About Me — Laurie Perez

“You’ll lose it if you talk about it.” — Hemingway

I run deep. Love to laugh. Whenever possible, and especially when it’s not, I prefer to lighten up.

Every day this month, I’ve read at least one work published by a writer I’ve never heard of — that is the incredible abundance available through Medium. What a trip to be here!

Most people who know me underestimate who I am. You could probably say the same, so I’ll do my best not to underestimate you, Darling.

There are people who’ve been in my life — very close, very personal — who never had a clue I was dealing with PTSD. All the time.

Those same people also never knew what a feat it was when I cold-cracked that spell one night, by myself — because after twenty years, in the midst of a knee-bending flare up, I decided I had. had. enough. I shut it down, made it end. The hard-wired spell lost potency and I was free.

Mostly.

Like weeds in a garden, PTSD is never 100% gone, but at least I’d rid my house of the insatiable kudzu. For good.

Remember that part about people underestimating …? Right now someone’s reading this and thinking: oh, then it probably wasn’t really PTSD. Well, it was — it is — and, yes, we can conjure breakthroughs in life that effectively discharge even the most intractable demons holding us back — just by deciding, and meaning it to the core.

Moving forward.

I’m the one you meet by chance at the club who, free of charge, delivers an epiphany you ordered weeks ago — probably within the first few minutes of what seems like a silly conversation. Or maybe I’m the one who has you weeping in your cocktail, smiling as you gaze at me through tears, explaining in gulps how I remind you of your sister who died — even though I don’t look anything like her. There’s just something — you feel her — your heart’s wide open. I’ll give you all the hugs you need in that moment, then pull you out onto the dance floor. Because this DJ’s good, and we are wonderful.

I’m a novelist. My characters are not me. I work for my characters.

When they hire me to give them voices and words, actions, thought and presence, I serve — ever humbled by the process.

Sometimes approaching the task, I’m vibrationally nauseous, preparing to take on something much, much, much bigger than my one human self can handle in a sitting. My process involves months of incubation — spontaneous notes, lines of dialogue, dreams, descriptive phrases and points of action collected daily, but not converted into tangible pages.

Then in a wild swoon I’ll churn out the whole shebang.

I wrote my first novel, TORPOR in about seven weeks. The first two weeks in one year, then the last five weeks three years later. In the wide gap between those sprints, I ached to excavate the hidden truth of the protagonist. I wrote stacks of pages and axed most of it — writing sucks when you don’t know where you’re going. I let the character keep a journal, rambling about anything he wanted while I scribbled down his thoughts in a notebook at 4am before heading off to work.

Before, during and since completing that first book, I’ve lived and worked in Asia, Mexico and the Caribbean with roots firmly planted here in Arizona. At heart, I’m a desert-dweller. I’ve taught little kids to speak English and Grad students to practice Chinese Medicine. Once in New Mexico, I counseled a bunch of Benedictine monks in their twenties who were questioning whether they should stay or go. That wasn’t at all why I was staying at the monastery — I’d gone there to live in a spartan cell and write like hell.

Today, the driving work-in-progress is the third novel in a series. Nothing is more daunting than getting it finished. And nothing thrills me more than knowing, eventually, I’ll get to read it.

This is a life filled with opportunities to love. Claim as many as you can.

Now let’s you and I get back out onto the dance floor. Because we’re wonderful, so very good for each other.

Medium Excursions

Novels

TORPOR: Though the Heart is Warm — ISBN 1453684751 Waking up is hard to do. For Peter Arellano, it’s inevitable. Set in the 1990s, TORPOR tells the story of a man searching for his father — and coming to terms with his own identity in the process.

At 27-years-old, Peter — or is it Pedro? — is about to wake up from prolonged emotional hibernation to discover what really makes him tick. Follow him on his journey from L.A. to Phoenix to the tropical, mosquito-brined coast of Mexico — an oh-so-human departure from numb suffering into the fearless terrain of wild awakening. TORPOR: Though the Heart is Warm explores themes of identity, self-deception and spells we inadvertently allow family to imprint on us — spells we must learn to break.

Plucked from a dream I had while writing TORPOR:

THE LOOK OF AMIE MARTINE — ISBN 1523664339 “Strangely intimate. Strangely nuclear and cosmic at the same time… Strangely euphoric in the way it hits secret passworded buttons that open niches, cracks and gates to hidden gardens in the mind that unveil insights. Beautiful.” ~Praveer S.

Heartbreaking losses and mystic interventions : L.A. actors, Sufi poets, deadly Dutch lovers : A sexy new take on Orpheus and Eurydice served with chasers of very cold Icelandic vodka. . . Set in Phoenix, Hollywood, Iceland, 13th century Persia and beyond the veil, THE LOOK has a vast, global scope with an intimacy you will not want to leave.

The Look of Amie Martine is an exhilarating trip of vast knowledge and exquisite imagination. …Her description of “oneness” explodes in my mind… The Look is one of those great books; it needs to be re-read and re-read. — Marlene Cheng

Read a review of THE LOOK published on Medium in Books Are Our Superpower:

Already read the first book? Next stop is THE POWER OF AMIE MARTINE. At the time you’re reading this About Me story, I’m working on the third novel.

Thank you for lending me your light and focus for a moment! I wish you well.