As the 2014 unfolds, I find myself knee deep in the makings of a self publishing career. Since February of this year, after too many years pushing my writing aside, practicing “passive action” and blogging about comedians and television shows on Adult Swim, I’ve thrown in the irony towel and made a pact with myself: I will write at least 500 – 1000 words a day. My brain will spill its gooey brain guts onto the computer screen and scratch out stories that will be formed into books, novels, and eventually, episodic novellas. Tired of rejection from established publishers who have declined my work time and again (and having seen my father’s writings go unnoticed), I’ve vowed to created stories based on my mother and father’s history.

My mother was born in Havana, Cuba. My father was born in Strasbourg, France. I’m a hybrid of two dreamers, who miraculously found each other in the middle of White Plains, New York in  early 60’s after living through revolution and war. My father was a holocaust survivor. My mother left Havana at the age of 29, a single mother with a young son, after Fidel Castro kicked her and the rest of the Jewish working class out.

I’m currently working on a trilogy about my parents. First book will be about my mother, who always said that I would write a book about her life one day.  The sad thing is, she passed away five years ago, having only given me an outline of her life. But I feel her on my shoulder, digging me “Talk about me! Talk about me!” So, “Sea Around Us” (working title), a work of fiction inspired by my mother’s stories, where I fill in the blanks on the vague storyboard she provided, is bubbling and brewing on the back burner.  Next book will be inspired by my father. The third will be about their lives in New York. Two people who lived extraordinary, find the ordinary.  These books will be due in 2015.

As I’ve been toiling away, writing in between little administrative projects at work, and brain storming a bit on weekends, I found myself with a dearth of regular short stories. Some were mildly inspired by my parent, other’s were inspired by my friends. Friends, lost to the battle of drug addiction. Friends confused and shattered by the heavy weight of mental illness. As a way to contemplate the recent death of my parents, I wrote of stories of the dead, giving them voice about their after life. I even gave an long dead rock star a last curtain. curtain call All this writing is gratifying. I hope that it’s good. But that’s not my call. I wrote without judgement.

I’ve compiled my stories into a book that will be out in October 2014.  It’s in the editing stages, but the title has been confirmed. It will be called “Entrances & Exits: A Book of Short Stories”. It will be my first baby. My first foray into self publishing, and the beginning of what I intend to be a prolific library of online books for reading.