Derrick Credito

I grew up in a small town not far from the Maryland-Pennsylvania line. We’re talking small, but still close enough to Baltimore for me to have some early exposure to local arts and culture. My upbringing took place in a homogenous, somewhat rural environment, the opposite of the diverse planned community where my interracial family and I now live. From an early age, I was a small-town rebel, and knew that I was destined for more than just an ordinary life. As a young adult, I lived abroad for six years and supported myself by working as an English teacher. That experience would set the tone for a more cultured way of life. My old leather passport cover was inscribed with a line from a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay: “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” I no longer have that passport cover, now that I’m a vegetarian and don’t do leather much anymore. But the sentiment of the Emerson quotation is still with me.

From an early age, my parents always told me I was a great writer. Through my youth, I usually shunned writing to focus on music instead. After trying my hand at a music career in Baltimore, I decided to hang up my guitars to travel globally. I wasn’t inspired to become a writer until a year later, when I moved to Thailand by way of Taiwan. On many hot, balmy Bangkok nights, I tried too hard to produce a serious manuscript. After searching online, I found a prolific American editor named Bill Hoffman, who line-edited two full drafts. I’d print out hundreds of manuscript pages and Bill would mail them back to me in Bangkok, all the way from Mississippi! His line edits were fabulous. While it didn’t get published, that manuscript was a yearlong exercise that had prepared me for the five-year journey of bringing a finished novel into the world.

Girls, Guitars, and Guns N’ Roses, though not necessarily in that order (laughs).

One of my favorite pearls of wisdom is the idea that writers write not because they want to, but because they have to. A great writer, to me, is a passionate storyteller who stands by their work, and is determined to share their story with the world. Over the years, a few of my students have had their own success stories with getting their books published. There’s a lot of hidden talent in classrooms everywhere. As a teacher, I hope to provide all of my students with a comfortable and supportive space to discover the great writer that’s possibly in everyone.

The novel’s settings relate closely to those in my real-life travels. Protagonist Wes Levine’s story unfolds in Thailand, New Zealand, and The Netherlands. Before writing about these places, I’d spent some significant time in all of them. I mean, who would want to read a book about Turkey if it was written by someone who’s never even been to Turkey? In The Year of the Tsunami, Levine starts out as a language teacher in Thailand, which happens to be the same place where I launched my career as an educator. The novel is also set at the backdrop of the Iraq War, with a plot culminating on an actual tsunami that in real life had been devastating for South and Southeast Asia in 2004. That’s the year when the novel is set. Also that year, I was staying in New Zealand when that country had lost its first citizen in Iraq. Two decades later, I wrote that into the story, too. I saw it as a special opportunity to commemorate someone, John Robert Tyrrell, whose untimely death had rattled New Zealand on my second day in the country. The most tragically real element of this novel is the tsunami itself. By that point, I’d spent a year writing a novel that would never see the light of day, while hundreds of thousands of people in the region had died and many more were displaced. For that, I consider myself a very lucky person. My problems were insignificant. But late 2004 was a tough time for me, personally and emotionally. Hoping to drown my sorrows on a Thai beach, I nearly booked a flight to Phuket, just days before the island would be ravaged by the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. All that being said, the setting and historical backdrops of The Year of the Tsunami only account for about one percent of everything in the book. The novel is fiction, and to that end, it is ninety-nine percent the product of my imagination.

Writing is both a skill and a talent. Sometimes the writing flows effortlessly, while other times it is a challenge just to get words on the paper. I’ve found that whenever I make writing a part of my routine, I stick with it. Above talent and skill, putting together a novel is a big commitment.

I live close to a lake and public park, and so I’ve recently been getting into long distance running. Since I’ve always been a gym rat, it was pretty easy to transition outdoors. Spending a good hour or so getting a great workout in a natural environment is my idea of quality me-time. My old friends in grad school used to say that I had too much energy to sit down long enough to finish writing a novel. I took it as a compliment (laughs).

Aside from tracking some of the novel’s metrics online, I haven’t been too preoccupied with book sales. A bestselling author typically moves at least a thousand copies of a book in its first week. But there’s nothing wrong with having a goal to sell that many books over a longer period. As a new author, it’s easy to become hyper-focused on sales or reviews. I try not to let all that faze me. When sales figures and bottom lines become an obsession, that can take the joy out of being a writer. Writing shouldn’t have to be a numbers game, but if you want to earn a living as an author then there’s really no way around it.

I discovered Philip Roth in a writing Voice class. I was thirty and in grad school. I loved that Roth was a secular, outspoken Jewish-American literary powerhouse who represented and portrayed American Jews with a healthy balance of affection and criticism. At forty, I converted to Judaism, not because I wanted to be religious, but because I discovered that I have some Jewish ancestry. Philip Roth to me is the ultimate East Coast author, sarcastic one moment and devastating in the next.

On the West Coast, Richard Lange puts my favorite U.S. metro area, Los Angeles, into literature. I’ve followed Lange’s whole career, and he’s got this Shakespearean way of combining comedy and tragedy. Lange sets his flawed, likable characters in the beautiful mosaic of Southern California. In terms of how his writing has impacted mine, Lange inspires me to speak out, but to also get to the point. Lange is like L.A.’s own Hemingway, and his stories and novels have pulled me back into the writing game several times over.

Before I started writing The Year of the Tsunami, I met Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at a local library book signing. Naturally, I was a bit starstruck and beyond honored to meet her. We had a conversation about Johns Hopkins University, where we’d both studied writing as grad students, though not at the same time. I had taught Adichie’s epic international novel “Americanah” for several semesters in my college English classes, and I was so proud to let her know. Meeting one of my literary idols, and so close to home, had planted a seed for me to create a novel that, like Adichie’s, would be set in several countries and would not shy away from current social issues. While Roth, Lange, and Adichie are my big three, I’ve also taken inspiration from many legendary rock musicians who have written compelling memoirs: Paul Stanley, Dave Grohl, Steven Adler, Slash, Duff McKagan, Frank Bello, and Anthony Kiedis are just a few who come to mind.

My favorite pastime is riding a bicycle through the streets of Amsterdam. I’m not sure if that counts as a talent, since those streets are built for cyclists, with endless bike lanes. When I was a kid, I took a couple of pretty bad spills on my bike. But on the streets of Amsterdam, I tear it up. Somehow, I always come home without a scratch on me (laughs). Whenever I’m on a bicycle in Amsterdam, it puts me in the moment like nothing else. Somehow, I become one with the moment.

Having written and published a novel, I’ve learned how important it is to treat writing as a process with different steps and stages. The planning stage might or might not involve drawing out an outline. The only structure I depended on for this novel was 1. Thailand, 2. New Zealand, and 3. The Netherlands. Looking back, I might’ve finished the book a lot sooner if I’d relied on a more detailed outline. It’s important for writers to know the difference between various types of editors. After the first draft is done, one might seek the assistance of a developmental editor, who will analyze what’s working and what isn’t. Later, a technical editor and a proofreader might help to fill in the gaps. It’s okay to struggle with writing a book, because it is not nearly as easy as it looks. For The Year of the Tsunami, I worked with five different editors over a five-year period. Take away one editor, and just like that, it’s no longer the same book. Some writers prefer to keep their work on the hush until it’s published, but I prefer getting as many fresh eyes on the manuscript as I can.

I’ve never thought of myself as a wide-ranging musician. Then again, I juggle bass in an EDM band, a rock band, and I also write my own songs on acoustic guitar. Musically, these three acts could not be more different. A non-musician might misunderstand my music resume as scattered or unfocused. But the way I see it, I’m making some long overdue contributions to the wellspring that is music. All music flows from the same source. But I don’t think someone has to be a musician to understand that. Some non-musicians I’ve known might not see a point in writing a song or practicing an instrument unless something results from it. For a musician, playing music is as essential as eating or breathing. I think music is important for the growth of all people, whether they play an instrument or not.

I don’t really think much about work environments in this post-Covid world. Maybe I used to enjoy writing in libraries and cafes. Nowadays, I write mainly from home. For some writers, criticism can be discouraging, while others know how to take feedback and use it to their great advantage. Too much praise or criticism can throw a wrench into even the best of projects. I’m motivated to create as much original work as I can before Artificial Intelligence takes over human creativity. We’re still in a golden age, especially with the Internet and social media now opening up so many doors for creatives. The question is, how long will it last? Now is the time to finish that novel or record that album. Don’t shelf a project or put it off, because you never know when it might be too late.

Writing and editing The Year of the Tsunami was a five-year process. That’s a long time to spend on any single project. On the next go-around, I might try a less time-consuming approach. I’m somewhat tempted to try turning out a manuscript in a month, for the NaNoWriMo challenge in November. I believe that art happens when it happens, and it’s not always about who has the biggest catalog. Donna Tartt, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Goldfinch, publishes a novel once every ten years. Guns N’ Roses has taken even longer intervals between album releases. I mention these examples because I am inspired by artists who do it on their own terms. While a Tsunami sequel isn’t completely out of the question, I’ve also considered writing a psychological thriller about a houseguest that refuses to leave. Over the years, my wife and I have watched our share of Lifetime movies (laughs).

At some point, I might decide to take a trip down memory lane and write a memoir about my experiences as a musician in Baltimore. But because Baltimore’s music scene is pretty hot right now, I feel like this is a time to look forward, not backward. As far as music goes, I am experiencing a very dynamic time. In Baltimore, I play bass in an EDM band, Let Go Echo, and a rock band, My Useless Self. Those bands are the side projects of my longtime buddies: Chris Henry, who I consider an electronic dance music prodigy, and Nick Cellinese, who is usually touring across the country with his hardcore band Bag of Humans. And as if that wasn’t enough, I’ve recently finished writing a six-song EP for my next solo project. I’d describe my own music as #truthful, #inconvenient, and #nasty. When things cool down with both bands, I’m planning to book some studio time and turn out what I believe is my most timely and socially conscious music yet. After years of working on a fiction novel, me and music have been making up for lost time. The thought of sitting down and writing another book seems more suited to a later time, but who knows when that next big inspiration could happen?

I’ve loved receiving weekly promotional materials from AllAuthor. Being a part of this worldwide community of writers is truly affirming and encouraging. I’d especially recommend this platform for first-time authors. On social media, friends sometimes ask me, “Where’d you get those cool promo materials?” Everyone I’ve interacted with on AllAuthor has been kind and supportive. It’s a positive virtual space that connects authors from all around the world. Even as I juggle multiple other roles in my life, AllAuthor reminds me that I am an author. That alone is worth its weight in gold.