Michelle Monárrez's Blog, page 3

Refurbished: The Clover Initiative Playlist

I’ve always been a musical person. I get attached to songs that might remind me of someone or fit a specific mood in my life. If I had to live in any movie, I’d fit in a musical.

With all this in mind, when people ask me if there is a playlist for the Refurbished Saga, the answer is simple: Just one playlist?

Here’s the playlist for Book 1, The Clover Initiative! You’ll find more details about the songs included in the list below. (Beware spoilers! If you haven’t read the first book, come back after you do.)

1. Harder, better, faster, stronger - Daft Punk

The Refurbished Saga’s Theme Song.

If there was a song I’d use to describe the whole Refurbished saga, it would be this one. Before the first book was even a reality, I revisited the Interstella 5555 album and found that Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger described perfectly what GENEs would be. Genetically Enhanced Entities are engineered to be better, faster, stronger, and are assumed to withstand harder work than regular soldiers. In my wildest dreams, I’ve pictured a Refurbished animated series with this song as the theme song. But imagine the royalties I’d paid for it!

2. Sunflower - Post Malone, Swae Lee

Miguel’s Theme Song.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a great movie with an even greater score led by Sunflower. After watching the movie, I became quite obsessed with this song. I naturally had to research the story behind the lyrics and found that “… sunflowers are known to rapidly deplete their soil of nutrients. Swae and Post use this as a metaphor for the effects that several characters have on Miles, which simultaneously overwhelms and motivates him throughout the movie.” 1

I felt like this metaphor spoke to Miguel’s story. Miguel and Miles are both young people faced with the incredible responsibility of having superpowers. Their stories speak about the pressure to become heroes. Their powers can destroy the integrity of their personas, and it is up to them to produce something beautiful with them, just as the soil produces sunflowers.

3. Days of Thunder - The Midnight

Alyssa’s Theme Song.

The Midnight has quickly become one of my favorite bands, and this has to be my favorite song from them. It has a feel that screams 80s music. The music is electric and the lyrics poetic, making it the perfect theme for Alyssa.

Not only the title fits Alyssa’s code name—Crimson Thunder—but it also fits her character journey. The lyrics speak about burning bridges and change into darker times. This fits the tumultuous time in Alyssa’s life portrayed in the book.

4. Bulletproof Love - Adrian Younge

James' Theme Song.

Netflix’s Luke Cage has to be my favorite representation of the superhero Power Man. When James was created, my co-creator and I looked at Luke for inspiration. When we saw Mike Colter’s representation of Luke Cage and heard this song, we knew it would be the perfect representation for James.

The lyrics of this song do not speak to the man James is in Book 1, but it might be a glimpse of the future. In the meantime, this song makes me picture James pumping 5 tons at the Clover Building’s gym while he listens to songs with this same vibe.

5. Woman - Kesha

Robin’s Theme Song.

Have you met Robin? If you have, this song needs little to no explanation. Robin is my favorite character to write. I have a lot of fun playing with her voice and her fabulous self. Woman describes perfectly how I’ve pictured Robin’s life outside of Clover.

6. Run for Your Life - The Seige

0397’s Theme Song.

This song has all the energy and vibe I had in mind when crafting 0397’s journey. The lyrics remind me of the phrase, “when push comes to shove”. This is what I pictured for this character’s catalyst. What happens when the wrong person, in the wrong state of mind, finds themselves in the wrong situation? If you’re there to find out, you better run for your life.

7. White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

Shadow Braid’s Theme Song.

With Shadow Braid’s story, I knew I wanted to use surrealism to include magical realism in a SciFi book. What better inspiration to do this than Alice in Wonderland? When elements in her storyline got weirder and weirder, I would stop to consider if I should dial it back. But I always returned to the image of Alice falling down the rabbit hole and this song and kept going.

8. The Man - The Killers

Esteban’s Theme Song.

To say that Esteban Tomasetti thinks highly of himself is an understatement. He’s the only secondary character to get a theme song. Esteban was the character whose personality ended up giving him more “screen-time” than I planned for. He did things I wasn’t expecting, and he quickly became a character I love to hate. This song fits him and his ego perfectly.

9. The Lion, The Beast, The Beat - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

The climax.

This song set the climax of the book, especially for Miguel’s storyline. Miguel’s arc follows the structure of the Hero’s Journey, so the line “I found the heart of a lion in the belly of the beast.” really spoke to me while writing his last chapters.

10. Daft Punk - Pentatonix

Books 1: Outro.

Pentatonix’s a cappella cover of Daft Punk’s songs worked as the perfect way to celebrate the end of this book.

The inspiration behind “Refurbished: The Clover Initiative”

If you follow me on Instagram and other forms of social media, you know that I have been working on my debut novel for quite some time. You also probably know that book one, Refurbished: The Clover Initiative will come out later this year. It’s taken me about three years to really solidify the story and seriously think about publishing, but the book has been in my mind for a lot longer.

I filled my childhood with superhero stories. The idea of suddenly developing abilities or being born with them delighted me, but mostly, I loved the stories of extraordinary people saving the world. Among all my Spider-Man comics, Batman: The Animated Series VHSes, and Saturday mornings spent watching Static Shock and Justice League cartoons, there was a superhero team that always stood out the most.

Stan Lee, Denver Comic Con, June 2016 by howdoyourespond

I grew up watching reruns of the 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series (cue epic intro music). I’d watch this show religiously since my parents installed cable TV at home. I loved to see a group of superheroes that were so diverse. The X-Men were not the paragons of justice that I was used to seeing from DC comics. They were imperfect heroes because they were regular people who had to be shaped into heroes. Society had no place for them because they were born different, so many of the X-Men had to figure out their own path and find their chosen family among other mutants. The idea of outsiders growing into heroes fascinated me.

That fascination accompanied me throughout my life, so when I set out to write a new book, I looked at X-Men for inspiration. I wanted to create a team of superheroes that would have to forge their way into society. I wanted them to be diverse in superpowers, nationalities, races, genders, and ages. But mostly I wanted them to be misfits and underdogs, trying to figure their way into becoming their own people and, ultimately, heroes. Thus, the Refurbished Saga was born.

When Stan Lee created the X-Men, he wanted people to see diversity as a positive trait, so he wrote an anti-bigotry story about superheroes. I want my readers to take a similar message from my writing. I want to remind people that, “there’s no such thing as somebody who is bad just because he or she is different.”

Latinx Lit: My most expected 2021 reads

Last year I read more books by Latinx authors. As a slow reader, all I managed to do was to add many grand titles to my TBR list. I’m not sure I’ll be able to tackle all of last year’s books soon, but that doesn’t prevent me from getting excited about what Latinx authors have in store for us this 2021.

Let’s dig in.

1. Isabel Allende: Mujeres del alma mía (The Soul of a Woman)

If you’re reading this list, you probably already know that Isabel Allende is a queen — I dare say, THE Queen — of Magical Realism. Allende has paved the road for Latinx authors worldwide with her unique voice and often focusing on the experiences of women. An advocate for inclusive language and a rider of the first feminist wave, Allende has looked at her life, her relationship with feminism, and produced a passionate and inspiring memoir about what it means to be a woman.

The Soul of a Woman will take us through Allende’s journey “among a tribe of like-minded female journalists, [where] she for the first time felt comfortable in her own skin, as they wrote ‘with a knife between their teeth’ about women’s issues.” Allende’s memoir will open the conversation on modern feminism and, she hopes, will “light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.”

Find more about this book here.

2. Silvia Moreno García: The Return of the Sorceress & Velvet was the Night

Silvia Moreno García exploded last year with her magnificent book Mexican Gothic. Moreno García has confirmed this book will be adapted for a TV series that is most likely going to be a Hulu original. While we anxiously wait for more deets about this series, Moreno García is releasing five books this year, well… technically. Some of these books are reissues of her classic stories like Certain Dark Things and The Beautiful Ones, but two exciting new books might come our way too!

Late last year, Moreno García teased The Return of the Sorceress and Velvet was the Night in her blog. There isn’t a lot of information on these two books yet, but the Mexican-Canadian author gave us a couple of one-liners about them. One of them will be a “sorcery and sword novella” while the other one sounds like an intriguing historical fiction novel where “a thug and a secretary find themselves on the trail of a missing woman in the midst of political upheaval and protests.”

Knowing that Moreno-García brings to the table beautiful settings and a unique take on Magical Realism, I’m beyond excited to know what she will deliver through these new books.

You can stay tuned for updates about her work by signing to her newsletter here.

3. Aiden Thomas: Lost in the Never Woods

I’m not usually a fan of retellings, but author Aiden Thomas brought us Cemetery Boys! I cannot pass the opportunity to get this book this year. The blurb says it all:

“When children go missing, people want answers. When children go missing in the small coastal town of Astoria, people look to Wendy for answers. Five years ago, Wendy and her brothers got lost in the woods. When children in the town of Astoria disappear, Wendy’s past and the mysterious circumstances of her brothers catch up with her. While attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road. Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.”

With this retelling, Thomas is promising to not shy away from difficult themes and deliver a tale that will have all the fantasy, mystery, and Queer love to enchant us this year just as they did in 2020.

You can find more details about this book here.

4. Jonny Garza Villa: Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun

Latinx author Jonny Garza Villa will drop an exciting Contemporary YA Romance novel this June.

In Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun, author Jonny Garza Villa tells us the story of Julián Jules Luna, a senior ready to graduate High School and move away from his home in Corpus Christi, Texas. Mat is Jules’ Twitter crush from Los Angeles who makes the world seem conquerable. Jules can tell him anything. But when Jules’ plans are thrown literally out of the closet thanks to an impulsive tweet, the person he needs most is fifteen hundred miles away. Jules has to face his worse fears about coming out alone.

If you too have been craving a story about love, coming out, and staying true to yourself, then you’ll want to snag a copy of Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun this June. You can check out more details about this book here.

5. Daniel Aleman: Indivisible

Mexican author Daniel Aleman will bring an exciting addition to Latinx Contemporary Literature this May. His debut novel, Indivisible, will take readers through the timely journey of a teen who tries to keep his family together while his parents face deportation from the United States.

Here’s a little bit about this book:

Mateo Garcia and his sister Sophie have been taught to fear one word: deportation. After years of building a life in the United States, the Garcia family’s fear of deportation has moved to the back of their minds. But Mateo’s worst fears become a reality when he comes home from school one day to find his parents have been taken by ICE agents. With his parent’s fate and his own future in jeopardy, Mateo must face life as an American teenager in a country that rejects his family.

This sounds like the timely, Own Voices story about immigration I’ve been needing in my life! Aleman’s book won’t shy away from the exploration of the difficult topic of immigration, and I for one can’t wait to find out where Mateo’s story will take us.

You can find out more about this book and the author here.

6. Gabriela Garcia: Of Women and Salt

Another debut novel that is sure to sweep us off our feet! Gabriela Garcia will drop her historical fiction novel Of Women and Salt this March. I know it will be a beautiful book that will hit all the right emotional beats my expatriate heart needs.

Of Women and Salt promises a masterful story about “a daughter’s fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born.” This novel will follow the parallel stories of Cuban immigrant Carmen and her daughter Jeanette. While battling with addiction, Jeanette tries to connect with her roots. While processing the trauma of displacement, Carmen tries to raise a wayward Jeannette and process her difficult relationship with her own mother.

This debut novel promises raw and difficult emotions that will take us inside the lives of five generations of incredible and resilient women through Garcia’s poetic prose.

You can check out more details about this novel here.

What comes next for the Refurbished Saga?

Another month in this crazy year and the end of 2020 is almost here. I have been quiet for a week around all social media on account of being sick and getting ready to add a furry baby to my home (more to come on that). But now that I’m back, there is no better time to share with you the plans I have for this month!

THE CLOVER INITIATIVE: WHAT COMES NEXT?

Now that Book 1 in the Refurbished Saga has been published, it’s time to think about wider distribution. I’ve had many people ask me if the book will ever be available in Spanish. And the answer is: Yes! It has always been a dream of mine to launch a bilingual Author brand and this is definitely in my plans for 2021.

All I can say for now is that the book will go to a trusted Translator soon. We are still discussing the terms of their contract and compensation, but I’ll be announcing more details soon!

REFURBISHED: THE NEXT CHAPTER

With November comes National Novel Writing Month. If you have been following my page for some time, you know that I’m an avid participant in this annual event. Book 1 in this saga is a NaNo novel and would have not seen the light of day if it weren’t for the amazing NaNoWriMo community. It should come to no one’s surprise that the second book on this saga will be a NaNo novel, too.

This November, I’m kicking off the next installment on the Refurbished Saga. I have about twenty-five percent of this new book finished and I’m hoping that late 2021 will be the year I publish it.

For now, I can share with you the working title and a small teaser. Hope you enjoy it!

EISEN CASTLE (Refurbished Book 2)

Should misfits be heroes?

Enhanced career soldier Robin Night doesn’t think so. Five months after the Blue Flamingo Incident, Robin finds out playing on the side of heroes comes with a price. Her decision to sever ties with her political patron in the Military Department has come back to haunt her. She must now get out of her comfort zone and prepare to lead two units into a successful six-member Strike Force. Does she have what it takes to lead?

How can misfits be heroes?

Cadet and research subject Zhihou Daiyu isn’t sure. After waking up from a coma five months ago, her powers are dormant. Her unit and her new life in Clover depend on her powers awakening. Can she awaken her powers and save her friends in the process?

Can misfits even be heroes?

Cadet and former suspect Angel Graves doesn’t know. He explores his newly found freedom in the confines of the Clover building. With a board evaluation looming over his head, he desperately tries to piece his memories together. He isn’t ready to face his past, but his life might depend on it. Can he really be himself without knowing who he was before?

Plantsing: A relaxed style of planning using Trello

With National Novel Writing Month just around the corner, you might be tempted to finally write that book. For years you’ve had this idea eating at the edges of your mind, but have never had the time to get started. Or maybe you don’t know where to start. Well, 2020 is definitely the year to do it and I’m dropping a tool to help you get started.

Enter the Plantsing Trello Planner for NaNoWriMo 2020. This board was created after my many attempts to get organized to write my first novel and it has been refined to keep your work organized and track your progress. Before you dig into the template, get yourself acquainted with some basic terminology and the structure of the board.

The Basics

What is Plantsing?

Do you want to have some sort of idea of where you're story is going, but don't want to commit to planning every aspect of your book? You, my friend, are a Plantser: a writer living somewhere between Planner and Pantser.

Under the Plantser style of planning, we don’t go as far as to plot down to the scene, but we use a plot structure, jot down an outline, or both! This board will help you do both.

What is Trello?

Trello.com is a web-based application that is basically a Kanban board on steroids. This versatile tool helps organize your projects by dividing it into smaller tasks and lists. The tool has many applications that turn it into a powerful tool for writers. From helping you organize research materials, to track your writing streak, Trello can become your one-stop platform for book planning.

Here’s a basic guide on how to use Trello.

Board Navigation

The Plantsing for NaNoWriMo 2020 template was created using the plotting structure and progress tracking I used when writing Refurbished: The Clover Initiative. It is designed to guide you through the last weeks of Preptober and includes tips to keep you engaged through November.

Ready to dig in?

Sing up for my newsletter and get the code to access the board! Look for an email in your inbox with the password and page.

Join my newsletter here.

Trials, Victories, and Consequences: Plotting your novel by character journey

October is hands down my favorite month of the year. It means Fall, pumpkin-flavored everything and my birthday, but also, it means prepping for NaNoWriMo.

I have been a constant participant of National Novel Writing Month ever since I took writing seriously. I love what participating does to my productivity, and the community around the event has been an excellent resource. As I plan this year's project, I thought it would be a good idea to share a couple of resources I used to get organized. What better way to start than with my novel-planning structure.

About the "Trials, Victories, and Consequences" Method

I am a big fan of the Hero's Journey as a plot structure. I grew obsessed with it when I first learned about it in college and read The Epic of Gilgamesh as an example of it. When I first started plotting my novels, I looked at the Hero's Journey for guidance. It helped me structure my stories from beginning to end, but I still wanted something that would show me character's motivations, the stakes they would face, and ultimately, their overall arch.

Borrowing from the Hero's Journey, I created the Trials, Victories, and Consequences structure to plan my novels. This method works better for character-focused stories. It divides the story into Trials, which are divided into stages that outline your character's Goals, Stakes, Victories, and the Consequences of their actions that will move the plot along.

Backstory: Motivations and Challenges

Start by writing a summary of your hero's backstory and list their motivations.

Who is your protagonist?

What do they most desperately want?

What are their challenges? Why can't they have what they want? 

Trial 1: Call to Adventure

The first trial stage is where our story begins. Your hero will leave their old life behind and embark on a journey.

Call to adventure: The catalyst. What is the event that drives your character to leave their old life behind?

Goal: Your hero has a new goal and a plan to get what they want.

Stake: What are the obstacles? And what can go wrong if your hero pursues their goal

Victory: A minor victory for your hero. They've taken a small step towards getting what they want, but the road ahead is still long.

Consequence: For every high, there's a low. Your hero acted towards their goal and this results in a consequence that will push them to cross the threshold further into adventure.

Trial 2: Crossing the Threshold and Trials

There's no going back. Your hero is too far gone into adventure and too invested in their goals to go back to their old life.

Consequence turned new trial: Your hero has a new challenge ahead of them.

New Stake: With this new challenge, there's a new stake. What's at risk if they don't overcome this hurdle?

New Goal: Your hero has a new plan to overcome their current goal.

Victory: Another victory. Your hero has overcome their first trial, but their journey is still far from over.

Consequence: The last victory brings dire consequences, and things are looking grim.

Trial 3: Belly of the Beast & Resolution

The highest point of the story that will lead to resolution. Your hero recovers hope along the way and fight towards their goal and onto victory. They will return home being a different person.

Consequence turned into a new trial: Your hero is at their lowest point and everything appears lost.

New Goal: A glimmer of hope drives your hero to a new goal and a new plan to overcome all challenges. Your hero is braver or more capable than they were before. Their transformation begins.

Fight: The face-off with the antagonist. Your hero puts their plans into action and goes through with their transformation.

Victory: After the fight, the dust settles. Your hero has won and achieved their Trial 3 goals. Time to return home. 

Resolution: Your hero returns home. They're not the same person they were at the beginning of the story. Their new persona settles back into their new life, and their goals from Trial 1 are not important anymore or have been achieved during their journey.

Now that we have gone through the basics of this method, let's look at Disney-Pixar's Coco as an example.

Example: Disney-Pixar's Coco

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't seen the movie, go watch it before you read this example.

Coco. Theatrical release poster, Wikipedia, 2017.

Backstory: Motivations and Challenges 

Miguel, a young boy in Mexico, wants to be a musician, but his family has a history of hating music. He has been learning to play the guitar in secret by watching the famous Ernesto de la Cruz's films and following along with a makeshift guitar, but is he any good? If he can prove that he's a talented musician, maybe his family will support his love for music.

Trial 1: Call to Adventure

Call to adventure: Miguel finds out about a concert that will take place in the town's square: the perfect opportunity to prove himself as a musician.

Goal: Take part at the town's concert.

Stake: His family cannot know that he'll be taking part.

Victory: Miguel concludes Ernesto de la Cruz is his great-great-grandfather. This means music is in his veins and he must be a talented musician. He tells his family and takes part in the concert.

Consequence: Miguel's grandmother destroys his makeshift guitar, leaving Miguel without an instrument to play at the concert.

Trial 2: Crossing the Threshold and Trials

Consequence turned new trial: Angry with his family, Miguel runs away from home. Without a guitar to play, he cannot take part in the festival's concert. He desperately tries to find a new guitar to play at the concert.

New Stake: While attempting to "borrow" De la Cruz's guitar to take part in the concert, Miguel's spirited away to the realm of the dead. He must return to the land of the living before dawn or else remain in the Land of the Dead. Only a blessing from his family will send him back. However, his great-great-grandmother will only send him back if he promises to never play music again.

New Goal: Miguel figures his great-grandmother isn't the only person who can send him home in the Land of the Dead. If he can go see De la Cruz and ask for his blessing, he can go back and still play music.

Victory: Miguel escapes his family and makes it to see De la Cruz with the help of Héctor and other support characters. De la Cruz agrees to send Miguel back home.

Consequence: After a confrontation between Héctor and De la Cruz, Miguel finds out his hero is not as noble as he thought he was. De la Cruz decides to not send Miguel back to the land of the living, fearing he might expose his murderous actions that led to his success. De la Cruz keeps Héctor's picture, and Miguel gets thrown into a cenote with Héctor. Time is running out for both Miguel and Héctor.

Trial 3: Belly of the Beast & Resolution

Consequence turned into a new trial: Miguel and Héctor figure out they’re related while trapped in the cenote. They get rescued by the rest of the family. They now must face De la Cruz.

New Goal: Recover Héctor's picture and send Miguel home before dawn.

Fight: The family comes face to face with De la Cruz and expose him to the Land of the Dead population. They lose Héctor's picture.

Victory: Miguel returns home and saves Héctor by helping his great-grandmother Coco remember him.

Resolution: Miguel and his family grow closer together, they accept music back into their lives, and expose the truth about Ernesto de la Cruz.

There are many ways to structure your novel, but this structure has proven to be the best for me because of its focus on the character’s journey. When it comes to character-focused stories, the best way to plot their journeys by keeping their goals and motivations in mind and how these will change throughout the story.

 

Reclaiming my Latinidad: How I lost and found the written accent in my surname

Sister Cities mural in El Paso, texas. Remlezca, 2016.

It all started twenty years ago. I attended third grade in Mexico and had never thought much about the correct spelling of the name I inherited from my father. We were in a parent-teacher meeting — probably discussing my failing grades in English class, the bully of the week, or that I might need eyeglasses. The professor jotted my name down and my father interrupted his expertly prepared speech.

“Excuse me. Monárrez is written with an accent over the ‘a’.”

Profesor Baltazar — the man I recognized as the ultimate authority on grammatical rules — went back to his notes and shook his head. He stared down at the name. I shifted in my third grader’s seat. The two male authorities in my life were clashing, and I was dying to know who was right. My father had taught me to write our name with that little mark above the ‘a’, but was it grammatically correct?

The professor smiled, “You’re right. If we look at the grammatical rule, the name needs that written accent.” With a graceful flick of his wrist, he wrote the missing sign over my name.

I exchanged a grin with my father before the official meeting started. I sat up straighter after that gesture, my chest full of a feeling I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know it back then, but I was proud. Dad stood up for our name and validated the way we spelled it. I was sure that, after that moment, I’d never doubt how I should write our family’s name.

But all of that changed when I moved to the United States.

Across the Río Bravo, I speak my name and it draws a blank on the faces of clerks, office managers, or anyone that hears it. Come again? Did you say Morales? Can you spell that? By now, I’m used to spelling my name phonetically immediately after I say it, but it wasn’t always like that.

Once upon a time, I was a freshly arrived expat in Dallas. Even if my homeland was but only nine hours away, there was still a cultural shock. Unlike in the border culture of El Paso-Ciudad Juarez, people didn’t speak Spanish at every other establishment, and suddenly I had a pronounced accent easily spotted by the locals. Still shaky in my English and struggling to find my footing, I wanted to conquer the language and adapt faster to this new city and country. A year into my expatriatism, I asked my parents for advice. They said to stop hanging onto Mexico. My father said to do the best I could to blend in.

So I did.

I looked at my name first. English doesn’t have written accents. It’s a grammatical symbol that doesn’t belong in the country, that didn’t belong to me. If I wanted to blend into the culture and adapt, it all started with my name. I removed my accent, put it in a little box, and buried it away. I shrugged off la tricolor and put on the red, white, and blue. I didn’t know it then, but I was putting a piece of my identity away too and silencing my Latinidad.

Time passed, and my attempts to fit into the new culture worked. I celebrated American holidays, spoke better English, and tried to mimic the speech of my fellow Texans. Success in this unknown country felt more attainable than before. But I felt like something was missing. I still ached for home as if I had left yesterday. Life slugged along.

I didn’t discover what I was missing until I got the chance to work among a group of strong, immigrant women. The team was conformed by people from different nationalities — Brazilian, French, Mexican, and many others later in my career there. They received me with open arms and enveloped me in their own metaculture. They seemed far better adjusted than me, wiser, and a lot stronger. Overall, they seemed happier than me.

Paseo de Las Luces, Ciudad Juárez. Ivanna Leos.

I wondered for months what their secret was. Was it the fact that they’d been at the job a lot longer than I had? Was it an age thing? Or just the fact that they had been in this city far longer than I had? The surprising thing was that their secret wasn’t a secret at all. They just were unapologetically themselves. At work, at home, and in this country that they were claiming for themselves. My fellow expatriates didn’t mute themselves just because they had moved to a new country. They owned their differences and never put their own culture away. They kissed good morning once on the cheek — twice for the French — like I used to back home. They spoke their native language and wore it like a badge of honor. And most importantly, they spelled their names with no changes to fit English. Working with them taught me a valuable lesson: don’t change yourself to adapt faster to a new country.

After this realization, I took a second look at my new life. I wasn’t going back to Mexico anytime soon, but that didn’t mean that the USA couldn’t be my home while staying true to myself. Since then, I set out to rediscover myself and reclaim my Latinidad. I embraced my culture again, and alongside it, I embraced the American culture as well. I read in both Spanish and English. I celebrated 4th of July and Thanksgiving, Día de los Muertos and Latinx/e Heritage Month. I spoke Spanish and English and took pride in my accent. And most importantly, I started adding the written accent to my surname again.

I took back my heritage and my identity has evolved into this proud mixture of Mexican-American traditions, coexisting in the same space. I’m not the same person I was before I came here. My family in Mexico says that I became more Mexican after I left. And that is true. Living far away from my homeland made me reflect on my roots. I was born in the USA, but I was Mexican far before that. My Latinidad belongs in this land, not just because it was once ours, but because I have every right to be here. My father now jokes and says that I’ve come to reclaim the lost territories. And perhaps I have.

Stick to your girly guns: Sticking to who you are while marketing your book

“Stick to your girly guns.” My friend and fellow entrepreneur said through a screen, sitting across my desk, with the Atlantic sea between us. I expressed my branding concerns while we co-worked on a Saturday afternoon.

In the last year or so I have been going through an important career transformation. I’ve gone from writer-in-the-making to published author of a SciFi book in a matter of months. This experience has taught me that indie publishing is a double-edge sword. It allows you to choose every aspect of your publishing process while leaving you stranded in a sea of questions about book marketing.

When plagued with questions about book promotion, my first instinct was to dive into research about what other authors have done. Among the many “you’ve written a book, now what?” articles, a piece of advice kept shining through: choose your book’s genre, find your niche, and build a brand that resonates with your audience.

Following this advice, I set to take a second look at the brand I had spent two years building for myself as an author. My brand focuses on my Latinidad and on the fact that I write Speculative Fiction. I built it with an aesthetic of earthy blues and pinks. The color palette brings clay and cactus flowers to mind and this makes it, most definitively, a “girly” brand.

Imagine my dismay when I learned more about SciFi marketing. According to many experts, I had been doing everything wrong. The SciFi market suggests cool colors for brand colors. Advice out there tells you to feature space and moons as part of your brand images and to make your brand as genderless as possible. I saw a couple of places that even advice female authors to take on a pen name that doesn’t disclose their gender because SciFi is still seen as a “manly genre”. Yes, even in 2020. With my head spinning, I was left wondering where do I stand as an author and as an independent brand. Do I change every aspect of my brand to fit the SciFi market?

“Stick to your girly guns.” My friend and fellow entrepreneur said through a screen, sitting across my desk, with the Atlantic sea between us. I expressed my branding concerns while we co-worked on a Saturday afternoon. The glare of her screen reflected on her pink cat-eye glasses right before she dropped this important wisdom on me.

That same night, I laid awake past midnight in the middle of a career-identity crisis. With my friend’s advice resonating, I reminded myself: I’ve always bent gender roles. As the only girl in a herd of boy cousins, I jumped puddles, spat, hid under greasy cars, and ran from feral dogs with the rest of them, all while wearing dresses, bows, and 90s frilly socks. I grew up to have posters of Backstreet Boys, Batman, and Dragon Ball plastered all over my bedroom. I loved the idea of having a quinceañera and getting married while also dreaming of being a career woman and the breadwinner of a family. It’s who I’ve always been, so why should my book marketing be different?

The beauty of indie publishing is that you can choose how you share your art with the world, and I’ve decided to stay true to myself. I will continue to wear flowery prints while I talk about superheroes, aliens, and horror stories in author interviews. I will sign my SciFi book with a rose-gold pen. And I will still doodle hearts in the corners of my notebook while I plot stories about super soldiers and militarized states. This is what I did while growing as a writer. Now that I’m a published author, I’m sticking to my girly guns.

Announcing the collaborators for the 1.5K Fiction Books Sweepstake

What can possibly be better than free books? The gift of highly-praised and independent Fiction.












































Why am I gifting you books?

About a year ago, I started a journey into serious authorship. I decided of publishing my debut novel as an independent author, and with that decision, I realized I would have to manage every aspect of the publishing journey by myself.

Since then, I set out to learn all I could about the publishing process. It has been a dizzying experience, but I was lucky to find a supportive community of authors and readers on Instagram. I started this indie publishing journey with less than 400 followers. A year later and just as I’m about to publish my debut novel, my IG has grown to have a little over 1.5K followers.

This called for a celebration.

To celebrate authorship milestones, most authors gift their own books. Since I don’t have a book of my own yet, I collaborated with other independent authors. I reached out to four amazing indie authors whose careers and works I admire. These women have served as an inspiration for me and I can only hope that my career as an author would be half as successful as theirs.

How will it work?

In collaboration with these four marvelous authors, I’ll be running a raffle for book sets and signed copies during the month of August. The contest will run from August 7th to August 30th. Four lucky winners will receive a set of books, selected at random, by one of these authors. ⁠Winners will be announced at the end of the month and the prizes will be mailed to them at the beginning of September.

Since this is a “Thank you for your support giveaway” participants need not do anything but sign up for the contest to take part in this giveaway.

Every Friday I’ll be featuring one of my collaborators and tell you a little more about their work. In the meantime, here’s a little preview of the collaborators that have made this possible.

Sign Up

Collaborators






























R.H. Webster

RH Webster grew up in rural Alabama, reading everything she could get her hands on. She now lives in sunny El Paso, Texas, with her other half and two adorable terrier mix rescue puppies, named Charlie and Rosie.

Her first novel, Lucky, was self-published in 2018 and has enjoyed high and enthusiastic feedback since then. The sequel, Striking It Rich, was released in February 2020. Both are available wherever your favorite books are sold.

Krystal N. Craiker

Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie author and freelance writer who sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which bring fresh perspectives to new adult genre fiction. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband Michael and two dogs, Darwin and Franklin.

Her Scholars of Elandria series has received high praise as the perfect balance between romance and fantasy with characters that feel alive on the page.

Alex Temblador

Alex Temblador received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2014 and went on to become the award-winning published author of Secrets of the Casa Rosada in 2018. Her second book was acquired by Blackstone Publishing in 2020. Called Half Outlaw, it falls under the adult fiction and magical realism genres.

With the success of her debut novel, Alex has participated in conferences like Texas Library Association, Teen Book Con, and Texas Teen Book Festival and presented at multiple high schools and universities in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

Julia DeBarrioz

Long ago, a fortune teller read Julia DeBarrioz’s palm and told her, "You better write this all down." Julia has been writing, writing, writing ever since. She is the author of the Urban Fantasy Dakota del Toro series.

She lives on a farm in Missouri with her darling husband and an ever-growing assortment of feathered and furred babies. Somewhere along the line she earned a degree in fine art and traveled the world extensively. For all her rambles, Santa Fe, NM still retains the crown as her favorite dot on the map.

The mismatched world of speculative fiction

Now and then I will get out of my comfort zone and network with other writers. Whether this is a monthly happy hour or the latest writing conference in the area, the conversation always turns to, “so, what do you write?”

I always feel awkward answering this question. Do I say I write Magical Realism? Does my work fall under Science Fiction? Or is it something different? Since it is hard to define the elements I like to work with, I just say that I write “a bit of everything”. After years of studying fiction writing, I found out there is an umbrella genre where my writing fits in.

What is Speculative Fiction?

Specular Fiction or Speculative Fiction is broadly defined as a literary genre that encompasses any fiction with supernatural, fantastical, or futuristic elements. At first glance, this genre of fiction can be mistaken as just an umbrella term to talk about stories that use any fantastical or extraordinary literary elements. However, I’ve found that there is so much more to this genre. 

Spectacular elements: What makes a story speculative?

When it comes to speculative fiction, the lines often get blurry, and it gets hard to identify which stories are Spec-Fic and which ones are not. There are a few tricks I use to differentiate what falls under this umbrella.

1.    Genre-bent worldbuilding

According to Annie Neugebauer, the real meaning of Specular Fiction has more to do with the universe where the story is developed than with its elements. Otherwise, every story that included science fiction, fantasy, or supernatural elements would be classified under this category. Fiction gets to be speculative when the universe built for a story is similar to our world but has different rules. Those rules need to fall under one or more genres.

For example, we could classify Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury under Spec-Fic because of its world-building elements. There are Sci-Fi rules that apply to the world because of its futuristic nature. There are other rules that apply to dystopian genres. The combination of these two makes it hard to categorize Bradbury’s work under just one genre or the other. Thus, speculative fiction comes into play.

But is that enough to make a story speculative? The short answer is, no.

Certain Dark Things: A Novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

2. Fantastical premise and influenced plot elements

Both straight-forward fiction and Spec-Fic stories set stories in worlds different from ours. But in order for a work to be classified as speculative, its plot also has to have elements from two or more fantastical or spectacular genres.

A fictional story’s plot is often guided by its premise or its “what if…?” question. To determine if the work is speculative, look at how the book’s plot answers this “what if…?” question and how it affects the world and the course of the plot. Let’s use Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things as an example.

Genres bent for worldbuilding: Paranormal and True Crime

Premise: What if, in an alternative present, vampires were descendants from the Aztecs that plagued the public in a gang-war style conflict?

Influenced elements: Main plot, exposition, conflict, and character arcs.

Certain Dark Things mixes elements of two different genres to build its world. It also presents a fantastical premise that really launches the story and plot forward. Without these elements, the story would be a very different story. This brings us to our next point, Spec-Fic works will not work without their genre-bent world-building or fantastical premise.

3. Can it work?

The last trick that I use to spot and classify works into spec-lit is by trying to answer this question. If you were to remove the speculative element from the story, can it still work? If the answer is no, then the work falls under speculative fiction. Just like Moreno-Garcia’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood belongs in the speculative literature realm because it checks all the boxes we’ve been covering.

Genres bent for worldbuilding: Dystopia, near-future, satire

Premise: What if the poor treatment of women, disease, infertility, and the corruption of religion led our society to a future where women are owned and used for breading?

Influenced elements: Main plot, exposition, conflict, and themes

Can it work without specular elements? No. The lack of dystopian, near-future, and satire elements would take away all the conflict and major parts of the main plot from Atwood’s book. The story would feel incomplete and left on its bare bones.

And there you have it! These are the main three tricks that I use to spot speculative fiction. I’ve used these tricks to play with my writing, attempt to break stereotypes and archetypes and to find the right audience for my work. I encourage you to do the same. Writing speculative fiction can give you space to play a lot with genre and it can add unique twists to your stories that you otherwise could not achieve.