Archive for January, 2006

January 9, 2006 | Family & Life

According to my writing plan, Fridays are not days to write, edit, or do anything with writing. I play singles tennis on Fridays, and Friday evenings are now set aside for the SciFi network. I grew up on Star Trek (and all programs from it), and Star Wars. The Scifi Network a year ago, decided to redo the 1970’s Battlestar Galactica. Now I’ll admit I did watch the program, and it was kinda lame. So, when the powers to be said they were revamping the program, I had no idea what they had in mind. Well, I’m hooked and if any of you tune in on Friday nights, you’ll find yourselves hooked as well. The writing is dynamic, the characters are three dimensional, and the tension is incredible. The story premise is the same, Cylons decide to overthrow and kill all the humans. The Cylons were created by humans. Some Cylons are bright, shiny machines with the one red eye that roves back and forth. But now, Cylons were also created to look like humans. There are many copies of one model. You kill one, it’s memory is downloaded into another model of itself. Some know they are Cylons, some don’t have a clue, until they’re informed of what their mission is. Some don’t want to be Cylons, they prefer to be human. The Cylons have a plan. Of course, it’s to wipe out humans, but they’re up to something else. This season, we’ve got one Cylon,Sharon, who is pregnant by a hottie fly pilot named Helo. He’s in love with her, even though he found out late what she was. Michelle Forbes, a favorite actress of mine, who was on Star Trek Next Generation, has a real gutsy crazy role. She’s Admiral Caine and she will stop at nothing to get her way, including assassinating Commander Adama, played by craggy face Edward James Olmos. Old Battlestar Galactica fans were outraged when Starbuck, a male womanizer in the first series, is now a female fighter pilot with emotional issues, but a woman I’d want backing me in any fight. The original Apollo, was played by Richard Hatch, and I understand he had some issues with this new program. However, he’s been given a role, I dare say allows him to stretch his acting and he’s very good.
I blog about this program, because it has a lot of writing techniques we can all learn. Pacing, character building and growth, dialogue, humor, and my old time favorite, the villain who even though you know is a villain, changes not for the better, but simply evolves and changes because he know he has too. Babylon 5 was like that. It had a five year arc and SciFi allowed it to finish its story telling. Sleeping In The Light, the final B5 episode, still makes me cry and has a turn that I should have caught in the beginning but didn’t. B5 taught me how characters change over a period of time and why. Take a look at Battlestar and let me know what you think. It’s not that easy to catch up on, some subplots you have to know about, but I’ll gladly fill you in, or you can go to Scifi.com and get episode updates.

Also, check out Sloane Taylor’s blog today on writing. It’s an awesome blog and has a lot of valuable information she’s learned to make her writing goals. She got a contract from Triskelion in December and has been editing her butt off to make her deadline! She’s blogging this week on her writing plan and notes should be taken.

January 6, 2006 | Writing

Well, it’s the first Friday of 2006 and today has been busy. Not with writing though. I had tennis practice and running around to do for the family. But this weekend, I plan on continuing my line editing. I found when I changed my story around to focus more on the relationship between Elizabeth and Stephen, there were other subplots that had to be removed and saved for the sequel. My critique partner, Sloane Taylor, blogged her business plan for writing and I’ve taken some notes to try and use some of her plan for mine.
So, I have questions for you, and the answers can’t be written until Sunday evening. How did you spend your weekend? What writing did you do? Did your muse up and take the weekend off? Or did your characters go sit in a corner and refuse to participate?
Also, starting on Wednesday, January 11th, Beth Anderson will be answering questions on my Writing, Humps, Lumps and Dumps page about point of view. Stop by, read what she has to say and she’ll answer questions. This will be a weekly event, January 11th, 18th and 25th. Questions should be sent to my email address, YasminePhoenix@aol.com
Hope you have a writing good weekend and hope to hear from you next week!

January 5, 2006 | Inspiration

Something marvelous occurred to me after my Wednesday blog and reading the blog of Sherrill Quinn. She was asking how has the internet changed our lives. Well, one important way, besides major shopping from home, is you really don’t know what the racial identity is of those you’re communicating with. You also don’t know if the person you’re emailing really is a twelve year old girl and not a forty year old police office that’s gonna kick your ass, post your picture all over the country and send you to jail with others of your kind, that need a girlfriend real bad. Unless you ask, or you get hints as to the color of your friends’ skin, it really doesn’t matter. We communicate based on likes, dislikes, common afflictions (like writing) and it’s all good. es, it does take away the actual face to face interaction, but that can occur later. We even belong to one or two of the same groups. I’m looking forward to RWA’s Conference in Atlanta. Last year, I was in a workshop given by Ellora’s Cave, and I just knew , there were some brazen vixens in the room. But, I didn’t raise my hand and ask, fear that Raelene might look at me crazy had a lot to do with it to. This year, we’re gonna find each other, learn, party and shop!

January 4, 2006 | Family & Life

I was raised in the south, during a time when black people sat separately from whites, attended segregated schools and the N- word was ugly. If you even thought about talking to a person of another color, much less dating them, you could count of getting beat up. First, from your family, and then whites who really didn’t approve. So, it was somewhat of a shock, when I was home for my mother’s funeral last year, my daughter commented on how many interracial couples she saw. Not just the black man/white woman, but black woman/white man combination. Being that there are several armed forces bases around my hometown, and many couples come from different parts of this country and abroad, it’s normal. I have always tried to explain to my daughter that when she looks for someone to be with, she should look beyond color. Oh, I know, she wants the cute, tall, black guy but he maybe interested in someone else. Someone not the beautiful chocolate color she is. This threw her for a serious loop her freshman year in high school. Most of the black guys she noticed, were noticing the white girls and it pissed her and the other sisters off! There was a minor incident about a note passed around, but all in all, it eventually faded away. I won’t go into her ‘gangsta phase’ which lasted for about two years and almost got her thrown out of the house. Someday, I’ll blog about raising a daughter. I told her that if the brothers insisted on dating white girls, then if a white guy asked you out, and you like him, then go. In high school, the white drummer in my youth group, a definite hottie named Mark, showed serious interest in me. He knew how strict my parents were, but he dared to show up at my house! He ‘courted’ me on our front porch, scaring the shit out of my parents, and he had the nerve to ask me to his senior prom. I was not allowed to go. My parents thought I might be hung. I had entirely different definition of ‘hung’. Our version of ‘dating’ for a time, was during our music practices. We had a lot of practices that summer, our group was very good. Later, I did date white guys, in Washington, D.C. but I never brought one home.

The media is slowly starting to show interracial couples. I didn’t watch Friends, but Ross had a black girlfriend. A highly intelligent black girlfriend. Some commercials ‘imply’ interracial coupling in a large group. I never could get through Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, without cringing. Sydney Poitier is one of my favorite actors, and Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were awesome in anything they made. The movie was considered ground breaking when it came out, and not to take anything away from it, it was. But, the relationship between the good doctor and his white rich fiance, was boring. No kissing that I can remember, no intimate hugs, suspicion from the black maid and many debates as to what this couple would face in their lives together. Spencer Tracy’s final monologue did make me cry. The newer version, Guess Who? with Bernie Mac was more realistic, although it was played for laughs. The Jeffersons tv program, did have a more realistic interracial ‘rich’ couple, black woman/white man.

Publishers are also getting on the interracial kick. New Concepts Publishing has several interracial novels coming out in the spring. Harlequin, just purchased BET’s three black romance lines. It will be interesting to see if H changes the writing of these imprints. Before, no interracial stories were not allowed, the hero and heroine had to be black.

Today’s world is changing. Mixing of the races was once illegal in this country. Couples still have a difficult time, although it is more covert than overt. Black women are faced with trying to find suitable mates, so we’re told. Black men have trouble competing with black women financially, black men are incarcerated, use drugs, black men are on the down-low, black men prefer women of other colors because black women are difficult to deal with, black women are only looking for daddies for their babies, black women are loose. The list can go on. This makes it hard for those young black women and men who are trying to succeed, trying to find someone they can live their lives with.

Black women read, there are lots of dollars involved, and all I’m asking that is that the writing avoids stereotypes, have good plots, well developed characters, and are romance driven. Dyanne Davis wrote, The Color of Trouble, the first interracial romance I read. I was blown away. It is an awesome book and she should be credited for her storyline. It’s sensual, realistic in how parents view interracial relationships, and identifies the stress it places on the couple to figure out how to deal with it and live their lives. Who exactly are they living for? As for my story, my couple truly love each other. For Elizabeth, color does matter, but no matter how many excuses she finds, no matter how many times she allows her father to interfere, and she tries to walk away from Stephen, she can’t because she loves him. For Stephen, he loves her color, he loves her, she is his heart, his soul, his partner and the sooner she realizes it, the sooner they can marry. Alpha male, white or black.