The three stories that illuminated my path to completing my first novel: A House for Mr. Bismas, Beloved, and The Good Earth

When we migrated to the United States from Brazil in October 2003, I had hoped that, with fourteen years of experience in international trade, I would have no problem in finding work in my area of expertise. That proved more difficult than I had imagined. Instead, there I was in West Hollywood, working as a salesperson in the jewelry department of a large retail store. We do what we must to pay the bills. Unknowingly, we find ourselves where we’re meant to be.

At the retail store, I worked with and attended to creative artists of all kinds. Some worked in commercial productions. Others played extras in movies or TV shows. Many others struggled to grasp opportunities for getting into the movie industry.

The creative pulse of the heartland of Hollywood was infectious. Becoming a writer was not just a dream. It was within reach. But it would take training in the craft of writing to bring my story of Richard Cheong to life on the pages. With a crazy work schedule and limited funds, I opted for a correspondence course by snail mail. Those were the days before online courses. The Creative Writing course at the Stratford Career Institute in Vermont guided me from writing my first scene of up to 500 words to finding my writer’s voice in a 3000-word short story. Working at my own pace, I completed the writing course within two years (2004-2006).

The amazing thing about starting out in a new direction in our life is that we set events in motion, propelling us towards our goal or destination. One day, a new staff member assigned to the jewelry department introduced me to her husband—a writer for the National Geographic magazine. Imagine that! After telling him about my baby steps to become a writer of fiction, he sent me an issue of the Writer’s Digest. My subscription to the magazine, maintained to this day,became a great investment in improving my craft and keeping abreast with the evolving business of book publication and marketing.

In April 2006, I attended my first Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, at the time held on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). An exhilarating experience for a newbie in the world of book publishing. On visiting the booth of the California Writers Club (CWC)—one of America’s oldest professional clubs for writers, founded in 1909—I learned that CWC was considering chartering a branch in the City of Los Angeles. I signed up.

Four months later, I was one of eleven interested writers gathered in the cafeteria of the Barnes & Noble Bookstore at The Grove shopping mall for the inaugural meeting chaired by the CWC’s newly elected President. After he asked me to take the Minutes of the meeting, I fell into the role of secretary of the newly formed Mid-Wilshire Branch of the California Writers Club.

By then, I had completed my Creative Writing course and was working on my first short story, “The Jumbie Tree,” part of my self-imposed training for the marathon of writing my first novel. During the two-plus years (Aug 2006 to Dec 2008) I was a member of the Mid-Wilshire Branch, I wrote five short stories which were published in the now defunct New York-based Guyana Journal magazine (both print and online editions).

At the Mid-Wilshire writers club, I met the poet Angela Consolo Mankiewicz. Our unlikely friendship—I’m an ex-nun; she was atheist—grew and lasted until her death in March 2017. She and her husband, Richard, became my greatest supporters along my journey to becoming a writer and novelist.

In January 2009, I became a chartered member of the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society (GLAWS)—the former Venice Branch of CWC, initiated a month after the Mid-Wilshire Branch—that was closer to home. It was a much larger and more dynamic group, comprised of several published authors of all genres, as well as writers with novels in progress. Each monthly meeting strengthened my writing muscles for the marathon ahead. Writers mentoring writers. I was not alone.

When I joined the GLAWS Literary and Mainstream Fiction Critique Group, started on April 4, 2009, I was working on my sixth and final long-short story, “Sly Mongoose: Caught in the Jim Jones Web of Deceit,” published in the Guyana Journal November 2009 issue. During the introductions that first meeting, I perked up when another writer, Rich Samson, mentioned the People’s Temple. What a weird coincidence!

In response to my first email on April 16th, Rich wrote: “I was moved by your reference to the Jonestown Massacre… Obviously, those tragedies from 30 plus years ago touched us both.” In San Francisco, where he lived at the time, he had followed media reports about Jim Jones’ rise to power in California.

Our first critique group meeting in May was a disaster. Our female group leader—a corporate copywriter in her thirties, working on a short story—criticized my use of Caribbean Creole English for dialogue between characters.

“No one can understand such bad English,” she told me. “You should read Mark Twain for guidance when using colloquial speech.”

I swallowed the humiliation.

Rich came to my rescue after the meeting. Together, we worked at simplifying the creole English for a better reading experience. When writing the first draft of the Prologue for my novel in July, I applied his suggestions to the dialogue between Richard and his wife, Gloria.

Someone must’ve reported the incident at our May meeting. In June, we had a new critique group leader. The copywriter had dropped out of the group.

As I moved forward with each new chapter of my novel, I found guidance in reading the 1961 novel A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (1932-2018), set in the author’s Caribbean homeland of Trinidad & Tobago. The Trinidadian British author of Indian descent was winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature.

After learning about Toni Morrison (1931-2019), the first Black American author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, she, too, became my guide. I was immediately captivated by her 1987 novel, Beloved, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.   

Since Richard Cheong’s story is a family saga, covering three generations of the Cheong family and twenty years of Richard’s life, I re-read the 1931 novel The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973). Her novel won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1938, she was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

How could I go wrong with the guidance of such award-winning master storytellers?

Apart from the official critique group, Rich and I began sharing and critiquing each other’s earlier work via email. After reading my five short stories published by the Guyana Journal, he wrote: “Generally speaking, I really enjoy your writing style and feel that your stories are a good influence on me and my writing aspirations.”

What a boost for my confidence as a newbie writer! The way forward became less obscure.

On May 5th, we met at a neighborhood Starbucks to discuss his novella, Eight Months in the Haight. It was set in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the period January to September 1972, when, as an aspiring young actor, he had joined the hippie community. He wanted direction for the revision process.

Rich submitted Chapter One of his Haight novella for critique at our September group meeting. On October 5th, he forwarded Chapter Two for our group meeting later that month. When he did not show up, I followed up with an e-mail on October 25th. No reply. So unlike him. As the weeks went by, I knew that something was amiss. My affliction grew. On awakening November 18th, the anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, I googled his name. The news report stung.

RICH SAMSON: OBITUARY
SAMSON, Rich. West Hollywood resident Rich Samson died unexpectedly in his sleep at his home on October 7, 2009. He was 57. He graduated from Palm Springs High School in 1970 and attended Cal State LA and Foothill College. During the past seven years he worked in the real estate business in Los Angeles. Mr. Samson, who was married twice, is survived by three siblings and five nephews.

Rich left unexpectedly. During the short time we worked together, we shared a common dream of sharing our stories with readers. My hope is that the time he spent writing brought him moments of joy and clarity towards the end of his journey. He remains close to my heart. In his memory, my fictional character, Richard Cheong, is called Rich by his family and friends.

With the continued support of my writers’ critique group, I completed the first draft of Under the Tamarind Tree in January 2013, with a total word count of 114,368. After four years of immersing myself in the world of the Cheong family, I completed the marathon. When I shared the good news with the Vice-President of GLAWS, a successful author of a fantasy trilogy, her response was disheartening.

“It’s too long,” she told me. “Eighty thousand words is the acceptable limit for an unknown author.” I was no Toni Morrison or Pearl S. Buck.

Eighty thousand words! I would have to shred the story to the bone. I had only completed the first lap of the marathon. It would take another four years of several revisions of the plot to make it leaner. The final manuscript for publication in April 2019 contains 88,544 words.