Matter of Craft with Angie Cruz
In this installment of Matter of Craft, Angie Cruz, author of How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, chats about creating formal constraints to find narrative structure, finding liberation in writing the way she wants to, revision as love and not writing everyday.
What was the initial spark of inspiration for this novel?
I started writing the novel in 2017. It was soon after Trump was elected and many of us in the United States understood our country was entering an economic and political crisis. As a writer I was questioning if writing was something I should be focusing on when facing a climate emergency and knowing immigrants were under attack at the border. Like my character Cara Romero I was contemplating if it was time to try another career like law or medicine. Historically, when I think to stop writing, a character or story pulls me back to my desk. And in that moment it was the fictional character, Cara Romero who started to speak to me and I was her captive listener.
I’d love to talk about structuring this novel. As part of the Senior Workforce Program to keep her unemployment benefits, our narrator, Cara, must sit down with a city employee for 12 sessions as they work together to find her employment. These 12 sessions make up the 12 chapters of the novel where Cara tells her story. You also have sprinkled in questionnaires, job skill tests, and eviction notices, etc.
What were some challenges, if any, that you faced while writing the novel in this way? Did you always envision the novel coming together like this or did it take time/revisions?
One of my pleasure spaces is revision. It’s where I get to play. Julio Cortazar, in his wonderful book Literature Class, describes the novel as an open literary game. I like to play this open literary game that is the novel, discovering the possibility and potential of the novel form– the way I enter this space is by creating formal constraints. The twelve sessions were a constraint. I had a lot of material and piecing together what could fit within this time frame of twelve weeks/ sessions was challenging but also a lot of fun to figure out.
Cara is such a compelling character. She is self-aware, confident and deeply intertwined with her Caribbean heritage. I also loved your choice to have an older protagonist. Was this intentional? Can you speak to how you approach character, especially in a story like this where Cara is the main voice throughout?
Every word and sentence in the published version of the book is intentional. However, the draft of the book, the mess of story that was the first draft was more of a listening. I wasn’t trying to write about a character this age, if I had started with that intention I believe the story would have died on the page. I would have lost interest. I truly followed the voice and while it was full of digressions and tangents at first, I trusted in the voice, the power of storytelling. After spending a year with Cara it was then that I took a look at everything that I had written and carved out a novel.
This title! Phenomenal. Do titles come easy to you? How did you come by this one?
Titles don’t come easy. At all. My last two titles came to me while in conversation with writer friends. In this case, I had a conversation with two poets, Diana khoi Nguyen and Yona Harvey. I shared with them all the titles floating around, I talked to them about the book, I shared with them the thing my mother always says when she sees me drowning in a glass of water, and then it became clear to us that the book should be called, How Not To Drown In A Glass of Water.
How long did it take you to write this novel? How did the process differ from writing your other novels? (Does novel writing get any easier? Lol)
I started this novel five years ago. The first draft I wrote on my phone on a google doc. And I only worked on it while I was commuting on a train, bus or plane. I didn’t even know it was a “novel” I was just writing because storytellers love a good story! That year I was demoralized by the publishing industry and academia– I wasn’t sure I would get tenure and my novel Dominicana had been rejected by over 100 editors. Like my character Cara Romero, I too was thinking changing careers. So while writing it I was truly having fun. Cara made me laugh. I wanted to laugh with Cara. Trump was president and everything seemed so bleak. I needed Cara. In this way, it felt very different than any other book I had written. I don’t know if writing a novel gets easier, but for me I did feel more liberated to write the way I wanted without thinking about if anyone would publish the book. That was freeing.
Can you take us through a day in your writing life? What does your routine look like?
I used to try and write everyday because I thought that was what “real” writers do, but that’s never worked for me. Now I carve out long stretches of time to write. I love residencies for this. As a mother, making that time is challenging. But I am fortunate, because I have a community that has stepped in to care for my son so I could write for stretches of time without interruption. I used to have elaborate routines, walks, teas, altars, all kinds of things to get into the writing head space. Now all I need is time, a quiet room and to know that my kid is fed and ok. If I am stuck, I read something I love to remind me of the power of language.
What is your favorite piece (or pieces) of craft advice that you've received?
I love what Geaorge Saunders says; Revision is love in progress. When I heard him say that I was like, that’s right. When I revise, I am always thinking about what am I not seeing, because we all have our blindspots, I ask myself what can I give the character that will show their complexity. I revise by asking my characters questions and then listening to them with an open heart and without judgment.
Any reading recommendations you can share with us?
The Man Who Moved Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. I loved that book so much. I read it slowly through the summer. And I am not surprised it was longlisted for the National Book Awards this year.
Angie Cruz is the author of the novels How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, Soledad, Let It Rain Coffee, and Dominicana, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize and a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix), a literary and arts journal, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
