Felicia Denise's Blog, page 72
July 12, 2017
Writing is Easier When I don’t have Time for It
Hey all, I have some updates before we get into the blog post. First, is that I am finally done teaching summer school which means I will have more time to get out posts on our regular weekly schedule rather than once ever two weeks. Number two, is that we are past June 30th which means it is time for our Writers Toolkit giveaway. I am going to do the drawing tomorrow morning and contact the winner. Once everything is confirmed, I’ll release their identity here in a future post.
The only other bit of news is that I will be gone from July 15th until the 29th for military training. Since this is only two weeks, I already have a blog post ready to go and thus shouldn’t be much of a bump in our schedule. I hope everyone is having an awesome day, and thanks for stopping in!
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July 11, 2017
4 Lessons Learned in Writing and Revision
by Millie Ho
This past weekend, I finished revising the novel I started this April. The New Story has been sent to beta readers, and I’ll do more revision once I get their feedback, but for now, the hardest part is over. Here’s a timeline of my writing progress:
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July 10, 2017
How To Outline By the Seat of Your Pants
by Stephanie O’Brien
When you start to create a novel, one of the first questions you have to ask yourself is, “Should I start by creating an outline, or just fly by the seat of my pants?”
Both of these options have their merits.As I noted in a previous blog post, creating an outline first helps to keep the plot more coherent, avoid plot holes, and stop writer’s block before it starts.
But many writers probably share the same fear I had before I started to embrace outlining: what if the outline stifles my creativity? What if I lose the spontaneity that I need to write the characters naturally, and to let the characters be themselves?
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July 9, 2017
“The Color Purple Collection” by Alice Walker
Specially Priced for a #LimitedTime!
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“The Color Purple Collection”
Author: Alice Walker
Genre: African American/Historical/Cultural Heritage
Release Date: September 11, 2012
Three novels by a New York Times–bestselling author—including the Pulitzer Prizewinner The Color Purple—that speak to the African experience in America.
The Color Purple is Alice Walker’s stunning, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of courage in the face of oppression. Celie grows up in rural Georgia, navigating a childhood of ceaseless abuse. Not only is she poor and despised by the society around her, she’s badly treated by her family. As a teenager, she begins writing letters directly to God in an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear. Her letters span twenty years and record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment through the guiding light of a few strong women and her own implacable will to find harmony with herself and her home.
In The Temple of My Familiar, Celie and Shug from The Color Purple follow the lives of a brilliant cast of characters, all dealing in some way with the legacy of the African experience in America. From recent African immigrants to a woman who grew up in the mixed-race rainforest communities of South America, to Celie’s own granddaughter living in modern-day San Francisco, all must come to understand the brutal stories of their ancestors to come to terms with their own troubled lives.
Possessing the Secret of Joy portrays Tashi’s tribe, the Olinka, where young girls undergo genital mutilation as an initiation into the community. Tashi manages to avoid this fate at first, but when pressed by tribal leaders, she submits. Years later, married and living in America as Evelyn Johnson, Tashi’s inner pain emerges. As she questions why such a terrifying, disfiguring sacrifice was required, she sorts through the many levels of subjugation with which she’s been burdened over the years.
Hailed by the Washington Post as “one of the best American writers of today,” Alice Walker is a master storyteller and a major voice in modern literary fiction.
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Image from NNDB.com
Alice Walker (b. 1944), one of the United States’ preeminent writers, is an award-winning author of novels, stories, essays, and poetry. In 1983, Walker became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award. Her other novels include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.
July 8, 2017
Hypocrite
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52-Week Writing Challenge: Week 27
A scene from an ongoing (never-ending!) WIP . Quinn Landon can’t get a break! Determined to divorce the adulterous Oscar Landon, she can find no respite from her family’s judgment and harassment. Quinn draws a line in the sand when older brother, Aaron Clark, shows up at her job.
Aaron held out his hands in front of him. “Quinn, be reasonable. Just because a man has a little fling or two on the side, it does not mean he doesn’t love his wife.”
She froze, willing herself to not throw the stapler on her desk at her brother.
“What does it mean, Aaron?”
Caught off his guard, Aaron scrubbed his hand down his face, “It just a guy-thing, Quinn. Not a big deal.”
Quinn dropped the stack of files she was holding and leaned across her desk.
“What about you, Aaron? Is it just a guy thing for you too?”
Aaron Clark folded his arms across his broad chest again and returned her glare. “This isn’t about me.”
In the span of seconds, Quinn saw the truth in his eyes.
She was crushed.
Quinn covered her gaping mouth with her hand, shaking her head. She stood and walked over to her office windows still reeling from her brother’s non-admission.
Tears formed in the corners of Quinn Landon’s eyes. No. She would not cry. Enough tears were already shed over a situation that didn’t deserve them. Quinn looked over her shoulder at Aaron.
“This isn’t about Oscar’s infidelity, is it? This isn’t about his betrayal of our marriage, or my… what did you call it? Inability to be reasonable?”
She turned and fully faced him.
“This is about male privilege. Guys just being guys, right? Who else, Aaron? Who else gives lip service to their marriage vows? Junior? Clinton? Daddy?”
“Now, sis. If you’d just calm down and think-”
“Oh, I’m calm, Aaron. Probably calmer than I’ve been in the last five years. I’m glad you came here today, Aaron. You’ve given me not only true clarity, but the resolve to follow my heart and my mind. Now, get out.”
“Quinn-”
“I said get out. And Aaron… never come here again. If you do, I’ll have you removed by security.”
“Quinn! Listen to what you’re saying! We’re family, for god’s sakes!”
“We’re siblings, Aaron. Something we had no say about. But family?”
Quinn returned to her desk and sat in her chair. With a small, bittersweet smile, she continued.
“Family is always there for you. They support you, lift you up and cheer you on. They love you unconditionally. My family doesn’t do that for me. When I think about it, the Clark family abandoned me and supported Oscar even before we were married.”
“But it all makes sense now. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. No one was shocked and appalled when I found out about Oscar’s first affair. It was me everyone told to calm down. It was me who was told to not do anything hasty… to think things through.”
The small smile faded from her lips.
“It was me who was shamed because I wanted to end my marriage. All because my family doesn’t see adultery as wrong… for men. They rant and rave about the sanctity of marriage and how it’s ordained by God, and is forever. But adultery… it’s just a little thing. A minor detail. Forget that it’s listed in the Bible as a reason for divorce, or on God’s top ten list. No… no. Men are entitled to a little tail on the side every now and then. God’s a guy, he understands, right?”
“Quinn, you’re-”
“How would you feel if Vanessa had an affair? Or two? Three? How many have you had, Aaron?”
“Vanessa would never-”
“Hypocrite!”
“I take care good care of my wife. I’ve given her everything she’s ever wan-”
Quinn bolted from her seat.
“Except honesty and fidelity!”
“I’ve always been honest with Vanessa.”
“Oh! Well, that’s different. If you tell her up front you’re a lying, cheating asshole, it’s okay.”
“Quinn-”
“I believe you were leaving.”
“Quinn-”
“Goodbye… brother.”
“This isn’t over, Quinn Avery.”
“Yes, Aaron. For me, it is.”
He held her gaze as he backed toward the door.
“No, it isn’t. If you go through with this divorce, you’ll pay a steep price you’ll never recover from.” Aaron left, leaving her office door open.
Stunned, Quinn stood there, her mind replaying her brother’s words.
“… you’ll pay a steep price you’ll never recover from.”
What the hell?
©Felicia Denise 2017
Can You Only Write in One Genre?
by Michael Cristiano
As a writer, the last thing I want to do is restrict myself. Yes, it’s true, there are genres that I will never write (erotica, true crime, nonfiction textbooks on astrophysics), but other than that, I’m open to pretty much anything. I love straddling the line between genres, often bridging fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal and then throwing in some literary flair.
So, imagine my surprise when I was told that I should pick and stick to one genre. My conversation went something like this:
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How to Give Your Narration Flavor
Do your stories have ‘flavor?’
by Andrea Lundgren
Readers frequently talk about the style or narrative flavor of authors they enjoy. They’ll say, “That sounds like something __ wrote,” or “This reminded me of ___” or “The tone of that was flat.” But sometimes, we authors we sometimes don’t know what gives us our writing voice. What makes writing sound different or interesting and engaging?
Our voice is really the flavor that is distinctly ours. It’s like the spices that make Italian different than French or German cooking. They may have similar topography or features; in certain portions of those countries, there may just be an imaginary line between one part and another, to where the climate, soil types, and weather are identical. Similarly, our writing might be similar to that of another in genre, plot elements, and character types but yet be unique because of the “spices” we employ.
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