books

broken

q: how did you get the idea for what happened to verónica?

a: like almost all my other stories, broken came from one scene. i used to work for sony music in miami handling the artists’ contracts. one day i was reviewing contract terms for film usage and i got curious about the lyrics to a song. i looked them up and they were really sad; and it made me picture a woman grieving tremendous loss, which kind of stayed with me for a long while after that. pretty soon, i started envisioning a conversation between that woman and someone trying to help her, and she was so consumed by her own pain that she didn’t even want the help, she just wanted to die. it eventually unfolded into what it is now.

q: a lot of your male characters are law enforcement; is this a running theme?

a: it certainly seems to be but trust me, it’s not on purpose. i create for the story and if the story demands a soldier, that’s what i give it. if it’s a cop, it gets a cop. in this case, cam was always a cop because the bad guy had to navigate around that, and cam had to feel that impotence of the badge not doing anything to help him. for me, the added burden of that thing you do or what you are good at not working to your advantage when you need it to, enriches the story. a cop that can’t catch the bad guy, a soldier that can’t complete the mission- it’s an obstacle that adds to the character’s struggles and goals and overall development. the fact that they’re all male is just a force of habit; all of my females are in the legal field so the guys just so happen to be leo. but i do have to mention that all my romantic male characters are artists! lucas chase in redeem me is a writer, the men in this is everything are writers and artists; so i just debunked that theory.

project: femme

q: did you base your villain on any of the actual u.s. presidents when you wrote the book?

a: i actually started that idea for the story back during the 2012 elections when president barack obama was running for reelection and mitt romney was against him. i would see interviews or news stories of mitt romney and this guy would just give me the creeps. his eyes are so evil. there is something about him that makes me envision an invisible demon with its claws dug into his shoulders directing him to speak and act in a certain way. and i was so petrified that he’d be elected and he’d enforce this crazy, religious-fanatic agenda on america, meanwhile he’d actually be led by evil forces. so my crazy imagination just took off from there. had i known that the orange cheeto would eventually become president, i can’t say i’d have changed anything about the story.

q: is there going to be a sequel?

a: yes, definitely. shane is not done, nor is steve. their story isn't over and if you’ll remember, shane promised payback to everyone involved, so there’s some people left for her to handle. right now, i’m far along in the prequel, which is really a breakdown of how things unfolded and got so bad, and a peek into what exactly went down in the camps before we got to meet shane and the other women in project: femme. it’s also about steve and his side of the story that took place, since he wasn't in the united states when everything happened and didn't know what the hell was going on when he got here. so more steve- which is a big plus in my eyes.

redeem me

the lost highway

the “this is everything” collection

the blue brotherhood

writing style

self-publishing

q: how did you get the idea for redeem me?

a: it’s crazy, but one day i was jogging around my neighborhood at night. and i used to always listen to music when i would run, which in hindsight isn’t the smartest idea because it keeps you from being truly aware of your surroundings. so i’m done and on my way home walking up the block towards my apartment building, and one of the earbuds of the headphones fell out of my ear. when it did, i heard footsteps behind me. so i started getting a little nervous, picked up the pace and practically ran into my building and the footsteps followed me. at this point, i have my keys in my hand aimed out like a weapon and i’m getting ready for god only knows what. by the time i reached the lobby, i turned to see who was following me and it was a delivery kid, like 14 years old, bringing pizza to someone in the building. i’m sure my cheeks were bright red from embarrassment. in the elevator, i started imagining a scenario wherein i maced or pepper-sprayed the kid, and when i got inside i started writing it down. that’s how rhiannon and lucas’ meet-cute was born.

q: was it intentional to make rhiannon take that long to give in to her feelings for lucas?

a: yes and no. yes, because it made sense as i wrote it. she was fighting it so hard for so long because she felt that it would inevitably end in disaster. for someone who is terrified of failing and of feeding the stereotypes that have haunted her all her life, that’s a pretty good reason to tread carefully. and remember, lucas had given her no reason to believe that he was a one-woman type of man. everything she’d seen from him was the opposite; so it makes sense that she’d run as long as she did. but at the same time- no! it was infuriating to write because he’d loved her forever, even before he accepted it himself. so the romantic side of me was mad at the logical side of me for dragging it out that long.

q: how did you get the idea for the lost highway?

a: there’s a scene in the story where emmaline, having just survived an attack, is alone in the hospital and detective beach approaches her to get her statement. that’s actually where it all came from. i saw something unfold in my head that translated into a girl, alone and scared but doing a hell of a job hiding her fear, talking to this cop who’s usually disarming and charming and is instead flustered by her. and in her he sees this sort of strength and fire that he has never seen before and it stays with him long after they go their separate ways. that’s the first thing i thought of one random day and i just ran with it. it wrote out in a way that allowed me to keep her the way i wanted her to be and keep him the way i wanted him to be, but the story wrote itself around them.

q: your other stories point out the bad guy (or guys) immediately and this one is more of a mystery. why?

a: when i wrote the prologue about her running in the woods, at first i was leaning towards her knowing his identity. but then i backtracked and left it at her never having seen his face. as i wrote more and more and the story progressed, it felt so much darker to me to have her never knowing who he was, if he was still out there. it became this sort of cloud over her, like she was always wary of the day he would return. and she eventually begins to live a normal life for the first time but his presence never really goes away for her. as he starts to do more and more menacing things to get her attention, it just takes the story to a whole other level of creepiness. now she’s being stalked and she doesn’t even know it, so it becomes a different type of story. and now when she finds out who he is, it changes the way she reacts.

q: why did you make a compilation and not one singular novel?

a: these were all short stories i had written throughout the years. sometimes i have the itch to write a story and it doesn't unfold into murder and mayhem. sometimes it’s actually pretty, believe it or not. so i leave it alone, let it unfold into whatever its meant to be and voila! i have a story that goes nowhere. a couple of years ago, i read a stephen king compilation and i fell in love with the way each story, through horror, was completely different than the other. in this case, i had these six stories that shared nothing more than romantic themes and i figured what the hell? i might as well just make my own little compilation; so i did.

q: are any of the characters connected or were they supposed to be?

a: no. i didn't want to connect them and cheapen their stories. why do they all have to know each other? that stuff works great in movies like love actually or sidewalks of new york; but i felt like every character should have their own storyline. they are their own characters with their own issues that deserve their own time- from their beginning to their end. it wasn't worth it to me to intertwine them and then somehow explain how they all know each other. for what?

q: as your first manuscript, did it take very long to write the blue brotherhood?

a: yes and no. i started the blue brotherhood in september 2002 and before i knew it, i had about twenty chapters done. unfortunately, this was before flash drives and different methods of storage and i only had it stored in my sister's computer, which subsequently crashed. i lost everything; i only had the first four chapters printed out. i was completely devastated; i didn't even bother starting over. about five years later, with the coaxing and help of my friend nakia, i finally decided to start recreating it. i had the beginning printed and took it from there. once i got the ball rolling, i finished it in about four months. technically speaking however, it took a combined total of six years.

q: did you start out writing a dramatic crime thriller?

a: i didn't know what it was going to be when i started it. the original idea came completely from the argument in the motel room that played out in my mind. after that, i had a picture of the escape scene in the news van. once i knew it was going to be that dramatic, i started revolving it around the police and corruption and then it started to unfold. evalyne became an ada, pacey became a cop and everything and everyone else just fell into place. once i had my main characters, i just worked backward and developed their pasts. even if you know nothing else, just by reading that one motel scene you can tell they have this intense history together and that pacey is harboring immense animosity towards her; so their little sub-plots developed easily from there.

q: what’s your ‘writing style’?

a: i actually don’t have a specific style. for someone as organized and detail-oriented as i am, i’m actually a hot mess when i write. basically, whatever comes to me gets written down. whether its a sentence, a name, a phrase, an idea- doesn’t matter. i have projects with just random thoughts on a page; some of them divided by chapters that are all incomplete, and others just run-on sentences of details. sometimes i’m driving and a thought comes to me so i dictate it into my notes app; and other times, i could be in the movie theatre and see something on screen that sparks up an idea or a dialogue, and again, i jot it down. i also don’t write in order; there’s no beginning, middle or end. i write what comes to me when it comes to me and then i fuse it all together as it unfolds. that’s why i can say that my stories are created organically; i never know exactly where it’s going and even when i think i do, it may go somewhere else. at times i may start with a basic paragraph about how i see the story going but honestly, once i start writing it ends up told however it wants to be told. i find it to be easier to create this way, and much less forced. i know some people create outlines and stick to writing chapter by chapter; and that’s awesome. i just can’t do it that way. i know my way is insane and all over the place and i don’t recommend it, but it’s worked for me so far so i’m sticking to it.

q: your last releases were 2019 and then 2021. did broken take two years to write?

a: no; broken is actually the second manuscript i’ve written. i initially finished it back in 2004; it was originally titled “at night she stood.” i held on to it while i worked on other things, started other projects, queried for agents, etc. then project: femme sort of took over for awhile and being the obsessive-compulsive virgo i am, i had to finish all these things i had started; so it just sat waiting for the right time. Finally i was ready and i started editing it in early 2020. it should have made it out before the end of the year, but certain plot issues needed to be fixed since i wrote it in 2004. there were references to blackberries and printing mapquest directions; it was so outdated! that actually took a bulk of the time; as did simple grammatical and continuity corrections. i’m glad my writing has evolved and improved since 2004 but it definitely made for some time-consuming editing.

q: how were you able to be so graphic about what happened to the children in project: femme?

a: i have kids. it’s really that simple. i can sit here and say to you all the things that i would do for my kids and you’d probably cringe. but i know i would do them and i’m not the only one. motherhood is insane. it’s sweet and beautiful but it’s also raw and primal. i wrote shane in this way because i believe that in her position, i would have made the same choices. maybe not as gracefully, but i know what i would do to save my kids, to protect them and to find them if i had to. what i love about that correlation is not what is spelled out in front of you, but what’s implied. the things she says throughout the story that make you realize shane has done some stuff. and for me personally, it’s not as clear cut as saying that ‘i would die for my kids’. more importantly, more dangerously than that, i’ll survive for my kids. and so would she, so does she. that’s what makes shane so terrifying.

q: the pasts of the characters in redeem me contain some pretty heavy subject matter for a romance. was that your intention?

a: originally, i didn’t intend to make rhiannon’s past so dark. but i struggled with the reason she would be so absolutely dead-set against giving someone like lucas a chance. nothing else matched her personality. heartbreak, bad boyfriends, trust issues- none of them matched her. but that past, it made sense. it framed her into the person she has become, the person he falls in love with. and the same goes for him. i was just going to give him a deadbeat dad and call it a day, but then his story unfolded naturally. here’s this person who’s so optimistic and upbeat and mellow and he comes from such a dark situation. it made sense to me that someone he loved would have been the exact opposite of him and losing them made him the man he grew into, despite all his questions. sometimes i try to go in one direction but the story goes its own way; and in this case, their pasts may make it a little more intense but they also explain the reason they live their lives the way they do, so essentially the story definitely won this battle.

q: do you purposely make your main characters such kick-ass heroines?

a: i would say no, but i don’t think i can write any other type of woman. i’ve dabbled in the weaknesses of the heart, the mind and the body; and in stories of women who struggled and either failed or succeeded; or failed and then succeeded. but at the end of the day, i can’t write something that i don’t know. i know strong women, fearless and capable and independent and fierce. i don’t know a woman in my life that is anything less than that. so that’s what i write. they are all different but that’s a quality all of my female characters share. their inner strength and of course, the reminder that you wouldn’t want to meet one of them alone at night in a dark alley.

q: what’s harder: writing action and disaster, or writing love stories?

a: oh man, i couldn’t even tell you; it depends on so many different variables. the emotion in my action-heavy novels is just a small aspect of a larger story. in them, i was painting a picture wherein romance happened to unfold along the way, but it wasn’t the primary thing going on. such as steve and shane’s relationship in project: femme- they happened to fall in love along the way but that love wasn’t the focus. whereas in the love stories, romance was the concentration. for those, i had to dig deep and spell out the soul-crushing feeling of breaking up or dissolving a marriage; or the overwhelming chaos of falling for someone or pining away for unrequited love. in some ways, doing that is easier than concocting a description-heavy explanation of a gunfight or an explosion. but in other ways, it’s a lot harder to rely on feelings and emotions over facts to tell a story. and there is such a big difference between creating the two, so it really depends on what it is that i’m creating. i guess the truth is, when i’m trying to write an action scene, i long for the ease of romance; and when i’m trying to write a love scene, i wish i could just write about fighting. they’re equally frustrating in that way.

q: do you have a favorite among your books or a favorite part in your books?

a: i definitely have a favorite scene in each of my novels. that’s par for the course, i think. there’s always that one scene that hits a little different; that was either harder to write or is harder to read, or maybe i just see it unfold a certain way were it to ever be on screen. in broken, its when roni and cam are in bed after they reopen the case and they sort of unload their feelings on each other. there’s something so beautiful about how raw and honest they both are in that moment. my favorite part of project: femme is the explosion scene in the woods. between the description, shane’s manic, almost desperate search and steve’s natural reaction- i know i’m totally biased, but that shit is awesome. in redeem me, i love, love, love the part lucas comes to rhiannon in the middle of the night and tells her about his family history. it’s just surprising and authentic, and it practically wrote itself. in the lost highway, it’s when josh feels like his back is against the wall and he unleashes everything on emmaline. that one gets me because one night i was watching sons of anarchy and the main character made this declaration to his ex girlfriend and it is so similar; i can see it being delivered with the same intensity that charlie hunnam gives. but despite my affection for all my stories, i can certainly play favorites and i would pick project: femme, of course. between the evolution of shane, the creation of steve and the sheer magnitude of that entire world, that is by far my most prized story.

q: do you ever get writer’s block?

a: all the time. all. the. damn. time. it is a never-ending thing, i think, to constantly have to pull yourself out of when you are trying to create something. some days it just flows; like you literally cannot not write. and other days no matter what you do, you can’t seem to form a sentence. but whenever I get stuck with writing or i do get writer’s block, I try to sort of close up shop on that particular project and move on to another one. sometimes that helps to get the juices flowing and once the ideas start coming back, I just pick up where I left off. that doesn’t always work though so when it’s persistent, I stop what i’m doing and i go back to reread my old stuff. more often than not, that does the trick, though it’s not always with the particular story i’m stuck on. sometimes it ends up helping in a completely different way. i don’t know if it’s because i always have so many ideas bouncing around that reading my own work somehow activates the creativity or reminds me of something i was once thinking. but it does usually help to sort of restart my engine.

q: when do you find time to write?

a: i have very misleading time management abilities. i can look like i’m doing one thing when in reality i’m actually doing 259 things, so it seems like i have a lot of time on my hands; but trust me, i don’t. one of my biggest complaints is how 24 hours is not nearly enough time to do everything i have to do on a daily basis. up until recently, i used to write at work; and i’ve always had the kind of job where i could do that. but i have a new, more demanding position, and i’m in law school now, so it’s not as easy anymore to write freely. i’ve been able to skate by these past couple of years after the pandemic since i spent most of 2020 editing broken for release; and then focused all my residual energy on promoting and marketing that. but now i’m back into finishing the project: femme prequel, ‘the inception’, for (hopeful) release this fall and that will require some time juggling i haven’t quite figured out yet. once i do, i’ll let you know the answer to this.

q: so you wrote a musical…?

a: yes, i did. ‘le emme’ from the “this is everything” collection is now A Story for Another Time. it’s actually pretty insane how that happened. so in 2019, i was stuck on the Project: FEMME prequel and going nowhere. I started re-reading the compilation just to get my mind back in the creative game. as I re-read ‘Le Emme’, I started realizing that it was broken into scenes and acts similar to a play; And as I sat on it sort of deconstructing the plot, I started having ideas for songs. the scene when emme and jayer first meet became this intricate duet, sort of like Light My Candle from RENT. so I started writing all the things they would say to each other in that scenario- him flirting, her dismissing his advances, etc. and it became an actual song. Then I tried it for their breakup, and bam- another song. And I just kept going and going until I had a book of songs and i realized damn, this is a musical. then i changed jayer’s name to jeremy just because. and i realized the time jump, those ten+ years she’s in paris, basically would work perfectly to switch the cast from young women in their 20’s to more mature women in their late 30’s. i ran all this by my daughter, who is the perfect age to play the young version of emme by the way, and she totally enabled this endeavor. so i basically have this musical with these songs and a duel cast consisting of my daughter and women her age transforming into me and women my age; and Now, i just have to get it on stage.

q: is pásame going to be different than your usual stuff?

a: somewhat. paz will have the same passion, intensity and ferocity that has become synonymous with my female characters. that won’t ever change. and if you’re familiar with my work, you know all my protagonists are dominican women born and raised in new york city; and this will be no different in that sense. but this time around, her culture is so much more significant to who she is as a person and as a fictional character because its part of her story in a different way. in my other novels, the main character would speak spanish on occasion, maybe make a comment here or there about something very specific to growing up in a caribbean or dominican household. in pásame, she crosses over from latin america to become one of the biggest entertainers in the world; and the path up and then down is deeply enmeshed with her culture. her biggest hits are spanish-language songs, she communicates in spanish often and she exists in this duality between american and latino culture, sort of navigating the space between them for her own advancement. i’m not done with the story yet but this is one of those where i have a pretty solid idea of where it’s going and i think it’s going to be really entertaining once it’s done. the closest thing latino culture’s ever gotten to a rising star story on screen is the tragedy of selena; so i think this will be a nice addition to that genre. plus, the accompanying music is pretty cool. i wrote some songs to go along with the description of her performances and the scene/chapter segues are introduced by relevant song lyrics to music that shapes her life. so it will definitely be an interesting read, if i do say so myself.

q: what made you go with self-publishing instead of traditional publishing?

a: it was less a choice and more along the lines of what i had to do to get my stories told. with the blue brotherhood, it took almost a decade to get that published despite writing two other manuscripts in the years between. that publishing house has since gone out of business and i don’t want to wait for someone to find me. i know realistically we should be patient in attaining our goals, but i’m not a very patient person. after a while, the rejections and overall discarding of my queries got to be tiresome. by the time project: femme was ready to release, i made myself a promise that i’d give it until december 31, 2015 and if i hadn’t caught the interest of an agent or publisher by then, i’d self-publish. obviously, no one came knocking so i went my own way.

q: do you still aspire to traditionally publish?

a: i aspire to see my novels in film version; or in the case of project: femme, a series version. if it’s traditional publication that’ll get me there, i’m all for it. but as you can see, i have no problem venturing out on my own to get my stories out there. while i may not be in the theatre or on a streaming service yet, i am still trying and times are changing; there are so many avenues out there to teach you and help you do just about anything. i hold out hope and have my fingers crossed that i’ll get “discovered,” but i’ll keep putting in the work in the meantime.

q: what made you choose createspace/kdp publishing? 

a: when i was riding out that timeline on project: femme, i was doing the research to see what self-publishing company had the most perks or best outcomes. i can sit here and lie and tell you that createspace/kdp publishing had the best features or best reviews or better deal; but to be honest, i really am that impatient. i have a full-time career and run a business on the side, i’m in law school, i have two kids, two pets; i don’t have the time or patience to put in as much work as some of the other companies required. sadly, i’m also hella cheap, so i’m not willing to throw an exorbitant amount of money at something without a secure return. i believe in myself and my writing, but i’m not dropping thousands to prove that to you. createspace/kdp publishing was the best avenue for me to release my books, create covers that i choose, and put them on a platform that reaches millions of people. they have ways to promote your stuff, market it and get it into the hands of consumers; and all of that doesn’t cost me a cent. it’s a win/win.

q: What do you aim for in your writing?

a: I’ve only ever had one goal and that is just to get the story told, to get it on a screen [And of course to become a female, latina Tyler Perry, but that’s a little more complex.] Insofar as the writing, I’m just telling stories. Whether anybody reads them or not, whether anybody likes them or not- I got stuff to say and I’m gonna say it until I can’t anymore. That’s it. It’s not so deep that I’m on a mission to create a satire about American politics, or commentary about the state of the world, or lambast systemic racism or sexism or homophobia, or allegorize the end of the world from climate change. I don’t pretend to be the authority on real issues or the savior to fix them. And I don’t think I’m working on the next great American novel; I just write stories that my mind creates and that I unravel on paper. Do I hope something I’ve written moves someone in some way?- absolutely! It would be amazing to know that someone felt in reading a particular scene what I felt in writing it; that someone maybe doubled over in laughter at that one line I couldn’t type with a straight face or cried their eyes out during that one event that changed the character. And maybe something I wrote would make someone think, and that would be really, really cool. But… sometimes a green scarf is just a green scarf. I don’t have much more to say than what I’ve said in any particular story. So, I write to get it out and if ever it makes it on screen, then I did what I came to do..

q: do you think you’re on the right track to get to where you eventually want to be?

a: i honestly couldn’t tell you. i definitely think i’m where i’m supposed to be right now, and i’m doing what i’m supposed to be doing. there’s a lot i can complain about but none of it has to do with the stories i want to tell and how i’m telling them. do i wish i sold more books? hell yes. do i want them to become movies? of course. but i’ve waited this long so i figure i can wait a little longer to reach my goals. as long as i keep heading in that direction, i think i’ll be okay. and at the end of the day, i have total faith in my abilities to get me there to the point of complete delusion. I don’t gamble and i definitely don’t mess around with money; but if i had to, i’d have no problem betting it all on me.