A Conversation with Lisa Manterfield

I had the lovely opportunity to chat with Lisa Manterfield this week, author of the memoir I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home, about her journey through infertility. She is a big proponent of self-publishing and offers some helpful insights that may shorten the learning curve if you're considering going that route. She is also doing a unique experiment with her fiction (a serial novel!) so read on below to find out more.

---

LISA MANTERIELD is the creator of an online forum LifeWithoutBaby.com that gives a voice to women without children. Her writing has been featured in Los Angeles Times, Bicycle Times, and Romantic Homes. In her gritty, award-winning memoir, I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood, Lisa traces her spiraling route from rational 21st century woman to desperate mama-wannabe.

She examines the siren song of motherhood, the insidious lure of the fertility industry, and the repercussions of being childless in a mom-centric society. But this isn't just another infertility story with another miracle baby ending, nor is it a sad introspective of a childless woman; this is a story about love, desire, and choices and ultimately about hope. It is the story of a woman who escapes her addiction, not with a baby, but with her sanity, her marriage, and her sense-of-self intact. I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home is a 2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards winner.

Lisa lives with her husband and cat, and divides her time between Los Angeles and Santa Rosa, California.

Karin: Where did your memoir begin?

Lisa: I had signed up for The Writer's Studio at UCLA with Barbara Abercrombie, and her husband was sick suddenly. This was a few years ago. And Amy Friedman was the replacement teacher. I just connected with her immediately. She did this exercise in class where she had us go home and write on a piece of paper, “What is the one thing that you don't want to write about?” So I went home and thought about it, and I said, “I don't want to write about infertility. I don't want to write about this... I'm living it. Not interested in writing about it.” I went in the next day to see what she was going to do with it and she didn't do anything with it. She never mentioned it again.

So that topic sort of wormed its way into my mind until I ended up writing about it. I always sort of laughed that that was one of her devious moves to get us to write about things that we “thought” we didn't want to write about, the hard stuff.

I really started writing about it as a way to deal with what I was going through. And then I kept writing and kept writing, and finally I thought, you know, there's nothing out there on this topic. There were very few books out there, but they were a lot of “how to” books or “miracle baby” endings. So I started writing more and more about it, and I realized that I had a book. I put together these funny essays and had some people read them; and I just realized I was just skimming the surface of my own story.

So I took a step back and started from the beginning again, thinking, “What's the story that I want to tell?” And I still wasn't sure what the ending was going to be, so it's kind of interesting that the process of writing the story helped me to understand what my own ending needed to be. Not just the book, but the ending for my own story.

For you, what does it mean to realize that you 'have a book'?

Some people go through a life experience and go, “I want to write about this, I want to share this story” and that wasn't the way it happened for me. I have always wanted to write fiction and have been working towards how to write fiction; and at the same time writing personal essays, which is what I did at Spark, writing short narrative nonfiction. So I never really set out to write a memoir, but was gathering this material and realizing that I was probably looking for a book myself that didn't exist. There really were not resources out there. I wasn't hearing this story... “What happens when it doesn't work out for you?” Does that happen to anybody? I just felt that somebody needed to talk about it. For me, it needed to be written, and I'm really glad that I did.

Did you publish traditionally or independently?

I did it independently. I did pitch it traditionally, and that topic - even now - is pretty taboo. There are very few traditionally published books around that topic. But I knew I just needed to get it out there; so yeah, I did publish it independently. And ultimately, I think that was the best move for it.

Why?

Because it is a niche audience. I think it's a much bigger audience than people realize, but it is very niche. Part of publishing the book was starting a blog, which has actually really grown into this pretty active online community. So that's something that came out of the publishing process. That in turn led to the follow-on book which is more of a “how to” book. Sometimes you make plans of which direction your career or life is going to go, and then things just kind of evolve.

But I like the self-publishing process. I like having that control. It's a lot of work, but you have a lot of control over it. It's a lot of work, but it's kind of fun to know that you've basically produced the whole product, not just the writing aspect of it, but the whole package.

I think so much is changing in the traditional publishing world now, I think it's really hard to get a book noticed, especially for a debut author. It happens, of course it happens. But it feels like that whole world is in flux right now and there are so many people publishing independently and really doing it well. It is a lot of work and the big downside, I think, is not having that kind of support system and team behind you that can look at your book and say, “I see exactly where this fits in the market and this is how we're going to reach that audience.” So when you publish yourself, you've got to figure all that out.

But the flip side of it is, you can get your book out there. And if you're willing to the do the work, do the marketing - which you're going to have to do anyway - there's no reason for somebody not to get their work out into the world and find the readers that want it. It's kind of exciting actually.

When you went through the process, whom did you hire along the way?

I hired Jennie Nash originally as a book coach to look at the overall book and the structure of it and the flow.

After you'd written a draft?

Yes. And then once I got it to where I was happy, I hired an editor. I have a friend who is a freelance editor and she was the one who actually edited for me. And then I hired a proofreader as well. The number one thing that I wanted going the self-publishing route was to make sure that it didn't look like a self-published book. That it wasn't full of typos, that it was well laid out, that the cover looked professional. So I hired all that stuff out, which was a pretty steep learning curve for me. And there are definitely things I would have done differently, but I'm still really proud of how the book came out.

What would you have done differently in retrospect?

As far as the package, nothing. But the distribution... I decided that I would print a large quantity of books and have them delivered to my house. It wasn't a huge number, I think it was maybe 250 or 300 books on the first printing, but when that shows up on your doorstep, there's a lot of boxes. And then I ended up shipping those boxes to Amazon, so double shipping costs there. The second book I used Create Space and Ingram's Lightning Source. Through those two channels I'm able to distribute to all the major online bookstores.

The thing you don't get with self-publishing is access to major brick and mortar bookstores. So that's definitely a downside. Just being able to do bookstore events, for example. Like my local Barnes & Noble said, “Oh we'd love to have you, but your book is not in our catalogue so we can't sell your book here.” But that's changing; I think they're now including self-published authors in their catalogue. And then I did a couple of events at independent bookstores where they took books on consignment, so there's a way around that stuff.

What exactly is Create Space?

So Create Space is Amazon's print-on-demand service. You basically load the book into it and they only sell through Amazon. But they print as needed rather than doing a bulk order and then shipping it. So that's great, that takes that double shipping out of the loop. And then Lightning Source is a similar thing - they are also print on demand - so I can get print books into the online stores like Barnes & Noble but their online version. And then bookstores can order from Ingram, too.

I'm curious to hear more about what you're doing now... It sounds like you're circling back to fiction in an interesting way?

Yeah, I have circled back and am publishing a serial novel online, A Strange Companion. I'm doing it on my website and I'm also doing it on Wattpad which is a bit of an experiment; I'm not sure how that's going yet. I'm posting a chapter a week of my novel.

What have you learned so far?

I have learned to listen to my wise friends who told me to make sure I have six fully completed chapters before I start posting, because I'm finding myself at the moment running headfirst against my deadline. But I haven't missed a deadline yet!

So the flip side is that having that deadline is making sure that I get to my desk and I get my writing done. I really just wanted to get my fiction out there, and this is a novel that I've written and rewritten and pitched and rewritten... many, many, many times. And then said, “You know what, this book is going nowhere. I'm going to put it under my bed and forget about it and move on to the next one.” So when I finished a second book, which I'm now currently pitching to agents, I have this book under the bed and say, “I really love this story, I want to get it out there.” And looking if there's a way to start building a readership for fiction and decided, you know, I'm just going to start putting this out there and do it as a serial novel. I know the story. I'm going to make a really clean outline so I know where I'm going, and then write, edit and publish a chapter every week. It's definitely gotten me working on this book again which I probably would have just abandoned. There's an instant gratification factor of putting chapters out there and having people respond to them. It's a little bit nerve-wracking; as you know, even as you get to later drafts of a book, things change and sometimes you need to go backward before you can move forward. But once something's been published that's much harder to do. I would say overall it's been a really good experience. It's been really fun, which sometimes writing can stop being fun when you're trying to get towards a finished product and you're going through, particularly, that revision process. For me the fun part is the new, shiny first draft; you get to your fifth or sixth revision and at some point it stops being fun.

Do you intend to go back and revisit any of it, or is it just going to be whatever has been posted?

At some point I will put it together and publish it as a complete book, but whether I will just put the chapters together and clean it up and publish it, or put it together and take another bigger look and make more significant revisions, I'm not sure yet. But at some point I will put it together and make it available in another format.

Some people really like the serial format where they look forward to a new chapter coming every week. But a couple people said, you know, I like the story but I'm going to wait until it's done because I don't like having to wait a week. I want to binge read the story.

Where did you get this idea from? Do you read other serial novels?

I do not actually. Again, talking about the changes in publishing and that there are so many ways to get your work out there in the world; I'd come across Wattpad, which is a writing and publishing app. It's this whole community of writers and it's more teen writers and young adult stories for the most part, where people really are publishing first drafts online and then getting feedback. It's a really active community... just seeing other writers putting their first few chapters of their novels up there, or publishing novellas or short stories that are spin offs from their published novels. So I've been snooping around, and thought, you know, this is a really good way to get this book out there without me having to commit to doing a complete revision before I do anything with it.

How did you go about building an audience for yourself?

Well, that's partly the reason that I did it actually, is to start building that audience for my fiction. Because it's really hard to build an audience when you don't have anything for them to read as far as fiction. Even though there's some crossover between the fiction and nonfiction, it's still largely a different audience. You know, we get hammered all the way that “you must build a platform, you must build a platform.” And I think it's really hard to do that when you don't have anything to tell people about. So that was one of the reasons that I decided to do this as well, to actually use it to start building a readership so that when the next book comes out, I'll already have a built-in readership.

I'm still on the fence on whether Wattpad is the right place for this, but I'm continuing to publish. What I've done is reach out to people that I already know - so friends, social media, using Facebook, and also then telling my nonfiction, “Hey, if any of you enjoy fiction this is what I'm doing.” It's definitely a slow growth, but it's an ongoing slow growth. It's an experiment. I'm not sure yet if it's going to be a successful experiment; I think it is. But it's serving several purposes and one of those is to start growing an audience and let people know that, “Hey, I write fiction as well.”

How do you access it and what chapter are you on now?

So this week was chapter 15 and that's about the midpoint of the novel; so yeah, the 15 chapters are all posted on my website. And then if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you get a notification every week when the new chapter comes out.

So you don't have to sign up to Wattpad necessarily?

No. That's part of my experiment to see what kind of readership that generates. But my main focus is publishing it on my website.

In terms of process, what have you found serves you well in doing your work?

As far as having a process, mornings are my writing time and I'm very protective of it. They do get nibbled into of course, because that's life; but I really try to be protective of the morning. What I've discovered about the way I work is that I need to play first. I need to take my idea and play with it, whether that's writing exercises or writing nonsense or writing a lot of stuff that might never make it into a book. For me I need an outline, structure is really crucial before you go into that fully formed first draft. But I need to play around and figure out what it is that I want to write about first. And then put a stake in the ground and say, “Okay, this is the story, this is what I'm going to write.”

I know some writers who are up and at their desk at 7, and 7 to 10 is their writing time. But I need a little bit more flexibility in there. But I do try to get there every day and do something, at least touch the work, even if words don't end up on the page.

To learn more about Lisa Manterfield, visit lisamanterfield.com

See all interviews

A Conversation with Lisa Cron

I recently chatted with Lisa Cron about her most recent book, Story Genius, a detailed guide for writing a compelling novel. I have known Lisa for a long time and largely attribute my deep understanding of 'story' to our many conversations over breakfast at our favorite diner 'Rae's' in Santa Monica. And I continue to learn from her!

In this interview I was particularly struck by her insights around how traditional writing is typically taught - as early as kindergarten - leaning on 'technique' over 'story'. Perhaps my ears perked up because I have a four-year-old daughter. Even so, it makes me reflect on my own foundation and evolution, and the ways I've had to unravel and re-learn, thanks to people like Lisa who has made teaching 'Story' her life's work.

So I hope you'll take a moment to glean some Cron wisdom...

---

LISA CRON has worked as a literary agent, a TV producer, and a story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and many others. She is a frequent speaker at writers' conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. She teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Visual Narrative Program, and is the author of Wired for Story. She splits her time between Santa Monica, California, and New York City.

In her book Story Genius, Lisa takes you step by step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multi-layered blueprint--including fully realized scenes-- that evolves into a first draft with the authority, command and richness of a sixth or seventh draft. It follows on the heels of her first breakout book, Wired for Story, which offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it.

Karin: You call yourself a “Story Coach” versus a “Writing Coach,” why is that?

Lisa: When people hear the word “writing” they think, “How do you write? What's your technique?” and that comes at it from such the wrong place. Because story begets writing, not the other way around.

That's why people who know me well, when I'm working with someone, and I go, “Well, you're a really good writer,” they know I'm about to tell them something awful. That's not a compliment.

What is “You're a really good writer” code for?

For me, it's code for: you can write a sentence, you can write a generic scene, you can use words but what you're using them for isn't there. It's not about writing; it's about story. The power comes from the story not the writing. It's story first. That's what ends up giving power to any words. The problem is that writers think that the words have to be there first. It keeps them from getting into the starting gate, let alone out of it, because everything has to be beautifully written from the get-go. And if you don't know what you're talking about or writing about or what the story is, what are you using those words for?

Why do we have it all wrong?

I spent the past two years in this small school district in New Jersey that was K through 8. They wanted to figure out how could they incorporate story into how they teach writing. I've always said that writing is taught wrong everywhere. Originally in my head I was thinking post-secondary. And I got there and I went, “Oh no, it's starts in Kindergarten. I see exactly where the problem is.”

Kids in second grade are taught “theme.” What does that even mean? It doesn't mean anything. I tell adults not to use that word; it's a horrible word. You don't say, “What's my theme?” You say, “What's my point?”

It's taught in terms of technique. It's taught in terms of using beautiful, flowery language. It's taught in terms of mastering how to write a sentence.

I'll give you a great example. I worked with this great literacy coach at the school, and she told me before I got there, “I just want to let you know what you're up against.” About a year or two before I got there - I can't remember if it was a third or fourth grade class - but there was a little girl who came up to her and she'd written about the time when her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce. And so she's reading a piece and she's holding back the tears trying not to cry. And the literacy coach said, “This is so beautiful, this is so amazing. Let's go show it to your teacher.” And so the teacher read it and the first words out of her mouth were, “Um, you missed a couple of transition words here.”

That's the problem.

Besides the fact that it's taught in terms of different techniques and pretty, flowery language - flowery language is very much applauded - they get these prompts that are things like, “Jane was walking on the beach, and she found a bottle with a message in it. Write a story about what happened...” Or “Joe woke up and heard some noise in the backyard and looked outside and there was a castle in his backyard. He decided to go in and explore. Write a story about what happened...”

Prompts are always like that. It's just a big weird thing that happened. But there's no story in that, why would that matter? I don't know.

The problem is, writers are taught the technique of how to write: here's how to write a sentence, here's how to write a paragraph. But when it comes to actually writing a story, they're not taught anything. And the thing is, ultimate and complete freedom is not liberating. It's paralyzing. Because how do you know what matters and what doesn't? What's the point? You're just standing there knowing nothing.

So I said, here's what a story is: it's character, problem, struggle, solution. They didn't know that a story is about how somebody changes. They didn't know that a story was about an internal struggle. They didn't know any of that. For them a story is just what happens. Adults hear it, too. “Okay, here's what a story is: it has a beginning, middle and end.” Show me something that doesn't have a beginning, middle and end. I mean, what does that even mean? Again, it means nothing.

People don't teach story. Writing is taught as if you learn how to write somehow a story is going to appear by itself. You get good with words, you develop your voice, which is bullshit anyway, and then somehow you're going to write forward and a story is going to appear; and if it doesn't, it means you don't have any talent. That's what kills me.

When people say things like, “I have a love of language,” I'm like what the hell does that mean? Language is nothing; language is an empty vessel. Language is a means of communicating something. How can you be good with language if you don't know what you're communicating? That comes first. Then you have the language with which to express it. Story first, writing second.

I think the key thing that is missing - the seminal mistake - is this belief when you start writing, you start writing on page one and you go forward to the end. When actually all stories begin 'in media res' - meaning in the middle of the thing - meaning that there is just as much of it before as after, and that there are certain very specific things in developing story that you need to do before you get to page one. Which is not in any way, shape or form “pre-writing” but everything that you develop “before” is actually in the novel itself; in fact, the most foundational layer of it and on every single page.

Are you talking about the relevant backstory?

I hate the term “backstory.” Backstory is story. My favorite quote that I've been using is Faulkner who said, “The past isn't dead, it isn't even past.” In other words, when the character steps on the page, they bring that with them, that's how they got to where they are.

It's the lens through which the protagonist - and really every character - sees everything. It's how they evaluate everything. It's how you evaluate stuff; it's how I evaluate stuff. There is no general reality out there. We make sense of everything, and everything gets meaning, based on what our past experience has taught us what those things mean. So if you send someone onto the page without knowing that, in a story specific sense, it's like pushing them on to the page with amnesia.

Tell us about your new book Story Genius...

Story Genius takes you step by step, from that first glimmer of an idea that sparks you, all the way through a method as to how to dig down and how to really get that first draft on to the page -- and what you need to know and how to do it. It's literally 100% prescriptive: here's what to do, here's the next thing to do, here's the questions to ask, here's the test to put your ideas through, here's what you're looking for.

If I could burn every copy of The Hero's Journey and every story structure book out there, I would make the biggest bonfire ever. I think any story structure method is awful and I'll tell you why.

They're like plotters; they start with the external story. They go, “This has to happen at this page, that has to happen over here”; they're looking at external structure. Story structure is a byproduct of a story well told. The plot is not what the story is about. The story is about how the story is affecting the protagonist and the plot is created to force the protagonist to go through a very specific internal change that they needed to make before the plot ever was even conceived of.

Those books will take very successful, well-known movies or novels and they'll break them down based on this theory. And the thing is, you already know that movie. You already know that novel. So the internal story, the thing that is really giving it meaning, you already internalized. So when you look at the external stuff, you think, “Oh I'll just make the external stuff and that internal stuff just shows up.” And it isn't true.

Story structure builds things from the outside in; story is built from the inside out.

Can you talk more about re-defining theme as “What's your point?”

All stories make a point on the first page and everything goes to that point. The point is how the character changes internally, that 'aha' moment at the end. It's kind of like that dithery friend who's going on and on and on... and you're smiling... and what you're trying to do is not shake them by the shoulders and go, “Why are you telling me this? What's the point?” If you don't know what the point is, then you can't write a story that tells it. You have to know.

It comes down to - and it's surprisingly deep - why does this matter to you?

I use that phrase a lot, “Why does this matter?” It's a much more relatable way of talking about it than “theme.”

Well, “theme” is scary because it's general. And when people think of theme, they think of that thing that hovers over. The thing is, the story is in the specific.

But I've noticed that it can take time to uncover and really get to - at least for memoir - the deeper, underlying truth of the experience and why it matters and what the actual change is that you're writing about. So what do you suggest?

Everybody enters wanting something really badly, something that they've wanted for a really long time, not something that they want once the plot kicks in. You've got to figure out what that is.

Their “misbelief” is what's keeping them from getting this thing that they want. I would never use the term 'fatal flaw' because it sounds so finger-waggy. It sounds so pejorative. And I would never use the term “wound” because it turns the protagonist into a victim. But it's a misbelief. Once you know that, you ask yourself, “Where did that come from?” It came in childhood, almost always; and I would guess that's definitely true with memoir writers. It defines how the character sees the world.

A misbelief is something that happens in a difficult situation that saves the character from something really bad happening. And in that moment it's true; but it's actually not so. So characters believe this misbelief; they feel like they are super lucky to have learned this early in life. And it drives their life. Once you've identified that and written it in scene form, when it kicks in you can start to trace it through story specific events that led the character to what's going to happen to the character on page one.

I'll give you an example I use all the time. I even have it in the book. Did we talk about the movie “Protagonist” ever? It's a great one; it's a documentary.

So in this movie “Protagonist,” there are four men telling their stories. One of them is this guy Mark Pierpont and he's gay. He grew up in a fundamentalist Christian enclave. It doesn't sound like they were in a cult - it wasn't David Koresh or anything - just very fundamentalist. He felt very loved and felt very close to his mom. But he, I guess like all of us, felt like he was different. He didn't quite get 'why' but it didn't matter. And then one day at school - he was 11 or 12 - someone came up to him and said, “God hates faggots.” And he went, “What's a faggot?” He went to the dictionary and looked up the word; and that became the defining moment in his life. If what I want most is love and connection, but if I have that, God isn't going to love me? Therefore, I can't be gay.

And he lived his life based on that. He got married to a woman!

When did he have to confront that misbelief?

The thing is, in a story the character is confronting it in every scene. In every single scene they've got to make a tough decision, and the story is what they have to struggle with to make that decision.

As I recall, I think the moment of truth was when he became one of those guys who was counseling other guys that they could not be gay. He was counseling someone who so deeply reminded him of himself that he couldn't do it. And he became the great guy - flamboyant with a capital “F” - that he was always meant to be. But you watch him buck it his whole life.

The “point” you're making is that 'aha' moment, what it takes to change someone on that level. And now the character can solve or not, depending on what kind of novel or memoir you're writing, that external plot problem.

A story is one single problem that grows, escalates and complicates.

Story Genius is not a formula. I never go into any kind of formula. I just go into, “This is what a story is and these are the things you need to know about your character and what's happening in order to then tell a compelling story.” There's no formula to it at all. Just, “This is what you need to get to, and those other methods won't get you there.”

Look at E.L. Doctorow who said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car in the dark, you can only see as far as your headlights but you can make it all the way there.” No you can't. If you have a natural sense of story, then maybe, but the rest of us are driving off a cliff. And that doesn't mean you're a better writer.

To learn more about Lisa Cron, visit wiredforstory.com

See all interviews

A Conversation with Glorious Owens

I had the honor of attending a POPS The Club meeting at Venice High School a couple of weeks ago. If you don't know about this organization, then let me introduce you. POPS -- aka The Pain of the Prison System -- was created to support young people who have a loved one who is incarcerated. Did you know that 2.7 million children have a parent in prison? To think that a child can visit but cannot touch his mother or father is heart-wrenching.

Co-founders Amy Friedman and her husband Dennis Danziger are deeply woven into the fabric of our storytelling community in LA. They started the first club at Venice High School in 2013 (in Dennis's classroom) and have begun to expand across Los Angeles and other states. POPS has even caught the attention of the White House!

POPS members are encouraged to write and share their stories, many of which have been compiled into published anthologies. Below you'll find an interview with POPS member Glorious Owens, a remarkable young writer who is shining her light.

---

GLORIOUS OWENS is a soon-to-be-graduating senior at Venice High School where she has participated as a member of POPS The Club. She's from South Central LA and is one of eight kids. As a writer, she recently won first place in the Beverly Hills Literary Society contest, and one of her essays will also be performed at the “Street Angels” gala evening at the Kirk Douglas Theater. Glorious will be attending El Camino College this fall where she'll be studying to become a social worker, and South Central Scholars will be mentoring and guiding her through college and university.

To read her prize-winning essay, click here!

POPS The Club is devoted to enhancing the lives of those students who have been impacted by the pain of the prison system (aka POPS) -- those with incarcerated loved ones and those who have been incarcerated themselves. Spear-headed by Executive Director Amy Friedman, POPS establishes and sustains high-school clubs that offer students community and emotional support as well as opportunities to publish the writings and artwork they create through the club.

Karin: What is your relationship to POPS?

Glorious: My relationship to POPS is that my father, my grandmother, my cousins -- almost half of my family, maybe a little bit more -- have been incarcerated at one point or another, on my mom's and my dad's side. And some of them have been affiliated with drug addiction. My mom's side - her dad and her mom were drug addicts. On my dad's side - his dad and his mom were drug addicts. So all my life -- all 18 years -- I saw things. It was like a vision of a movie. You think none of this could happen in someone's life, but it does. It actually happens and what do you do with it?

Like what? What are some of the visuals in your movie?

Basically I have seen people selling drugs, face to face. Somebody in my family getting caught for it and sent to jail. Someone getting beat up, jumped. Seeing my grandma in jail, going to visit her. Going through the process of literally taking almost everything off and getting searched. It feels degrading and makes you never want to go there. And my dad - I had never seen my dad in prison - but every other year it seemed like he would go back for something. He would always clean himself up and then go back. And my parents would say, he was 'on vacation, vacation, vacation' because I was little. But I knew better. I was like, why would he go on vacation for one to two years and not come see his kid?

They didn't take you to see him?

No, because they thought I didn't know!

But you went to see your grandma.

I went to go see my grandma, because we were super close -- we were like two peas in a pod. We always hung out. She was basically my babysitter and I was always with her no matter what the time was. When she went, I was one of the first people to know, because me and my grandma were that close. And she knew I understood what was going on, she knew I wasn't a slow child. And she just told me what happened, “Okay, I'm going for this, and I'm gonna be gone for a while. Just make sure you send me mail and come see me,” and all of that stuff. So it was one of those traumatizing experiences, “Now my grandma is going, like what's going on?” And it was continuous blows.

Someone that I love is getting taken from me. Now I have to go back, and someone I love is being taken from me again. I have to keep going, I have to keep pushing.

Keep pushing what?

Keep pushing like... they want you to succeed. Everybody wants you to succeed. But they keep doing stuff bad, so why do I have to succeed when you can't even do it? It's like, “What's the point? You guys aren't even gonna be here to see it. So why should I have to do anything?” It was stupid, I don't know why I would think that it was a really good excuse to not do anything.

And then you continue the cycle.

It's like... okay, I have to keep fighting, I have to keep doing homework. I'm gonna be somebody when I grow up. I'm gonna make sure everybody's alright, they don't have to worry about money. It always seemed like we were worrying about money. Anything that had to do with it ended up around money. So it was like... okay, I'm gonna be somebody who can make money and make sure that everybody in my family is okay, everybody's set. I don't have to worry about anything. But it felt like I was always the one who cleaned up the mess. Even though they don't think that, they think they did it on their own. Of course they think that!

But you always have someone who helped you get somewhere, even though you worked toward it yourself. Somebody helped you along the way to get where you are. Somebody who told you to get your life together... somebody who helps you, literally sits you down right there as you do your work. Or a passerby who happens to give you a hello that gonna make you smile for the rest of your day. It was always one of those things -- always being positive, always knowing how to help somebody. You never know what somebody's going to be going through.

So that's basically how I was, always a smile. There's no reason not to have a smile! Even if you're sad.

What gave you the motivation to rise above?

I didn't want to be like them, at all. I know jail is not for me. I know that I don't want to be on the streets. I know I don't want any type of pain to be inflicted on my family -- emotional, mental -- I don't want any of that. What I have to go through, I don't want them to ever have to go through. I don't want to have to add on to anything. It's already enough.

When it comes to POPS, how has it helped you?

It gave me a voice to whatever I'm thinking. Like how I'm talking to you now... I couldn't do this last year, at all. I don't tell anybody my business. I used to never even speak about anything. And then I came to Mr. Danziger's class and he told me about POPS, and he had us write stories about our lives. And that's when I was like, “I actually get to tell my story? Are you sure?” And he was like, “Yeah, you get to tell your own story. Write down everything that happened in your head and everything that you know happened.” And not be judged for it. Not have somebody tell you, “Are you sure that actually happened to you? Are you positive? That's not how it went.”

Everybody has their own story to tell, and everybody has their own perspective on it. But it was my perspective. This is what I felt; this is what happened when I see it. And people get to read that and understand. And you have people in POPS who understand what you went through because they have gone through the same situation. And so that's why it was a very good experience for me.

Was there anything challenging about it?

Just writing the story. And actually telling people my story, that was the hard part. Because it was like, “I don't want people to really know about me. That's none of their business. This was my story, but do I really want to put it out there?” That was the main thing. I've never been big on talking about myself but now I get to talk about myself full force. So what do I do? I was like, “Okay, I'll give you a little bit.” And Mr. Danziger was like, “No, I want more. I want you to actually put your whole life on the paper.” And that's what I did. It was my life and other peoples' lives. My mom would tell me stories about how her and my dad met, or how they would play basketball together,

I was playing basketball from elementary school all the way up to my freshman year, and I still play with my dad. Sports was the main affiliation with our family. In order for you to go somewhere you have to do a sport. And so this was something that I didn't have to do a sport for! I didn't have to work out. I can actually do this and get noticed for it -- besides having to do volleyball or basketball or run track. So it was a big eye-opener for me. I didn't expect this. I didn't even really expect anyone to notice me. I've always been a team player, all these team sports, team, team, team. I was always doing something for somebody. I was always fighting for somebody - for something, for your school, for a friend. You want to win because it's what all of us want. And this was something that was just for me. Even though it's technically for somebody - it's for POPS. They helped me. So I'm giving something back.

But it's your story. 

So what did you realize after the fact, in writing down your story, that you didn't know before?

There's always gonna be one or two people who have gone through the same thing and don't know what to do. If they're in that situation in that moment and they see my story, they might go the opposite direction. Instead of doing what their friends or somebody else told them to do, they'll take the right road. I want people to understand that they're not alone in whatever they're going through. They're not alone. Even though they may think, “You'll never understand my story.” Everyone has a different story, but there's always going to be a similarity to your story.

What about the personal aspect?

It's still one of things, like, I don't like you knowing! Because now when people see me, you see my story, not me. It's like, “That's how you are, how can you change that fast? How can you be so positive? You're faking it.” That's how I feel like people see me. I can tell you my story, but I'm a completely different person from my story. I'll do my best to help anybody in need in every possible way that I can. It's like, “How can you go from this background to this?” I don't know how to tell people the transition; I just tell you my story.

Isn't part of your story how you changed -- how you grew through it -- how you've transformed and become the person that you are? Or is that still evolving in terms of what you've written?

I feel like it's still evolving because all that stuff is still me. I feel like they see that part, and that's the bad part. That's still me. But I'm still pushing forward to that other me, the one I want to be.

That's a beautiful story, I'd love to read that.

To learn more about POPS The Club, visit popstheclub.com

See all interviews