What I Learned When I Wrote Rogelia's House of Magic

Last night Libreria Martinez had a Re-Grand Opening. This independent bilingual bookstore run by Rueben Martinez has been serving the city of Santa Ana and surrounding communities for 16 years. They modernized their store and had a party to celebrate last night. Part of the celebration was an authors panel with myself, Sarah Rafael Garcia and Sandra Lopez, moderated by Marcos Najera, NPR Latino Affairs Reporter.

My favorite question was when he asked what we learned about ourselves in the process of writing our books. Each of the three characters in Rogelia's House of Magic have a bit of me in each one. Fern represents the free-spirited part of me. I explored my melancholic side through Xochitl. But Marina had my family history and I grew most with her.

Marina learns to establish her independence in this first novel as she struggles against a strong-willed, opinionated Latina mother. For the purposes of "research" I recalled every major fight I had with my mother and wrote it all down. After I turned in my first draft of the novel, the editor said she wanted to call Child Protective Services against this mother and that I needed to tone it down because the mother was taking over, becoming a stronger character than Marina.

To make Marina a more solid, believable character and write a better book, I had to pull away from the old drama, get soem perspective, to remember my part and perhaps the things I said to get some of those fights started, and take some sort of responsibility. In the end I had more compassion for my mother and I learned to accept her on a deeper level.

It was truly a valuable experience. After writing the second and third drafts, I came away from the book feeling empowered as a person who has the strength to be a co-creator in life, not a victim complaining about all the horrible things ever said and done to or around them. I've let go of my stories of smallness and sadness that I started to believe as a teen and now firmly believe that all it takes is a shift in attitude to see that the Universe Support Me in all that I do and in all that I love.

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