the journey of my book

I don't care about making deals. I don't care about whether they decide to make a movie about it or if it spawns an entire series of novels or if kids will line up outside of the bookstore in the costumes my book inspires.

What I want is a connection.

So the journey of my book will be a myriad of relationships. The first connection are the connections I've already established - the family who have all taught me how to move about in the world, who inspire me in every way giving me moments to reflect on and to write on, who continuously push me to be a better person and who never for a minute give me any leeway, who never allow me any excuses - the men and women out here in the bay whom I've shaped into my family who continue to support the person I've become - the people on the bus, in the streets, in the mall, who are only meant to inspire me for that second, for that moment. This is the first connection.

The second connection will be my pen to the page. Connecting with the art, connecting with the space, the history surrounding me, and connecting with the story that's meant to be told - not how I would tell the story, but how the story would tell itself (thank you Ruth Foreman for that little tidbit).

After that, the book goes into print. It will be printed with a small press, preferably pacific islander. It will first explode on the literary scene in hawaii (an explosion looks like a splattering of readings, book signings, connections with other pacific islander writers etc as in I'll finally be let into the pacific islander writer circle where I will meet Albert Wendt and tell him about the first time I met him years ago at a Bamboo Writers Workshop and totally did not know it was him and actually tried to debate with him and then we'll laugh about it) and then will make its way to New Zealand and Samoa and Fiji, then eventually, at the school I'll create for girls, it'll make it to the Marshall Islands. It will be incorporated into Pacific Island creative writing classes - all over.

That's when the third connection will be made. The most important connection.

I want a young Marshallese person, girl or boy, to pick up my book at random (maybe it's a birthday present maybe it's at a library or even lame ass barnes and nobles) and read it and love it - love it the way I've loved books, like it was made for them because that's who I wrote it for - for them. I want them to love it so much they don't feel like they're alone anymore. I want them to read it and hug it to themselves like it's their best friend and know that they're not alone, that someone's out there trying to tell their story just as much as they're trying to tell their own stories.
I want the final journey of my book to be in their bag, beaten up and weathered by oily fingerprints and sandwiches from their school cafeteria, stashed away in their trunks for college and then on their bookshelves, where they will finally give it to their children and say

"This book. Read it. It was made for our people."