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

Lord, have mercy! I just couldn't help myself! I don't necessarily celebrate Halloween, most especially now that the young'uns is all grown up. It's not like when they were little and I would make them these really cool costumes to wear. I use to get a kick out of that and I have the many photos to remind my brood of just what a good time I had. (And no, this is not one of them.) For me the day marks the beginning of the holiday season and I love the holidays. I'm like a little kid in a candy shop come Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year the holidays sucked big time. We didn't even bother to put up a tree. This year I plan to make up for that. Might even have me two trees if the moment moves me. I'm approaching this holiday season with a renewed spirit. It feels promising and I'm excited about the prospects. So, for those of you who get into the ghouls and goblins, have a great day! For those of you who don't, have a great day! And to all of you, ...

I purposely don’t make writing the main focus of my blog. Although I may share my writing experiences and dilemmas as the moment moves me, I don’t feel that I have the expertise to tell others how or what or why in a professional capacity. I had an author-acquaintance (notice I did not say friend) comment that I should be blogging more about the art and craft of writing instead of the “mindless mutter” that I do share, and most especially because I am a black, female author, but I strongly disagreed. It was truly an “oh, hell no” moment. To put it more politely than I put it to her, this is my space and I will blog what I want and for no other reason than I can. If you like it, please come back and do tell a friend. If not, well then it was nice you stopped by for a visit but I certainly understand if you don’t come back again. Folks looking for writing and publishing how-to can find such easily. There are plenty of blog and web sites that offer an abundance of information, more...

Disclaimer: All names have been changed to protect the guilty. So, Jackie was bemoaning her man problems this past weekend at the beauty salon. Her man, Jack, has been giving her mixed signals and she’s gotten caught up in that drama that being in love can land a soul in. All was peachy, keen, and dandy in the beginning. Brother was sweating her big time – romantic dinners, expensive trinkets, and weekend excursions that didn’t just include the bedroom. Girlfriend fell and fell hard and just when it had gotten too good to her, Jack started to distance himself with no explanation for his cooling behavior. Jackie tried to play it cool, like she wasn’t but so bothered by it, but beneath her smiling facade, her heart was being ripped to shreds. The last time they talked Jack told her that he really cared for her, that he couldn’t call it love, but that she definitely moved his spirit. A girl could have gone into insulin shock from all his sweet words. Then he ended the conversation...

I wrote poetry before I wrote anything else. It was middle school, seventh grade, and I would scribble poems in the margins of my science workbook. My science teacher gave me validation when she told me to keep writing and to not let anything or any one deter me from my love of the written word. I am eternally grateful for the kindness and encouragement she gave me and the passing grade in a science class that I had no interest in being in. The Naked Truth Can you see me behind the shadows of who I want you to know? And if it’s me you think you see, how can it be that what I know about me and what I show, gets lost in the not so black and white gray area of my truth and your truth and the real truth? And if it’s me you think you see, how can it be that you love me so and still know that the naked truth of who I am and what I be, is lost, even to me? Been To The Promised Land Been to the Promised Land on the sweat of your brow, riding the shadowy mist of a stolen kiss and promises of...

Friday night the son and I went to see the touring production of the Lion King . The boy balked at first, eyes rolling, head waving, insisting that he was going to be bored for the entire night. Even had the audacity to say that I was his one and only mercy date for the year! Of course, he left the theater with the biggest grin on his face. After spending some sixty bucks on a tee shirt and a little stuffed Timon souvenir he is still raving about how spectacular the show was. The entire performance was a reminder of what I miss most about not living in Connecticut. I miss how easy it was to catch the train into New York for an evening of dinner and theater. If you have an opportunity to see the stage production of Lion King, please do. It is well worth the price of a ticket. It was absolutely captivating. The entire show was just a breathtaking spectacle brought to life. They had giraffes strutting, birds swooping, gazelles leaping, an oversized elephant that strutted, and grass that ...

Rereading all of this after so many years brings back many memories. Two women in my critique group actually told me not to give up my day job. They said I couldn't write because they didn't understand or like the story. Oh, well! Enjoy! It was one of Miss Tolliver's dusty days. The heat hung unbearably, blistering the green leaves that sheltered small gnats and flies. The air was thick and filled your lungs with the heavy fumes of the hibiscus and gardenias blooming under the sweltering sun. Miss Tolliver called it a dusty day because by nightfall even the brownest of skin was coated ashy white from the dry dust that rose in large swells. Everyone in Delacroix knew Miss Tolliver, the Voodoo woman whose eccentric manners frightened and enthralled the most sincere skeptic who doubted her abilities and questioned her sanity. Although she professed to have drawn her first breath on the shores of France, somewhere along the Baie de la Seine, the elderly brethren of Delacroix w...

Fifteen years ago, I took a creative writing course where we had to write a series of short tales that could stand alone but then be incorporated as chapters of a longer body of work. These have been gathering dust since forever and I thought I'd finally share them. Enjoy! Musethal Copage The playground sat at the very edge of the cemetary, the sliding board facing the headstone of Paul Patrick, 1889-1959, Beloved Husband and Father. Musethal Copage imagined that if you scooted too far off the end of that old metal sliding board you might well land bottoms down right where she imagined Paul Patrick’s feet rested in peace. She smile faintly at the thought. Pulling herself from the window, she straightened the lace curtains, then glanced quickly over her shoulder at the large grandfather clock in the corner. It was five minutes to one and it was almost time for her stories. At one o’clock she would turn the CLOSED sign outwards and would lock the front door to her antique shop before...

My dog died yesterday. His name was Charlie Brown Eye. He was a “somma” dog – a mixed breed of “somma” this and “somma” that. And he had one bright, baby blue eye that made him look kind of loopy when you looked at him straight on. Charlie had suffered from epileptic seizures for over a year now. Saturday he suffered his last one and was unable to recover from it so we had to put him down to ease his suffering. I’ve been crying for days knowing that Charlie and I had come to the end of our journey together. There are folks who don’t understand my attachment to my pets. For them an animal is just that, an animal. For me, I have yet to meet an animal that I didn’t like. I have met quite a few humans that I can’t stand. I loved Charlie. He was our second dog. We lost our first, a rottweiler named Jaxx, last year on July 19th, 2005. The vet believed Jaxx had been bitten by a snake. He was vibrant and full of life one day, and just a semblance of his self the next. A day lat...

I so believe in the power of prayer. And I believe that prayer can work miracles. I am sending up a whole lot of prayer this week. This week could make or break me. I am praying for my agent and the editors and publishers she will be meeting with. I am praying that my proposals and my manuscripts are on point. I am praying that others will see the same beauty in my words that I see. I am praying that someone will think me worth the risk. And I am praying that my Higher Power is answering his calls this week, that there is nothing wrong with my prayer-filled transmissions. I am praying and I could sure use a few extra prayers on my behalf.

I am reminded of a moment in time when things weren’t going well for me. Not only was I unhappy with life, but life was really unhappy with me. Had I been able to I would have just walked away from it all and never looked back. Unfortunately, there were children who were dependent on me, family with expectations, employers making demands, bill collectors trailing my every move, and there didn’t seem to be an end to it all. Because I couldn’t walk away, I kept smiling, holding all my frustration and unhappiness inside. It was mine and mine alone to contend with and I was determined not to allow it to invade anyone else’s life. I firmly believed that my problems were my problems to deal with by my lonesome. During that time I made some really great choices and probably just as many really bad choices. When desperate times feel like they call for desperate measures it is sometimes difficult to see one’s way straight and I readily admit that I couldn’t begin to see my way clear at all. I h...

Okay. So Oprah had Janet Jackson on to promote her new album 20YO. Girlfriend lost some 60 pounds in four months to get ready. She said she’d blown right up, packing the weight on in the first place to prepare for a movie role that fell through. They introduced her trainer and her nutritionist to confirm that she lost the weight the healthy way, eating right and exercising her butt off. Now I have a nutritionist and trainer too, thanks to my Duke study, and both said yes, it’s very possible but that I shouldn’t expect to go from fat to fabulous the way Janet did, and definitely not in four months. Uh, I’m sorry, but why not? I can wear fabulous. Hell, I’ve been wearing fat just fine so me and fabulous should be a piece of cake, or celery. Someone else said that’s what money can do for a body. I’d agree but I ain’t got no money. And, even if you can afford that trainer and nutritionist, someone telling you to lift that leg one more time isn’t going to get it up off the floor an...

To say that I'm having some issues with my book covers is putting it mildly. I'm having some serious issues with my book covers. Here's the newest for my book, In The Light Of Love , which drops February 2007. Now for starters, my heroine is only 25-years old. Maybe it's me, but this model doesn't embody the image of the 25-year old I had in mind. I mean, she's a beautiful woman but she don't look no 25 in this picture! And the hero I wrote about is bi-racial with blue eyes and shoulder-length hair. Do you see my problem? This isn't the first time I've had an issue with my covers. With the cover for Love In The Lineup , BET had commissioned some incredible artwork. The images were dead on. They couldn't have been more perfect if I'd done them myself. However with the transition to Harlequin, the new powers in charge changed the cover to a photographic image. Neither one of the models came close to looking like my characters. It a...

I have this fascination with foreign films and for the past few days since I’ve been battling a nasty bronchial infection I’ve been lying around “reading” the television set. It’s very much my alone time because I can’t get anyone in my family to watch them with me. My son has proclaimed that if he wanted to “read” he would buy a book; that movies are supposed to be “watched” and that’s why they’re “movies”. Kid doesn’t have a clue what he’s missing. I know that my fascination comes from my love for other cultures. They are like really good books and I can be taken away to an exotic local with a push of the remote for the DVD player. I watched three today. The first was a movie titled Three Times , a Chinese film directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that because I don’t have a clue. I do know that it was a beautiful story. It was a romance, and exceptionally sensual. It was actually three stories set in three times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. Two actors played the two m...

I am pulling my hair out right about now. I have a new proposal that needs to be completed and at this very moment I hate the story. I’m forcing it and it feels contrived and I just don’t want to write this particular book or this particular series. And now that I’ve said it out loud, I’m not going to do it. I can’t. It’s not in me. My agent is expecting revised synopses from me for three manuscripts I’ve written. Writing them feels like I’ve been sentenced to some ungodly punishment for some heinous crime that I didn’t even know I committed. This shouldn’t be so difficult but damn, it feels like the hardest thing in the world for me to do. I don’t want to write these either. But I have to. I really want to see these stories published and since this is what it takes, it has to get done. And my child, bless his mile-high Afro, left a folder of seven college applications on my desk for me to review and comment on. It would seem that he is truly interested in going to college a...

Mr. Ben is well in his early nineties. He is a gregarious old man with quite a scandalous history if you believe even a third of the stories he is known to tell about himself. Mr. Ben was serious eye-candy back in the day because he’s quite dashing now with his snow-white crown of curls, the prettiest chocolate complexion anyone could wish for, and gray eyes that always twinkle. He has this infectious laugh and smile and I imagine that it didn’t take much for the ladies to fall for his very Southern charms. Mr. Ben stops by every so often to chat and this week he came to tell me about his new lady friend. She’s younger, somewhere in her seventies. Last weekend this lady friend invited Mr. Ben to her place for Sunday supper. After an old-fashioned meal, she invited Mr. Ben into the bedroom for dessert -- a little taste of her sugar and sweets. Unfortunately, Mr. Ben had to decline. It would seem that his “johnson” was suddenly diabetic and not UP for the task. He let his friend down gra...

Every writer has experienced his or her share of rejection. I personally believe that over the years I have collected enough rejection letters to wallpaper a large bathroom. Publication is no guarantee that you won’t still suffer from the dreaded “ thanks, but no thanks ” syndrome that writers are frequently afflicted with, and I don’t care how thick one’s skin is, even the most polite “ we don’t want you ” still hurts like hell. I’m published and although I would like to stay published, such isn’t always that easy to maneuver. I got a rejection yesterday and I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel like someone had sucked the life from me as I was being slammed head first into the ground. Although I had liked my proposal, and I think my agent liked my proposal, the publisher didn’t. After I finish rubbing ointment on my bruised ego it’s back to the drawing board. Rejection sucks but it also means I need to refocus and turn this hurt into something more positive. I’ll enjoy this funk for a lit...

Other folks’ drama has just gotten right in my way this past week. I love me some family but that same family has taxed my last nerve. When this happens my mind becomes mush and I can’t write. And this truly pisses me right off. I understand that all families have some degree of drama, at least one member who is drama central, the wealth of all their crap muddying up other folks’ lives. But I swear I have more than my fair share of drama queens blooming on my family tree and I’m about ready to be through with them all because I desperately need to write. The mechanics of how I write don’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense. I have never been able to write an outline for a book or a nice, neat synopsis that details the happenings before I actually write the story. Nor do I have a regular routine of writing a set number of hours everyday. I sometimes envy authors who can. Stories come to me a page here or a paragraph there. They eventually get melded into some cohesive form that just ...

This is the hubby and me on our wedding day. Aren’t we just the cutest! Back then I was just a baby about to be thrust into the real world and I didn’t have a clue what was about to hit me. It was a learning experience that didn’t come with a handbook and all my training was literally on the job. Marriage has been a roller coaster of extreme highs and even lower lows but for all it’s worth we have endured. I will not lie. It has not been an easy feat to accomplish and he and I both will readily admit to moments of wanting to toss up our hands in sheer frustration and call it quits. I don’t know that I could ever explain why we didn’t ‘cause love surely didn’t have a thing to do with it and we have much love for each other. I am a true believer in marriage. I never entered into the relationship thinking that I would end it if the going got tough. In an age where divorce rates have skyrocketed I cannot understand the idea of a disposable relationship. My parents have been married almost ...