My writing was initially driven by a creative impulse, a love for words (read or written), and a need to communicate ideas or stories. Love of words was not enough for good writing and I found it difficult to follow the rules. However, I found solutions. Over time, writing became a way of finding my voice and a tool to educate others. As I look forward, I hope writing will become an instrument to communicate and advance ideas and contribute to the understanding issues related to empathy, compassion, neuroscience, and education.
I made my first attempt at creating a book when I was in fifth grade. It was a rudimentary scrapbook that looked a bit like those fotonovelas[1] that I read later as an adolescent.
That book was made of magazine cutouts pasted on a notebook, and instead of balloons containing the narrative or the dialogue, I wrote captions at the bottom of each image.
When we later dissected books for a literature class in high school, I understood that stories needed a format. The effort of figuring this out interrupted the free flow of the creative process and took away some pleasure from writing. I am not very good at putting thoughts or ideas into boxes. Playing with words gives me greater gratification than completing a product. Pablo Neruda, the genius poet, also loved palabras, the words:
“You can say anything you want, yessir, but it’s the words that sing, they soar and descend…I bow to them…I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down…I love words so much” (Neruda, 1974).
Because of my difficulties with storytelling, and because I am an opinionated lady, I write analytical, persuasive, and argumentative essays. I just published the non-fiction book Heartminded: Conscious Evolution from Fear to Solidarity (Eyes Wide Open, 2020) and its Spanish version Homo Amandi: Evolución Consciente del Miedo a la Solidaridad (Eyes Wide Open, 2020). In this book, I discuss how we are born hardwired for love and compassion even though we always seem submerged in strife. I believe our innate empathy can be nurtured.
I published Regaining Body Wisdom: A multidimensional view back in 2008 to promote the idea that most of the remedies we use for discomfort and disease are at odds with the multidimensional body’s natural responses to various types of imbalances. The book elaborates on the concept of an inner healer as the key to physical and emotional well-being.
Writing has supported any endeavor I have undertaken in life. It has helped me educate people on healthier lifestyles, cultural competence, and a multidimensional view of the body. I cannot find more joy than when I am writing, except when I have to write against the clock. I do not remember ever experiencing a writer’s block and I do not have to quiet any voices in my head, like the ones that torture Lamott (1999, p 26) when she is about to start writing. I do not have to follow Lamott’s advice either: “You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way” (p. 18) precisely because I have the opposite problem. I can sit and write for hours. However, my computer is clogged with unfinished stories with a decent beginning and a passable body but not a conclusion.
References
Becker. H. S. (2007) Writing for Social Scientists. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life. New York: NY: Anchor Books.
Morasch, M. (2014). First person reserved PowerPoint tutorial [Narrated PPT]. Portland, OR: Concordia University Portland.
Neruda,
P. (1974). Memoirs. New York, NY: Penguin.
[1] Fotonovelas were a form of sequential soap operas from the sixties that in a similar format to a comic book, used photographs to tell a story.