Angel Luis Colón

I’ve been giving thought to an ugly little truth of this industry, but it’s taken me a while to really pull the words together since this is a nuanced little bastard.

Let’s start outside of the writing industry and use an example from real life.

We’re walking in line, complete strangers, to the same destination. Pre-pandemic, obviously. I reach a door before you, open it, and nod you in. You thank me and hooray, an exchange of pleasantries has occurred.

Maybe some time later in the day or week, this favor is returned as you do the same for me.

Look at us, normal humans with good manners.

OK – great. We went tit for tat on something nice and easy. But those favors can grow, right? Maybe I help you carry something and one day you do something for me in a similar capacity b/c we live in the same building or whatever. Extend the social relationship to an actual friendship and this will happen often. We’ll do each other solids and that can be really nice.

But the big question within all of these exchanges: do I or the other party feel owed?

This is where that truth steps in. Entitlement. The feeling being owed either by virtue of a relationship or because of past action. Is it nice to see a return of a favor or kindness? Hell yes.

But is it owed to us?

Is it especially owed to us in a professional capacity, i.e. writing?

And should that expectation be the basis of our professional or personal relationships in this industry?

I’ve been very fortunate to have had many writers in my life that have done me massive kindness. Whether it’s been words of encouragement, a drink on them, a pair of extra eyes on a project or query – I’ve always been grateful for those favors. And because of that, I’ve tried very hard to pass on kindness the best way I can – admittedly, I’m the type that can be very apprehensive to put myself out there entirely, a mix of Bronx upbringing with a sort of kind of terrible family, but WHATEVER. What I mean is that I try to pay it forward and I always ask myself a very big question when I do:

Do I expect anything in return for this?

Because we’re human and it’s not always possible to not associate a return on investment, I think it’s fair to ask myself about my own motives. A means of reviewing whether I’m being level-headed or meeting expectations I’ve made of myself.

And while all that is so fine, dandy, and noble there’s the other half of that equation: what will others expect of me if I move forward?

That part can freeze me up something fierce. We’ve all been burned. We’ve all had those instances where a relationship in these circles evaporates once you’re not reviewing or podcasting or no longer hold the same intangible cache you did a year before. It sucks and it does color the experience in ways that can leave a person feeling used or cynical.

So the nasty little truth: the root of that cynicism. The people who do believe these relationships MUST be beneficial (obviously weighted towards their side of the scale, but still…)

What do we do about that?

I have no idea.

All I know is we have to fight for our passion. We have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable because the purpose of folks like that is to take ultimately bleed us dry and swipe us off the board. In their mind, this is a competition but they know they are incapable of competing in any fair way, so they entrench themselves and hoard whatever they can, providing kindness until that kindness no longer bares any more fruit.

No solutions, I know. I’ve offered nothing in this exchange of my thoughts for your reading.

Or maybe one. Corny, but true at the end of the day. Be as kind as you can until you can’t. Nothing new, but I think we need to hear that sometimes; to get permission to hold the line against folks who will habitually try to step over.

be easy

Oof, we starting with the bar low so there’s no place else to go but up.

Anyway, how are we all doing? Are we adjusting to the ancient curse of living in perpetually interesting times? Excellent.

Beyond the obvious, well, everything we’re going through, I’ve been trying very hard to think about what it is that I want – outside of simply surviving – out of this year.

Last year was a wash. My enthusiasm for writing, while not diminished, was tough to get a hold of. What made it worse was the obvious reason for that creative glut. I’ve found it a hell of a lot easier to have more ambiguous scapegoats. Those five letters (Trump or COVID, I mean same thing) just made everything feel like marching through mud.

That said, there were bright spots. I’ve ranted about them before. Baking. Cat. Agent. All good things. All things that are separate but would be awesome as a single entity.

I also learned something important while being forced into a life of quarantine. I learned about my worth as a creative.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of thinking to do when you’re not on an exhausting commute or occupying yourself with the noise of social living. A lot of restless nights left me staring at the ceiling – still worrying as normal – but also simply thinking about me and what my priorities are. What the root of those priorities are.

Spoilers: no major revelations. More like acceptance of long known truth. My worth is not measured by accomplishment or ticks off the list. It’s not measured by whether I’m esteemed or reviled by my peers. The score simply doesn’t matter. What does matter is being content in what I am creating. And while that’s such a rote concept, something we hear parroted all over social media, its difficult to “get” that point.

So, like the step I took a few years back in accepting my voice, I’ve begun to accept my instincts. I know I can tell a story. I know I can tell it well. Now, though, I believe I can tell the stories I want to tell. Not the stories other people expect or the stories that chase a trend. I’m sick of that. Sick of how it makes me feel trying to measure up to an invisible standard.

A big part of that is also believing that I can do things better. Whether that’s better than others or my past self doesn’t matter. I just want to be a better writer. I want to write better stories. I know that path is paved with my intentions, nobody else’s.

I have plans. I also have books. I’ve got an agent that believes in me and honestly, as thankful as I am for that, I believe I deserve that because I am that good at this.

All this ranting, what I’m trying to say: believe in you, fully. Not just a part of you. Own this shit. Accept what you excel at and what you need to build. Then do it. Do it well.

Happy New Year. May the times get a lot more fucking boring.

Angel

When I started to find my footing with crime fiction, I gravitated to the style that inspired me. The hard-boiled pulp stories that I fell in love with as a kid, the exaggerated bullshit I heard from phonies and legit hard asses growing up, and random nonsense I caught from the world around me.

Low brow. Fun. An edge that maybe perturbed others. That was the goal and writing those kinds of stories was a shit ton of fun.

But then I tried to transition that mindset to a novel. Short stories and novellas felt perfect for that style of story – the cartoonish shot of adrenaline – but not so much for long form.

So I failed to take off. Multiple times. The pulpier stories would become novellas that were publishable, but as I kept trying to find a lengthier narrative structure, it began to dawn on me that fun was only fun in doses. Now, I could simply survive by adding a bunch of drab nonsense between the fun, but I hated that. It wasn’t my voice and it wasn’t my style.

I tested the waters with Fantine Park. If you’ve read NO HAPPY ENDINGS or PULL & PRAY (meaning you got past the titles) you might notice there’s pulp there, but there’s also a LOT of soul searching. Those books were less about heists and more about struggling with familial issues, inferiority complexes, and imposter syndrome (all things I deal with, yay!).

It was also a test flight for what would become HELL CHOSE ME and a very big change in how I saw my writing and its purpose.

Fun is great, but I began to want to use these backdrops and characters as a means of exploring my issues and the issues of those around me. My mission statement shifted from just trying to get published to trying to tell more than a story. I realized I could explore real problems while camouflaging that analysis with the pulp and fun.

Now all that sounds really obvious, but I think I fooled myself into thinking I was writing more than the sum of my stories’ parts for a very long time. That simply spinning a yarn was enough and of course there was literary merit in that work (no there wasn’t) and of course I should be taken very seriously (I shouldn’t). This is probably why a lot of assholes look down their noses at genre for the most part (but that’s a subject for something far lengthier and more well put together than a blog rant).

And there’s the danger zone. The insistence on staying in that cloud and not taking the next step. There’s a challenge in trying to do more with a smaller box of tools and that’s what I want to do. I want to grow as a writer while drawing from the well that’s inspired me. That goal has paid off in many ways for me; not just in regards of whatever we deem successful on an outside level, but personally. The more I’ve matured and challenged myself with my writing, the more satisfied I’ve become with the results. The less I chase the high of being published, the more I’m happy with what I’m pulling together.

Now that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for irreverent nonsense anymore. There always is, especially in flash or shorter stories, but now I’m realizing that with the ability to write novel length, I’ve provided myself with an immense opportunity to mash my idiot sensibilities with deep discussion/analysis of being broken. It’s all at once therapeutic and exciting.

I’ve never been the type to tell other writers they HAVE to do anything. I’ve tweeted random insights and advice that’s served me well, but I do think crime fiction (at least the independent scene) needs to begin taking a long, hard look at what we want to accomplish. Are we simply content to write pulp stories with age-old tropes? The same Chandler-style detective stories? Maybe some more copaganda?

Or do we take those stories and really try to upend them as best we can? Do we finally open the door to hearing diverse perspectives on overly revered stories; maybe providing a deeper insight into what we thought we knew? Personally, I think the survival of the genre is entirely dependent on that decision. We either remain cosplayers or we move towards becoming something a little more original (no sleight on cosplay, just the best metaphor I can think of). There are only so many revenge stories we can tell, sure, but there has to be a way to add new flavor to this.

The answer’s not easy, but I believe that to simply strive for these things. To take the bigger swings would be beneficial. Believing we can succeed by following the same path dozens of others tread is simply no longer a sustainable model and those who insist that it is will do more damage than any effective change could possibly do.

Ok then. It’s some how, some way De-fucking-cember.

Fuuuuuck.

9 months in exile for a lot of us. We’ve been separated from friends and family. Maybe we’ve done the socially distant thing; maybe we haven’t. It’s sucked on a lot of levels and I honestly do miss seeing people I love.

So when this all started and we scrambled for any and all toilet paper, there were rumblings about yeast shortages. Yeast shortages! My god, what would I do without yeast, a product we used maybe once or twice a month? Obviously, I fell right into the trend of making my own sourdough starter because, by god, I would not fall victim to that shortage of sweet, sweet yeast.

It started with banana bread. Just a fun little project. Easy. I never liked baking. Hard feelings from high school chemistry made me avoid anything that involved mixing liquids and whatever, so I wasn’t willing to try that hard.

Until I was.

See, writing has not been an escape this year. I’ve been on sub with my agent. I’ve been writing with a purpose that provides with it quite a bit of stress (albeit entirely instigated by my own worrywart brain) and while purpose is nice, purpose is not a means of distraction or relief.

But for some fucking reason measuring ratios of specific flours and water and cheeses? Now that shit made me feel better.

I’ve been thinking about why for the last couple of months. Why the baking helps me. Why (and fuck it, I’m bragging) I seem to be so good at this. And I realized two things 1) this is just a natural extension of doing something I’ve always loved: feeding people (ask anyone who was a recipient of a Popeye’s biscuit in NOLA a few years back about that) and 2) baking gives me control.

Let’s dwell on the latter realization. Sure, there are mistakes to be made, but the formula is still very specific – water, flour, salt + kinetic energy + heat = bread.

The quality is what shifts but that formula can’t change. It can be improved on and expanded on, but the basic principle is the same. I think there’s comfort in that and I honestly think it’s kept me sane while I worked out my other stressors enough to finally begin feeling that little itch to edit and write again. Having control of something, even a little loaf of bread, has brought me comfort. More comfort than even eating it.

And now, obviously, I’ve found something I have passion for in tandem with my other passions. That feels really good and is a small bright spot over the last 9 months of black skies. The bonus: point 1 from before. I get to share this with others and bring a little comfort to them. It’s a similar feeling to sharing my writing but also far more intimate.

With the holidays approaching, I think we can all use a little more comfort.

Take care of you and yours.

This year’s been a fucking freakshow. I mean, forget about ALL of the stuff, it’s simply how time is moving. I look at the calendar widget on my desktop and it’s nearly October. Nearly a year ago, I was pushing ¡Pa’Que Tu Lo Sepas!, I was actively hunting for an agent, and I was plotting my 2020.

Obviously, all of our plans changed.

Still, even though things changed, it sort of stayed the same?

I’m plotting another anthology (more soon), hunting for a publisher with an awesome agent at my side, and I’m sort of plotting my 2021?

It’s difficult to believe there’s been any real traction this year. I haven’t written as much as I’d like. I went out on sub during a fucking pandemic. But there are bright sides too. I learned how to bake (for those of you following me on IG, I seem to be pretty good at it too), I’ve found a rhythm with working out again that isn’t all running focused, and I feel like becoming 40 brought it’s own little breakthroughs. I guess the opportunity was a chance for actual self exploration, not just bullshit ego stroking (which, hey, as a writer, I am AWESOME at).

There’s this feeling that I’m on the precipice of something – an unknowable something, but something nonetheless – that I can’t shake. And again, this is not a post about the burning world, I know it’s burning and that’s a whole other part of my brain dealing with that trauma, but the part of my brain that’s seemingly healing scars I didn’t know I had is working. And it’s working well? Maybe. Still not 100% on that just yet.

Trauma’s been on my mind. The broad ones and the tiny ones. How we heal and how we cope. How we find the will to stand up every day to face down our dragons. And the more I think about those things I find that I’m not as invested in answers anymore. I care, but that weird craving for epiphanies is dead. I’m finally understanding that life isn’t about realization for finality or closure. It’s simply about growth until that growth is simply no longer happening.

So I choose to grow. Like a weed. Like ivy on lattice. Where I end up is where I end up. Something in my way? Fuck it, let’s move past it or we’ll simply force our way forward.