Monday, August 13, 2018

38 pa’ 25 papeh

Recientemente debatí con mi esposa sobre la manera correcta de decir ‘papi’ en puertorro. Nuestros estudios exhaustivos indican que se escribe con ‘E’ y termina en ‘H’. Cabe hacer la salvedad de que si por casualidad estás bajo las influencias del alcohol, la ‘H’ se intercambia por ‘J’ alrededor del tercer o cuarto palo, dependiendo de tu tolerancia al alcohol.

¿Qué tiene que ver esto con mis 38? Tres pepinos por no hacer referencia a las Islas al este del continente de África a donde enviamos a tantas personas a diario. Ah y que o la pasas bien y te ganas las canas con gusto o te vas a agriar la vida. 38 años no es un universo pero hace tiempo que no soy un ternerito y la vida te enseña que aprendes o aprendes.

El tiempo es una cosa curiosa y si leíste la entrada anterior, me viste yéndome casi a un nivel esotérico contemplando el tiempo y el significado de la vida. Si lees esta entrada, de seguro te choca el cambio de tono, de idioma, de lenguaje utilizado y hasta estilo. Ahora si me conoces, sabes que soy así y escribo esta entrada no sólo para hacer complemento a las que tengo en la cabeza sino para que la gente conozca más de quién y cómo soy.

A menudo me preguntan por qué no escribo más en español y aunque quisiera que la contestación fuese una profunda, termina siendo una semi llorona y es que no sé ni si me leen en español. Por años he tenido una colección de poesía en español y otra bilingüe que se siente que no le dan mucha atención aunque de verdad que quiero a ambos libros muchísimo. Incluso, TwentyVeinte es de los libros que con más orgullo escribí, pero no se mueve mucho. La gente lo lee y le encanta. Le fascina la variedad en temas y la diferencia de quién soy como escritor en inglés y español. En inglés soy más fantasioso, más esotérico y confío que me siento más cómodo escribiendo en ese idioma. Pero no le quita que me gusta escribir en español y por eso para el año que viene saldrán varios libros en español. ¿Cuántos? Pues a ver cuánto me motivo pero a lo mínimo tres. Si se ponen con cosas y piden por esa boca, pues a lo mejor más :D 

Posiblemente te preguntas por qué haré semejante maroma y la razón de nuevo es personal. La gente no necesariamente me lee en español, pero si algo he aprendido dos años fueras de la Isla es que tuve que llegar a Atlanta para finalmente ser boricua y que me dijeran que soy el puertorriqueño. Tuve que ir al jardín botánico de noche para llorar de la felicidad que sentía mi corazón al escuchar el canto del coquí. Duele no estar en casa pero pienso que es el camino que me toca porque hay mucho por hacer y en Puerto Rico sólo puedo llegar hasta cierto punto sin padrino ni pala. En Puerto Rico o eres un duro o conoces a alguien y claramente tengo que seguir puliéndome en mi idioma natal, no sólo para complacer a Mama y las pocas personas que me leen en español, sino porque dentro de mí siento una necesidad tan grande de también dar algo para leer con sabor del Caribe, con sonrisas con agua de sal y rastros de coco, llevado a su perfecto punto de cocción en un alma que disfruta los atardeceres inigualables de mi Isla.

También escribo esto para comprometerme públicamente a esos proyectos, no porque no lo haya hecho antes sino porque la razón para querer hacerlo ha cambiado y en toda honestidad, me parece que cuando lean lo que sale de mí cuando estoy fuera de mi país no sólo demostrará que soy puertorriqueño, sino que amo mi lenguaje, mi casa y las particularidades de hablar como pleno isleño.

Comienza un nuevo año. Nuevas aventuras. Nuevos retos. Nuevos compromisos. No me sorprende que me haga falta PR viviendo al norte del charco, pero tampoco me sorprende que más me pide el alma escribir quien soy de todas maneras que se me ocurran.

Un abrazo,

JD

Top 10 ways you can help celebrate the Estrada 38 Special

It’s 38 birthdays and if you want to help me celebrate, here’s a list of 10 things you can do to help make this a party. 


1.     Post a picture saying cheers to my mom. My Mom has been an example for me all my life and as she undergoes cancer treatment, we welcome prayers but encourage toasting to her good health. Share your wine, champagne, tea, coffee, juice, shake, or drink of choice with the hashtag #CheersMamaEstrada. There’s a lot to celebrate where mom is concerned and let us remember, if you celebrate me, you celebrate her and dad because without those two, there’d be no me :)



2.   Donate to a good cause to receive a free Daydream short story you can only get through this cause. Last year a lovely friend from when I was a kid passed away and he left behind two beautiful daughters. His best friends have organized a Go Fund Me page for their education and in wanting to help Bianca and Angie Maldonado, I paid tribute to them and their father in a short story. So how do you get it? Simple. Go to the page, make a donation, take a screenshot, and let me know a place to email the story. We’re working on a couple of things to make some additional art work for it, because I’d like to help them out even if it’s one bit.

3.    Donate to help a friend’s mom. Jorge Quintana is a top notch guy and a good friend. His mom, Mary, had complications with surgery, has been in the hospital for months and needs help. Here the dynamic is different, anyone who makes any donation can choose any of my eBooks for free... and not just one book. Since my lucky number is 4, you can choose four of my books (No worries, 8 others you can get later). The dynamic is the same. Donate, take a screen shot, and tell me which book you want and where to mail it. 

4.    Order my books from Libros 787. This Puerto Rican company has my complete support and I’d like for them to have to write me to order more books, because that means that the money that could be going to Amazon or other large companies that already make a crazy amount of money goes to a Puerto Rican company supporting Puerto Rican authors to reach the world. 



5.     Follow me on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Google+. Numbers matter and every bit of support helps me get one step closer to my goal of being a successful writer.

6.     If you’ve read me, please review me on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews help authors succeed. And so does word of mouth so…

7.     Tell someone that you know an indie author from Puerto Rico. Word of mouth is an indie author’s advertising. I could spend money on ads but I’d rather spend it on the covers I want for my books.

8.     If you want to read me and have Paypal or ATH Móvil, order an Estrada Crate. It’s the most cost efficient way of getting signed and dedicated copies and exclusive content from yours truly. Check out this link and if you want to help support me, then get in touch on my Facebook Page and we’ll get you an epic Crate made just for you. Click here for the 101 basics about Estrada Crates. 



9.     If you work in a library or know someone who does and have the means to help me get my books into one, please get in touch with me. I will continue working for that in my state of Georgia and Puerto Rico but any help is appreciated.  

10.  If you think I could motivate your students to read and write more, let me know. I live in Atlanta but would be willing to even do online chats or even post videos on my YouTube channel privately, if you’d prefer. I want to help aspiring writers any way I can and will always do whatever I can to help future writers of all ages.

There are tons of other things we could do together, but let’s take these 10 things as a starting point. Thanks for being with me all these years, for reading me, for all the support, and for letting me be as me as I can be. 

Peace, love, and maki rolls


Sunday, August 12, 2018

38 Special

If anything has become abundantly clear in 37 years lived it’s that time has no intention of being understood. Sure, we have different ways of measuring time. From tide shifts, to rotations of a planet, to days, units, and even the sands that fall from one side of an hourglass to the other. Still, time is not something we can easily understand nor do I think we’re meant to. We want to believe everything is lineal but time has an odd way of showing you that it’s anything but consistent.

Sometimes life goes by at a million miles an hour, then it crawls at an injured snail’s pace. How you feel and what you experience directly impacts the speed at which time flows for you. We revisit special moments in our life time and time again. We have recurring dreams, recurring fears and phobias, and recurring moments where past experiences have prepared you to better deal with whatever life’s throwing at you. Memories can sometimes be recalled on will and sometimes hit you with no warning. But in a way that’s time. It’s not a bad thing and it’s not good, it just is. And life is much like time, in the sense that it just is. We can’t expect every second, minute, hour, or day to have the same worth in our life because that would not only be monotonous but probably impossible.

What we do with our time will ultimately define what our life is, will be, and was. This isn’t speculation; it’s an over-simplistic assessment of the ride we call life. How we invest that time, who we spend it with, and what we do are all factors that will make us either smile and enjoy or regret. There are a lot of things that shouldn’t be wasted in life, but time is one of them and probably the most important one at that. How we use time to find our smiles and do what gives meaning, purpose, and value should always be pursued and sometimes life makes you think long and hard about how you’re using your time. I can’t say I fully understand why spending time with loved ones, chatting, reading, writing, playing music, creating music, playing video games, and bodyboarding make me as happy as they do. A lot of people would say they clearly do and I think it’s more a case of being beyond clear about what makes you happy. We often obsess about the why of things or any of the other W and How questions, but sometimes you need to start with what and quite often, the why ends up not being that important.

What makes you happy? How will you get to experience more of what makes you happy? When and where can you get to those things that make you happy? Who do you want to share that joy with?

And why?

Why doesn’t matter.

Seriously, it doesn’t.

Do you need to know why scratching a puppy makes you happy? Does knowing why a perfectly brewed cup of coffee makes you smile or bring more smiles? Are we better off knowing the basic principles of why hugging or kissing someone we love brings us joy? 

Not one bit. Sure it’s interesting. But it won’t bring us more joy.

As the last couple of minutes of my 37th year transitions into year 38, I’m left with the prospect of many things but more than anything I’m left with the wisdom that I don’t need to focus on the why of life. Why are we here? It’s the question we’ve obsessed with ever since consciousness became a thing for humans. It’s an important question to experience though, because life is an essay not a True or False or a Multiple Choice exercise. An essay… and every day we add to that answer. What’s more, whoever reads the answer will react differently to it. Some people will focus on one part of your answer while others will gravitate to other sections.

Now, you could ask why some people gravitate towards one aspect or another, or you could simply enjoy that someone took the time to read your life answer and what you have to offer, inviting you to do the same with their answers.

So in that spirit, thank you for reading me, be it on this blog, in my poetry, in my books, or in my life’s answer. I look forward to comparing notes and laughs, and of course…


Peace, love, and maki rolls

Monday, August 6, 2018

Emotional Alchemy or Using What Life Gives You

I’ve written about Emotional Alchemy in this blog before and even dedicated a full chapter to this concept in my non-fiction book Peace, Love, and Maki Rolls. Today is one of those days where I’m reminded of the power of that tool.

It was one of those days where you begin with a positive outlook and attitude yet things don’t flow, don’t pan out, work is more work than usual, and you sincerely feel as if whatever effort you put into that to-do list is energy that could have been put to better use. My lunch hour was interrupted, which means I had like 15 minutes to write before having to head back to the office, among other little adventures in Lala Land

It wasn’t a horrendous day. Hell, it wasn’t even near an awful day. But it was far from ideal and it just charged me up in negative ways. Blame it on the heat wave or Mercury being in retrograde, or what have you. It matters not and those and other details are quite debatable. What is a fact and isn’t up for debate is that now I’m here, 8:30 ish at night on a school night and jabbing at the keyboard if only to put all that angst to good use.

It’s no surprise that when it comes to what I do with my time, energy, and skills, what brings me the most joy is anything related to writing and creating. By trade I’m a copy writer, a translator, and an associate creative director. But I’ll always be a writer and find comfort in capturing words on a screen or a notebook, but having them be my words. Not words revised a thousand times. Not an email explaining the whys in regards to how and why I did something. Not a document with concepts that will be barely recognizable from idea to execution. No. Writing. My writing.

The indie author route is a lonely and frustrating one, let there be no doubt about this. But to know that any mistake or victory are mine to celebrate or rectify is liberating beyond my ability to explain it. You really need to work 15 years in a thankless industry to have an idea of how amazing it feels to know that your vision, your true vision made it to light. People ask if I’d ever go the traditional route and the answer is “sure,” but I’d always publish something indie, even if I were to use yet another pseudonym. The freedom is simply too much to ignore or deny myself. Not having 70,000 filters and revisions, and opinions, even well-meaning ones. None of that. Just me losing myself in words at the same time that I find myself.

THAT.

That is why I write. Because it’s me putting my soul, my brain, and my heart on one path and having each do its own thing as words upon words blossom on what would otherwise be merely white space or blank paper.

So here I am, confessing once again that the things that bring me joy have to do with my writing. Not my ad work, not my translation work, not my flawless handling of a situation, not my deciphering of god damn limericks and riddles that are sold to me as revisions. No. It’s writing, my writing. That’s what makes me happy. Knowing that someone picked up my first novel without me having to mega promote it. Having a printed letter and a written Post-It Poem ready to include into an Estrada Crate I’ll be sending to Indiana this week. Re-reading old reviews from people who read my words and were happy that they did so.

Emotional Alchemy is a fancy way of saying taking life’s lemons and making lemonade, but it takes it a step forward. It means that I’m thankful for days like this. They fuel my fire to write more and push my writing as much as I can. They invigorate fight scenes with real rage so that when you read a particularly gruesome death, you know that I meant to write it that way. These days imbue real frustration in my words, they capture feelings and emotions that I channel through my writing. If you’ve ever felt the anger in my words in my stories, know it’s for good reason. It’s because I use the anger in my life. I use the sadness. I use the frustration. I use the joy. I use every single thing I live to help me create something that will show me that I took whatever life gave me and I created. I was in control of my emotions and feelings. I was able to let go of whatever crux I was carrying and dropped it in the center of a story, a poem, a song, a novel, or a blog post.

Because bitching only takes us so far.

Because I know how negative I can be and I want to show that pessimistic side of my psyche that we can do good even when we want to punch through a wall.

Because it is my choice to be an alchemist.

And it can be your choice as well.

Peace, love, and maki rolls