The Right to Be Culpable

March 31, 2016

When I heard Donald Trump’s comments on abortion Wednesday—the formerly pro-choice Republican candidate said that if abortion was illegal, women who sought one should be punished, and then under pressure from all sides, Trump revised this statement and said only abortion providers should be punished—I thought, well, if the woman does the crime, she should do the time.

You read that right.

Let me clarify. First, I am 100% without equivocation pro-CHOICE. If I were empress of the world, I would make abortion legal in all cases and let it be given in any willing gynecologist’s office as part of the routine menu of procedures, so women could truly keep their reproductive decisions private and never have to endure a gauntlet of protestors calling them murderers. Unwanted pregnancies happen for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes women are simply irresponsible and don’t…

You Can’t Write That. Oh really? Just watch. 🙂
The title of this blog post comes from a very tender spot in my life as an author and a Black woman growing up in the USA. Several years ago, I dated a close-minded individual (Who Shall Remain Nameless) told me that I couldn’t write my recently published novel, Forbidden: Book One of the Gabriel Lennox Series. At the time, it wasn’t published and while I waited for that new chapter in my life, I had continued writing additional books for the series.
I wouldn’t describe myself as rebellious, however, when someone tells me I can’t do something, I’m determined to prove them wrong. Especially when that something will benefit me. And then, filled with resilience, I channel my inner samurai:

Come at me, bruv!

Since I had considered He Who Shall Remain Nameless a friend, I was shocked…

Photo courtesy of GraceYourNest

Packing Memories

January 27, 2015

I finally put away our Christmas decorations this past weekend. I’d wanted to take them down on January 9, the first weekend after Twelfth Night, but I yielded to pleas for “just one more week” from husband and daughter. Family obligations, work obligations, and a stack of higher priorities kept the Christmas tree standing and the wreath on my door past Martin Luther King Day. Meanwhile, mortification grew as my neighbors’ lights winked off for the season, and spruce and pine trees piled up on the sidewalks. A new neighbor dropped by to borrow the clicker for our apartment building’s garage. He raised his eyebrows at the wreath still up on January 22, and that sealed it: no matter how many other priorities and tasks had piled up, the Christmas decorations had to come down.

My daughter gathered all the angels…

It Happens to the Best of Us

January 13, 2016

We say these words when a friend or loved-one screws up, but “It happens to the best of us” sounds like a lie when the screw-up is oneself. In my professional life, I’m frankly used to patting myself on the back, not kicking myself in the keister. Last week, there was a keister day that had me repeating “It happens to the best of us” like a mantra while my brand new Fitbit recorded a racing heart.

I don’t often screw up, but this one was a doozy. An important client contacted me about a major snafu—why did a particular publication say “X” instead of “Y”? I confidently responded that “X” had been the direction the publication team had decided upon, and I asserted I had an audiotape of a conference call to back that up. I offered to transcribe…

Too many choices!

We’ve had an eventful week or so with my last couple of unplanned posts. In all fairness, I did expect to get some knickers in a twist (which I did) with my post Pay the Writer. As a quick recap, I love used bookstores. They get a lot more of my money than I like to admit *looks up number to 12 Step Sponsor*

You don’t understand. Half Price Books has books ZEN DOODLES. No frigging idea what those are…just that I need some.

I’m not against “discovering” an author there.

But writers? If we promote used bookstores, make sure to remind readers you don’t get paid that way. Discovery must serve a purpose. Exposure must have the follow-up to be effective.

Because if you don’t ever make any money, you have to go work retail. If you work retail, one day you will be asked one too many stupid…

An Agnostic’s Thanksgiving Prayer

December 2, 2015

One morning last week, we all woke up to the news that Turkey had shot down a Russian fighter jet. This prompted one of those foxhole prayers we agnostics offer up in times of crisis:

God, please let this not be a shot heard round the world and the beginning of World War III.

It takes quite a lot to scare me into prayer. I’m often grouchy, and I’m nearly always sarcastic and cynical, but I’m also a glass-half-full optimist who feels very lucky with how her life has played out so far. I usually shrug off a Facebook feed full of doom and gloom, confident that humanity’s march toward little-E enlightenment, tolerance, and peace continues. Progress may be a two steps forward, one step backward dance, but we’ve come a long way since the big-E Enlightenment philosophers and scientists pointed us down…