Talking Painting Celia on KBOO FM

TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to KBOO Portland. Up next is ‘Once Upon a Time’ with Consuelo.

CONSUELO

Good evening, everybody. Today we are start with the ‘Love is Blue’ from Paul Mauriat. That is a very beautiful song and it’s the second time that I put it in the show. But this this time is a very special occasion because we are going to talk about romance. That is the reason because I thought about ‘Love is Blue’ here. We have another interesting, talented, beautiful woman who will be our guest, who is our guest tonight. Her name is that beautiful name, very popular in my country. Maya. She’s going to introduce herself. To you, okay, Maya?

MAYA

Hi, hi. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate being here. Yeah, I am Maya Bairey. I am an author here in Portland Oregon. I’m so happy you chose ‘Love is Blue’ for this book because blue is a very special color in this book. And as soon as the song came on, I realized I’m going to have to put this on my playlist. So a little bit about me. I am a bisexual author. I’m a coder and I’m a tech journalist at a large corporation here in Oregon.

CONSUELO

Yes.

MAYA

Some things, I live in a floating home on the Columbia River with my husband of 34 years. I am a member of the Raging Grannies here in Portland, and I also publish local authors under the Lingua Ink imprint. So obviously I’m busy all the time, but one day I sort of looked around and I thought, well, I’ve accomplished what I set out to. I have a home, I have a husband, I have a house, I have a retirement account and—

CONSUELO

You have a cat.

MAYA

And I have a cat. He’s very old.

CONSUELO

Okay.

MAYA

And I thought, did I do these for myself or not? And turns out, I thought, I should find out what I want to do for myself. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought ‘I’ve never tried art.’ I’ve never tried. I mean, I write for a living. I thought, what if I really put in the energy into art that I am putting into everything else? What could happen? And now I have a book that I dearly love.

CONSUELO

Yeah. And he’s not only one book, he’s going to be a series of a book. This. Okay, let’s start with the subject. Romance. I am not an expert in romance. Even I have love some people dearly. And how will you define romance? In your own way.

MAYA

In my own way, I feel people have something inside them they want to solve. And a lot of times they look for a person who can solve that for them. And I think that often they find out that really doesn’t work, it has to be solved by themselves. But if you find the right person who is willing to work with you and solve things together. That is romance. It doesn’t necessarily make a great book. In a book, you need to have fights, and you need to have conflicts and yearning. And you know, so I like to start a book in a romance where they’re trying to find someone to solve their problems. And when they realize they can’t, then you—

CONSUELO

Crisis.

MAYA

Get a good fight and in the end you find out that, they sort of solved each other’s problems, but they did it themselves.

CONSUELO

Yeah, in some way, looking at the way you are is the conflict or the crisis, and if they overcome that, that help your reader how to resolve conflict, not to escape or to go to the their mother home or to forget it or to give up the relationship, because perhaps the relationship has many other aspect that they are very positive, and not because you have a conflict means that ohh I don’t want this anymore.

MAYA

Yeah, well, you definitely have to work. Actually what I write is women’s fiction, and romance is like a subset of that. Women’s fiction is really based around, you have a woman who is the main female character. She has growth, she has an arc. She learns something about herself. She makes decisions, which to me, romance is definitely a subset of that.

CONSUELO

Yes.

MAYA

But exactly like you said, the conflict and the looking to find someone to solve that for you. You find that it just doesn’t work. It can be really exciting at the time, but unless you’re both willing to grow together, and it doesn’t have to be the same time. Yeah, yeah.

CONSUELO

No, no, no, no. But together in that particular crisis, I mean, every individual will confront the crisis from a different angle. Exactly. But they have to combine in some point or another.

MAYA

Exactly. At some point.

CONSUELO

Yes, that is what is important. Okay, another question. Are you a romantic human?

MAYA

Yeah, yeah.

CONSUELO

Have you? Do you consider yourself a romantic? Are you smelling the roses and and, and big sigh and celebrating Valentine’s Day and these kind of things?

MAYA

Maybe not so much Valentine’s Day, but yeah, I feel like being aware of, like, your surroundings, being in nature or being, you know, with the person you love doing something, eating some good food together, drinking some wine. Yeah, just experiencing life, you know, being present.

CONSUELO

That’s nice. Nice.

MAYA

And being present with somebody that you do love is sort of the best of all of them.

CONSUELO

Sure. I think in some word is to be a positive person to enjoy our present, like this moment. This is our moment right now and we are enjoying. I would like to know what were the writer who influenced you? Because you said, you wrote to me that you have been writing your whole life. At what time did you start? 7, 10, 11, 12?

MAYA

Yeah, about that and probably 6 or 7 as soon as I could write, I would. What I would do is I would write a story of something that happened to me, but with a different ending.

CONSUELO

Oh.

MAYA

And I didn’t, I didn’t realize at the time I was, you know, sort of exploring, you know, what if I had made different choices? Or what if something different happened? You know, I was very young. I had no idea. And the older I got, the more I saw actually it was sort of a useful tool.

CONSUELO

Did you start a journal too? I saw.

MAYA

Oh yeah, I’ve always, always have done that. Ridiculous things in there.

CONSUELO

Ohh fantastic. I am so fan of the journal. I think one of the program I will invite a group and everybody will share part of their journal. That would be fantastic. And then we have we go for dinner. Okay and what about the writer, who do you think influence you in some way or another, or what genre poetry. Drama. What? Where did you go in? You’re looking for where what you like it.

MAYA

It seems very strange, but honestly the writer that I feel influenced me the most is Agatha Christie.

CONSUELO

Ohh I like her a lot, yeah.

MAYA

I mean, she wrote a ton. She was, she was very fast. She was very methodical, but her characters are always very clear. The descriptions of the rooms that they’re in and the food that they eat and you know, of course she had to be meticulous about what happened and, you know, everything’s a clue or is it a clue? But she was so exact, but she wasn’t clinical, and I really love just the spare way she was able to make such great images come to you, and I mean, I have reread and reread her stories hundreds of times.

CONSUELO

I have watched her story, but I read her biography and I was so amazed of the impact that has in her life, the decease of her mother, who she was very close.

MAYA

Yes.

CONSUELO

And when her first husband left her? Yeah, so she suffered alone. The other day, I was reading a book about why we remember. And the author mentioned her because he said that during that crisis where the two things came together. One day she left the house and went to a hotel and she didn’t know anything while she was there. So she has her lapses, very lapse. But it is interesting that you pick her as a writer. Yeah. She has a very a lot of discipline. Seems to me very restricted.

MAYA

Yes. Yeah.

CONSUELO

But very big feelings. No. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love her very much. And what about your discipline in term of your schedule? You’re a busy woman. So how have you been dealing with?

MAYA

I have found that I have to schedule time to write. I can’t get to it ‘when I have time’ because I will never have time. So while I was writing the book, I got up almost every day at 5:00 AM, and just so I could have… first I need one hour to feed the cat. And you know, do all my morning things. Then two hours of writing before I head to work. I’m sort of, I’m a little too lazy for that now. I don’t want to get up so early, but I have a writing cohort of, it’s women now, but men are of course available. You know, if they would like to come in. We meet twice a week and we write together for two hours at a time. First we talk, it’s over zoom. We talk for about 15 minutes about our intentions, what we’re going to do that day. Then we turn off our cameras and our microphones and we just write and then you do that again for the second hour and it’s amazing how fast that time goes. The alarm goes off and you’ve been writing for 45 minutes straight and you had no idea. Unless you, unless I make time for that and schedule it, I am not going to get to it. But when you find what works, then that’s what you do.

CONSUELO

It’s very good, it’s we have to as women, we have to look for that space for us and what that looks like because this is what writing is. What I was impressed reading about your bio. Your bio is how much the action of writing has been helping you to overcome some hurt or some difficult time in your life and how is the self discover that you have? Experience. Okay, talk about that a little bit.

MAYA

It goes right back to me as a child, writing a new ending to a story. That is almost exactly what I’ve done here when I decided I wanted art in my life. I had no idea where to start, and so I thought, well, I will write about a character who wants to learn to express herself through art, and I’ll find out what happens to her as we go.

CONSUELO

Come on.

MAYA

And she went in places that I would never have gone personally, but it worked out for her, and she became her own character. But it helped me examine, you know, how do I feel about this? If I were in that situation, what would this be like? And then the more I wrote it, the more I wondered if readers would also have the same feeling. You know, they would, they would see the choices a character made and think, well, I recognize this challenge in my life. I wouldn’t have handled it this way, but I could have. And it just, it helped me examine feelings that I didn’t even know I had.

CONSUELO

Great. Great. This is what I keep saying in in this program that words are healing tools, yes. And also is that is the reason because I have kept a journal my whole life. When you read back it’s a good way to see your progress.

MAYA

Absolutely.

CONSUELO

Or sometime it show you that you haven’t made any progress. There is still the thing that bothers you and perhaps it will need more time. That’s all. Nobody is in a hurry. Okay. I don’t want to lose the opportunity. We will, you will read. But before that I was doing some research. About what does it mean? Romance like Roman. No romance. Language. Romance, no. What is the difference between a romance novel and a novel? Yeah, and the Romance imply that there are two characters that they have romantic love relationship with. Some conflict like you mentioned. But at the end they have to have a happy ending. Okay, so Maya—

MAYA

Yes, they do.

CONSUELO

Is this possible to write a romance novel as a, as a true story, but doesn’t end in a, in a marriage or in death or in dead like Romeo and Juliet? That’s, that’s a tragedy. Yeah, but it’s a romance.

MAYA

There, there is some romance in it. Yeah, this. Painting Celia is a straight romance. I followed the formula with my own twist, but yes, there is a happy ending. There is no marriage, but there’s a happy ending. The second book is about a character who is in this first book, that everybody loves and wants to know more of her story.

CONSUELO

Okay.

MAYA

I’m having trouble writing her, because I have a feeling she doesn’t want to have a happy ever after. I think she might have some fun meeting men and dating them, but in the end I have a feeling she doesn’t want to be tied down, so I don’t know.

CONSUELO

Which is fine too exactly.

MAYA

But then it won’t be a romance. Not officially.

CONSUELO

No, I think will be your romance is your novel, and also because the role of women in relation to love has changed. So you, your character has to be, has to be to be according with the time of what women are feeling, you know or the way they’re acting or the way they’re.

MAYA

Yes. Exactly.

CONSUELO

Driving their life.

MAYA

This is, she’s a character. Her name is Kelsey, and she’s definitely the type who will say no, I don’t need you. I’m okay the way I am.

CONSUELO

Very good. Okay. Introduce us to Celia and Leon. León.

MAYA

Celia and León. Well, I was, I’ll tell you briefly what the book is about and maybe you can see where I was going with it before. It’s a slow burn romance, so it starts out a little slow, where they’re getting to know each other.

CONSUELO

Yes, Okay.

MAYA

But it’s a, a struggling woman with Celia, and she’s seeking art therapy because she’s had a pretty traumatic childhood. And she needs someone to teach her how to express herself, obviously. And so she meets Leon. And he’s a very expressive over the top painter. She lets him stay in her, yeah, she lets him stay in her pool house, because she’s got some money and he has none, in exchange for painting lessons. So of course, he doesn’t want to do it, and she’s sort of nervous about having him there, but. They have some lessons, they get to know each other, etcetera. And he starts teaching her how to how to have feelings and to show them on a canvas. She’s terrible at it. I mean, she never does get good at painting, but he starts to sort of fall for her, obviously. And then he decides that she’s his muse and he wants, he wants to paint pictures of her. She didn’t ask for any of this and I don’t want to give too much away, but that’s, that’s the setup. He’s living in the pool house and she’s not really wanting him there but they get along okay, so.

CONSUELO

Oh, we have a call already. Okay, who is there? Hello.

LORI

Hi, this is Lori, Lori from Pennsylvania.

CONSUELO

Hi, Lori. Hi, Lori. Nice to hear you from the other side of the country. And you have a question for your friend.

LORI

I just wanted to call in and say that a friend recommended the book to me and I really loved it. I related to Celia and, and she was unsure of herself, and she seemed kind of shut down and just getting through life without much enjoyment. And I really liked how the books showed, showed her how to build her confidence. I liked it when she set a boundary with Leon and then went on to work on her own project and make that a success. And I think that if she hadn’t set that boundary and made herself a priority, the relationship would never have worked out with Leon. And I don’t think he would have realized that he needed to do things differently. So I really liked that part about it. How she grew. Thank you. Yeah. And I did like the spicy scenes, too. They were pretty fun. There were, there were plenty of those.

CONSUELO

Spicy and hot. Very good right now, that is part of, it’s part of the feeling and the emotion and the connection between two bodies is important. Mm-hmm.

LORI

Absolutely.

CONSUELO

So did you feel a little better? Did the book Celia interpret you? You yave you been in kind of a situation where you have to put yourself first? Yeah. Okay. So that is the reason. So you saw that like a mirror. You saw yourself in, in the character, very good. This is what writer want.

LORI

Isn’t it? Yeah, she, she was a character I could definitely identify with. And I think a lot of  women could.

CONSUELO

Yeah. Very good. Thank you very much, my dear. Great. Would you like to say something?

MAYA

Just thank you so much. First of all, for people who recommend the book, that’s always huge. If you read a book and you feel like you did get something out of it and then pass it on to two friends and say this might be for you too, I mean. Obviously, that’s huge for any author. That’s, that’s the best way to find your audience.

CONSUELO

I agree, I agree, because this way you also grow in term of knowledge and I’m joy because the book bring you a lot of joy to the reader. So great. Thank you very much. I will try to think about another question, but I want you to read now from the book.

MAYA

I can do that for you. Let’s see. So there’s.. I’ll make this short. Obviously Celia has a pool and she lives in LA in a mansion up on the hills and, you know, over the canyons, and she has the pool house. And she decides that she’s going to go out and float in her pool in the middle of the night, where no one will see her, and she doesn’t put on clothes because it’s the middle of the night. Her house. It’s her house, and obviously, you know, she thinks Leon’s asleep because, you know, the lights are down and she’s trying to put together some of the things that she’s learned in the painting lessons. And she’s like, what if I just lay here in the pool and just think about being, and she’s really trying to apply these lessons. Leon  at the same time, he’s been trying to paint and he’s having a terrible time. He has a creative block. But he’s been sort of picturing this sort of curve in his head, this sort of shape, and he’s been trying to draw it, but he can’t really get it right. And so he’s frustrated. So he comes out of the pool house, he’s tired of it. He’s going to go out and take a walk. And of course, he sees her. Of course. So. I will read you very briefly from there.

CONSUELO

Yeah.

MAYA

Sliding the door open, he froze, arrested. Glimmering in the pool in front of him was the curve he’d seen in his head. Celia! Jesus. Look at her. She floated on her back, nude, eyes closed, arms out to her sides. Her shoulders were relaxed and supported by the water. That curve at her ribs rounded into a full, graceful arch. It was the shape he wanted. The gentle angle where her shoulders met her neck…another curve started speaking to him. Then more of them. Her hip, her wrist…he had to paint this. Transfixed, he didn’t leave the doorway. Instead, he drank in the fascinating shapes, the rippling aqua light washing over her, dappled touches of orange barely reaching her from the house. The water echoing her shape in organic sweeps of gossamer light and shadow. The serenity of her quiet aimless drift. Goosebumps flooded his body as her hand lifted to gently drag fingertips through the surface of the water, rousing waves of reflected color. Her vulnerability struck him in the chest. He had to paint this, tell this story. He tried to burn the sight of her into his mind before this miracle slipped away.

CONSUELO

Beautiful words and very well described. It’s almost like we see the painting. I hope so, yes. Yes, very, very nice. Okay. I want to know about, have you worked? When are you? You said that have you worked in the book like a sub genre like other. Kind of that you brought to the to the story that there are no romance per se, but they are part of the story. Like art for example.

MAYA

Art is definitely a huge, huge part, and this the symbolism of colors is huge and if you just pay attention to even what people wear.

CONSUELO

Yes.

MAYA

In the book, when you see someone wearing blue, you can tell that they’re having a vulnerable time. So art and color play a huge part.

CONSUELO

Yeah.

MAYA

There is a lot about inspiration and self discover, self discovery, empowerment. You know, finding what it is that you want, will make you feel the way you want to feel, what are the skills you can bring? What are the ways you can feel valuable? And which is a very, very hard thing. For anyone, yes, yes, exactly. And there’s trying to think there’s, I packed so much into it now. I can’t even unpack it all. But there’s—

CONSUELO

Especially women, I think. Yeah.

MAYA

There’s a lot of trauma. There’s a terrible mother. There’s, I don’t know if it would be a 21st century book without a terrible mother, honestly. And she really has to learn to not listen to the voice in her head that, you know, her mother sort of put there as she grew up, which is a very hard thing to learn. But she gets there by, you know, empowering herself. So there are different things that get touched on a lot of. Trauma is big. One art is big one. That’s why art therapy, sort of, it seemed to match.

CONSUELO

Go together. Yeah, because it seemed in the, in the more traditional kind of romance. There are other things that come to the romance, like miscarriage, for example. Or like cheating. Yeah. And other kind of way to resolve the crisis. I think the way have you are resolving that is a very, very, I will say spiritual way. In some ways spiritual and also very psychological because it’s very profound to go and dig inside instead of going outside and look.

MAYA

Yeah, there was very little going outside to find solutions in this in this book. Leon thinks he knows exactly what he wants and he thinks that everyone really should want to help him because art is is, is grand. It’s going to be his career. He needs to be a success and he thinks everyone should pretty much recognize. Yeah. Celia is much less. She’s, she’s a people pleaser. She’s willing to help people until she sort of gets pushed a little too far. She gets her growth and then it’s sort of ‘too bad Leon.’

CONSUELO

Okay, go ahead.

MAYA

Oh, let’s see. Since inspiration is what we were just talking about, I thought I would just tell you a little bit about when Celia actually does get her little breakthrough and finally finds a thing that that she wants to.

CONSUELO

Yes.

MAYA

I won’t tell you what it is because that would spoil the story but she, of course, is explaining it to Leon. She’s super excited. So. León broke into a smile. It’s a big idea. Is this really what you want? It’s everything, she beamed. It’s all my skills, my way to matter. It’s finally it, my idea I was looking for. Oh god. She hugged her arms around her body, blurring vision creating faint halos on the streetlamps. Is this what inspiration feels like? It’s wonderful. León’s grin widened as he watched her, his eyes softening. A weight, a mantle around her of black and blue tension, wisped away into nothing. The bone-deep burden had gone unnoticed until now, its absence dizzying. She might slip upwards into the sky. The relief of it. She ran and threw her arms around León’s waist, pressing her face against his chest. As his arms closed around her, she burst into loud sobs. I know, he said, stroking her hair. I know. She was capable of it. Inspiration. She’d been so afraid she wasn’t.

CONSUELO

Oh. Nice. Nice. It’s another caller? Okay. Hi. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. What is? Hi. What is your name?

LYNN

My name is Lynn. Okay. And I’m a friend of Maya. Sure. And I met Maya through an online music group and.

CONSUELO

Ohh yeah yeah.

LYNN

And learned about her book through that meeting. And I was completely blown away by the book. I work as a trauma therapist. And so the way that Maya explores the main character struggles was really beautiful to me and authentic. And it really spoke to me.

CONSUELO

This is what is exactly what I was saying, that the spiritual side and the psychological. Element of how the character both of them in different way are discovering what they really want and what they feel about each other and they feel about themselves. So it’s a, it’s a very interesting growing process, it is.

LYNN

MmHmm. Exactly. And so through reading the book I actually wanted to read it the second time. So I listened to the audio book. Yeah, I would take I would take Celia with me on my walks in the morning and, you know, really listen to the themes and the patterns that she was experiencing in her life. And so I talked to Maya about an idea that I had to kind of create a workbook that I could use to teach students what’s in there, yes.

CONSUELO

I was thinking exactly the same. I think of you exactly the same and say you read my mind, we are here in a very interesting even you are far away but who care? I, I, I need to tell you because I think you can use the book.

LYNN

Yeah.

CONSUELO

For women who you feel that are under the same circumstance or similar circumstance, so Celia will become a leader, she will come an example to follow in the process and you can be the, the coach and the therapist.

LYNN

Exactly. Exactly that. That is the plan. I’m working on the workbook and the plan is to, you know, teach students, new therapists, women, anybody that’s interested, and develop an online workshop.

CONSUELO

This is what it is.

LYNN

And then also take it into like colleges and universities to teach people as well.

CONSUELO

I agree. I think it’s wonderful because not only you can pick this character, you can pick other character, some of the same module. For example, in the broken woman. And so you can make different differentiation between how one women feel, how they deal with this. Kind of problem or this kind of pain.

LYNN

Mmm.

CONSUELO

I would say right? Ohh this is so fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, super.

LYNN

Happy. I have to, I have to say that you know, I learned a lot from Maya for writing this novel because it’s expanding, you know, my career journey and then also inspiring me to write my own novel as well.

CONSUELO

Good. So better, even better, it’s getting better by the second. You have to come to this. So because I have had, I have two psychologists before because I think, like I said, the journal or write a novel or write a biography or memoir that help healing. This is my thing. I, I, I strongly believe and I am not known in this, I know.

MAYA

I’ve worked with Lynn for quite a while now, and you would be hard pressed to find a better guest.

CONSUELO

Okay, so. Lynn, you are coming next. Okay and in April because I have taken already the 28th. Okay, I am so happy to meet you and let’s get in contact. Contact. Send me your e-mail and I will arrange it that you can come to the program. Thank you for calling.

MAYA

Thank you, Lynn.

LYNN

Alright thanks.

CONSUELO

Very, very interesting what you said. Thank you very much. I will do. I want to remind our audience that our phone number here is 503-231-8187 and we are with this wonderful Maya and talking about her very, very profound and helpful novel romance novel with two wonderful characters.

MAYA

Hopefully it’s also fun though.

CONSUELO

Of course, it’s always fun. It’s always fun to read in itself. It’s fun, and especially when you can feel that you see yourself in some of the character. In some of the situation, because at the end we all have been going through. Brain, happiness, struggle. See. See it’s the same movie in a different way. Don’t you think?

MAYA

I do. As I said, I’m a, I’m a coder and I work in the corporate world so I started out with sort of a, a branding plan and you know, sort of plan where I wanted to go with the story, which is not the best way to start out. Making art. But I worked through it.

CONSUELO

What is the profile of the romance reader?

MAYA

Well, there are many and I would have to generalize. Yeah, but they are generally female or identify as female. Not all. There are, there are men who enjoy it. They are usually, it sort of depends on which type of romance you’re looking at, but, well, I mean, I guess—

CONSUELO

Yeah. Sure.

MAYA

It’s all ages. I tend to write for an older audience. The characters in the book are in their late 30s, mid 40s, and we’re not talking, you know, 18 year old. You know, exactly.

CONSUELO

Yeah. Yeah, these are, some are for the young mature. I appreciate that.

MAYA

I think with the younger romance readers, they really do want sort of a sort of swashbuckling story, and they do want some of the the extra, the cheating and then the rest of that, you know, to come in and start to disrupt the story. And I think the older, the more mature readers, they really want to have a little more of the character growth. And you know, why is this not working?

CONSUELO

More substance, more substance to the story.

MAYA

But yeah, and they want to they want to recognize themselves. They want to see, you know, if I’m reading a romance, I’m not, I’m not going to be 18 again. I’m not going to be riding a horse across a field with a with a guy with no shirt on. But I could definitely meet a guy in, you know, a bar here and, you know, get to know him. And he’s got some damage. And I’ve got some damage and we work something out. You know. It’s more relatable.

CONSUELO

I agree and also more realistic.

MAYA

And more fun to me, honestly.

CONSUELO

Yeah, yeah, it’s more fun. Okay. Another pick. Another subject. Okay, your book has so many, so big, big.

MAYA

I will tell you that one of the fun parts, just speaking like as an author, I started out because Celia is, she’s pretty locked in, she’s had trauma. She’s, you know, she’s not very expressive. And that’s a really hard character to write, someone who isn’t showing a lot of emotion and doesn’t really know she has emotions, really. She’s sort of kept those tamped down. But then Leon comes in and he is an artist and he has energy and everything he sees, he’s just feeling and the colors and he has to express himself. And he was super fun to write because everything he looked at–as a matter of fact, I never intended him to be, he’s not religious, I won’t say, but there is definitely as a sort of spirituality as he looks around the world. And he’s, yeah. And yeah, he turned into a pretty—

CONSUELO

Yeah. Nature especially, yeah.

MAYA

–elaborate character, but so Leon has, you know, he’s seen Celia in the pool. He’s, they’ve had a couple fights about it, but he’s managed to convince her to sit for a painting and he he’s done it. He’s painted it. It’s great. They’ve had their first kiss, so, but she goes up to the house.

CONSUELO

Oh, nice.

MAYA

He stays down in the pool house. He wakes up the next morning and here’s this painting that he’s made and he’s been waiting for this.

CONSUELO

Oh, nice.

MAYA

This is how that goes. His first sight upon awakening was Celia in blue. He’d tossed fitfully all night, submerged in half-sleep, dreaming that she swam circles around him. She was made of living paint, a teasing sprite of liquid curves and lashing waves of blue. The urge to touch her burned in him, but he dared not. His fingers would smear her deep lacings of color. He awoke at dawn, as usual, to find his canvas shining in the morning light. Dozy and bemused, León breathed in her image—glowing Celia, revealed in luminous hues. His fleeting dreams faded as bright pride swelled. Beaming from his bed, inhabiting every brush stroke, he reveled in the painting’s story. The colors were raw, visceral and daring, that all-important curve striking upward, its path true and exquisite through the fluid blues and golds. It was perfect. The best thing he’d ever done. He got out of bed and walked closer, in love with the colors in early light. Her shape floated at peace, vulnerable and authentic as one can only be when alone. It whispered echoes of the womb, relief from fear, trust in support of dark water. The top third of the canvas was darker with indigos. A hint of a hovering threat. That sweet faith of hers wouldn’t last because disaster lurked. But oh, how precious until then! What a story. She was wonderful.

CONSUELO

I want to see the painting. I want to see the painting because the description is, so I was thinking about the Monet because how he used the blue. I was thinking I like him very much and yes. And between the other thing that you do because you have the printer job. I mean, your own printing publication. Yes. Publishing, but yeah. So how is that is going and how did it start? because you thought?

MAYA

It started I since I didn’t know how to write publicly, I’d never written for, you know, publication. I had to meet people. I needed my own teachers. And there are so many here in Portland. Willamette Writers is a really great association. But then you just also, I mean, it’s surprising you can just walk into a crowd of people.

CONSUELO

Yes.

MAYA

And say ‘I’m writing a book’ and two or three other people will be, oh, yeah, I’m writing one or, or, I already have one. People write and they don’t always, you don’t always know. We want to interact with people, we do. It was not hard at all for me to meet other people who write. And then of course, I wanted to learn from them. And well, you know, ‘what do you do? And can I read it?’ And I learned something from every single person and a lot of people that I met just like, well, I wrote it. But, you know, I could never get a publisher. And the state of publishing right now with the big five, it’s daunting. It’s so hard to get a book out there. And even if your book is accepted by a publisher and you get it out, if it doesn’t sell, it’s not the top seller. They’re probably not going to come back to your second book and then, on the other side we of course have self-publishing which is just been taking off as it should. And honestly I think it really democratizes publishing. The risk is, of course, now there’s less quality control, but the cream will rise to the top.

CONSUELO

I agree.

MAYA

Thankfully, there were people that I met, and writers who whose words I read and I felt like, you know, you should be published. You need someone to get this out to the world.

CONSUELO

This is good. Yeah, should be.

MAYA

I want your voice out there and I started to feel really strongly about them, so I decided, I looked into what is, what does it take to start a publishing company? And it is. I mean, it’s easy. On one hand, you sign a couple pieces of paper, but doing it successful, really,  making a profit is rough. I mean, it’s very, very hard.

CONSUELO

So you you are like a Virginia wolf and loner the same situation, more or less.

MAYA

Yeah, yeah, I would say that. But I have a number of authors that I publish now and I did publish my own book, because why not? And I know how. And I’ve got an imprint. But yeah, it just it keeps growing. The number of people who come to me and say, I’ve got a book.

CONSUELO

Yeah. Sure.

MAYA

Now I’m sort of on the other side where I have to turn some people down and say I’m sorry, we just need a little more work and. You know it’s, it’s real publishing. It’s not vanity publishing where I just say, sure, give me $1000, I’ll print you.

CONSUELO

A book, I mean, it’s real. Yes. And have you been thinking and added other language like Spanish for example? So this way I can be on the.

MAYA

List. I would love to do that and Leon, of course, is Puerto Rican, so there’s some Spanish.

CONSUELO

Ah.

MAYA

The book, which I did have to have many native speakers read to make sure that I was not messing it up, I’m sure.

CONSUELO

Okay. Yeah, very good. Yeah.

MAYA

They did it okay. I would love to. The reason I hesitate is just, it’s still a very small publishing house and I’m the only person who’s reading and judging marketability. And it would be beyond me to do that in a different language right now. But, you know, give me some time to grow.

CONSUELO

No, I wasn’t thinking that you would write it in Spanish. That you will publish other author in Spanish.

MAYA

I could do that if I can get someone who can speak the language. Yeah. Who can do the editorial reviews for me.

CONSUELO

To help you.

MAYA

Yeah, absolutely.

CONSUELO

You will, you will? There are so many talented people in this town and there are a lot of professional that I speak Spanish. I know well that some will.

MAYA

Yeah, definitely open to it.

CONSUELO

That will be great to do that. And do you have another that you want to?

MAYA

Read? I don’t. I think that was enough without giving away too much of the story.

CONSUELO

That was it. So very good. Yes. No, no, no, we can’t. What we want to know now is where are you going with this series? The because the book took you three years to write this one.

MAYA

It did. Technically. It took me three weeks to write, yet it took me three years to edit. I’m trying to say, trying to think how to say it without giving away the story… In the end, we end up in a sort of an artist collective where people who want to make art can come and be supported, they can have a place to stay and you know food to eat and the time to grow themselves and learn, and to experiment with art. And I planned that for a reason, because in the next book we have this place, it’s called Incubadora, an incubator. It’s obviously, you know, the language and what I’ve said is basically a sandbox where any character from any ethnicity, age, location, you know, anything, they can come in and they can want to make art. And of course, grow as an artist. Hopefully they’re a little volatile and have got some sort of maybe crazy ideas, but I can bring together any characters into this small place. You know, maybe they hate each other. Maybe they love each other, maybe both. But that’s where it goes from there. The second book is Kelsey. As I said, she’s Celia’s best friend, and she’s—

CONSUELO

She’s coming from the previous, but usually they do in the second.

MAYA

–Series. Yes, it was requested by people who read it. Like, when do we get Kelsey’s book? Ohh no. So, yeah, I I had to. Yes, I had to honor that. Absolutely she may fall in love with a guy who is maybe a textile artist at Incubadora. But as I said, I don’t know if that’s what she wants.

CONSUELO

How nice. They opened the door. No, no. I think it’s great that you allow the character to speak by themselves. I think that is a very hard. Talent to really allow is to do that because most of the time it’s our self, it’s our own voice. So you repeat your voice in all the character and that is not what should be.

MAYA

MmmHm. That’s true. I will say one thing about writing that I was very surprised by. I mean, I sort of thought that like, Okay, Celia is basically me. Not really, but, you know, I felt the closest to her sometimes. And then Leon, well, he’s just, you know, he’s the guy, I was amazed and where I found out Leon is also me. Leon is a different side of me.

CONSUELO

Yeah, some. Of course.

MAYA

There is a part of me that is into art and expression and maybe a little manipulative and getting what they want. You know, I have flaws. And Kelsey, I mean they, they all have a part of me and and obviously they must. They’re coming out of my brain. So obviously I must, I would definitely, yes, I fell in love with all of them. Yeah, but yeah, it was that phrase, you know, I contain multitudes. I sort of finished this book and I was like, wow, that’s sort of cool.

CONSUELO

You are hard to see. Yes. Yes. You’re hard. Yes, yes. Yeah, it’s, it’s, we didn’t realize how much of ourself we have put into anything we do until we let it go. And now the book is in the hand of other people and, and it’s the same. I remember my first book when I give it away. You mean in in certain to the library and other places public in general? I was, I couldn’t. No, I don’t want to do that. I want the book for me. I don’t want the book to fly by itself. But it’s the same feeling, I guess, that somebody who has a child and you have to let it go. And also it’s the same in a different way. It’s a parallel but different.

MAYA

Terrifying.

CONSUELO

What you do with your character like you have done it give a different voice, even if they come from you. Why not? I mean, you are the writer and they should come from you.

MAYA

You do it’s and like I said, it goes back to exploring ‘what if’ and you know, different decisions that we made and you know I can throw, as a writer I can throw Kelsey into any situation I want. You know, I can have something terrible happen to her. I have something great to happen to her. The character herself has to be fully formed though in my head and she’ll react the way she wants to react. Celia did things I never I would have never done in my life, but it was perfect for her. It’s exactly what she would have done.

CONSUELO

Yeah, I think so, that that freedom that the character has is also something that inspired the reader. Because sometime as a human being, we don’t know how far we can go. This is the experience that I have. I have had this last two year. I have done things that even if I thought. No, I don’t know. And now that I have done it and I am doing every single day, I think, Oh my God, how I am? I didn’t know I was capable to do this. So that vulnerability in the character that allow the reader to open some doors that maybe she is or he is afraid of.

MAYA

I really hope that’s the case. That was, I mean, empowerment is sort of the goal. It was my goal as a, as an author writing it. It was my goal as just a human experience, the whole thing. You know, Lynn, who called in. She said that was something that was very important to her was just being able to see. To put yourself in that person in the characters place, I mean, that’s what fiction is. It’s, you know, it’s telling stories that you can apply to your life and see if you fit in it. Maybe you do. You don’t.

CONSUELO

Yeah, I think fiction and literature and art in some way is one way to look at yourself and also to help you to discover who you are, to change your life. I remember when I read The Second Sex by Simon. Well, my life changed completely. I was 18 years old, and from that moment I took, I made big, big decision in my life and still do. Okay. And I describe as a  Before and after, and I wasn’t too old, 18 years old in Chile. I wasn’t here and but yes, this is what art has, the potential that is in art. How many times when you see a painting and you are so impressed and the light, the color, the texture. The scenery of where the scene is happening. Beautiful and the same with the music. So you belong to a music group as she says, something with the music. A group of people who listen to music. I listen too. How interesting I speak about it. Oh boy, what kind of music? First?

MAYA

All kinds, all kinds of music.

CONSUELO

Of course all kind of music.

MAYA

It’s a, it’s a group of people who… I’ll just go ahead and say it. There’s a YouTube channel where a person who hasn’t heard a lot of new music reacts to it for the first time. Which is very interesting, because if you’ve heard a song before and you’re like, oh boy, you know, they’re going to love this one and then it turns out they don’t. Or there’s one, maybe you just hate and they listen to it and they love it and you’re like, oh, maybe give it another chance. It’s a sort of nostalgia. But it’s also, at the same time, you’re sort of rediscovering songs, you know, through new eyes. And then you all just discuss and talk and laugh and have a lot of fun at it.

CONSUELO

Yeah. And how many people is the group?

MAYA

I think there’s about 100,000 people that that are listening to the channel, it’s very popular, probably only 100 that discuss regularly. But yeah, we’ve met in person some of us, we’ve traveled together and, yeah.

CONSUELO

Oh. No, no. Ohh. Just need that link. It’s another example where art sort of brings connection and you find people who you understand they understand you and start hanging out more and I have a friend. You have to send me that that link, you have to send me that link because I am crazy about music, especially music and other languages.

MAYA

I will.

CONSUELO

Romance language are my favorite, obviously, and so I do like to see different to have to experience different kind of music and sometimes it will be a shock for me to listen like you said, and I don’t know, I will be not only amazed, but maybe I would love it.

MAYA

It’s funny, just as we were talking about it, I started made a connection in my head that, you know, Celia sort of tries to experience the world through watching somebody else react to art, and by the end she’s actually reacting and feeling. And maybe that’s why I was drawn to this particular music channel because I could watch someone else react. And then decide how I felt about it. Isn’t that interesting?

CONSUELO

Interesting. Yeah. I think it’s amazing because it’s in one way, like I said, they opened you the door to say whatever you feel is okay, you are free to do and to be who you want to be. I think this is one of the big gifts that life bring to us when you are, yeah, adult, mature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you care a little bit less about people who will not care for you, will not love you. And you said ‘this is who I am’ because at this point you already know who you are and where you stand. What are your value, your belief, and who, what kind of people you want close to?

MAYA

Yes and doesn’t that make a huge difference?

CONSUELO

It does make a huge difference because there are some people that are not compatible and that’s okay. They have a different view of life or different way of feeling or whatever. And did she relate to other people in in the house? So they are the two together the two together. Obviously they’re together. The two character only with themselves in the novel.

MAYA

For a lot of it, they are alone. Celia has, she has her friends. Kelsey, of course. And then she also has Andrew, who is a bisexual black man, and Trevor, who is a gay ex Mormon, and they’re the gang and they hang out. They’ve always been very careful with Celia to be, to treat her gently because they know that she’s just not ready. She’s not as open to things as they are, but they like her and they respect her and there’s very much a—

CONSUELO

Ohh beautiful. Okay.

MAYA

—found family aspect to all of that, yeah.

CONSUELO

In some way is very claustrophobic. Why, tell me?

MAYA

Celia starts out sort of locked in her head with her mother’s voice in her head.

CONSUELO

Yeah, this speak more about that. I want to know.

MAYA

Well, then I will tell you, I’ve written some prequels to the book. Just sort of writing exercises and Celia’s is honestly so so sad and abusive that I don’t even, I haven’t put it out there yet because it just makes, literally people cry.

CONSUELO

I cried. Glad.

MAYA

It was not a good childhood for Celia. But she has grown up that way where she’s tamped down her emotions because they have not been a value to her. You know, they’ve not kept her safe. They have not helped her. She needs to keep other people happy so that she can be safe. She’s now 40, and she’s done some therapy, and she’s worked on it. And she’s doing this art therapy. She’s trying, but she’s pretty solidly still in her head. Her friends don’t really challenge her enough to get her out. They sort of treat her with kid gloves, but so she lives in this very quiet white bare mansion. Basically. Yeah. Just by herself. Yeah. And then here comes Leon with the color and the challenge. What does he challenge her to do?

CONSUELO

It’s claustrophobic, I told you. Yeah. I love him. I need a Leon. Where are?

MAYA

Exactly. I’m ready too. Don’t tell my husband.

CONSUELO

No, don’t tell. We don’t tell anybody. Yeah, I think it’s very nice when we are challenged and we get out of our comfort zone. This, in my opinion, this is what keep us younger, younger and also full of energy and with the positive encouragement and all that. That’s where the growth comes from.

MAYA

Yes, I agree this is how the growth come from and I think it’s beautiful to have that opportunity.

CONSUELO

When you, yeah, sometimes people ask me, are you going back to Chile? And I said to what? Tell me to what is there? Chile doesn’t offer many good things of course. But my parent and my brother are dead and yeah my friend I speak to them every month. But what I’m doing here, this for example, this show that I love so much, to give opportunity and to be having this wonderful conversation. No, no, no. I don’t want to miss this. It’s important to me. This is where your heart is right now. Yes, exactly. Right. And so I think in your experience, you have done from the corporate going down and you are turning. You have done the whole loop.

MAYA

I have and I hope to loop around a few more times.

CONSUELO

Of course you will. No, no doubt about that. You will, but, in relation, you are thinking about to dedicate more time to the next book. I mean you are, it’s written. But with your other work, your steady work. What are you going to do?

MAYA

I do hope to retire in 10 to 15 years and at that point, I would like to have all five in this series written, so that gives me a couple years each.

CONSUELO

Ah, wait.

MAYA

And then at that point, watch out and then it could be a book a year, you know. We’ll see where it goes. Maybe, later I’ll be a poet, who knows, or a painter or a dancer. Could be anything.

CONSUELO

So. All of them in in a little bit. Yeah, in a little bit. So I got a Christie all over again, very, very with a lot of… how we will say in English, somebody who is full, very not only active but fruitful that.

MAYA

I know what you’re trying to say.

CONSUELO

And what is the word in English? I want the word in English. In Spanish, will be not only generous, but also the world will be productive, but it’s not exactly what I want to say, but that is the idea.

MAYA

Let’s look it up after the show.

CONSUELO

Okay, here we are. Get in at the end where they can find the book.

MAYA

The book is, of course, on Amazon. It is called Painting Celia by Maya Bairey. It just happens to be $0.99 if you want the ebook, both today and tomorrow.

CONSUELO

Yeah.

MAYA

I will also be out tomorrow at Wine and Words, which is an author event held by Hip Chicks Do Wine in the southeast, which is a great event, just look on social media. Hip Chicks Do Wine, and you can absolutely find them. And I have my own website, bairey.com and you can also find my at my publishing website, linguaink.com.

CONSUELO

Talk about your blog. I like your blog very much and your newsletter. One word.

MAYA

One word. It’s very blue.

CONSUELO

Okay, here we are. Next time the 28th, we will have another writer, another wonderful woman. And take care and talk to you later. Bye bye.