About The Writing

When I first began writing fiction, it was all about telling a story. I didn’t start off being able to tell a story from beginning to end. That ability grew over a period of years. Something interesting happens when role play with characters that you have created, you become attached to them, and you and your character grow together. That connection can allow you to tap into an emotionality that may have previously been out of reach.

Writing a story is less about creating characters and placing them in a story, and more about telling the character’s story. The more you breathe life into a character, the more you realize that you are simply waiting for them to reveal their story to you. Kind of like a conduit. There is nothing to write if your characters have nothing to say.

As a reader, I have read many books. Some books I’ve been able to sit and read from beginning to end, and think, “Hmm, that was pretty good.”

Some books have brought me to tears, some were so stupid that I put them down and never picked them up again. Others have made me so mad that I didn’t want to finish it, but I couldn’t help it. I’d pick it up again and finish it.

In my estimation, there are two things that art should do, regardless of the format, it can make you feel or make you think.

I cannot listen to “You are my friend” by Patti LaBelle or “I believe in you and me” By Whitney Houston without shedding tears.

There are probably just a few of us who didn’t shed at least one tear, when Mister separated Celie and Nettie in the Color Purple, or the funeral scene from Steel Magnolias.

Our relationship with art is usually deep, personal, and profound.

When I discovered that my characters had a story that they wanted me to tell; and that their story connected and affected others, I realized that to be truly success as a writer, I need to garner an emotional response. It doesn’t matter if it’s anger, sadness, arousal, joy, vindication, whatever. If I can make someone feel, then my job is done.

The best way to make people feel is to tell a story that someone can identify with; something that they can connect with. Even if the circumstances are fantastic, the people will do things, and say things and respond like real people.

I have struggled for many years to find a genre that encapsulates and defines the fiction that I write.

I’ve considered literary fiction, romance, erotica, mystery, historical; and nothing has ever fit, because my stories touch on all of these.

My mother tells people that I write adult fiction, and you know, she’s right. It is definitely adult fiction, but more than that, and deeper than that, I write realistic fiction. And sometimes reality is hard to handle, but the story is the thing.

As my mom once said, “Just read the first chapter, and you’ll be hooked.”