Frances Frost's Blog, page 2

There is a Somebody for Everybody

Love of a lifetime. Soulmate. Perfect match. Complete me.  The one.  Our Valentine. It’s what we’re all looking for – that one person in the world who was made gloriously and divinely just for us.  From our time as children when we were told of that one special prince who showed up with the magic kiss to awaken the princess, we’ve been convinced and assured that there is someone out there just for us. How do we find that one person? Is it fate, dumb luck, happenstance?  If you hadn’t gone into that bar that night, would you have met him at the grocery store check-out line instead?  Did you find love alphabetically, being assigned to sit behind her in history class?  What if your parents would’ve decided to move to the next town over and you went to a different high school, would you have somehow ended up at the same college?  Was it the one time that you believed that your co-worker was a good matchmaker and accepted his offer to meet his [...]

The Soundtrack for Life

“There’s a soundtrack for Life in Spades?” People have asked when I mention certain songs that relate to the characters.  Yes, there is music mentioned throughout the book as the women work through their challenges of love and family.  And yes, there is particular music I think of in my own head when I consider Gina, Laura, Sherry, and Cookie’s stories. While I’m working on a writing project, whether my next book or blog post, I listen to the Life in Spades ”soundtrack”, as well as other music I’ve pulled up on my iPod or Slacker.  Depending on whether I’m writing, editing, re-reading, or trying to get over a stumbling block, yes, the genre changes.  Although I can write to Bruno Mars, I have to edit with instrumental in the background. Music plays such a key piece in our lives, so it’s not surprising really that it would play a part in our creativity and productivity.  Every major life event has a song.  Birthdays, weddings, holidays.  Even births invoke certain songs – Isn’t She Lovely? – as [...]

An Afternoon of Books & Lunch at Busboys & Poets

I don’t know what took me so long, but I finally made my way to Busboys & Poets.  I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Andy Shalal, the owner, at the Hurston Wright Awards, and my daughter had studied the Harlem Renaissance in school recently; I took these as signs to visit the namesake restaurant for one of the premiere writers of the era, Langston Hughes. The restaurant is cozy, reminding one of a friend’s chic dining room, that is, if you had a friend who had 20 or so tables and modern art hanging in their dining room.  There were proper tables, as well as pillow-laden couches surrounding low coffee tables as dining options.  We enjoyed a delicious meal – including a great crabcake. And being from Maryland, Baltimore specifically with a good amount of time on the Eastern Shore, I am a bit of a crabcake snob.  This one was truly meaty and tasty.  For dessert, my daughter ordered the vegan cookie and ice cream. She’s not a vegan, but for some reason, [...]

Chocolate Cake with Caramel Latte Frosting

One of the most common questions I get while promoting Life in Spades – whether at bookclubs or book festivals or (wo)manning my booth at a community event – is “are any of the characters based on you?”  The lovelorn baker, the don’t-wanna-be marathon runner, the divorcee, or the escort?  Nah.  All these friends climbed out of my imagination.  But that’s not to say that we don’t share some of the same characteristics, likes and dislikes. Cookie, for instance, does have a dream job.  Baking all day in her self-owned bakery?  Would love it!  Absolutely.  During the holidays, I step into the full-time baker role. I don my apron, stack up my recipes (I often make the same cakes and pies, but have a terrible memory for recipes), pour myself a drink, and start baking.  My regulars are red velvet cake, pound cake, sweet potato, pecan and apple pies.  I supplement those according to my mood at the time – carrot cake, peanut butter cake, Hummingbird cake, upside down cake.  I really like the ten-layer [...]

When Your Muse Takes a Break

You’re going along, tapping away on your keyboard or scribbling in your notebook, the story, the words, the ideas are coming to you at a good, creative pace.  And then all the sudden – your characters sit languidly on the couch, they drive down the street just staring out the window, or they take a nap. Now what? When it seems that my beautiful writing muse has taken a lunch break, I need something to call her back, or at least a substitute until she returns.  I’ve found a few useful techniques to get the story going again. Read what you’ve already written.  Maybe you are in a “no edit” mode, but this doesn’t violate that rule.  Reading over what you already have might show a hole in your plot or raise your own question of “why’d they do that?” or “how did they get there?”  Filling in the answers will get your brain cells firing for a while and then may push you to the next point in your writing. Read something else – [...]

Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards

The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Ceremony was held last Friday in the historic Carnegie Library in Washington DC. I had the pleasure of attending and celebrating Black literature, as Founder Marita Golden put it, “without controversy or explanation…where brilliance is assumed.” Dolen Perkins-Valdez, the author of Wench, was the entertaining and thoughtful Mistress of Ceremonies for the evening.  Her excitement about the authors reminded me how we all have, or should have, someone to look up to. As a student of Black literature in college, to the point that some thought it was my major (it was not; in fact, although I took all the classes that were offered, there weren’t enough to qualify even as a minor), one of the poets I read was Sonia Sanchez.  She was present at the Awards to read her original poem for the occasion, in honor of one of the organization’s namesake, Zora Neale Hurston, entitled “Belly, Buttocks, and Straight Spines.”  I prefer to read poetry to get the full meaning, but I enjoy hearing it for the sound [...]

Plan a Writing Day

When my writing group meets, we usually have sent each other our selected drafts before hand, had time to read them over, and scribble or type comments.  Face to face, we discuss our comments, ask questions, maybe even brainstorm a few ideas for someone who is stuck.  Recently, we decided to switch things up. We would write, enjoy breakfast, and talk about our writing. All of us have attended a writing retreat at some point, whether a day long or a weekend, and we planned to harness this collective writing energy to file a few more pages in our novels-to-be.  I’ve done this in the past with my scrapbooking friends, too. It’s all the creativity bouncing in the air, it spurs you to want to grab it and make something beautiful, too. Select a place conducive to your work.  Places like Starbucks and Panera are generally welcoming of folks hanging out for a few hours, but be mindful that they are in business to make a buck, not be your secondary office. Don’t take up [...]

Literary Pieces: A Book Review and Bookclubs

Last Saturday turned out to be a literary puzzle of several interlocking pieces, making this picture of the day: My morning started out with notice that a book review for Life in Spades had been posted.  Probably the thing that made me most nervous after sending my novel out into the world for readers to read it, wass waiting for reviews.  Readers have posted on Goodreads and Amazon (thank you!), but this was a book-blog review, a little something different.  Thanks to  Reads4pleasure.com for posting their thoughts, rating Life in Spades with 4 “chairs” out of 5. They mentioned that “if you enjoyed Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale, you’re going to love Life in Spades.”  That was piece one. High on those comments, I finished up my coffee and went to the Congressional Black Caucus Author’s Pavillion.  And as it turned out, who was on the panel?  Ms. Terry McMillan,  along with fellow authors Victoria Rowell (yes, Drucilla from The young & The Restless) and Chyla Evans, and representatives from popular bookclubs discussing the relevance of [...]

Reading with Book Clubs

I’ve been in a book club for years, as a reader. I’m obviously not unique in this membership, it seems most people are in a bookclub or would like to be.  (And yes, there are that bunch who definitely do not want to be in a bookclub for a myriad of reasons – time, they only want to read what they want to read; I get it.)  My bookclub meets loosely, about once per month, reading books by women of color, unless there’s a book that we all agree we will make the exception for, and we’ve been together about 10 years.  We’ve hosted authors in person and by phone (before there was Skype).  Now I’m on the other side, as an author.    Here’s a few tips, gleaned from my experience on both sides of the book for a successful and enjoyable book club. Read the book.  I realize that expectation becomes a joke for some book clubs, but in truth, that really is the whole point. Of course, life happens and sometimes, even [...]

Start with One Word, Then Add Another 49,999

Back a few Novembers ago, I came across this crazy idea of writing 50,000 words in one month. Not just any 50,000 words – but in coherent (mostly), related (kinda) sentences that told a story.  With countless cups of coffee, endless bowls of M&Ms, and less sleep than is probably healthy, I managed to finish a skeleton of a 100 page idea. How did I come up with that magic number of 50,000, other than it just sounds like a nice, round, impressive number?  And why in November, which is, for most people and especially a mother of 4, a crazy month of Thanksgiving planning, Christmas shopping, and lots and lots of baking? Because it’s NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.  Started in 2009 and now run by the Office of Light and Letters, NaNoWriMo is an annual challenge to wanna-be-writers to get those characters and plots and scenes out of their brains and on to paper in a minimum of 50,000 words.  What you do after you hit that magic number or November 30, [...]