Désirée Zamorano‘s novel The Amado Women is just out from Cinco Puntos Press. Bustle called it one of Eleven Moving Beach Reads That’ll Have You Weeping in Your Pina Colada and Remezcla listed it as one of 5 Must-Read Books for Summer 2014. She is also the director of Occidental College’s Community Literacy Center. Lovely to have her here on 1st Books! – Meg
At book chats, audience members ask me how long this novel took to write. I am not sure how to calculate. Do I count the years between drafts? Do I count the months of mourning the second draft, when my laptop (pre-Dropbox) was stolen? Do I count the years I put it aside, convinced it was the wrong story for me to tell, at the wrong time?
I’m the kind of writer who feels too many things deeply. A small moment, a tiny rupture, a casual rejection. Almost a decade ago I sent my VIP NYC agent the manuscript that would become The Amado Women. She had been unsuccessfully shopping my mystery novel around, and I thought this family drama was better, this one would be successful. My agent’s response was swift and final: she dumped me.
Now, I knew a few things about a writer’s path, having devoured thousands of pages of advice. I knew, for example, that you had to do work, the writing. I also knew every single writer’s journey was different. A very few emerge from the gate gilded and anointed. For others it is an arduous, treacherous switchback path. But with the finality of that agent’s rejection I questioned this dream of mine, and the perseverance that was overwhelmingly necessary. Was it time to abandon this aspiration and move on?
That was when I discovered Carolyn See’s book, Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers. I was too unsuccessful, I thought then, to call myself a writer. But I certainly was a dreamer. In this book Carolyn See offers two writing recipes, the 18-minute chili and the 18-hour chili, but in both the key beginning ingredient is “Fun First.”
Fun? I had so many layers of expectations that the fun, the entire reason my third-grade soul had been entranced by the concept, had been squeezed out. I devoured then reread that book, with its generous voice and its thoughtful counsel. That book became the mentor I did not have. From her seeds of playful encouragement I connected with other writers. I continued to attend conferences. I honored the people who supported my goals. And, of course, I kept writing.
A few years later I invited Ms. See to speak where I teach. I brought my copy for her to sign. I’m reading her inscription now. She wrote: “It’s only a matter of time!”
I began to query publishers directly.
Cinco Puntos Press liked my draft enough to give me notes and recommendations. I dove in, then sent it off, and worked on other books. They sent the draft back, with more notes, saying it wasn’t quite right for them. At this point, I was done with The Amado Women. I put the manuscript and their comments away. Again, too many layers of expectation, and I took it as a profound rejection.
The French director Robert Bresson says, “Make visible, that which without you might never be seen.” Whisper that to yourself when you’re frozen by rejection. I kept writing.
Two years later Lee Byrd of Cinco Puntos Press emailed me and asked me where my next draft was. Wait, she was querying me? I dug out the manuscript with all of her comments. What I had previously taken so deeply now looked simple and manageable.
When they told me they were publishing my book I began to have sleeping problems. I would wake up for the day at 5 a.m., or stay up at night till 3, or wake up at 3 and fall asleep at 5. During these sleepless times there was this constant thrumming, in my ears, in my brain, cascading around my chest. Was I sick? I wondered, in the middle of the night. Was I dying? It literally took me months to puzzle this one out. I finally realized, not long before my first reading, what it was: I was happy.
Trust a writer’s insight.
Now I realize how ridiculous I have been, all these many years, to allow one thing to define success for me. One. How ludicrous.
And yet in July, while being introduced to the audience at my hometown bookstore I looked around at my friends, my family, my supporters. Then I took the mic. “There’s something I’ve wanted to say for a very long time now,” I paused and looked again at the standing-room only crowd. “Thank you for being here tonight.” – Désirée
