From Creation to Transformation

Writing my book Peace on the Journey was a joy. I also felt pride because of its potential for helping those about whom Dr. Joan Barice has said, “For those struggling with chronic illness, loss of a loved one, or any major life challenge, these Peace on the Journey poems affirm that one can still choose to smile and resolutely renew life. Facing hardship honestly but tempering it with hope, these healing poems light a path out of despair.”

While my joy and pride came in part from seeing my name on a published book, they also came from knowing that this book is a fundraiser as well. Ten percent of its net proceeds are designated for the Myelin Repair Foundation, a deserving research organization which might transform the lives of millions suffering from MS. 

Yet, I have dreaded the promotional stage of this book’s journey. Then I realized, how will anyone know about the book if I don’t tell them about it? How will potential readers benefit if no one feels motivated to purchase the book? I must enjoy promoting this book as much as I did writing it.

Still, promoting a book of poetry has felt strange.The thing is, I never expected to produce a book of poetry. I was, I thought, a published short story author seeking to be recognized for her novels some day. Then, in 2009, in addition to this blog focused on literary and cultural themes, I started another one called Peace Be with You. The reason was I wanted to write anonymously about my own journey with MS. Somehow, that MS blog segued from prose into poetry. Don’t ask me why. It just happened, and I went along.

After posting the blog’s poems, though, I was stunned by some of the reactions I started getting, and not just from those affected by MS. I received comments like: “With your words I see hope and understanding … At times, your words say what I’m feeling that I couldn’t find the words for.” Another reader said, “You always manage to speak the words that are in my heart and mind.”

Then, people began asking if the poems were available in a book. I kept saying, no, no, no. First, I didn’t know if I was physically up to producing a book. Second, I still resisted identifying myself as a poet. Then, one day, I realized that I might not be a poet with a capital P, but my writing was resonating with readers. Why not provide the book they were asking for?

I proceeded to winnow my blog’s roughly 1100 poems into 366. This format would offer a year's worth of poems for anyone dealing with loss of any kind. Over the next two years, during which there was some teeth gnashing and, yes, a few choice curse words, I finalized the manuscript for publication. 

Now, the paperback and Kindle editions are available on Amazon. Not infrequently, I gaze at the book with a sense of wonder. Did I really write this? Daily, for my own inspiration, I read the book’s poems on my Kindle. Strangely, the poems read as if someone else has written them. They feel transformative, though I am already deeply familiar with their content. Indeed, Peace on the Journey  feels like the universe’s gift to me.

Too Many Websites?

Over the years, I have kept active at least two separate blogs. That made sense because each focused on completely different topics. This particular blog has focused mostly on my literary life.  The other blogs focused on personal health and a miscellany of topics. Each of these blogs has had its own personality. For example, one was strictly prose; another, poetry. Each also had its own discrete set of followers.

With the publication of my book, Peace on the Journey: Poems, I have also created another blog/website called Peace on the Journey, still under construction. That website’s concept is that it will focus strictly on the book. Besides, it gave me an opportunity to register the name of my book as a website.

Increasingly, though, I find myself using the same post in the various blogs. Now, that might be a sign of fatigue over managing too many blogs. Or, it might be a sign that I am finally integrating the separate parts of my life.  I do own the rights to JudithMercado.com, which is currently inactive. Perhaps, when I eventually activate that website, I will have full integration by simply listing separate pages for each of my various blogs. We’ll see. This is a work in progress, as is my life.

In the meantime, I share with you today’s poem from my Peace Be with You blog

Future Promise


Morning hoarfrost forms
fresh dew frozen on parched grass
before sunlight comes.

A slumbering world
poised to shed its dormancy
awaits light’s coming.

What life may exist
beneath apparent stillness
holds future promise.

More Short Stories Accepted

Three short stories accepted for publication. Two blog posts requested for an anthology. I might start to think that going on blogging hiatus is good for my publishing career. Or I could be whimsical and say that in December the stars aligned themselves in my favor. Whatever the reason for the sudden spike in acceptances, I am thrilled. As soon as I am free to provide the links to the newly published short stories and anthology, I will do so.

As for my novel in progress, I am still making headway on that. To help clear my head from novel writing, I continue to write and send out short stories. I also entered a “Dear Lucky Agent Contest” sponsored by Guide to Literary Agents. As soon as I can type The End for my novel in progress, I will return to active blogging. In the meantime, have a wonderful new year.

The following are links to already published posts grouped under my major themes:

A Hero's Journey

Multicultural

Religion

Writing

“Write What You Know,” Marketing, and Me

Every writer who has taken a writing class or received a critique has heard, “Write what you know.” It is a good rule, encouraging depth and originality. Defining What I Know, though, can get really complicated. Of all the various facets of a person, which is worthy of being mined for a story? To make self branding effective, should a writer always aim her pick at the same pile of rocks? And why does this matter in the quest to publish one’s novels?

My novels and short stories address such disparate subjects as religion, Latino culture, the immigrant experience, life aboard a boat, the business world, the challenges of poverty, illness, addiction, et al. What I Know comes from having sojourned among the religiously devout as well as the devoutly atheist. I have lived in a mountainside shack and have worked in the White House. I have mingled among the wealthy and powerful and have lived among the humble and destitute. I consider both English and Spanish to be my native tongues. This is the What I Know that has fed my writing.

Viewed singly, samples of my writing might be construed by a marketer to fit any of the following genres: literary, religion/spiritual, ethnic, multicultural, adventure, inspirational, politics, and business. In my understandable reluctance to force fit myself into any single genre, I apparently am not unique among authors. I can hear my compatriot writers chant, “I am not a uni-dimensional being.” The problem is that this self-reinforcing sense of specialness will not help us facilitate our work’s journey from computer disk to bookstore.

I come from a business background and deeply respect the business world’s imperative to create market segments in order to sell effectively. Certainly, in the publishing realm, we recognize that the market for a John Grisham novel might be different than that for a Salmon Rushdie one. If I want someone to invest real money to publish and sell my books, I have to be mindful of market realities. If good writing has its rules of engagement so does good business. Stacy Glick from Dystel & Goderich says it best. “I usually find this [inability to choose a single genre] problematic for the simple reason that a book that is described this way often suffers from an identity crisis, and publishers want to be able to clearly identify how a book will be positioned, marketed, promoted, and at its most basic level, where it will "live" in the bookstores….”

Practical person that I am, I acknowledge that if I want to achieve my publishing dream, I must take a stand about the nature of my work, i.e., choose a genre. This is true even if I believe that all the genres listed above, while each a possible fit, miss the point of my work. I write, I like to think, not about my chameleon-like residence within any of the multiple genres, but about my pilgrimage across their boundaries. If I’m going to play with other people’s money, though, I think it’s a fair requirement to follow their rules.

Luckily for me, I have been told that the quality of my writing is good enough to fit into that, itself, amorphous genre known as Literary. From now on, whenever I write a query letter to an agent, I will call my work literary. Sure, Literary is apparently not selling at the moment, but the issue of publishing fads has to be the subject of another post or else this already long one will never end.

Perhaps for me, though, What I Know is Not Belonging. One of my blog readers once said that “belonging to not belonging” might better define my writing. She wrote that in a comment about my short story “The Cry of Lares,” where the protagonist talks about living with a dual awareness of “…who I’ve left behind versus who I’ve taken up with.”

My deep suspicion is that many of us live with a sense of Otherness that we mask by fostering intense attachment to some group, be it school, nation, sports team, culture, family, advocacy group, etc. My other suspicion is that, in our increasingly mobile and interconnected world, more and more of us will navigate the interstices of previously rigid national and cultural boundaries. In the here and now, though, publishers, agents, and authors must acknowledge those boundaries.

Does this mean that the commercial realities of publishing will favor those who can self define easily at the expense of those squiggling across borders, when ironically the latter might represent an increasing percentage of writers and readers? What do you think?

Related posts

What Is Multicultural Fiction?

For Whom Does the Writer Write?