Matter of Craft with María Amparo Escandón
In this installment of Matter of Craft, María Amparo Escandón, author of L.A. Weather, talks about family, Los Angeles, researching weather patterns, and how thinking about writing is just as important to the process as physically writing is.
Kailey Brennan: First, what sparked the idea for your novel, L.A. Weather?
Maria Amparo Escandón: I think the first little seed that took me in this direction was my own divorce. The experience was so new and I wanted to write about it. But I had to process so much. So I just let it simmer. Eventually, I decided to write, not so much about divorce, but about the end of love and how that allows for new love, you know? There is always that hole that gets filled eventually. That was what really sparked this story. And then it went everywhere, with twists and turns and a lot of other things that aren't necessarily the actual original idea.
KB: Family is very much at the forefront of this book as well as your other. What is it about family and these relationships that draw you to write?
MAE: For me, family is essential. I live for my family. I am very much a proud member of my very large family. But everybody is in Mexico. I’m the only family member who immigrated to the United States. So I literally have no family other than my kids who were born here, living in the US. So that longing that I've always felt is reflected in my work. If I could, I would have everybody leaving with me or I would be living with them but, you know, destiny - you end up living wherever destiny takes you. So I’m very much in touch with my family and we speak all the time and I visit all the time and they come and visit, but I'm in a permanent state of FOMO because I'm not there,. And that reflects in my work.
KB: I’d love to talk about point of view. We get a lot of perspectives throughout as the sections alternate from person to person. Did you know that was the right choice for this story right away, or did it take some time to get there?
MAE: I always sort of let myself drift at the beginning and that I do on purpose. I said, well, let's see where this goes. Let's see where the story takes me and how it wants to be told. Maybe a third into the first draft, I started putting dates, and then I said, well this is starting to look like a calendar. And then the chapters became months, and then the entries became dates and then times, and then all of a sudden, a calendar structured, which I thought was interesting. It really came about in a very composite way, if you will.
KB: Yeah, I’m always so curious about what the writing process looks like when there are multiple points of view. I know for myself, I've gone back and forth many times with certain things that I've worked on, and it's interesting how - as you said- the story really does tell you how it wants to be told. But you're working with so many characters here so I was curious about that.
MAE: Yeah. And I’m really into structure and into having several voices. You can see it in my other work, like González & Daughter Trucking Co, my previous novel, there are all kinds of voices. There's the narrated voice and there's this “I” character and then I switch to third person and then there is a passage that is told in poetry, and another is a diary entry. Another is two truckers talking over the CB radio. No matter what structure you end up choosing and how many voices you really have, as far as I'm concerned, it’s all to move the story along. Whether it’s through voice, through dialogue, through narration, etc.
KB: I was also curious - since Oscar, the father, is obsessed with the weather, naturally we learn a lot about it as we read. Did you have to do research for this? What did that look like for you?
MAE: Yes, I did. Because I live in Los Angeles, I actually lived through the weather on a day-to-day basis. But since I was writing a novel specifically set in 2016, which was the worst year that we have had with droughts and fire, and I was writing in calendar form, I wanted to be faithful to actual weather events. And so I did a lot of research as far as when was a certain fire, how many homes were burned, how many acres were burned. And also other weather events like would it rain [during this time of year]? Would it not rain? What was the weather actually like? Oscar keeps track of all this as much as I did when I was writing it. I was looking it all up on the internet so that it would be accurate. I think there's only one rainy day [in the book] where it didn't rain on the real day that I allowed myself (Laughs)
KB: I love that. In addition to what we have talked about with your writing, as far as your process goes, can you take us through like a day in the life? Like how often do you write? Do you have a routine or any kind of ritual that you adhere to?
MAE: I’m writing all the time. Even if I’m not actually typing, for me, writing is also thinking about writing. When you are at the grocery store, when you’re in the car, you’re thinking about your characters and you’re thinking about your plot and your story and what you want to do next.
I take notes on my phone, just real quick notes. And of course, if I’m driving, I pull over. But I do take just little notes, so I don't forget. So I'm actually writing all the time, even when I have writer's block.
If I suddenly enter into some dry spell that I see as writer's block, I think, okay this is my story telling me something. It’s telling me to stop, take a break. You don’t have to sit down in front of the computer and crank out five pages. I actually embrace writer's block because I know that it’s my story telling me to stop and regroup.
So I don't have a schedule. Every writer has their own method, but I'm not the kind of writer who gets up in the morning, gets coffee, and then starts to write for three hours straight. I think that for a lot of people that really works, but for me I do it when I need to do it. When I'm ready to write something, I sit down and make some space in my life. Sometimes I get really obsessed and write nonstop for hours. And sometimes a week goes by and I just go about my life and maybe cook up an idea, or a subplot or create a new character. Then when I’m ready, I sit down and write it.
KB: I love that. I like that you said thinking about the story is still writing for you. As writers, we can feel like we have to be physically producing something all the time. Thinking about it is so important, but it just doesn't feel like we're doing anything, but we really are.
MAE: Absolutely. I'm a true believer in that.
KB: Do you have another piece of craft advice that helped you while writing this novel?
MAE: Well it was interesting and a little different from my previous novels because this novel has a huge sense of place. It's definitely an LA story. And I started writing it when I was in New York. I went to New York for four years for my husband's business. So there was this mythical LA in my head that I was working with. Then halfway through, I came back to LA. It became really front and center and physical and real. And I was able to drive around the neighborhoods and get a feel for everything and talk to people. So the finished product became a mix of the mythical LA in my head and the very real physical descriptions of Los Angeles. It was interesting. It was an interesting process and it was all totally circumstantial.
María Amparo Escandón is the author of #1 L.A. Times bestseller Esperanza's Box of Saints and González & Daughter Trucking Co. Named a writer to watch by both Newsweek and the L.A. Times, she was born in Mexico City and has lived in Los Angeles for nearly four decades.
