impression that writing anything was double the work. I had a serious thought once that made me so mad to think about the fact that I have give in a draft to a professor. I just knew that anything I wrote for school I could get it right the first time. Sigh, to be young and dumb.

With that being said, I’m glad to finally say that Draft 2 of the book has been completed. I actually completed it this past weekend. The hardest part about this process is that I know that I could read this book again and still have more changes. But there comes a time when you just have to take a break from it. So Draft 2 is readable and it was this version of the novel that I sent to the test readers a few days ago.

There are differences between the first raw draft and the more polished second draft. The second draft is longer. Since I knew where I wanted to go with the story, I began foreshadowing events earlier in the book. Also, I re-wrote the last fifty pages in the second draft that completely overhauled the story. One could suggest that there are alternative endings but I would like to think that the second draft is just better crafted.

Which now leaves me with the third draft. This is what I hope will end up being the final copy. I got me an editor and we will work together to put some final touches on this thing. I have already made a change for the third draft. I change some of the character’s names. There were two of them in particular that I felt needed to have a different name because I know people who have those names. To be real, when I first started writing this novel, I was using any name that came to mind. I didn’t want to get bogged down thinking about perfect names.

Preliminary results from the test readers are positive thus far. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous because I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have about nine people who have volunteered to read this story. I gave them some instructions on what to look for. The most important thing I wanted them to know was that if they know me, they need to push it out of their minds. The book is adult in nature with some situations that might raise some eyebrows. This way I don’t hear people say…”yo, I cannot believe that you said this word like 5 times in the book.” lol

The other issue that I thought about yesterday is the design of the book jacket. I have a thought in my head that I’m beginning realize will not translate easily paper to computer screen. I will have to sketch some ideas. This kinda makes me laugh considering that at one point in my life I thought I might be an artist since I used to love drawing. Now it all comes full circle. However, I’m not graphic designer which means I have to find one before all this is done.

Further down the road is getting an ISBN. That will run me about $200 – $250 for like 10. That alone makes me think about creating a budget. I will also have to pay my editor and think about advertising costs. In any case, I’m in a good position to get all this done before the summer.

my life, New Year, writing

Tipping the Hat to 2013

Usually I do some sort of year in review post. I think about it now and it may just be a little too self serving. After all, I need to really ask myself what I really did this year. Instead, I thought about being short on this post about how grateful I am for having people support me in all my efforts.

I know that the beginning of the year was bumpy for me and it made me question whether I should even be a writer anymore. I had to take a long hard look at myself to figure out if I indeed was this person that I said I was. Through this personal turmoil, I had friends help me see that I get through the tough times and lo and behold, I started the novel in March.

Since that point, everything has been a lesson for me and I appreciate the encouragement of the people who follow me. My good friends have encouraged and challenged me to get as far as I have. I have yet to figure out ways to thank them.

My family is just realizing how deep this writing game is to me. It almost make me nervous because this book is R rated. Not that we are not all adults here but its not like I have a potty mouth in person. I will have to remind them that they can’t think about me when they read the words and situations. lol

As for everyone else, thank you. I thought the site switch from blogger to word press would have been more of hassle but it turns out that it has worked out well in my favor. I’m glad that this site does get read despite the fact that I haven’t written nearly as much as I should. I look forward to updating everyone on the process of writing and self publishing.

Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2014 provides us all with much success.

2014, Blogging, goals, my life

2014 Goals

In many ways, I feel like this year has gone by so fast. For the most part, it’s probably because I’m really enjoying my life and time flies when you’re having fun. I looked at the goals I set for myself this past year and I didn’t do all that bad. Some, of course, I didn’t even come close to accomplish and others I nailed.

So the disclaimer in all this is that I do not do New Year’s Resolutions. I set goals so that I can feel a little bit more accomplished by the end of the next year. I only completed 60% of my goals from last year but I suppose that is better then zero. I will try to do better for 2014. I will set ten personal goals and move from there.

The absolute number one goal for next year is get this novel published. I can’t stress that enough. I have put a lot of work into this book and I’m looking forward to this process being over. There are so many things that will go into this (like designing the cover, getting an ISBN, and getting an editor) and I’m ready for it. The one thing that I cannot let interfere with this process is fear. Trust me, I have a lot of it but I’m pushing through it.

Despite all my novel writing, the change in websites, and the multiple Huffington Post entries, I still think I do not blog enough. I have so many unfinished blogs that it is not even funny. Lately, I have gotten either easily distracted or have been too damn busy. My former life in Central NY was not like this. I just need to blog more.

Writing is one thing but reading more is also another goal of mine. For some reason I fell off with this and I need to get back on my reading habit. I really felt it after seeing Zadie Smith talk at Barnard College a few months back and than it was solidified after seeing Junot Diaz speak with Toni Morrison. Now that I have an upgraded Nook, I will be taking reading more seriously. I think I will try to read about 14 books next year.

I ‘m also getting old. I turn 40 in June and I have no idea what I’m doing. I would like to do something awesome for my birthday but I just can’t fathom what that would be. Perhaps a huge celebration? Who knows? What I do know is that I need to continue to exercise. I fell off that wagon too. I have always said that a 5k is in my future and I think in my 40th year, I should just do it.

This past fall, I started going to church again. Much of that had to do with trying to be the god father to my niece, Maya. I found myself getting up early on Sunday and going to mass and it really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, once Maya got baptized, I stopped going so I think it would be a good idea to start going again. Maybe not every Sunday but maybe twice a month.

The reason for wanting to go back is that I did feel at peace when I was in church. This was more about my own faith with God rather than the church itself. It has also made me think about volunteering and donating more to the neighborhood or just in general. Of course donating is always a little hard but as I continue my debt reduction things will get easier. I’m just happy that I paid off my car this month.

I have been in NYC for almost a year in a half now and I’ve returned to my old ways as a New Yorker, which means that I don’t visit other things unless food is involved. I feel like I need to explore NYC more. I was in the Williamsburg section Brooklyn a few weeks ago and it surprised me how nice certain parts of BK can be (yes, that is the Bronx in me talking). I also went to the Linkedin office a few weeks ago and they are in the Empire State Building which made me realize that that was the first time I’ve ever been in there. Yeah. I have to do better. lol

Finally, I need to visit my dad. I have not been to Florida in years and I need to go back. It just so happens that I will be heading to a conference in Orlando in April. Plans are not finalized but I look forward to the confernce that will turn into a family vacation. Disney is calling my girlfriend’s name.

I hope you all have some goals to set. Once you set goals then you are ready to achieve them. The picture above is from the article Life: Why Should You Set Goals for 2014? Read it. Happy Goal-Setting!

my life, Syracuse University, writing

Every Word is a Revolution

Every word is a revolution. When someone asks me what my take away was from watching Junot Díaz talk with Toni Morrison last week, that last line is the best way to summarize it. There are few times in life when you realize you are in the presence of greatness. I have had this privilege a few times by simply being in the room with great literary minds. Yet, nothing really prepared me for this particular discussion at the New York Library.

I’m not going to go into an expansive breakdown of this discussion because I will not do it justice (which is why I just attached the link below), but rather, it is best for me to be reflective on how this event should reshape the life of writers. What is interesting to me is how unapologetic words from these two authors can be. I feel like I’m someone who says sorry too much so when I read their words and hear them speak, it’s like a tiny revolution. The reality is that I want to write my fiction with no apologies. It should be harsh at times and hard hitting. Yet, there is a serious fear factor in all of this. There is a little person on my shoulder telling me that I am not good enough.

As I sat there and watched these two legends speak, I began to wonder if there were feelings of doubt that snuck into their thought process. I do recognize their humanity but the aura around them glowed with divinity at least in the realm of the written word. Toni Morrison was that author that Professor Mays at Syracuse University championed. I took a class solely on her and it took me way too long to realize how great she really she. Song of Solomon is one of those books everyone needs to read. So seeing and hearing her talk about books I’ve read a long time ago along with her thought process was indeed axis shifting. Yet, that confidence she has makes me believe that whatever fear she may have had was put back into her work. I plan on reading her works again. Now that I’m older I think her words will mean even more to me now then they did then.

The same goes for Junot Díaz. He writes like he talks and it’s truly amazing. He has changed the game for me. I became used to reading narratives where the voice is so very formal and even if the protagonist curses… it’s still formal. But when this man stood up in front of a large audience in Syracuse a few years ago and read one of the dirtiest passages in The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I knew this man gave zero fucks about what people thought about him and his work. That is an inner peace that he has with his work and the central place that I want to get to.

That is why every word is a Revolution. This goes far beyond just writing something that I consider to be special. It is more about reaching a point where I have a connection to a audience that is beyond the norm.

my life, Novel

The Plan

I have devised a plan for this book to launch next year. I think I’ve been pretty good at updating and editing. I barely watch television outside of a few shows, so I’ve been really bearing down on the text. I’ve been doing this with the sole purpose of having draft 2 of this book done before the New Year. I will also note that when I explained this to the girlfriend, I said that barring me getting sick, I should everything done on time. Guess who’s had a fever the last few days?

Regardless, things look good. I put it out there on Facebook that I need some test readers. This to help me determine how good the books is and how it flows. The other purpose is for editing sake. I need as many eyes on this as possible. This phase of the plan I want to kick off in January. I have made my preliminary selections of test readers so they will get a message from me in a few weeks. I will give them a month to finish the book, which I think is reasonable. Then hopefully I can get some quality feedback. This will help me figure out if there any plot holes or if the book is too racy. At the very least I should be able to find out if the book sucks or not.

I’m also thinking about releasing a chapter here on the blog. I feel that most of the people who have been following my exploits all these years should see what his I’m fussing about. I also think that for all the blogs I’ve about writing a book, it would be nice to show people that I’m actually doing it rather than just saying that I am. Plus there is also the fact that I have re-written the ending which means that I have an alternative ending to the book than I may release at some point. I dunno, this is just me talking shit right now.

This will also help get off my ass and finally buy some ISBNs that I ranted about years ago (I also want to point out in that blog post I talked about a certain book of poetry I was going to publish. I shake my head at this because the book is done, I just haven’t done anything with it). Now that I have gotten somethings from my plate cleared I should be able to take this next step. Since I’ve chose the route of self publishing, it will make sense to have my own ISBN that will allow me to have books on sale in multiple outlets. The interesting thing is my girlfriend asked me why I haven’t thought about shopping the book around to publishers. It is something that I have briefly considered. The main point is that most, if not all, publishing houses will not look at you if you don’t have an agent. More importantly, this is my first book and I want to be in control of everything from the look of it to the price.

Which brings me to my next point. The book jacket needs to be designed. I have an idea that I think will make the book look attractive enough for people to at last glance at. We live in a visual society so I have to make something visually interesting. Let’s face, once that cover is done its going to be all over my instagram and twitter. I can’t afford it to be anything less than stunning.

So if I did the math in my head correctly and if everything goes according to plan, I am looking at having this book out in April. With that being said, I’m ok with some unforeseen things happening in this process. I don’t know everything so there is chance that I may miss something important. But I can say that I feel very good with the process the way it is now.

Afro Latino, Blogging, my life

Not Feeling It

One thing I that I’ve learned about myself is that I’m an emotional writer of sorts. When it comes to my own creative work and this blog, I need to be in a certain mood. When I’m not feeling it, I simply cannot write a word. I’m not sure what that is. Maybe it’s a writer’s block of some kind.

As much as I haven’t written on this blog, I have made up in editing and adding to the novel. I don’t want to think that I can’t do both, but currently I’ve been feeling a certain way about life and things that I normally talk about. I’ve gotten tired of a lot things, mostly to the point that I feel that anything I write about is just redundant. I mean, what else can I really say that I’ve already said? Sure, I can go on a rant about George Zimmerman and how people are finally seeing him for the snake he is despite the fact that he had to (allegedly) hit a white woman for the majority to get to that conclusion. I can go on about my issues with Kanye West and Jay Z but what happens is that people defend their idols without critically thinking about what is going on. I’m just tired of that.

So lately, I have been reserved because I know how powerful words are and how jumping the gun on things without serious thought can effect me and others around me. I have been reserved because speaking out on issues lately has been sort of like yelling in a vacuum. People need to see things for themselves.

It is also not lost on me that perhaps I feel a certain why because I’m getting older. Maybe my world views are changing because of my experiences. This does not mean I’m becoming a conservative, God No! That would be horrible. What it means is that I have been really analyzing myself and the way I do things and I feel that perhaps I’ve been closing myself off to certain things.

A good example of this is two weekends ago I was with some my cousins in the Bronx. These women are some of the most conscious Afro Latinas I know. They are highly intelligent and pretty much embody the type of critical thinking I wish more people had. So we got on to the subject about movies and this is something I feel very uncomfortable about because I haven’t been to a movie theater in long time. The last movie I saw was the train wreck that was Man of Steel.

So, they start talking about 12 Years a Slave and I found myself utterly quiet. I made a vow to myself that I would never pay to watch a slave movie once Django came out and I, sure as shit, wasn’t going watch The Butler either. However, I have forgotten that my family loves to debate and analyze things and I found myself without a voice because I chose not to be a part of this conversation about slavery since I did not see the movie (nor have I read the book which I intend on remedying).

That didn’t make feel all that good. I still think that Django has ushered us into an era of slavery movies that will be unsettling considering that most Black actors can’t seem to get a fair shot at movie roles. It is particularly unsettling when you think about how many fans of The Hunger Games series think that all the characters should be white. But in any case, unsettling or not, I have taken myself out the game by not viewing everything as whole.

I pride myself in viewing the world the way I do. I think that I’m not delusional in the way the world operates, however, I have come to realize that all the preaching about anti-isms has an effect. I guess I’m also tired of being frustrated and angry about the things I read and see on the news. I can’t always be angry with the world because I have enough gray hairs as it is. Yet, I think that I focus too much on the negativity which is why I picked the image for this post. If you stare too hard at something…it disrupts your perception of everything else.

I came to this realization yesterday. The first thing I did to improve on my quality of like was take my woman to the movies.