Jacqueline E. Luckett's Blog, page 2

Fanmail from some flounder?!

Yes, anyone can find you these days. No need for the phonebook, the postman or private detectives. Nearly everything you've participated in, voted for or supported is on the Internet and so are you!—even if you're not Facebooking or Tweeting, people can find you. Those you don't know, those you know, and those who think that they have the right to say whatever they want to you.

Got my first hate mail today. Disrespect from cyberspace.

And there's a little lesson in it for everyone.

I sort of figured the hate mail would happen sooner or later. I just didn't think the "hater" would be the person it was.

Ironically, or maybe not, the hate mail had nothing to do with Searching for Tina Turner—but then, maybe it did. Maybe that person didn't like my characters or story, maybe they were having a bad day, or maybe they just wanted to "dis" me for having written and published my novel. Maybe they're sad because I took steps in a direction away from them. Maybe they had a hard time separating fantasy and reality. Funny, that people forget FICTION means invention or fabrication NOT statements of fact. They forget that a writer's job—my new job—requires embellishment, twisting and turning the ordinary into stories that entertain, charm, baffle, scare, or carry a reader away from reality. Stories provide readers company on the beach, on the train home, in bed until deep into the night, until they have reached that final chapter, until they cry with the protagonist or slam the book down in fear or anger or better yet, the desire for more.

I suppose all authors, at one point or another, get hate mail. I suppose. But when I opened the emails, four of them, I wasn't thinking about other authors. I was thinking about the person whose name was in the FROM line; someone I used to love. I was thinking about perceptions and reality. I was thinking about the past and letting go and moving on.

Here's the lesson I want to share, because it's taken me a while to accept it—the past is dust. It's over. Dead. Gone. Never to be recaptured, changed, corrected or relived. Whatever mistakes or successes we've had only serve to provide guidance, a road map for the next time around. The only benefit the past has for each and every one of us is the lessons gained from it—the good, the bad, the ugly; the bitter or the sweet. If we live our lives rehashing he did/ she did we will waste the gift the good Lord has given to us. We will become bitter and spoiled, just as surely as a fungus attacks sweet fruit and ruins the bounty. We will waste our lives. And life is too short for that.

The emails hurt. They struck a chord so deep inside me that I had to catch my breath. They struck a chord so deep that twenty years flashed before my eyes, and I had to remember that I have always tried my best. The past is dust.

I was on my way to exercise when I opened the emails. I had to make a choice. To sit in the car and bawl my eyes out, to exercise or go home and hide under the covers. Oh! How I wanted the comfort of my bed. But I made a choice—no angry rebuttal, no (well, a few) tears. I let time and endorphins and writing this blog calm me. I knew that the best and only thing I could do for myself and that person—who is really not a "hater"— was to ask The Universe to send loving blessings, a wish that they find their own inner peace and understand the lessons available to them, and for the ability to move on.

And I do.

A trip to the South

The French Quarter

New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah. My friend, Nichelle, and I headed South for inspiration, good food, and exploration. There was no shortage of any of those three things. Loved all three places, and on the road between Charleston and Savannah, I fell in like with Beaufort and St. Helena Island.

My parents moved to California from Mississippi after World War 2. On my one and only visit to that state (and the South), I was twelve and to my teenage mind, Mississippi, and a...

Girrrrl, what are you doing?

Working. And that's the truth.

Writing.

Researching.

Revising.

Writing some more.

Thinking.

Re-revising.

Listening.

Re-re-vising . . .

Such is the life of a writer—this writer. When friends, non-writer friends, call me some mornings and ask, "What're doin'?" I tell them, "I'm working!" It's not hard to hear their skepticism.

So, mine is not a 9 to 5 gig. So, I don't commute. So, I set my hours (which...

Following the yellow brick road . . .

Was it only a little over thirty-nine days ago that I raved that Searching for Tina Turner finally hit the streets, opened box upon box of my books, visited bookstores and photographed shelves with Searching for Tina Turner next to books by Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler and Barbara Kingsolver?

You bet your bippy it was.

Travel has been the name of my game since then, and I'm loving it. Maybe I was a gypsy, a vagabond, a road entertainer in days gone by. I don't feel bad hopping from taxi to...

Online Tour And Book Trailers

Jacqueline Luckett wanted to show readers a little teaser about her novel, "Searching for Tina Turner". So here it is:

Also check out her Extended Book Trailer on her website.

Jackie also participated in an Online Blog Tour. Check out some of her interviews and reviews at:

My Book Views

Radiant Light

Rundpinne

Madeleine's Book & Photo Blog

My Reading Room

There are many more blogs that participated in this tour. Check out Jacqueline's website in her Readings & Appearances section for more blog i...

Success . . .

Hooray! Hooray! Today is my day.

Searching for Tina Turner officially hits bookstores today. Kind of anti-climatic? Not!  I've already been in one store and seen the poster and my book, my book, on the shelf next to authors more famous (hope that rubs off!) than me. But today is the official day. Today is the day my publicist sent out a press release. Today is the day I say, I did it, all day long.

Most, in our society, gauge success by money. This journey of writing has taught me that success ...

Sacred Moments

I crave immediate gratification.

I never wait for the movie to start to eat my popcorn. I rub the squares on my daily Lotto ticket before the store owner hands me my change. I take my ice cream straight from the grocery bag and eat out of the container. I finish my cereal before it turns soggy. I open my mail as soon as I pull it from my mailbox, wear new shoes home from the store, finish other people's sentences . . . You get it, right?!

There's something waiting for me in the lobby of my...

How time flies . . .

Christmas is almost here. Isn't it still autumn? No. Or time to baste the turkey? No. Didn't we just elect the first black president of the United States? Yes—a year ago. Sentimental carols, endless commercials urging us to buy NOW, countdowns to the last shopping day, ubiquitous (and sometime raggedy) Santas. The scent of pine and spruce. Like Proust's madeleines and hot tea brought back memories of days spent with his aunts, the scent of Christmas trees on a crowded lot brings memories...

Is That You?

I love this quote, almost an explanation of writing, from James Baldwin's 1955 Notes of a Native Son,

"One writes out of one thing only—one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from the experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art."

Whenever I tell people about the novel, they (strangers and acquaintances) always ask, "Is it about...

My Old Typewriter

I found my old typewriter the other day. It's a Royal—gray with green keys. I don't remember the exact Christmas or birthday that my parents gave to me, but it was when I was a teenager. I was a Catholic schoolgirl—twelve years being taught by the Sisters of the Presentation—but I learned to type in public school one summer of freedom (from my uniform) at Berkeley High. It was my first time in the classroom with boys since eighth grade. It was my best summer ever.

My finger muscles still hold ...