New York

Daniel lived a pleasant life, he had a good father and mother.

New York wasn't a bad place.

Although, he did not like any of the children he went to school with.

Most of them were rude, and played around too much.

He thought of his father, and none of these children were anything like his father.

He thought of his mother, and he did not believe that there would be any human on the planet that could compare.

He loved both of his parents, and his parents loved him.

When Daniel got to the 5th grade, he did not see much improvement in his peers.

He began to get worried, especially, when he saw the children of higher grades.

They were awful, there was nothing good about them.

Daniel had some friends, but they were all different.

They weren't truly friends. Daniel was just too different to think of them as friends.

His skin was not the same as theirs, his speech was not the same, their values were not the same.

Daniel was a brown that was uniquely Cuban. He did not know how that was the case, but even he had to acknowledge that that was most definitely the case. He was Cuban through and through.

The way he spoke was so disparate that it was almost not even worth trying to communicate at times.

Many times people would make fun of him, or mimic him. It was in jest, but he did not like it.

He loved the way his father and mother spoke to him, so to him it was an insult that some one would make fun of him.

So, Daniel mostly kept to himself.

He did not like it, this culture, but he was ingrained in.

Everything was a joke, and no one took themselves seriously.

What do these people even aspire towards?

But, there was one thing he did enjoy.

It was books.

Books were a marvelous thing and he could not get enough of them.

He would read constantly. He would read about anything.

It did not matter what the book was about, as long as it told him something new.

He loved to learn from these books. They spoke to him.

He felt something inside of him, speaking, that THIS was what he was meant to do.

He did not know how reading would help him in life, but he felt that he needed to be close to them in some way.

So, he figured, why not try writing one?

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The first book that Daniel wrote was horrible.

He thought that maybe he had no talent for it, but after some revisions, maybe he could make some improvements.

Again, it did not turn out well.

Daniel grew frustrated with the amount of work he put in, only to have nothing to show for it.

After 3 months of writing and 1 month of revisions, Daniel gave up on writing his first novel.

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A teacher, that Daniel was acquainted with, happened to see Daniel writing his novel one day. Sometimes he would talk to Daniel about it

The teacher's name was John Lincoln.

Mr. Lincoln asked Daniel, "How's the book going?"

"I gave up." Daniel replied.

"Hey... you should never give up half-way through... in anything."

Mr. Lincoln told this to Daniel somewhat half-heartedly and Daniel didn't pay much attention to it, but he did decide to try again.

This time he wrote some shorter novels, or short stories. He wrote about a boy that was trapped in a well. He also wrote about a girl who met a tree that could speak.

Daniel worked on his endings so that he could write satisfying conclusions.

The child in his first short story ends up dying after the 3rd night when the temperature drops too low and he ends up freezing to death.

The tree in the second book ends up being chopped down, after a group of villagers overhear it speaking.

At one point, Daniel felt that he was too focused on the ending, which caused the rest of the story to lack.

His intro was boring.

It caused him great pains when he couldn't even read his intro.