Talking about My Writing

I need to learn how. I need to learn my writing, my novels, aren't crap. I need to learn when people ask "what is it about?", they are being genuine and actually care. I need to learn there's nothing wrong with writing love stories, and I need to learn there's nothing wrong writing interracial love stories--all of which I do. I also need to learn it's okay my novels don't fit into one genre nicely and neatly. There is more to my work than just the romance, and I need to learn I can't explain everything about my writing to make it sound "important" or "worthy to talk about". I need to learn my friends actually care that I'm a writer and are excited about my writing. I need to learn it's okay to give the "back cover blurb" instead of the play by play as if to "justify" the love story that is inside. I need to learn to trust I'm a damn good writer and not feel ashamed of writing what I write. I need to learn it's okay I went and got a Harvard degree but I write about things that you could never learn in a classroom--no matter what institution I attended. I need to learn the things I did learn in the classroom do creep into my writing, even if I cannot pinpoint from which lecture, which class, or which year I learned it.

I need to learn it's okay to think I am as good as I think I am, and I also need to learn others will think me better or worse than that, too.

Valentine's Fic Up!

Hi everyone, the fic is up at the group. Enjoy!

bana

Fic: Examination

One Step Closer

Thanks to Philly Girl, Isis, Stephanie for providing other sets of eyes to Being Plumville. I've sent the "final" revised version of it to my publisher associate today. That sucka's gonna be a book soon. That's scurreh.

Right now, though, I'm so sick of it! I think I just need one good solid day. Anyone who ever said writing was easy was smoking really good controlled substances, for it is so not. Ugh.

Oh well. We'll see how it goes this time.

To Celebrate Valentine's Day

I posted this on the Spinner's Yarn Group, but since I have a blog, makes sense to post it here, too. The fic will be posted on the group. So join! :-D

To celebrate Valentine's Day I've decided to "attempt" write a
Valentine's fic, but I'll need some help. I created a poll where you
can vote on which couple you would like featured in the fic. Any
couples from the novels "Being Plumville", "Reconstructing Jada
Channing", or "Manna Tree" are available because these are the three
novels I've completed. Or if you want a fic featuring the secondary
characters (like Freda and Jermaine or Oscar and George or Lynn and
Terrence) you can vote for that on the poll and let me know which
couple in replies to this post. The poll will be up until next
Saturday night (02/10).

Happy voting!

bana

Valentine's Day Fic Poll

Gym Story 3

Here's a snippet of chapter 3 of Gym Story. To read the complete chap sign up for le group!

bana

~~~~~~~~

“What?”

“You’re so thorough.”

“Thorough?”

“Yes. It’s not a bad thing. It’s actually quite refreshing.”

“Is it?”

Gunnar nodded. He was staring at her again. She had never known eyes to have such a presence of their own, but his did. It didn’t matter the rest of him was such an impeccable specimen of the human form, his eyes ensnared her every time. He probably spoke more with his eyes than with his mouth, and Tyler admitted she tended to like what his eyes said than anything else.

She shivered a little.

“Are you cold?”

“A little,” she mumbled, though that was the farthest from the truth. She went to him and pressed against his shoulders to get him to lean back. His eyes were ever on her, piercing as they always did, and Tyler wondered if she would be able to complete her job without making an absolute fool of herself.

Being Plumville Thoughts

Yesterday I had dinner with PhillyGirl and her husband. PhillyGirl is reading over BP for me and gave it to her husband to read for his thoughts, and they wanted to meet with me to go over their comments. I'm glad I went, not only to meet them (in Philly's case, again) but to hear what they had to say. Given this is my first story, and I was a mite distracted as I was also writing my thesis, they gave me insight the Editorial Eval had deigned to give me. The reason why there may be problematic aspects of the story (especially in the case of Benjamin) is because what is obvious to me, may not be obvious to the reader in terms of societal rules, etc. While that is a given, I didn't want to take that literary bat and beat it over the head. I wanted things to unfold as they do for the character, and when you're living something, you're not necessarily going to note how the society interacts or what rules are there. You just live them (be them, as the case with BP). Since a lot of the people who had commented thus far ARE from the South and are black women, there was an implicit understanding. But for someone who is NOT raised in the south, not black, and not female, there may be oddities that ring false if the South doesn't jive with Hollywood/Media's version of it. Therefore, I'm glad Philly's husband highlighted that for me. It's okay to give a little tap at the beginning, but a lot of the time in novels those "rules" seem to be knocked over the reader's head every time there's a conflict. People don't give running commentary during their daily lives (well, most people. Errybody know that one dude who's ALWAYS giving their $0.02 lol) If I flesh out the Plumville politics more, then it'll enhance all those unspoken "being" moments that are throughout the novel.

Setting. The Eval said I didn't have setting, but he framed it in terms of landmarks and what the town looks like, etc. Then he says it's not important to the plot. I know that. I wrote the story. What the town looks like isn't nearly as important as its personality. THAT is what I need to flesh out more, to not treat it as a given, because contrary to Hollywood and the media, there wasn't a racial flare up every single day.

So, in the midst of writing Gym Story, Trust Fall, and The Blueprint (I didn't forget about you baby!), I must flesh out the Plumville personality better in the story. It's going to make the book longer *sigh*, but it has to be done.

Ergo, I very much appreciated the dinner! I'm going to have the leftovers tonight :-P.

bana

Randomly

First off: Happy Black History Month! Am I bitter black folk get the shortest and coldest month of the year? Not at all! :-P But happyness abounds.

Second off: I've updated Gym Story (I think . . . I should either come up with a new title soon or just become attached to this one *sigh*) on The Spinner's Yarn group. I think I've decided to update the remaining chapters there. I'll make updates here on the off chance folk actually read this blog lol, but I know who's reading it on the group. Also it's easier for me to respond to comments than on this blog, so . . . yeah

Third off: I need to start the hardest part of writing: The query and synopsis. I hate this part of writing, especially when I just spent all that time and energy writing the dang NOVEL and I have to go back and re-write it in a 1/100 of the space. It leaves me irritated, not gonna lie. What's up right now is Manna Tree, but I have no idea what publishers I should even try for, especially since I've yet to hear from the lit agents who have RJC and that one's gotten rejected right and left. Surprisingly, I'm not bitter in the least, and right now not even frustrated. I know sis is saying I shouldn't do lulu.com, but there's something very appealing about having a "book" in your hand, even if you're not going to sell it. I'll not give into temptation. I'll do it the right way.

And speaking of, Being Plumville is in editing/proofreading phase #583924. I swear, I have to realize that book isn't going to be perfect for every single reader who comes across it, but for me (and it's not because I'm sick of going back and working on it, which I am. Not gonna lie about that) it's right as it is. I have to be true to the characters, not how other people think the characters are supposed to be, and as long as it's plausible for the character, then I've succeeded, right? This isn't to say I haven't heeded some advice. I have. In fact, I woke up at 3AM one morning and started reworking some characterizations, settings, plot points. I like what I did, and hopefully they were improvements and not the opposite. But since this is the first book out the gate for me (we're not going to talk about the other two that are finished or the other three WiPs. We're just not.), this one has to be bangin'.

Since this is the only "career" plan I've ever made, I better do damn well, huh?