First of all, I believe I started to read when I was four or five years old. There were comic books around me and newspapers, plus romance, and western paperback novels which my older siblings and parents read at night. There was no television at that time, just a radio where we could hear soap operas and adventure stories, like the Lone Ranger.

My mother knew that I loved to read, and she started to show me how to write. My name was the first lesson. She started to help me remembering the letters, making me write them, again and again until I knew how to write my name without any problem.

I still didn't know that I wanted to be a writer. I loved to read articles in the newspapers, and from them I wanted to be a ballet dancer, a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant and an actor since I could speak so well.

When I was ten, we moved to 100th Street. Across from us, there was a strange looking building. I thought it was a temple, or a gothic mansion. Being curious, I walked into the building and, oh my God -- I heard a Hallelujah chorus from the white clouds with a spotlight pointing to me from the ceiling. I had found Heaven.

There were so many damn books!

I didn't know where to start. So started with A and finished on Z. I would sit in the library after school, no stick-ball, no kick can, or other street games, instead read, read, read. Eventually I came into fiction. Since I also watched television, I knew that some programs were from novels, especially Perry Mason. I found Erle Stanley Gardner in the mystery area and I fell in love with writing.

For my next birthday I asked my father to buy me a typewriter, and that was the best gift I ever got. So with my new Remington-Quiet, I would leave the library and went home to write. I would write every single day. It may be just a simple paragraph or page, but sometimes long pages. Now after many years, I still write.

Through my typewriters and two computers, I have written novels, screenplays and plays. Unfortunately I never became a bestseller author. However, I keep writing, even with my aphasia disability.

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When I was sixteen, I wrote my first story, titled "The Missing Manuscript." I sent it to several magazines and got many rejection slips. But in one of those rejection slips, someone handwritten a "sorry" under the rejection letter.

Rejection is like a wound on the literary war. Nevertheless, I still keep trying. I got twenty rejections from publishers about my first novel, "Silent Voices." One editor from McGraw Hill told me he liked the novel but it would be more interesting if I wrote a real "West Side Story." And the last editor from Delacorte said that I am too high-quality writer for that company, didn't know what to go with the novel.

Then I decided to write television screenplays for ABC when they had a new horror movie every week. Again, they liked me and kept telling me to keep writing. So finally went back to write a novel -- "Boriquen: A Novel about Puerto Rico." My agent sent a proposal to many publishers and they were interested but would rather have the manuscript instead of an idea.

"Boriquen" was like a James Michener novel, very long. It started with the Arawak Indians from Venezuela in the 900's A.D. and finishing in the 1980's. I wrote eight hundred pages and I was just in the 1500's. I stopped working on it and tried to stop writing.

At least, from "Boriquen" came a character who would not let me stop; he wanted to be known, and from him came "The King of Dominoes," a play.

"The King of Dominoes," became a finalist on the O'Neill National Playwrights Contest. Two directors told me that those well known contests are good but they have problems; they may have liked my play but the directors had already decided whom they want to produce before the contest.

Eventually, "The King of Dominoes" produced by the Passage Theater Company in Trenton and the Loaves & Fish Theater Company in Jersey. Then another company produced the play in New York City, LATEA, in English and Spanish translation. The reviews were good, but still wasn't ready for any Broadway production.

I had also written another play, titled "Papa Pio," which was showcased in New York. There were problems with the play so I put it in a closet and went to write another play, titled "Naked Among the Wolves." Everyone who went to a play reading said it was interesting but they felt it was so depressing. One person said, "My God, you sound like an O'Neill." Wow! I love O'Neill, best playwright I have ever read or seen.

In 1991 I left New York City, because I didn't want to write anymore. Publishing and theater is difficult; you may have written a great novel but the editors don't care, the sale managers are more interested in making money with bad sexual, shit novels. And play producers are not interested unless you are well known.

Around 1993, I went back to rewrite "Papa Pio." The play had changed, same plot but much better writing and with a new title: "A Murder of Angels."

I sent it to San Juan Civic Theater, the only company who produced English plays. And they produced it. Have to say that many people loved the play and some were insulted and left the theater. The problem was that it was a satire, which took place in the year 2020 in the Vatican, when all the religions had gotten together as one church; like there was a Rabbi-Cardinal and the first woman Cardinal; and they were ready to kill anyone. A critic and playwright at least felt that it was a great play and was one of the best ten plays that year.

Two years later after that production, I wanted to go back to seriously writing. I guess that when you are a writer, a story comes into your mind, or a character or even a simple sentence, you cannot stop, the mind keeps coming back to it, like Raymundo in "The King of Dominoes," from "Boriquen."

When I feel like that, my heart is always pumping and seeing a person in a street becomes a character, and a scene, a bar, a building, a dialogue becomes part of the story. I took a notebook everywhere I went and making notes, until I saw the first scene on my new novel.

In May 1997, I bought a new computer for the simple idea that I had to write "Alexandre and Isadora." I had to learn how to use the computer of course. I typed a list of the characters, the houses, the history of Puerto Rico from the 1850 to the present, and plots. Then finally, I started to write it in June and wrote the first chapter in just a week.

In July 10, I woke up with pain over my eyes and my neck. I was off that day, so sat in front of the computer, writing until 11 p.m. Weird, at that moment, I was feeling so wonderful.

Then I went to sleep. I woke up at 1:30 a.m., so thirsty. I felt dizzy, walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, took out the gallon of water and … I passed out.

My writing life had finished and my nightmares began.

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