August and the Language Barrier

One of the most difficult battles in my writing career has been the language barrier. Spanish was, and remains, my native language. The American Dream has reached outside North American borders, and I wanted to become a writer with a publisher in New York City. I figured all I had to do was write in English. A simple plan, right?

At nineteen, I was blessed with a job where I had to speak and write in English. Then there was the reading. Every early customer presented me with books. That’s when I discovered Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Ken Follett and Clive Cussler. I got proficient, and people kept telling me I was good at speaking too. Match that praise with the desire to put ideas in writing and you have a recipe for publishing dreams.

I started my first novel in 1998 and made the rookie mistake of showing it to people who cared for me and didn’t want to break my heart. I can’t help but wonder if someone who disliked me would have helped me improve faster.

The very best thing I’ve done is investing in the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries.

The second thing that helped me improve has been the support of native speakers willing to go through hell correcting the typos that would spring out of nowhere as they tried to navigate my stories.

I have writing friends who show me mistakes and help me make corrections. I will not claim I am master of the language, but one of those friends claims she can now concentrate more on plot or character development than grammar mistakes. And although the wars on Oxford comma and splitting infinitives still rage on, at least the difference between irony and coincidence is no longer a mystery to me.

The August edition of The Big Thrill is out and I contributed a piece about Preston & Child's new book Old Bones:

Up Close:  Preston and Child by J. H. Bográn: http://bit.ly/2K5NNbk 

Books read in 2017

Instead of showing the post most liked or sharing my memories of 2017, I decided to post the list of books I read during the year.
Here´s my summary. Only a few books. Some of them assignments from The Big Thrill, but managed to include a couple of classics.

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne
Ruler of the Night by David Morrell
Oath of Honor by Mattew Benley
Say Nothing by Brad Parks
Doctor No by Ian Fleming
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Full Wolf Moon by Lincoln Child
The Spy Across the Table by Barry Lancet
The Hounds of Baskerville by Arthur Conan Doyle
Hunger Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff
Capital Gaines by Chip Gaines
The Secrets of Chicory Lane by Raymond Benson
Carnaval de Piedras by Juan Funes
Who Moved my cheese? By Spencer Johnson MD
Direct Fire by Anthony J. Tata
Operator Down by Brad Taylor
Glass Town by Steven Savile

I must add a debt of gratitude to NetGalley for granting me access to some of those books.

Douglas Preston and Lincold Child discuss about Crimson Shore

This month The Big Thrill released my interview of the authors Preston and Child. We had a nice chat about their newest book with protagonist Agent Pendergast.
We also discussed about their method of writing and if it had changed over the years, and of course, as a Honduran myself, I had to ask about the recent descovery that Mr. Preston participated with National Geographic.

Here it is:

http://www.thebigthrill.org/2015/11/crimson-shore-by-douglas-preston-lincoln-child/