Novel – Page 7 – Anthony Otero

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, 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.

my life, Novel, overthinking, writing

A Novel Idea

The problem with being me is that I think too much. I over think everything in my life and when things are bad, my over rationalization of things just make this worse. When things are going good I have to find a way to use the extra mental energy. Much of that has come in the form of novel writing.

I have always managed to use writing as a form of escape and expression. My mind is always on, which may explain why I don’t sleep as much as I should. In any case, I’m always thinking about the story and the story after that. This causes me the over think the little details of whatever I happened to be working on, but in the long run I know I can do what I could never do in real life, go back and fix mistakes.

I realize that what I’m working on fits into my own personal feelings about life. Everything we do is connected. We are all connected in some way and I think that has been coming out in the way I’m writing this novel. I really think that all the people we meet play a role in our lives no matter how insignificant it may seem. That is why all my stories take place in the same space.

Maybe it is because I’m such a lover comic books but think about the fact that Bruce Wayne takes up the same space as Clark Kent. Think about how the relationships behind the scenes are just as important. Lois Lane has done several interviews with Bruce and Lex Luthor is his business rival. This has very little to do with the fact that Batman and Superman are “friends”. That very geeky example is how the world around us operates. I can’t tell you how many times someone has checked my LinkedIn profile and commented that they didn’t realize how I knew someone they knew (which is why networking is important…but I digress).

All my books and stories are connect to each other and I over think that so much that I had to put down all my ideas of what my novels would look like when I am done. There are five books with the titles and a brief summation. If I can get this done, I will be so very impressed with myself:

Hanging Upside Down – (currently editing)
Louis is facing life after divorce while trying to be with his true love. His life comes crashing down when he has to deal with life altering experiences.

The Book of Isabel
A master student tries to find his way after a horrible break with the woman he thought was the one. Prequel to Hanging Upside Down.

The Angel of Death – (partially written)
When Marie dreams about people who die in her dreams it turns out the die in real life. She must find out the origin of her dreams before someone close to her dies.

The Book of Rachet (partially written)
A group of short stories of people who have a very different set of morals

Parallels
A young author struggles with writing about his life until he thinks about what life would’ve been like with the different ex-loves of his past.

I have no idea how I got here. I will just say that the more I edit my current title, the more ideas continue to flood my mind in regards to the other four. This what I will be working for the foreseeable future and I love it.

my book, my life, New York City, Novel, writing

One Year Later

It’s amazing a difference a year can make. A year ago today, I started working for Barnard College. This was a life event for me that has had an effect on everything I currently do. It’s really too early to start a year in review post but I’ve never lost an opportunity to be reflective about the journey.

Everyone knew that I wanted to come back to New York. There was never a secret in that. I made it well known to my readers as well as the people I worked with. We all knew that it was time for me to move on. It was also widely known, and still is, that I have a love for Syracuse that will not go away anytime soon but I just needed to love myself more. So the break up was painless and my main goal was finally achieved.

Being in the bright lights of this big city has taken a little getting used to again. I’m a native of the Bronx so living in Manhattan was a change because I didn’t know the streets and neighborhoods as well. So I ended paying for that (literally) until I figured out how I was going to park my car without getting anymore tickets. Yet, the best thing about returning home is that I can see the city from a different lens. I think that I can now appreciate the NYC life and the views because I’m more mature and centered in my thinking.

While I am excited to go to Comic Con in a few weeks, I’ve taken the time to enjoy places like MoMa. I find myself taking pictures of just about everything. I don’t post all the pictures on Instagram like I should because I would inundate everyone’s feed with my glorious pictures, lol. My picture taking has given me a chance to stop what I’m doing and really enjoy the things that are around me. Because of this, I have been able to fall in love with this city all over again.

The funny thing is that it isn’t just the love affair with NYC (which reminds me of a poem I wrote a few years back) that has given me a new perspective, it is my relationship with my girlfriend that has allowed me to think inwardly about my past, present, and future. I don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past while I focus on the here and now AND have a watchful eye of possibilities coming down the road. She has always been a part of journey and I think that I have become a better person because of her.

Which leads me to the book that I’m currently editing. This is just another piece of this journey, in which, I have no idea where it will lead me. If you told me last year that I would have had a first draft of a book done within a year of me moving back home, I would have told you to fly a kite. I realize this literary journey is filled with imagination, excitement, fear, and doubt. In many ways, the story hits home for me and like any other form of literary work, exposes pieces of me to the world. While this is a fictional book, I will just say that all writing is biographical so there is the fear that this book is shit.

With that being said, there was point in which I took a break from my writing this novel. The woman asked me why I stopped because she had notice that it was a long time since she saw me feverishly typing on laptop. I told her that the book was crap. That I hated it and everything that I wrote was nonsense. It was then that she looked at me and told me that I could not let fear and doubt creep into my mind. After all, she has read about 90% of the book so I do believe she would tell me if I was wasting my time.

So a year later, I have reached a point where I never thought I would be. I can say that my decision to leave Central NY was the correct one.

Novel, writing

The Next Level: Being an Author

It took Juno Diaz 10 years to write a book. I think about that as I pour myself into this text and yet I think I’m on the same wave length. This book is at least 7 years in the making. I think about the experiences I’ve been though, the blogs I’ve written, and the poems I’ve crafted. All that stuff has made me the writer I am today.

As I reached the 75k mark, I wondered to myself, at what point will I be done? I have been physically writing this novel since March. It is still very much in raw form with barely any edits. I have survived working a full time job, being sick, and a mean writer’s block. Asking that proverbial, “are we there yet” question is based on the fact that I’m so ready to edit. The problem (and not in a bad way) is that story has so many components and it cannot just end abruptly and I know that.

I went into this not knowing what to expect because I’m that dude who starts something and never finishes it. I am that dude that will tell you I will do something and either never does it or it gets to you later than you wanted. I have worked harder on being a man of my word more than anything else. That is just in the terms of my personal life, as a professional I am quite different. I suppose that is the dual nature of a Gemini.

So understand that I am currently doing the greatest thing that I have ever done for myself. This is something that has made me become slowly excited. This doesn’t mean that I think this book will be the best shit every written, it’s the fact that I’m creating something. I know that I have other steps to follow in this process and no matter how much sleep I lose writing, what is happening now is the fun part.

I know what the next level has to be past this. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now. I know how the book ends and I roughly know how I am going to get there. But, finally putting an ending on it does not mean that work of this novel is over. I still have to title the book, I still have to edit the text, I still have design the cover AND I still have to publish this damn thing. So, I am very excited about this whole process and yet I know that I will miss the pure creation of writing when I’m done which will ultimately lead me to write another book.

What makes all of this very weird for me is the ability to talk about this to people beyond this space. Sure, I can write about this in the vacuum that is the internet and get zero responses and be ok with it. But, it is when I talk to people, like family, about this that it becomes surreal. How do you broach that subject that you are writing a book without seeming that you are full of yourself? Sure, that is my problem but I am pretty sure I am the only member of my immediate family that will do this. (Note: I will not be surprised if one of my cousin pulls out some journal showing they published something. lol)

Right now, my goal is about 95k. I think I can wrap up all the loose ends in about 20 thousand words. I think that once I edit and clean up some things, I may be closer to 100k. I makes me smile because there are so many things and people that have gotten me here.

I am ready for the next level. I am not talking about fame or fortune. I am finally ready to proclaim myself as a true publish author.

comic books, Novel, writing

Crisis: Retconning a Novel

Hi. How you? It’s been a long time.

I have been in state a perpetual stillness when it comes to me writing anything. I imagine myself in a floating one dimensional glass sailing through time and space like Zod. It is possible to jump the shark before anything is published?

This started a few days before July 4th when I was feverishly writing a chapter in the novel. I was at point where I had to make a decision about the main character that might change the tone of the book. So I made a decision to go with something that I now regret and while I can simply hit the backspace button and rewrite this, it has made me think about the whole thing.

The story is very character driven. It is a first person perspective about crazy shit that people do and the dumb decisions that they make. However, through all of this, what makes stories like these work is how believable they can be. Much of that has to do with the human experience. What are we capable of? How fucked up can we be to each other? That is the basis of life experiences.

Then there is the ultimate goal which is to further the story along. You know when you are watching a blu-ray or dvd and you’re looking at the deleted scenes? Well those scenes tell a version of a story or they are just details of things that are really not that important. This is something like but the impact would be felt somewhere down the line. The purpose of that whole chapter was to explain a back story of a minor character but then things got out of hand and fiction became a little unreal.

I knew the moment I wrote it that it did not feel right, but I went along with it anyway and thus now I have been stuck for a week at almost 64k words. This is where retconning comes in to play. For those not familiar with the term retcon, it is more of a comic book term that stands for retroactive continuity. This happens in comics when writers hit a reset button in order to make their comic book universe more current or when they simply want to fix a mistake.

An example of this is when DC Comics decided to make this event in 1985 called Crisis on Infinite Earths. This was a massive retconning of an entire universe which effects lasted for a decade or so until the decided to fix other mistakes they made every few years that ultimately let to Final Crisis in 2008. Of course one would think that it would be over until Flashpoint came out in 2011 that leads us to where DC is not with the New 52.

I know this sounds confusing and that is my point. I don’t want to get to a point where I’m retconning this novel every time I make a mistake. That will only make me feel like Peter Parker when he revealed to the world he was Spider-Man only to make a deal with the devil later which made the world forget that fact (Yes, I am beating a dead horse here).

The only thing I can do right now is try to go back to that chapter and deconstruct it. If that doesn’t work then I will ultimately have to rewrite it. The problem with that is that I had an unwritten rule that I adopted from someone which basically states that you never go back to edit your work until it is time to edit. Which means that I just keep writing until I am done then go back and fix typos and expand on storylines I may have missed. All this is apart of writing a first draft.

Sigh. A draft. That is my saving grace. Who knows if what I have in mind now wont change by the time I actually go back to page one and it. I guess that means I may have another Crisis on my hands.

my life, Novel, writing

40K

It is official. I have reached 40k in words. #novel

— OG Tony Snark 🇵🇷🇪🇨 (@Latinegro) May 22, 2013

I reached a pretty significant goal yesterday. I reached the 40 thousand word mark in the novel that I’m writing. This has become something that I am fully committed to and in many cases I cannot believe I didn’t start writing like this sooner. I feel that I am finally doing the one thing that I always wanted to do and that is write a book.

When I look back at certain points of my life, I can see that just about every creative thing I have done has lead me here. In grammar school, I wrote a story that involved my classmates turning into werewolves. I enjoyed that people read it and liked it. That was my first stab at writing anything in the first person. The years leading into high school I created a whole universe filled with superhero characters. They were completely diverse in origin, ethnicity, and gender. I had the comics titled, numbered, and a synopsis written for each one. I wanted to be a comic book writer.

Of course growing up and having people tell me that writing comics was not a good way to earn a living led me to doubt myself, but at the very least I was able to graduate with a bachelors in English. Despite everything, writing was still came very easy to me. When people were stressing finals, I was writing papers and I enjoyed it. But I still remember the voices of people suggesting that writing should not be the way to go, so the only thing I could do was put it in the back burner and make it a hobby.

As most of you know, four years ago I started a blog and the rest is history. What I find interesting is that I have a clear goal to get this book done and I have written way too much to stop now, but I still think about that black and white composition notebook that has all my notes in them. I think about the journals that I kept in High School through all the pains of my parents divorce and all the frustrations of the bullies. I think about how I may have spent most of my life preparing myself for what I am doing right now.

I now laugh at the notion that comic book writers do not get paid much. Maybe they don’t but when you do something that you love, is it really work? I have worked at places that are unsatisfying and it can suck. I now look at the body of my work and I realized that I have done short stories, narratives, essays, poetry, blogs, articles, and screen plays. This need to be creative with words has always been inside of me. I just made the mistake of listening to the naysayers.

I still have those composition notebooks. I still have the those journals that I kept in high school that detailed the issues I went through in my younger days. I am not saying that I have led a tragic life, I just think that I have fuel to create stories in which I can draw from experience.

Afro Latino, Barnard College, Columbia University, mother, my life, New York City, Novel, Syracuse University, writing

The Next Chapter

As I literally write my the next chapter of my novel, I am thinking about the next chapters in my life. My first school year is coming to a close here at Barnard and I have set certain goals for myself that will be set in motion before school starts back up in the fall.

I have the prefect opportunity to start school again and I would like to take full advantage of taking course at Columbia University. The process may be slow since classes are not free and I do work full time but I owe it to myself to get my Master’s Degree. I frequently tell people that I ultimately didn’t want to get my Master ‘s at Syracuse because I was tired of the SU point of view of the world. The other reason is that I would still be there right now if I went all in on that program.

Now that I have an idea of what my work schedule is like, I can plan to take classes accordingly. This will effectively change my life to be able to attend an Ivy League Institution. I had already investigated the possibility of this happening last summer when I was getting ready to be interviewed for my current position so I know what CU has to offer. I think going down this road will allow me to turn the page to the next level of my career.

Speaking of turning the page, I feel the need to say that I have resigned from the Latinegr@’s Project. I know this will come to shock to some because everyone knows how passionate I am about Afro Latinos. I am not going to get into the how’s and the why’s. They are a great group of people that are doing some amazing things. As proof from when I left SU last year, there are times when you just need to move on. I did wish them luck with pushing their agenda and ideas forward into the future. When I think about it, they really don’t need luck, they will be successful with anything they do, I can feel it.

I have also been thinking about the Syracuse University Commencement that just happened last weekend. I truly had mixed emotions about this day. I felt bad that I could not see the students that I’ve been in the trenches with for years. They made it very hard for me to leave and I wanted to show my appreciation. However, this Mother’s Day was the first time I have been with family in a very long time. Graduation weekend has pretty much always fallen on Mother’s Day so I spent 11 years in Syracuse on that weekend.

So it was VERY hard for me to look at all the ceremonious pictures on Instagram and Twitter because there was a part of me that wanted to be a part of that celebration. It reminds me of the discussion and arguments with the knuckleheads. I do miss them. Of course, since most of them live in NYC, I am sure it is only a matter of time until I see them.

I wont even mention that I am turning 39 in less than a month. The big Four-Oh is right around the corner which means all types of cancer tests that I am so not ready for.

The reality of it all is that writing this novel had been a another journey for me. The funny thing about turning the page on an old chapter is that is hard to go back. The story that I am creating draws from so much experience from me as well as the vivid imagination that I was born with. It has opened up some old wounds but also spawned some great ideas for future text. Writing this has been a mixed bag of feelings that has allowed me to think about everything in my life.

One thing is for certain, all this writing has given be a new appreciation for people who do this for a living. I am not even sure what I am going to do about it when I am done, but I suppose I will figure all that out in the next chapter.

fear, My Goal, Novel, Short Story

So, That book…

There comes a point in every person’s life in which they have to either shit or get off the pot. This is a saying that I first heard from my father. I can relate it to the fact that we need to get off the fence and make a decision. For me, I can talk all day about starting something and never doing it or starting something and never finishing it. I think this blog has been a great way for me to advance my writing and I have worked so very hard on editing and make all my posts be as close to perfect as possible. This year, I even went in another direction with my poetry. But, the time as come for me to get this book started.

The reasons that have stopped me have been completely irrelevant because they are all excuses. I could come up with anything that would stop me and it would just be an excuse. So, I will simply say that the main reason has been fear. I think there is a fear that I will not be able to finish it, a fear that it wont be good enough, a fear that even if it is a great book, will I be able to write another one? Again, these are all excuses that I create because success and change can be scary things.

Several people have helped me realize that I need to just do it. They know who they are and when it is all completed I will make sure that I dedicate this first book to those who few people who really believe in my ability. I am not talking about the normal conversation in where I say I am going to write a book and they tell me they want a copy. I am talking about helping me to understand the idea of character development and outlining a book.

So, instead of recreating the wheel, I have decided to expand a short story and build a novel around it. It has taken me a few weeks to get the point that I am right now. I have reshaped the way I want this story to go and have outlined the first six chapters. More importantly, I have started chapter 1 and I think I may be almost done with it. Now, I am a firm believer in constant edits so what I have now will not be what I have a few weeks from now.

For those who may have been reading this blog for awhile may recognize this story. It is called the Angel of Death and I wrote it one night about 2 years ago. I posted the short story last year on this blog and it is very raw. There are typos in it that I now recognize. I have taken that basic shell and expanded it. I feel very confident that I can get a a really good story out of all of this.

There have been other books that I had ideas about. One involving Afro-Latinos and the other my book of poems. I think I can still do what I need to do in regards to my other ideas, but I need to have a real book under my belt. I need to prove to myself that I can do this.

The premise is simple: A woman struggles with the search of the meaning to her nightmares of an Angel of Death that takes the lives of real people. Is she a medium that has been ignoring her gift or is it something more? This novel will delve into the life of a woman who’s past may reveal that we all truly pay for the sins of our parents…

So this is what has been really keeping me busy outside of work and the job search…