Late September in New England. A few dogwood leaves are stained with purple while not far away a white rose still blooms. The pear tree streaks yellow, the Japanese Elm is tainted with the beginnings of orange. The grass is still green and growing, but its pace is tired. I am determined to watch this transition, this changing over. I have singled out a leaf in the great oak tree in the front yard hoping to see the first tint of color appear. But it is not only sight that is affected during this time. There is a quieting taking place as if silence itself were looking for its proper rest place. The care-full watching and listening comes with a price. Along with the awe of seeing beauty born I feel an apprehension, a mixture of tender sadness and mild fear. Something hard is up ahead but it is yet too distant to fully imagine. A sense that now’s the time to garner strength, ready the soul’s firewood. Astonishingly, I know people who claim not to feel this subtle dread. Here where I live there are many who wouldn’t trade the change of seasons for a full time island paradise. I suspect that what they’d miss is not just the landscape transformation but the hues of feeling that accompany each phase. So I tell myself to be like my hardy neighbors. Can I embrace the inner resonance of each color? Let my heart be a flute played by the day’s breath.

Words come painfully slow. After an hour there is a paragraph that goes nowhere. Whatever it is I am trying to say has no future. It’s not so much a lack of words as a lack of vision. The mind does not accept the goodness of a sentence. Some kind of logic is missing. Or there’s too much logic. After a while I stop. The day’s “failure” makes it that much harder to start the next day. I cannot write because I am depressed. Or, am I depressed because I cannot write? All I can tell you is what I tell myself. Sometimes you need to sit and struggle. Other times you need to wait, with faith if you can muster it. You play it by ear each day. Some days you squeeze whatever you can out of yourself. A paragraph or two. A page is excellent. On other days it is better to surrender gently. Try not to despair. Avoid calling yourself names. You are precious even if you never write another word. Close your eyes and pretend you are a child at play. You are alone in your room on a rainy afternoon. No one is watching. The objective of the game is to have fun. It’s a good way to spend an hour or two. Do you remember when you started writing and you didn’t care about being brilliant or admired? There were no thoughts of publication or perfection. Do you remember when you wrote because you had to? The writing life with its ups and downs, with its green fields and deserts, can teach us many things. It has taught me what it means to be poor in spirit. I have seen the advantages of a pure heart. I have learned to mourn for as long as it is necessary and have doled out gentle mercy to myself. Even when writing is hard or when it doesn’t come there can be gain. In your waiting, depth can grow and courage. And when you write again it will be with humility and boldness. You will gratefully give what you can. The rest is not up to you.

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors has received the 2011 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award. The award is presented by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The award is given to a young adult title demonstrating “a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.” I am honored and humbled to receive this award. Here are the 2011 Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalists:

-After Ever After by Jordan Sonneblick

-I Will Save You by Matt de la Pena

-Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick

-Wolves, Boys and Other Things that Might Kill Me by Kristen Chandler

 We will all appear on Monday November 21, 2011 at 2011 ALAN Workshop in Chicago Illinois.

“Be kind to yourself.” Cheryl Klein, my editor, said to me recently as we discussed my revisions to a manuscript. Her words made me think about what it means to be kind to oneself in the process of writing and re-writing a book. To be kind to myself meant that in evaluating the work, I needed to take into account the circumstances during which it was created. I struggled with depression as I wrote and re-wrote the work. This meant that there was no way I could have an objective view of the work’s quality. I worked through most of it as if wrapped in cellophane - unable to “feel” whether the work was any good. Then, when I was done, I was overcome with a sense that I had not gotten it right, that I had missed the mark. I submitted the work to Cheryl anyway and it was like any other writing. Parts of it were perfect and parts of it needed more work. How I “felt” about the work was not important. I needed to be kind to myself. St. Theresa of Avila said about prayer: “When the wind blows we put up our sail and when it doesn’t we row.” Here was a work where it felt as if I had rowed most of the way. And there were so many days when it felt as if the boat could not move or even went in the wrong direction. To be kind to myself meant that I needed to accept those days and even to be grateful for the little rowing that I did. It was good just to stay afloat. Now that the work is almost done, the process almost complete, now more than ever I need to be kind to myself. I am grateful for others who can help me determine whether a work is ready for publication. I am grateful for the energy, the words, the insights and images that came, no matter how slowly. For the daily faith that kept me going. To be grateful for our offering, no matter how small, is to be kind to oneself.

Of all the things that are hard to write about, this is one of them. It is so intimate, so private. I bring it up because there is a connection between it and writing. I’m going to say that prayer is the movement of the heart towards Mystery. Mystery can encompass a personal, loving Someone, but it need not. I define prayer broadly so as to include as much as possible. Prayer flings you out in hope and roots you down in presence. In some form or another, conscious or unconscious, it is part of writing. I don’t know what else to call this reaching out to the unknown. I don’t know why anyone would do it except as some form of prayer. This filling in and emptying out, what else can it be? We think of the word “consecrate” as a religious term and so it is, but it is religious in a human sense, a universal sense. We consecrate, we make sacred, what we carve out of our daily hours for another’s sake. The sacred is hollowed out by intention and attention. Who do you write for? And in your heart of hearts you know that what you do is always a response. Why this sense that someone calls? Where does it come from? Then there is this: the writing itself is a search for some unknown that you never reach. There are discoveries along the way, but still, you never get there. You walk in darkness, one word at a time. Somehow you trust in a meaning you do not yet see. You have faith that it is all worthwhile. Because what else can you do? The work is your prayer.

It is both a searching and a being found. A going toward and a waiting for. A putting out and a bringing in. This thing called beauty. A building and a making, a creating that needs to happen every day. A stalking for traces of it. Glimpses in unexpected faces. It’s not just the red flower weighed with dew. It’s what’s behind it also. It’s not just the cloud noticed for the first time or forgiveness. It is the night and the distance between us. I keep a sharp eye for you. Even as time moves you, it can be a moment, just a moment. Radiance. The tree lit with fire. The pang. The heart pang. Exploding. No longer the need to question. No longer the need. I was found. You come and rest even as you fling. Stay. No, it is not possible. Yet, the memory and the new alertness. The practiced eye. The certainty. The gratitude. The Silence.

Is it okay if I call you friend? I’ve known you for so long and it is time for you to be a friend. You are with me always. Sometimes you sit in the living room of my house, powerful in your presence. At other times you are like a guest taking a nap in an upstairs bedroom. I used to fight you or plead with you to leave, but I don’t do that anymore. I let you be. I’ve discovered the gifts you bring with friendship. I am grateful for the clarity you allow, for whatever energy you permit, for writing, above all for that, for the daily work of living. Who would have ever thought that we would end up being friends, that even as I do all I can to keep you gentle, I could welcome you? I accept you and limit you all at once. Come on in, there’s a rocking chair for you by the fire, but it is still my house. Now that you’re a friend, I don’t know what to call you. Your medical name sounds too formal and distant. You are more than a condition. You’re not me and yet you are a part of me. The metaphors used to describe you seem too impersonal. Darkness, grayness, the words lack accuracy. You are painfully bright at times. To call you by your symptoms is to treat you like an enemy and I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ll simply call you my old friend. I call you my old friend because I know you, I’ve seen through you. I’ve even seen compassion and hope in you. These are the things that only friends can see. I know you now, so well, and so I call you my old friend.

1. Imagine that an angel appears to you and asks you to rake for an hour. “I’m just a messenger,” he says.
2. No need to be perfect. He knows you can’t get every single leaf. He just wants you to rake for an hour.
3. Don’t let the cold stop you. The movement of your arms will warm you up.
4. There’s no one place to start. Where you start is the beginning.
5. How you feel while you are raking is not important.
6. Don’t worry what others think of the work, you’re raking for Whoever sent the angel.
7. It’s messy work, there’s no getting around that.
8. Be grateful when the sun comes out.
9. Raking is not more significant or less significant than anything else.
10. When the hour is done, walk away humbly.

I was on a panel yesterday at the Brooklyn Book Fair with Mitali Perkins, Kate Milford and Anjali Wason. The title of the panel was “Making It” and it dealt with the tough situations the panelists put their characters in and how those same characters “make it” - that is, survive. It was wonderful panel and the questions from Anjali (the moderator) and the audience were very insightful. Being in that panel got me thinking about many things. What is it in me that likes to put my poor young characters in such dire straits? Pancho loses his dad and his sister. DQ has a rare form of cancer. Marcelo has to spend a summer working in a law firm! Oh, my goodness. In answering a question from the audience, Mitali Perkins said that she wanted to write something funny and I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to write something light and airy and fluffy. Do I have it in me? I hope that humor and a certain lightness of being will always be a part of whatever I write no matter how serious the topic or how dire the straits that my characters find themselves in. I think that this lightness of being that I seek so much has much in common with hope. No matter how serious the topic, hope needs to be part of the mix. And humor. I think what saves serious, realistic fiction from being too dreary to read is hope and humor and love. Love is not something that is directly conveyed from author to reader. It is more of an aura, a feel that the reader picks up. The love I’m talking about is the love of the author for his characters - so that even when they are in a rough spot, they are still very much loved. I’m not sure that there are any literary tricks to convey this love. It is either there, in the author’s heart, or it isn’t. For some inexplicable reason, my poor young characters will probably always find themselves confronted by a reality that can be harsh sometimes (and kind and beautiful as well). I can promise you that they will also find in themselves a way towards hope and love.

I’ve been thinking about what it means for a young adult novel to have integrity. I approach the subject from the point of view of the author. How can I write a novel for young people with integrity and why is it important that I do so? I don’t know why it is so hard to write about integrity. It is almost as if integrity and silence go together. The minute you start speaking about integrity you are in danger of losing it. But maybe the risk is worth taking.

The reason why it is so difficult to write about integrity is because integrity has a lot to do with intent and motive. Why am I writing this? The young adult novel will have integrity if it is written in response to an inner calling, a spiritual necessity. When the impulse to create is pure, when what it seeks is the expression of beauty and goodness, the result is a work that has integrity.

So integrity is something that happens in the mind and heart of the author. But the motive of the author cannot help but manifest itself in the work. There it waits to be recognized by the reader. Integrity is an invisible presence recognized by an invisible awareness. Integrity gives rise to trust between writer and reader. “Yes, I give you my heart. I now know you have my wellbeing in mind,” says the reader wordlessly when integrity is apprehended.

To write with integrity is difficult. To do so the writer must invoke a sort of amnesia for all those external considerations that detract from the work itself. How hard these days to forget about sales and awards and praise or its opposite. But I don’t think integrity means that the writer must forget about the reader – the person for whom she is writing. Rather, to write with integrity means to respect the intelligence, the feelings, the autonomy of the reader. It means that I as an author will remain true to an artistic vision that I intend to share. That the artistic vision is to be shared imposes certain limits to the creation. And it is here in the imposition of limits that I as an author will respect my reader. It is here that I will keep her wellbeing in mind. This dance, this tension, between responsibility to the work and responsibility to the reader is where integrity may be found, where it lives like a spark of life.

Do not worry that your love’s beauty

Will dazzle me,

Blind me,

Keep me

From my daily bread.

Do not worry that the bursting

Notes of your anvil

Will stun me to dead stillness.

Do not be anxious.

Let your giving fall

As the rain.

I will take

The bucking wildness

Into a pasture so deep

That no one will hear

The hoofs beating the earth.

I will swaddle

The screaming miracle

Succor it with silence.

Do not be anxious

Of giving’s peril.

Let your love fall

As the rain.

Writing a book can teach you about life, how to live your days, if you let it. Take this thing we call faith, this mystery that is as real in its presence as it is in its absence. You need it. The book cannot get written without it. But what is it? The kind of faith you need, the one you’re looking for, the kind you wait for open-eyed and thirsty is more than a belief. I believe in myself. I believe I can do it. My experience is that this kind of mental faith (for belief is a thing of the head) doesn’t get you too far. The faith that works is the kind that triggers surrender and that follows it. This vision of a book that I have, there’s no way that I can make it real. The work is beyond my powers and yet it must be done. I put my foot in the water, testing, and I wade in slowly. Or I dive in careless of depths or petrels. Faith is this two-chambered heart of giving up and going on. And as the book gets written sentence by sentence yet another kind of faith is needed. Let’s call it faith in the reality of your creation. The world that you are creating is made real and kept alive by your faith. You must not doubt your creation’s power or its purpose or its goodness. The world you have created has been made real by your faith and now you begin to love. You love your characters, the things that happen to them, the world they live in. Faith has become love. And that’s what it always wanted to be.

This so called labor of love.
How like the pear tree
In my backyard
With its imperfect fruit.
How can I bear like you?
So natural and unstruggled.
So at ease with your gift.

It is not logical to hear such a melody
this late spring
when the rains are still cold.
I had to stop when it first came,
its beckoning unrecognizable
or too familiar.

How can the frozen earth not
crack
to such song?
How can the numb cardinal not
sing
to the first sun?

It was almost too late
the sound of the first rain drop.
I stopped only because it hurt.
That dark echo.
That flash of sound.

-Francisco X. Stork
March 29, 2010

This past week, I was invited to visit Holland by Lemniscaat, the Dutch publisher of Marcelo in the Real World. It was a particularly meaningful trip because my step father, Charlie Stork, was Dutch. There were many things about the trip that were touching and had an impact on me, but the one that sticks out the most in my mind was looking into the eyes of many Dutch people and seeing in there the same kind, bright, spark of life that I used to see in my father’s eyes. I met Charlie Stork when I was six years old and I lost him to an automobile accident when I was thirteen. It was too short a time but it was enough for me to be grateful, to recognize the influence that a father has on a son. Going to Holland at age 57 meant so much to me. I will never forget the in-depth interviews by reporters who had read Marcelo two or three times, the attentive faces of the children at the schools, the kind people at the bookstores who listened to my sales pitch. Thank you Lemniscaat for bringing me to the home of my father and letting me find my adoptive roots.

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors, my fifth novel, officially comes out today. I started to write Death Warriors only a few months after submitting the final draft for Marcelo in the Real World. Like the other books that I have written, the seed for this one had been inside of me for many years. The seed was simply this: two very different young men (one very philosophical and idealistic and the other one very emotional and phyisical) get involved in an adventure and are transformed by each other in the process. We are used to thinking of “adventure” as something that involves physical risk, but I wanted my adventure to be about spiritual risk, about the meaning of life and the risk of not finding it. I have to confess that it was a difficult book to write. Marcelo in the Real World was so well received that I wondered whether I would ever write another book like that. It took a couple of months of struggle to finally accept that this was a different book, with its own truths to tell and its own voice. Death Warriors is a deeply personal book. Personal not in the sense that it is autobiographical, but in the sense that I lived and suffered with Pancho and D.Q. as I wrote about them. I wish this book well on this day. May it touch readers as deeply as it touched me.  

Marcelo in the Real World was the recipient of this year’s Schneider Family Book Award. I am so very proud and honored to have received this award. It is a very meaningful award to me. The award is given for “a book that embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.” The award, for me, recognizes the many young men and women who suffer because their perception of the world differs from that of a neuro-typical person. The award is also a recognition that “artistic expression” can take us into the world of the non-neuro-typical person like nothing else. People sometimes ask me how I came upon Marcelo’s voice, a voice that resembles the voice of so many young people with Asperger’s syndrome, and ultimately I have no answer other than to say that the voice was a gift and also that somewhere in me I too must have Marcelo’s voice, I too must see the world the way he sees it, if only in a small way. I am glad there are awards like the Schneider Award.

For the first time in my writing career, a book of mine has appeared on various Best Book of the Year lists. I’ve been wondering for a couple of weeks now as to how to respond (at least to myself). I have referenced the various lists and commendations elsewhere on this website, but I felt that this praise for the book, proud and honored as I am of receiving it, needed to be put into perspective (at least to myself). I think of the many good books that didn’t get listed and which deserve to be read. I remember a couple of books of mine that have gone by unnoticed - heartfelt books as worthy to be read, in my view, as Marcelo. So I wanted to say something (at least to myself) about lists and awards and competitions but all I could think of were the words of T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets (East Coker).

And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to
conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot
hope
To emulate -but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under
conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

I thought I would get philosophical (for a change!) and ask what it means to love a book. I often hear the phrase: “I liked it but I didn’t love it”, applied to a book. It surprises me to hear the word love so selectively applied to a book when it is so easily bandied about otherwise: “I love these potato chips.” It seems that we have more reverence for the word “love” when we refer to a book. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just my own inner desire to save the preciousness of the word by using it only when I believe it to be true love. It seems to me that love for a book entails both the rapture of first love and the commitment of forever love. If that is the case, no wonder I find it hard to love just any book. By “rapture of first love” I mean that recognition of the book’s beauty, its goodness, its literary qualities all of which are experienced in a kind of rapture, a losing of myself in the world of the book. (Sounds very much like falling in love for a person, doesn’t it?). By “Commitment of forever love” I mean that I choose, that I select and prefer this book to the many other books I have read. It means that the book is now a part of me and I a part of it. It means that I don’t want to leave it, that even as I finish reading it, I already want to return it. It means that along with the passion of the initial rapture there is also a peace that is intuitively recognized as lasting. This is true love for me. I only want to add that true love is subjective. There are “classics” that I don’t love and there are what many would consider poorly written books that I love with all my heart. With these last kind there is a recognition of souls that takes places that pierces through the surface. May our hearts be always full of love.

Every once in a while I get invited to talk at various types of events. I don’t know exactly why, but whenever I finish my talk, I feel a mild sense of disgust at myself. Part of the problem is that one of the reasons I get invited in the first place is to talk about my books and about myself and so what I say sounds (at least to me) like so much ego-puffing and self-promotion. Professors and other scholarly types get to talk about a topic that doesn’t have anything to do with themselves. But what can I talk about other than writing and the writing process and the themes treated in my books? I feel like I should quickly become an expert and come up with a general topic such as: “Jung, the collective unconscious, and the prevalence of vampires in young adult literature.” Was there ever a time when an author wrote and the book went off and that was it? I’m only complaining a little bit. Because Marcelo has something like Asperger’s syndrome, I’ve been invited to speak to organizations that are interested or involved with AS. A week or so I spoke before the Asperger’s Association of New England and got some of very tough questions from young people with AS who had read the book with an incredible eye for detail. A couple of months ago, I was invited to a class at the Perkins School in Lancaster Massachusetts, where young people with AS had studied the book. I walk away from talks like these enriched. Drained but enriched. Sometimes I think that there’s only enough energy in the creative reservoir and you can use it either to write or to talk about writing. There are times when it feels right to talk about my writing and my books and there are times when it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I haven’t quite found the perspective that sees talking as reaching out, as being generous, as an expression of gratitude for the publication and interest in my books. But even if I manage to see talking in the right light, I hope to always remember that writing comes first and talking second.

Every summer when I walk into a book store, I see a table with all the books that teachers have assigned or recommended for their students. I spend a lot of time at this table even though most of the books that I see there are the same every summer. I don’t have to mention them, you know which I ones I mean. Every year a few new books make it to the table, but it is rare to see those books there the following year. I confess to you, that one of my greatest aspirations is to write a book that makes it to the table and stays there for a long, long time. Trust me, I’m familiar with impossible dreams, but I also know the energy and power that comes from them. I would like to think that when I sit down to write I am writing with all my strength, mind and heart, going so deep in search of beauty and truth because writing this way is the only way that my book will make it to the table. It is not that the books on that table have sold thousands of copies or won awards all though many have. It is what the books stand for that attracts me the most. Some of the books on the table are there because they provide valuable lessons and themes that teachers love to teach. But there are others, the ones I most admire. These books are the books that last because they offer nourishment and comfort to the human spirit. These are the books that challenge us to grow by the unanswered questions that they raise. They touch on the universal and they do it with beauty and grace. That is why I would like to see one of my books on the table.

Last week I was invited to speak at the Simmons College Young Adult Literature conference. The theme of the conference was “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and I talked about the different “crimes” that Marcelo encounters in the real world. There were those personal crimes committed or intended to be committed by unsavory characters in the book. There were “institutional” crimes, for lack of a better word. These are sanctioned actions, all perfectly legal, committed by institutions or systems which cause suffering. An example of this in the book is the encounter by Marcelo of a legal system that protects a manufacturer of faulty windshields. The third kind of crimes are what I call “crimes against the spirit” These are the sometimes very subtle “crimes” that seek to demean Marcelo, to thwart his goodness, to prevent him from growing and developing. Basically, these crimes against the spirit are reflected early in the book when Marcelo’s father tells him that the key rule of the real world is to watch out for “number one.” This ingrained belief that self-centeredness is normal and even necessary to live in the modern world is the source of all “crimes against the spirit” that Marcelo encounters. What follows are some of the remarks on this topic that I made in my presentation.

Literature that is enjoyed by Young Adults has always had that joyful sense of rebelliousness against the crimes of the spirit perpetrated by adults. The crimes of the spirit manifest themselves in many ways. Sometimes, they are depicted in characters that approach caricatures. But sometimes, the crimes of the spirit are subtle and it takes the eyes of the young to detect what the adult eye has become accustomed to.

The beauty of writing young adult literature, and the challenge, is that crimes can be as obvious or as subtle as we want. The young will always delight in the triumph of the good over evil. And I do believe that in young adult literature good should triumph. That is not to say that the young adult book need not be realistic in its portrayal of evil. Rather, I believe that it is a matter of focus. Good and evil are both here in this real world of us. I believe it is my job as young adult writer to affirm the good.

In my one and only adult I have written, crimes are treated differently than in my young adult books. The difference I think is one of attitude in the writing. In the adult book, there is ambiguity as to whether the protagonist is redeemed or chooses to redeem himself. In my young adult books, hope plays an important role. It is hard for me to envision writing a book where the young protagonist doesn’t reach a stage in life where there is growth or the hope for growth.

The presentation of crimes and misdemeanors can be as complicated in a book as it can be in real life. The book can present criminal intent in its various gradations. A young adult book can have monsters that represent evil and it can present subtle attitudes that with time will corrode the spirit. I’m hoping that there will be many diverse young adult books that deal with the complexity and the subtlety of evil while still remaining exciting books to read. Even if these books are not best sellers, if they’re good enough, I guarantee you that they will be read by and appreciated by many young people. To a certain extent we as authors need to put aside considerations as to how many will read our work. We should write as if only one young person will read the book, but the book will change that person’s life. I think that as authors we may sell our young readers short if we don’t write with all our hearts, if we don’t go beyond the entertaining surfaces and present young people with the real world in its totality, the good and bad, to the best of our ability.

Periodically I get inquiries from young people (and older ones too) who want to write or publish their first novel. By way of response, I would like to share with you some thoughts about the writing of my first novel, The Way of the Jaguar.

I started writing Jaguar about seven years before it was published. Of course I was not writing continuously. In terms of time frames, the process of creation went like this. I wrote pretty much every day for about eight months and came out with what I thought was a best seller and which I proceeded to send out to agents and publishing houses and in the process picked up dozens of rejections. Besides sending it out to publishers and agents I gave the book to a few friends and one or two gave me helpful comments. I think that at this time I put the book away for about three years. When I picked the manuscript again, I started to re-write the whole book. I would begin each writing session by reading a scene of what I had written before and then I would start writing from scratch. Many of the same scenes were kept, but they were embodied in different language. But more significantly, many more scenes were added. This re-writing took about a year. Again I sent it out and again amidst the many rejections I received a letter from a publisher who told me that the book was an “unpolished gem” and she was specific about what did not work for her. This is when the third version of the book came into being. In this third version I did not re-write totally from scratch I re-structured. I connected. I changed where the story started, organized chapters into more logical common themes and time frames. By this time I knew that the book was not the type that would be picked up by a commercial publisher so I sent it to the type of small non-profit literary presses that specialized in Hispanic-American literature. That’s when Bilingual Review Press out of Arizona State University decided to publish it. A few months later, the book won one of the Chicano/Latino Literary Awards.

This is sort of the external history of the book. The internal history is more complicated. I have always wanted to be a writer. When I was nine years old my father bought me a typewriter, which I still have. But wanting to be a writer and writing are two different things. I majored in English in Philosophy in college. I studied Latin American literature at Harvard because I thought graduate school would help me write. I have kept a journal since I was in high school and I think that that’s how the book was born. The book is the daily journal of a person on death row. One day when I was writing in my journal I decided to imagine that I was a prisoner who was about to die. So then I just started inventing. The book is a grafting, a mixing of reality and fantasy. For example, the law firm that I used to work at had these yearly outings at a country club and I took that and created a scene where the main character was at a similar outing in the pool with the person he loved.

In thinking back, I see that I wrote this book at a particularly difficult period of my life. Writing is good therapy. But, of course, good therapy does not always result in good writing. The book was published because I was able to transform the writing that was helpful to me into good writing. The Way of the Jaguar was published in 2000. My attitudes toward writing have changed somewhat since then. Now I write books whose main characters are young people. But the experience of writing that first book showed me how to discover and accept the purpose of writing in my life.

In a week or so I will be done with the editing process for the fourth book: The Last Summer of the Death Warriors. That book is slated to come out March 2010. Sometime later in 2010 (my wonderful editor Cheryl Klein is also very flexible and kind) I need to deliver a rough draft of the fifth book. What I want to talk about here is what it feels like to not know at this moment what that book will be about. I should be looking for something to write about. I should be calculating. Instead I am waiting. I am waiting in what feels like a kind of darkness. A couple of weeks ago something happened that made me think that I was indeed waiting and not just avoiding the matter. I was walking and a glimmer of an idea came to me. It just came. I treasure this idea and protect it with my silence although I am also full of doubts about it. It may be just a passing fancy. It could be that the idea points towards a challenge I don’t feel I can meet. So I wait some more. Maybe another idea will come. Or maybe this humble and lonely idea will stay and grow. Maybe with time I will believe that I am strong enough to meet the challenge it presents. I don’t know how much longer to wait before just diving in. I wish I could sit down one day and write an outline of a book. Here are the characters and here is what happens. I wish I could calculate more. Instead I am cursed with a sense that it is okay to wait a little longer. It is not easy to wait in this darkness. It is scary. It is scary because we don’t know what will come or when. It is scary because there’s a little voice that asks “what if you are just being lazy?” I think here of how much faith and waiting have in common (”For the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting” says T.S.Eliot in the Four Quartets). Waiting begets faith and faith begets waiting. What makes the waiting worthwhile, what fills the waiting with faith is the expectation or certainty that something will come. At the right time I will know what to write. The voice of the young person I want to write about will come (the voice always comes first) and the story will follow.

Marcelo in the Real World has been out there since March and I have been overwhelmed by its reception both critically by the professional reviewers as well as by the many, many people who have reviewed the book in their blogs or have commented upon it either publicly or by contacting me personally through this website. I am so happy that the book has already touched as many people as it has. I know that it will continue to do so. And yet, I confess to feeling a certain detachment from all the good things that are happening to the book. Maybe it is the length of time involved between when an author finishes writing a book and when the book is published that creates that distance - the sense that the book is no longer one’s own and all the praise (or criticism) that are heaped upon it are not to be taken, well, personally. Did I really write that book? I remember the years and the days and the hours of struggle and joy but they seem so far off now. I feel as if the images and the words came to me, were given to me, and that I was fortunate to have a good editor who set me on the right path. I’m not trying to be humble. I’m trying to convey what happens after a book is written. I think this natural separation from the work is sort of what a woman goes through in forgetting the labor pains of the prior child so that the next child can be conceived and born. Maybe in the case of writing, it is not only necessary to forget the pain of creating the previous work but also the praise received for it. It is just as easy to get stuck in pain as it is in praise. But forgetting pain and praise is not the right term. What is needed after a book is out is the gentle remembering of the gift-like qualities of the book’s creation. It is this remembering that will carry us steadily into the next work.