Archive for the 'Writing' Category

February 8, 2006 | Writing

I forgot to mention that Dyanne Davis, a published author of African American and paranormal romance, is answering questions on my website at the Writing – Humps, Lumps and Dumps page. Stop by and read her comments about writing! I’ll be posting some of her answers here, and if you have questions you’d like to ask her, email me at YasminePhoenix@aol.com

January 31, 2006 | Writing

A couple of weeks ago, I was going to become a used car sales person. I’ve changed my mind, with all the uproar about James Frey and now, Nasdjii, I’m going to write nonfiction.

So, I guess I should come clean as to who I really am. I’ve shared this with my brazen vixens, but I’ll feel much better telling everyone. First, I’m not black. I’m white. I don’t live in the south suburbs of Chicago. I live in a gated community in Naperville, a northern suburb of Chicago. I’m not married, I don’t have any children. I bought the house in the south suburbs to give myself a more ethnic environment to write in, heavens knows there’s not much diversity where I really live. Sorry Sloane and Beth, I’ve been sending my black personal assistant, named Dorothy, to meet with you for the past couple of years. I pay her well, and she really likes the two of you. I look forward to meeting you some day soon. Oh, the pictures I sent you of my ‘husband and kids’? That’s Dorothy’s family. Right now, I’m in Italy, waiting for the Winter Olympics to begin. I am a writer, unpublished, but not for long. I just bought controlling interest in Harlequin and Random House, so I can publish any damn thing I want!

My first book, will be about growing up black and poor in the south. I had to overcome many difficulties, but I got my start in tv when I was nineteen years old. I was a reporter, and eventually I was hired to host, AM Chicago. I was overweight, but that didn’t stop me. My show topped Phil Donahue, and I starred in a movie. My show is now in syndication and I have several homes throughout the US. I’ve never forgotten my humble roots, and I reach out to my viewers everyday to better themselves.

Ok, so I’m not her, but hey who says I couldn’t write this story as nonfiction, but sell it as fiction? Apparently, that’s what Frey and Nasdjii have done. Although, I consider Nasdjii’s offense to be worse than Frey. To pretend to be of another race, to write a tale of woe, when in reality, nothing in your real life even resembles what you’ve written is insulting and demeaning. As we approach Black History month, I’m going to pull out the book, Black Like Me, and reread it. At least I know that story is real. Isn’t it?

January 27, 2006 | Writing

Two Blogs today. I’ll be back with the raising a daughter one in a while. However, I had to share my new category term for writers. If you don’t write romance, mystery, or chick lit, you can now write the fictionalized memoir. It’s about your life, but embellished to increase the changes of publication. I was watching James Frey defend everything he wrote, except his own name I wonder if it’s really his name, on Oprah yesterday. He admitted the Smoking Gun got everything right about his novel. I’m told that Frey’s book was originally categorized as fiction, but since he couldn’t get an agent or publisher interested in it, he changed it to a memoir, and BAM! It was sold, published, and made a lot of money.

As if writers don’t have enough to contend with, as if unpublished writers, that would be me, don’t struggle to write an excellent story, cope with being rejected by numerous agents and publishers, keep writing through family crises and jobs that we hate, and edit until the lines on the page blur. Here comes someone who apparently wrote a very chilling account of addiction and salvation, and it wasn’t all true. The one thing he kept saying that Oprah called him was he kept saying ‘the characters’ in his book. Oprah challenged the word. Characters are in novels, fiction. NOT in a memoir. HELLO!

I applaud Oprah for apologizing and confronting Frey on her program.

January 19, 2006 | Writing

I’m enrolled in a Writer U’s class, entitled Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors, taught by Margie Lawson. It’s a fantastic class, and she’s a great instructor. We’ve named and identified those behaviors that stop us from writing. Her lectures are clear, easy to understand, and hard to do. I say hard to do because, we have to be honest and confront what is really bothering us. Once identified, we have to plan how we plan to overcome these behaviors to be successful. Yesterday, I was considering becoming a used car sales person. I haven’t totally given up on the possibility, but I made a plan and a commitment to myself to use 2006 to push myself as hard as I can to be a published writer. I want to be published, I intend to be published, which translates into putting my ass in the chair, let it flow, and let it go. Writing is hard, it’s very hard. So is playing tennis at my age, but I do it. I do it well some days and some days I’m lousy, but I keep doing it. I have to concentrate, remember to keep my eye on the ball, remember to turn, remember to follow through on my shots, remember to keep my feet moving, remember that damn ball is 99% of the time coming back. Same with writing, I have to concentrate, I have to have focus on my characters, my dialogue. I have to remember to cut all unnecessary words, I have to remember that as many times as I submit, it’s probably going to come back.

So as I participate in this class and read what others are saying, I hear words my daughter often says to me. “What bout Me?” I hear these words when I’ve bought or done something that didn’t include her. “What About Me?” It’s not like this child has EVER been neglected or mistreated. If your husband, life partner, or children have never said this out loud, listen for the unsaid. I can guarantee you’ve heard it. I thought, “‘What About ME?” What about my writing? What about me having time alone to figure out a plot point? What about me trying to write a synopsis I think will truly engage an agent or potential publisher. What about you not going to the movies, it’ll be out on video in a month, and stay home so I can work?

I’m not trying to say we should totally ignore our families needs, but when you make your daily to do list, where does writing fall? At the top, in the middle, at the bottom? And when you cross off all the things you’ve done that day, do you cross off writing? Or do you put if off until the next day? Balance is extremely important in my life. My Change Coach from Margie’s class, sent me an article about how multi tasking does not make us efficient. It causes us NOT to give a particular task our full attention, because we’re concentrating on more than one task at a time and our brain can’t remember everything. I am trying to stop myself from muti tasking, I may not feel like I’m accomplishing as much, and it might take me longer, but I think my memory cells and brain will appreciate it.

However, I’m pretty sure I can not fold clothes and watch Battlestar Galactica at the same time.

Tomorrow is SCIFI FRIDAY!!