I went on a TV program this morning to promote my book. While this specific experience wasn't as demoralizing as some other ones have been, I still find going on television to be excruciating. (Please don't think I won't accept offers, studio heads! I'm available!) I'm a competent public speaker, but there's a reason why I'm a writer -- so that I can edit my thoughts. On television, you have to be glib, witty, and always ready with a sound bite. "Tell me why you wrote this book" in 20 seconds. It's a lot.

I'd have an easy answer to that question if I had been working on a book as a ghostwriter, doing something research-oriented, or writing the fourth mystery in a best-selling series. But if you don't fall into one of those categories -- if you just write because you need to do it, because you have stories tearing you up inside -- then how do you answer that? I'm not even sure why I decided to write about my life at such a young age. When I started working on it I had no idea what I was doing. I do know that by the end of the process, I felt like I'd come to a real understanding of who I was and who I needed to be going into the future. And that I hoped other young people in my circumstance could read it and feel the same way.

That's not bad, actually. When's the next TV show?

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Caille Millner

The Golden Road

memoir

race

Latino

African American

Penguin Books

books

There's only one big piece of unfinished business I have with my memoir: I wish I had come up with a way to include visuals.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do it. Visuals are important to me -- many of the stories I've written started with an image or a picture or a scene I glimpsed on the street. Some of my favorite authors (W.G. Sebald, John Berger when he's writing about art) use visuals in their personal pieces so powerfully that the bare text looks weak in comparison.

I struggled with it, but in the end I decided it was too difficult -- most people in this book are still alive; I changed a lot of names; I didn't know how to illustrate their stories without using their faces. It doesn't help that I'm not great at actually capturing moments on film, either. I tend to freeze images in my mind; by the time I think to grab a camera, they're gone. My photo collection is thin. I don't know that I'd have had as many images to choose from as I would've liked.

Perfection, of course, is the enemy, so all I can say is that I'll tackle it next time. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to use other people's shots and not my own.This may be easier with fiction -- which contrary to popular belief, can be serious and also include pictures. In fact there are a number of "serious" novels that may have been enriched by their inclusion.

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Caille Millner

The Golden Road

memoir

race

Latino

African American

Penguin Books

books

A couple of weeks ago I went on a date with a guy who (unbeknownst to me) had taken it upon himself to start reading my book before we went out. The waitress had just left with the menus when he blurted out, "Aren't you mortified?"

Umm, no, actually.

More than a few people who know me have ventured some more-polite version of what this gentleman said.

"Well, you were certainly very honest."

"You were much braver than I could have been!"

I'm never sure what's going on with these comments, though part of it, I'm sure, is that most people really believe that their personal responses and choices are far more interesting than they really are. When I was writing my book, I did so with the assumption that my behavior, my thoughts, and my choices - while distinct - weren't really all that different from what anyone else has experienced. I'm not proud of everything - but who is proud of everything they've done? Why should I be mortified for sharing what seems to be a pretty universal experience?

And no, I didn't go out with that guy again.

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Caille Millner

The Golden Road

memoir

race

Latino

African American

Penguin Books

books

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In my experience, when an average citizen finds out I'm a "writer," his first question is, "How do you do it?" The process of printing one word after another doesn't seem that mysterious to me, but I suppose what people are really asking is, "How do you find the stamina to keep writing one word after another when so many of them are going to be so bad?" That question I understand.

For me, it's all about beating myself up enough every morning until I'm able to sit down and spit it out. Usually my "process," so to speak, goes something like this:

1) 6:45 am Wake up. Spend the next 15-20 minutes in bed, frozen with dread.
2) 7:05 am Forced to get out of bed in order to stumble to the bathroom.
3) 7:12 am Kitchen. Discover pots that need scrubbing, a dishwasher that needs unloading, and tea that needs making.
4) 7:34 am Walk into office. Look at pages from yesterday. Rub face and walk back out.
5) 7:46 am Gulp tea. Pace kitchen floor.

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Caille Millner is our guest blogger during the week of February 18th. If you have any questions for Caille Millner, add a comment to any of her posts. Here is some brief information about The Golden Road: Notes on My Gentrification:

Caille Millner is a rising star on the literary scene. A graduate of Harvard University, she was first published at age sixteen and was recently named one of Columbia Journalism Review’s Ten Young Writers on the Rise. The Golden Road is Millner’s clear-eyed and transfixing memoir. From her childhood in a Latino neighborhood in San Jose, California, and coming of age in a more affluent yet quietly hostile Silicon Valley suburb to a succession of imagined promised lands—Harvard, London, post-apartheid South Africa, New York City—this is the story of Millner’s search for a place where she can define herself on her own terms and live a life that matters.