I Ain't Said Nothin' But A Word...

I write fictional tales about relationships. Typically the writing is very formulaic. Guy meets girl. Girl likes guy. Guy and girl fall in love. Girl and guy fall out. Girl and guy make up. Everybody lives happily ever after. Some of the relationships I write about here aren’t packaged nearly as neatly. Most times the endings aren’t always happy. Every so often I am guilty of putting my own mess out here. It’s a form of therapy. Writing it out allows me to dissect and examine the pieces and most times make sense of the moment. With my new relationship I have refrained from putting but so much of it out here. I didn’t think it was fair to my very special friend for me to open him up to so much public scrutiny. I was also acutely aware that he and I both had friends and family who would occasionally stop by to see what I might have been up to. Y’all know how family can be in your business. I didn’t think it was fair to give them but so much fodder to feed on while he and I tried to disco

My baby is now twenty years old. He is no longer a child but he is so far from being a man that it frightens me. Right now he is completely and totally lost, trying to navigate the world without a life map. Everyone sees it, making a point of pointing it out to me like I can’t see it for myself. What no one seems to understand is that not only do I see it, but I feel it. My child’s frustration and hurt are so acute that I can feel it with every single breath I take. I am determined to get my son back on the right path and save him by any means necessary. What I can’t figure out is just how to do that. I have given myself five days to come up with a game plan. I asked my son if he trusted me and then I asked him to trust me to help him find his way. He’s reluctant, not at all sure what I might be getting him into but he promised to give whatever I ask of him a try. Baby boy is exceptionally bright. He’d completed the high school math and science curriculum before he reached the eighth

Insomnia has been my nighttime companion lately. I sometimes go through these phases where I just can’t sleep no matter how hard I try. Come daylight I’m exhausted and also compulsive. I have to keep moving or I drive myself crazy. It’s almost four o’clock in the morning and I should be sound asleep. But insomnia is in my bed, hogging all the darn sheets.

What do you wear to a seduction? A man I know had a very beautiful woman wearing little to nothing posed on his bed and he was focused on cleaning out his refrigerator. Days later she walked buck naked past him as he sat reclined in front of his big screen television set and once again, nothing. Since lace and nudity weren’t working for his girl, she figured she would try something new. Girlfriend broke out a pair of well-worn sweats, a stained tee shirt and gym shoes, jumped right into his lap and winked and still, no reaction. Thus, her question. What do you wear to a seduction to arouse just an inch of attention? I suggested she think about shopping for a new man. But hey, what do I know!

Everybody knows I am a reality show junkie. For the last year though I’ve really worked on trying to kick my bad habit. I couldn’t kick my love jones for BET’s Baldwin Hills though. Now let me say upfront the show has some issues. Production leaves much to be desired and it annoys me to no end that they have tried to compact some six to eight months of living into some ten half-hour shows. It’s not hard to see that we miss out on a lot of what goes on in these kids’ lives. What I did find most engaging though were the kids themselves, eight young adults dealing with school, family, and relationships. Some bizarre editing and some serious staging defined the drama queens from the good girls and the bad boys from every mother’s dream child. But every now and then there was a moment or a look that told a whole other story. I watch people’s eyes. These kids spoke volumes with their eyes. My absolute favorite cast members were Justin and Seiko. I absolutely adored these two kids. My very sp

I have an eclectic mix of customers who come in and out of my video store. (If you don’t know, the video store is where my EAT money comes from ‘cause despite what folks think, romance authors do not make big money, we only get paid twice a year when royalty checks come out, most times they only amount to a dollar or two, and if we want to EAT, we do other things on the side.) But back to my customers. It’s a small town. A few small minds. Many transplants from larger, more metropolitan areas. Some highly educated. Some not. Most exceptionally friendly. One or two just a tad too friendly. Mr. Sir is a good-old guy from a long line of good-old guys. He’s opinionated, considers himself quite liberal despite his affection for the Republican party and his homophobia, never been married, and has no kids. He’s easily pushing 70 and he visits me regularly to chat. Mr. Sir (and that is his legal name ‘cause I done seen his driver’s license) thumps a bible when it will serve his point but forge

Fifteen years ago an unplanned pregnancy disrupted Justin’s plans. A star high school athlete, young Justin decided to forgo his dreams to play professional basketball overseas. Instead, he manned up, enrolled in courses at the community college, got himself a decent job with those brown-uniformed delivery guys, and became a father who afforded his child a stable environment. Justin has always wondered where his life would have led him had he and his high school honey resisted those youthful urges and had remained celibate. What Justin does know is where he didn’t go. As he tells his story you can still see the hunger and longing in his eyes. Justin and the girlfriend didn’t make it. Justin and his son, however, have an extraordinary relationship. Junior adores his father and rarely do you see one without the other tagging close behind. Justin has been diligently preaching to his child that a few quick minutes of pleasure aren’t worth a lifetime of loss. Junior himself has some

I am experiencing an overwhelming sense of sadness. I feel wounded and my feelings are hurt and I understand that much of it is of my own making. Since I was seventeen-years old I have been mothering children. I mothered six of them in total and the line between which were mine and which weren’t blurred a long time ago. I loved my five boys and one girl like any mother should love her children; effortlessly and without pause. I claimed each of them as my own because in my eyes, they were. They have each grown to be wonderful adults, one or two a little more wonderful than the others. And I like to think I had a little something to do with that. I also acknowledge that I may have had a little something to do with their few flaws. My relationship with their father greatly impacted my relationship with them. Sometimes for the better, and sometimes not. And even now, my lack of relationship with my ex has managed to define where I stand in their lives and it would seem that I’m not standin

I’m back. I'm also fat, happy, hair-less, infection free and feeling better than new. Since the clouds have begun to clear, I've been writing with a vengeance. Last night I couldn’t type the stuff spinning in my head fast enough. You almost got a dozen posts today but I had only been running on three hours of sleep and was starting to feel it. When a strong cup of Starbucks coffee (with two extra shots) didn’t get me buzzed for even a hot minute I knew I was on the tail end of a fast declining slump. Sleep was calling my name and had no intentions of leaving me alone. But I had a great weekend. I spent most of it with my very special friend. We both got a hold of each other and neither of us was interested in letting go. Reality knocked on the door at some ridiculous hour Monday morning and reminded us that we had responsibilities and our good time had to come to an end. As we parted company the man said something that threw me for a serious loop. His words stung but the truth

At some point in time every couple experiences speed bumps in their relationship. Even my very special friend and I have had to navigate a mountain or two as we have grown closer. Speed bumps aren’t much fun and require a little patience as a roller coaster of emotions spins a slow revolution and the good time takes a serious nose dive. Success is usually dependent on whether or not the two can make it unscathed over those hills together or not. Bruce and Desiree have hit a major bump and what I find most compelling is that neither one seems willing or wanting to slow their roll and confront their issues so that darn speed bump doesn’t leave them stranded alone on the side of the road. The couple was introduced through mutual friends. Both were a bit gun shy, having been burned in previous relationships and both bought some unpacked baggage into the mix in the way of children and other-parent conflicts. Both agreed to take things between them slow, not wanting to make the same mistakes

The young man caught my attention at the check-out counter of my favorite store. As he stood in line behind me he made a point of complementing the scarf I was waiting to purchase. Green was his favorite color. Two young ladies closer to his age asked him about the tattoos that adorned his well-worked biceps and I couldn’t help but overhear him say he was twenty-four years old when they asked. Minutes later he chased me down in the parking lot, politely asking for a quick minute of my time. Since I had more than a few to spare I indulged him. Mr. Justin Johnson introduced himself, announcing that he has two books that will be released some time this year, intoning that he hoped I would consider supporting his writing. Of course this immediately set off my writer’s radar. Now, like some writers navigating the publishing process have been known to do, Justin Johnson spun me a sweet little tale about not being quite sure when his books would be released since he was “transitioning” publis

So I’ve been thinking about sex. I recently received comments back from my editor about my next Stallion book. Her advice was that I needed to seriously ramp up the sex. I had to step back and evaluate that for a minute because in this particular book, I thought I had ramped up the sex. In fact, I’d ramped it up so much that in my esteemed opinion it was reading more like soft porn with a tiny bit of romance tossed in. Until I read her letter I was very excited about the sex I had written about ‘cause I seriously thought it was really good sex! If I remember correctly, I even blogged about it I was so excited. The character, baby brother Luke Stallion is young, just shy of 26. He’s a young man I imagined would be having a lot of sex and a lot of very good sex. I mean, he has that whole 26-year old, energizer bunny, stamina thing going on. If he were 46 or 56 I think I would have been less inclined to have him getting his groove on as often, but hey, that’s based on what I think I know

ARGGGG! I am stuck in this vicious cycle. I sleep. Attempt to write. Watch bits and pieces of bad videos. Sleep. Watch another piece of the same video with no clue to what’s going on, then sleep some more. Between the sleeping, video watching, and writing obscure crap that makes no sense whatsoever, I’m being pumped full of antibiotics, pain meds, orange juice and Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. I’ve been doing this for one week now and I’ve about had my fill of it. Being sick bites big time! The other day I got the brilliant idea to venture out to the store for cookies. I could have easily sent someone else but I needed a change of scenery and some fresh air. Besides, cookies were going to make me feel better. And they did, right up to the moment that I was standing in the check-out line and the man behind me started to hack up a lung. The kennel cough was bad enough but then he had to toss in some sniffling and wheezing with snot running out of his nose and I was too through. He did