Tag: Heartbreak

Healing, Latino culture, NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMo Comics, Writing

Who Really Uses NaNoWriMo?

Mona Alvarado Frazier

 

NaNoToon
NaNoToon

Who writes 50,000 words in 30 days during November?

Crazy writers. Passionate writers. Driven writers.

Writers who have trouble keeping their butt in the chair and hands on the keys use NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) as a last ditch effort to focus.

Completion rather than perfection is the goal.

We wait, crunked up on leftover trick or treat candy, swigging an energy drink, ready for the clock to strike midnight.

Who are these crazy people pushing their pens, tapping their computer keys at 12 a.m on Halloween night?

We are the Nano’s, peculiar writer beings who believe we can write 50,000 words in 30 days, November 1st to November 30th.

Really, we do believe.

This year I’m actually adding to last year’s draft. The working title for this New Adult novel is La Curandera*. Here’s my logline and a description:

Three generations of women, three broken hearts, one love potion.

Violet Romero is just as ambitious as her father, the city mayor. She has a five and ten-year plan to become the young politician who will change the world. That’s the strategy until her fiancé dumps her for her best friend and she spirals into depression, dropping out of her master’s program. Now she’s on the verge of losing her summer internship at the state capitol.

When she finds a job at a shop that specializes in cures, spells, and potions, run by two curanderas, she decides to take matters into her own hands and concoct her own remedy. But when Violet’s love potion causes her ex-fiancé to fall in love with her mother, and her grandmother’s 70-year-old love interest falls for Violet instead, she has to make things right again. She must travel to Mexico to seek a 100-year-old curandera who possibly has the cure if Violet can accomplish a vision quest.

I’m using this photo as inspiration to write:

The Healing Arts of Mexico by German Rubio
The Healing Arts of Mexico by German Rubio

I have my storyboard up on Pinterest for more inspiration.

So this writer will use the next 30 days to complete the story because I am driven, passionate and crazy about writing.

This means much less time on social media and no blogging for 30 days (unless there is a blogging emergency).

See you next month. Happy November!

*Curandera: Traditional healer who uses centuries-old herbal remedies for a variety of ailments. A spiritual element is also part of the healing. Usually, the healers are generational and native people of Mexico, Central, and South America.

 

Denise Chavez, Love, poetry

Caveat Emptor – Poem

Mona Alvarado Frazier
flickr.com- by Marsmettin Tallahassee
flickr.com- by Marsmettin Tallahassee

Remember when I began cleaning out and donating books? Well, that’s when I found a 2008 journal, lumpy from two 8 x 11 sized papers folded in fourths. I had written my first poem on those papers at a workshop.

Denise Chavez, author of Face of An Angel, Loving Pedro Infante, Last of the Menu Girls, and two others, was the instructor of the first writing workshop I attended. Her instruction, her demeanor, and her passion were poetry in motion.

The first day was about getting in touch with our senses. We sketched, found our own talismans, went outside for a walk, and wrote.

On the second day, Ms. Chavez directed us to a small dictionary which sat in the middle of the desk. The task was to open the book at whim, and with closed eyes blindly select a word.

My word was in Latin. Thankfully, “Caveat Emptor*” was defined in English. This word was to serve as a prompt for a poem. I wrote it down, put it into my journal and forgot about it for six years. With a little revising, here it is:

Caveat Emptor

 

He was the lie from hello to goodbye.

The master of mask, the emperor of illusion,

carrying a pedestal,

a singular prop.

 

Musical words floated from his mouth

under her feet, skirt, arms

gently lifting her up

resting her body atop a velvet chaise

sounds lulling her into the 

magic of romance.

 

Eyelids heavy with love dust,

obscuring the red checkered flags

the blinking yellow caution lights,

deep potholes covered in webs

until she sank, deep into the

fantasy of love. 

 

Two years later,

the lies, the facts tore

away the veils,

revealed the reality, spun

her into agony

 

until the door slammed behind him,

stirred her awake from the

illusion of love, where she

could plainly see

 

the words “Caveat Emptor”

written on the back

of his shirt. ©

 

 

*ca·ve·at emp·tor
ˌkavēˌät ˈempˌtôr/
noun
  1. the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.

    In other words, “Buyer Beware.”