I. Author. 006

   I'm willing to bet we all remember the first time. I bet we can all picture that moment exactly as it happened. You know the first time. Remember?

  Remember how you smiled even as you desperately hoped to control the urge to giggle thanks to the large butterflies, the size of Mothra that beat their wings in your stomach? Remember how your hands turned ice cold and shook in anticipation? Remember how you prayed you wouldn't make a fool of yourself when you knew there would be no backing away, no inopportune buddy interrupting, no bell ringing, and no witnesses? 

   Remember how you glanced into each other's eyes and fell victim to an awkward, yet pregnant silence? How you squirmed with the agony to touch, unsure what to do? Remember how you nearly forgot to breathe as you scrambled for something to say, but the awkward silence just lingered and your gaze proved too powerful a magnet as you both leaned in? 

   Remember?

   Remember how your mind went blank and you were hesitant, but only until you lowered your eyes to each other's lips and you KNEW. You just knew!

   Remember how you rehearsed that moment more than you'll ever care to admit, but nothing prepared you for when your eyes closed, your face tilted slightly, your lips touched, and you knew you'd never be the same?

   Remember how suddenly, all your senses were overwhelmed by each other's proximity, the scent of each other's skin and the taste of each other's breath was forever imprinted in your souls? 
   Remember how strings were pulled from above and your hands sought to feel the warmth of each other's skin, your fingers traced the contours of your faces? How your hair tickled the bridge of your noses, but neither of you dared to move away? 

   Remember the herculean effort it took to close your lips just to draw breath then boldly opening them to each other once more? How your tongues danced and dueled in small little twirls that jolted every nerve ending in your bodies?

   Remember how life took on a whole new meaning and time stood still? How you felt pain when you finally parted only to get lost in each other's eyes for a long moment before closing the distance with a second kiss that became better than the first?

   I sure remember, because I wrote it down the very night it happened.

   It was by no means a gem of literature, but I found words that conveyed enough of what I felt that night as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, which served as a movie screen for the projector in my mind, my hands beneath my head, and a wide grin on my face.

   Some moments have no description, and it's a challenge to bring them alive on the page. Although that piece of paper I tore out of my notebook vanished along with the kid I was that day in '87 when I first kissed my summer camp crush, the memory resides in a corner of my heart and often feels the urge to bleed onto the page.

   I find new words to arrange and rearrange in the hopes of bringing that moment back to life, but I'm afraid I fail miserably. I just can't write it. Still, I can't help smiling at the little bit of irony.

   The first kiss may have never happened the way it did, if it weren't for another piece of paper where I shakily wrote my first love letter.

   I don't remember a single word I wrote to the prettiest girl in summer camp to me, and that's perhaps for the better.

   I do remember that it was sincere, innocent, and as passionate as the voice of a crushed out twelve year old boy can be. 

   Inspiration hit me as I watched her smile at her friend and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before she looked my way. I knew if I didn't write that letter, I would explode. 

   The letter found its way into her hands one warm Thursday morning in August. I don't know who gave it to her. I'd been so distracted I didn't even remember losing it, but somehow, after a long walk in the woods with the group, she pulled me away under the pretext that she needed my help gathering sticks for a fire and showed me the letter.

   My face burned like the flat river stones around us, but before I could walk away, she took me by the hand. I matched her smile despite my nearly uncontrollable urge to giggle as giant butterflies the size of Mothra beat their wings inside my stomach and my hands went cold as I shook with anticipation. I prayed I wouldn't make a fool of myself, knowing there was no getting away. None of my buddies would interrupt this time, we were nowhere near a bell that might ring and break the spell. We had no witnesses but the woods around us and fell victim to an awkward, yet pregnant silence. I almost forgot to breathe as I scrambled for something to say, but the silence lingered and her gaze proved too powerful a force that pulled me in...and we kissed...

   

to be continued...

   

   

   

   

First Review!

   

Editor gave you her blessing and sighed with relief, probably even ran for the nearest bar to celebrate like it's her birthday. (She deserves it after what correcting all those mental, grammatical, and developmental errors you put her through) Check.
Cover agreed. Check.
Identifiers. Check.
Pricing. Check.
Promotion. Check.
Release. Check.
   And here's where the fun begins. The part of the process when your novel is out of your hands, out of your safe circle of readers (safe unless you have a hyper critical father and spouse like mine...Hugely Critical), family, friends, supporters, and it goes out there into the hands of a complete stranger who will either love or hate (hopefully not be completely unaffected with) your story.
   Sales pick up, a tiny but significant spike in downloads. Friends tell you their friends got it and started reading it.
   You wait anxiously for a row of stars (and you pray for 5) appears on your book page on Amazon.

   Two days later, you begin to imagine people torching the

novel, a justification of those pesky insecurities that plagued you when the plot gave you its first glitch or when your editor gave you a long paragraph that starts with "I don't get it. Really? Please rewrite" and more than likely a skyward roll of the eyes.
   On the third day you're trying to stay calm and suddenly remember that shipping a book takes time, (unless it's an ebook) and reading a novel is a commitment our modern lives seldom allow.
   And then...it happens.

    
   Whether through a social outlet, an email or because you religiously check your book page on Amazon, you see it: The First Review! (insert heavenly chorus here)
   Initially you don't care what it says. You got one! Your novel mattered enough to someone to write something about it! Mission accomplished!
   Deep breath. It's time to see what the reader wrote.
   It's so much easier to double-click after seeing five golden stars. Two or one require a quick visit to the sidebar for a shot of liquid courage.
   If that reader found a way to make a connection with your characters and their situations, chances are you will either a) do a hideous happy dance better reserved for highly private displays. Or b) (especially if you're an emotional wreck like me) your eyes will

turn liquid as a sense of validation courses through your veins.
   Now you're a veteran. 
   You can expect more will follow in due time.
   You can expect not every one will be a five stars and you can most definitely expect you may shed tears for entirely different reasons.
   Reviews are powerful, and don't we just wish like hell more people took that time to let the fragile-egoed, insecure author inside of us know what you did for them?
   The first one is there for the world to see. Your novel, your work, has been accepted by a reader!

   Celebrate your reviews. I wish you all, my author friends a million of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I shall go perform my very private, hideous happy dance...

   Javier A. Robayo

I. Author. 005

   Sixth grade in Ecuador was the last step of the elementary ladder. Classes were far more demanding. Homework took longer and exams were tougher. Teachers harped on us about our handwriting and overall presentation with renewed emphasis. Quite annoying, really.
   It also meant longer essays in Composition class.
   I've always wondered how teachers coordinated their lesson plans, for the presence of a certain theme influenced the topics of study, especially between History and Composition, what we know as Creative Writing.
   The topic was war. No battles for independence where a young man took four cannon shots that tore his extremities while he still held the flag with his teeth or anything of the sort, but war from a more modern time.
   The last "war" in Ecuador happened around 1941 but the tensions with Peru became part of the norm more than fifty years later, and I grew up with the idea that my generation would have to go into battle. In fact, in school, we were taught to march like soldiers, and we were encouraged to sing patriotic songs full of references to sacrifice, blood, and patriotism. Early brainwashing? Perhaps.
   

 "I want a three page essay on what it would be like to you to be a soldier defending your nation."
   For many of us kids, our experience with war consisted of John Wayne movies like The Green Berets and The Longest Day. The good guys and bad guys were clearly defined, and the good guys always won. 
   My classmates filled three pages with heroics inspired by the old films.
   In retrospect, none of us wanted to remember the guys who took a bullet in the heart or the ones that were blown sky high with a grenade. We were John Wayne, the hero.
   I thought of the other guys. Not the enemy, but the ones who paid the ultimate price. If I was a soldier, what would it be like for me? It was simple really. I'd be absolutely petrified. 
   About a year ago, I wrote a blog post titled D Day. I made myself think like a soldier and composed in as honest a voice as I could, and that's what I did in sixth grade.
   I filled three pages that took me from paralyzing fear to trepidation, desperate praying, sorrow, and the ultimate sense of resignation. I wrote that I hoped my death would count for something; that I died just so someone else could live, and other sentiments I never really saw in those old films.
   The following day, I turned in four and a half pages. Licensiado Villalba announced the best three papers would go on the wall of honor next to the director's office. Excited about the possibility of honoring our families by getting our papers tacked to the Director's office wall, we all compared notes. No one wrote anything remotely close to what I did. I expected to be one of the winners.
   I wasn't.
   The winners wrote things like I'd kill every Peruvian with my gun and I'd drive the tank right into Lima and blow up the president's house. 
   It was Abdon Calderon* all over again. 
   "Mr. Robayo, I'd like to talk to you about your essay."
   Mr. Villalba kept me in class while everyone else went to recess. 
   "Who wrote this?"

   "I did, Licensiado."
   He shook his head. "No. You did not. Getting your mommy or daddy to do your homework is not what a Borja student does. I will not tolerate cheating of any sort."
   "I wrote my own essay," I insisted.
   "I don't believe you."
   The desperation made me shaky and my speech deteriorated to a stutter as I tried to convince him I did not cheat, but the man turned to stone.
   "Who in your family serves in the military?"
   "Sir?"
   "Listen kid, my father served in the Army and he had the misfortune of getting into a firefight with the Peruvians in Paquilla. This," he shook my papers at me, "is almost the same thing he wrote in his journal. That tells me this is not yours. This was written by a real soldier. Besides, it's too well written for a sixth grader. I'm sorry, but I can't give you a passing mark."
   "Why?"
   "Because I'd be grading the real author and since he doesn't attend this school. Basically, you didn't bring your homework, Mr. Robayo."
   I went numb. "But that's a zero."
   "Precisely."
   With practiced flair, he drew a red oval never taking his eyes off me.
   Instead of bringing my parents into an embarrassing teacher conference, I took the zero and explained to Mom I'd forgotten my homework. Mom grounded me for a whole weekend.
   Nearly thirty years later, the jading injustice forced me to delete the first two drafts of D Day. But in the end, I decided that although writing fiction is about creating characters and situations that take place in the mind of the author, it's important to color the canvas of a story with more than a few truthful brushstrokes. 
   I can't believe that Captain Otero drove a tank into Lima uncontested. I'm sure the Peruvian Army would have a few words to say about that. I can't believe Sargent Palacios killed all three thousand Peruvian troops never once reloading his pistol.
    But the image of a scared Private Robayo, praying like he's never prayed in his life, terrified of taking someone else's life or losing his own in the name of God and country, yet determined to make it home in one piece, while resigned to the risk of dying on the battlefield still gives me chills, because it's realistically human. 
   My essay did not make the wall of honor, but it wasn't that it was poorly written. Quite the contrary. 
   I imagine to this day, Mr. Villalba is convinced a soldier in my family wrote my essay for me, and that as an educator, he helped shaping me into the person I am today through that zero, but it was the best zero I ever got.
   

to be continued...

   
if you'd like to take a peek at D Day, here's the link:
http://outofthemindofjavierrobayo.blogspot.com/2012/06/d-day.html
   
* Abdon Calderon is an Ecuadorian boy hero of the Independence Wars, and provided the premise for I. Author. 003
                                                                                             

I. Author. 004

   Francisco Palacios, one of my best pals in the fourth grade was

all smiles after winning top prize in our Mother's Day card contest. Mr. Lopez couldn't say enough about the glitter rainbow, the rose petal red lettering, and the overall creativity of the piece.

   For my part...let's just say that good old Elmer's glue and I got into a major fight...and I lost. 

   Badly.

   I gently squeezed the tube but a plug of dried gum kept it from flowing and when I pulled the plug with my trusty number two pencil, the white goo flowed like the rivers of Babylon. The thin construction paper had no shot at keeping its integrity. It swelled and sagged, blotching the letters I had so carefully written with thick felt markers. Ruined.

   By Saturday night, I actually had tears in my eyes when Mom sternly told me to go to bed. I had nothing to give her. I ran out of time.

   "What's gotten into you?" Mom asked as she brushed my hair off my face.

   "Nothing," I replied, fighting against the tears. My mother did so much for me every single day and I'd failed miserably at doing one thing for her.

   "Were you and Freddy watching Monstruocinema again?"

   I shook my head quickly. The Friday night monster feature was often responsible for my bouts with sheer terror in the middle of the night, but cheesy films like Dracula vs Werewolf were so worth the fright.

   "Then what is it?" Mom probed.

   I wanted to come clean, confess I was a terrible son for ruining her Mother's Day card. I could almost hear her cries as I wrapped my book and a pair of shorts in a sack, and saying goodbye forever, knowing she deserved better.

   Instead, I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her cheek goodnight. 

   Mom released me from her scrutiny a long moment later and I spent half the night tossing and turning until I couldn't take it anymore. 

   I sat at the old metal desk and looked forlornly at my Star Wars pencil. I'm not an artist like my dad, but the lined sheet of paper before me beckoned the charcoal tip.

   Mom,

   If I'm a good student, it's all because you won't let me off the desk until I finish my homework. 

   If Mrs. Sarita calls me a good, respectful little boy, it's because you teach me manners.

   You've made me who I am and I thank you for each lesson you taught me. 

   I want you to know that I don't need a special day to tell you how happy I am that you are my mom, but I'm glad for today because what I feel means so much more.

   I love you.

   Happy Mother's Day!
   your son, Javier

   The sweaty palm of my left hand left a horrid grayish smudge all along the beginning of each sentence. I was so irate I simply folded the offensive piece of paper in quarters, but I was too sleepy to tear it. I went to bed an utter failure. Had I not been so tired, I would've loaded up a small sack and hit the road.   

I slept through breakfast and when I woke, I was starved. With single minded focus, I went for the bread box and proceeded to devour rolls until I spotted a note from Mom on the fridge door.

   Took your sister with me to the store. I'll bring you back a surprise.
   
   "A surprise?" The initial smile vanished as I remembered my plight from the wee hours of the morning. 
   What little remained of the tasty roll in my hand fell on the table as I raced out of the kitchen. I had to come up with something for Mother's Day! I was about to take the first stair when one of the picture frames on the living room wall caught my eye.
   Behind the glass was a familiar piece of hastily torn paper out of a spiral notebook. Smudged, creased unevenly from when I folded it, my letter stared back at me with two additions.
   The first was a line written in Mom's neat cursive: I'm the luckiest mom. May 13th, 1984
   The second were a pair of dried teardrops that left two transparent circles on the paper.  I sighed with utter relief. I didn't have to pack a sack and hit the bricks after all. My writing saved my hide! Triumph!
   I even heeded my competitive nature and bet Francisco's fancy, glittery card was too thick and clumsy to fit in Mrs. Palacios' best picture frame in their living room. 
   Something in my brain clicked into place, making me grin like a butcher's dog. I had always thought only works of fine art made it onto frames. 
   Until that day...
   

to be continued...

   Did you ever write your way out of trouble?