July 19, 2006

Why is it that I start to write stories, and eventually stop? Is a block or that I loose interest in what I am writing? It is not after my stroke and aphasia, because for many years I have had the old problem. I have so many manuscripts, novels and plays I started to write, but eventually I was not interested.

It could be that it is difficult to keep writing and hard to get back to the next page -- could it be that it is boring, or hard to find the plot? For many years, in the early 1980's, I wanted to write a big saga titled "Boriquen: A Novel of Puerto Rico." I researched the history of Puerto Rico from books, encyclopedias, and even went several times to the island to different towns and talking to people.

The best thing I think is that is more adventure for researching, since I loved to read and getting information about the world. When I was ten, I moved to a building on 100th Street and Broadway where there was a gothic building across the street. I always thought it was a Temple, probably Jewish, so I never went there. But eventually, one day, since I am an adventurer living in New York City, I had to peek inside the building.

When I saw that large room, my heart started to pump, I lost by breath, my eyes became a binocular and I was sweating. I thought I had died and went to Heaven. The place was so quiet, sitting in front of tables, and all around, there were many shelves full of books. The only library I went was in my school. My problem was that I wanted to read all of them, novels, non-fiction books from archeology to zoo. So I got my library card and I could just take six books to take home. When I went home, I would immediately start to read and eventually, I was reading two or three books every week. That is why I feel that I got the best education from the library books than the school.

I always remember that my teachers thought I was a genius, but that is not true, it's just that I loved to learn from books. Every year the schools had to give reading tests when you were in Junior High School (7th grade to 9th) and one year my reading score went to 12th grade when I was in the 7th grade. But as I say, some teachers can be terrible. Like Miss Lowe in my 9th grade didn't like me I guess and I felt the same way since I did not like her either. That reading score that year went to 3rd grade and she wanted me to put me in one of the stupid class instead of my genius class.

Thank goodness, the older teachers who knew me went to the principal and made me take the test again, and again I went back to 12th grade score. She was angry, of course. Still don't know what was her problem. It could be that her class was boring and I was always looking out the window while my brain was making notes with ideas instead of her English class.

So now, many times I sit in front of my computer monitor trying to write, but instead just look out the window where my brain goes into adventures. I do try to write about those adventures, but having a problem with aphasia it is hard for me. I also remember that before there were computers, I used to type in my small electric typewriter, and thank goodness that I was great typist, around 100 words per minute. But again, my normal brain was faster than my fingers, but that could have good because I could not stop to type. Here now, these computers are so much faster, but my brain is slower these days.

Nevertheless, I will always write, even if it just a sentence or a paragraph.