Them Blues...Part II

I got the blues, Mayne...

Them writing blues.

I haven't been writing much lately, over the past year really.

Part of it is being hard headed.

Most of it is being just discombobulated.

My writing classes were helping, but uh, I haven't taken a class in over a year...

It got a bit to, uh... well, I don't know the word for it...

Let me tell you a little story. Maybe you can come up with a word for it, lol...

I think about 2 years ago, around the week of August 2007, I posted several character sketches of characters in a story tentatively titled Fancy That, about a middle age black couple who were pillars of the community of their small town, but were hiding some very interesting secrets. One summer, their granddaughter comes to live with them, and some of these interesting secrets are exposed. (Pull it up in the sidebar if you want to read it).

The main secret is that the marriage is pretty much a sham, and the wife, Paulette, was conned by the husband, Arthur, to get married. Arthur found out that she had lesbian tendencies, and he held it over her head. So for a good 30 years, Paulette has been going with the flow, out of fear that Arthur would expose her.

I am really fascinated by the storyline, as I have never read anything like that before.

Now... I decided to run parts of this story through my writing class.

Something interesting about class: I have to pick and choose what I do in class.

I have a gazillion stories laying around my house that interest me.

Most of them appeal to black women, or may only be understood by the black community.

With my classes, I'm usually the only black person there.

So you already see the problem.

Let's just say, I turned in the first chapter of my completed first draft of my manuscript (a rewritten polished up first chapter, really), to see what my teacher would say, and uh... I got dissed.

Let's just say, she didn't get it. I have passed this through the hands of a couple white folk. They didn't get it.

Oh, the writing was superb, they said. But can't you write something that is more out of genre.

No, the question should be... Can't I write what I like to write?????

Back to the Fancy That storyline...

I have about ten chapters of that manuscript banged out. I'd been reading it in class, and people really liked it, and I got some really good feedback which I will think about incorporating. Sometimes that is what I need, and my Original Oldgirl Critique Squad is also good for this: just say something to me about what you are reading to jar a thought loose in my head and to help me with direction in untangling problems...

That's all I want, really.

So like I said, I'd been busting out chapters and what-not...

Then I messed around and read a prologue I'd written. True enough, I didn't like it. It was messy, and I didn't know where it fit in the story. I am hearing that prologues are cliche, and that's cool. But I wrote it anyway, with the goal of absorbing the info into the story later on...

So I decided to read it in class.

It was about a young Paulette, circa 1972, I think. She is laying on the floor with her lover Fancy, after a little lovemaking. They are laying their talking, smoking a joint, and listening to Roberta Flack's Where is the Love...

Paulette is newly married, even though she don't care to be. She sneaks off with Fancy every once in awhile, and that is fine with her. Fancy don't care for this shit. She wants to be with Paulette. They live in a small Georgia town, but Fancy has scored a job with the phone company up in Atlanta, and has found an apartment in the West End. She does her best to convince Paulette to leave Arthur and move up to the ATL. Paulette won't go for it. An argument ensues.

Paulette calms all of that down by well... you know... Let's just say she kills that noise...

LOL!

Anyway, it begins to rain outside. Fancy realizes that she has left the top to her convertible Volkswagon Bug down... She throws on her clothes and runs outside to take care of that.

She runs into trouble, because someone is out there...

That's all I will say about that.

When I finished reading, with a cliffhanger, of course... the whole class is eyeing me pretty hard.

And we must've discussed all of that for 30 minutes.

I was like "Well, like I told ya'll, this is just a piece that I don't know what to do with. It is very pivotal to the story. My goal is to not use it as a prologue, but to absorb it somewhere later in the story."

My teacher was like, "Well, we know that."

I fielded a few questions. Got a few comments that I wrote down, so I could think about them later.

Then my teacher starts in from left field...

"LadyLee, you have to watch that joint. They are talking, laying on the floor wrapped up in that bed spread, and passing it around. Someone's eye is going to get poked out or they're going to drop it. Be careful with that."

*crickets*

I really had to process that. True enough, I mentioned that joint too much. The smoke was really unfurling off that thang. But I was jumping off my own experience of laying out on the floor with my MAN smoking on a joint.

Let's just say, LadyLee was NOT concerned about dropping no dayum joint or poking out my man's eye. LadyLee was REAL high, and feeling good after some good sex. I could've dropped that joint and burnt the whole place down, and probably wouldn't have cared.

In other words, I was pulling off my own experiences, babes... lol.

Anyway, I wrote this all down. I had to think more about this joint issha.

"And another thing," my teacher added, "When Fancy realizes she left the top to the Bug down, and she jumps up and throws on her jean short cut offs, I notice she doesn't have any panties on."

I hadn't noticed that, but it was true. "Uh, I guess she don't," was my reply.

Everyone in the class was looking at me a bit too hard.

"Why is that? And where are her panties?"

Wow. I wasn't thinking about all that. "You have a point. I wasn't thinking about that."

No, I wasn't thinking about that. I again was bumping off my own experience. Man, I haven't been able to find my panties before, and didn't care. I just left them there. I had nice enough men who would wash them with their own laundry and give them back to me.

Yeah...

Anyway my teacher gets a bit stirred up over all this.

"Maybe that could be Fancy and Paulette's little signal or something, a signal that they were to see each other. They don't wear panties."

I just stared at her. The crickets also stared at her, stunned into silence.

"You know, Arthrur could be giving her a kiss goodbye and be like "Paulette, you don't have any panties on, hubba hubba!!"

Oh goodness. That was too much for me. I just nodded and wrote that down.

Ugh.

And there were more questions from the class, followed by me pointing and saying...

"Look, I ain't gay. So no, it ain't all that realistic. I don't know what two women do together! I'm trying to figure out where to place this material!"

No, there was nothing graphic in that piece. (I HATE erotica)... It was stuff left up to imagination. But I hated the fact that I got defensive.

This was a messy piece, by my own prior admissions. I wanted to deconstruct and absorb it.

No one seemed to understand that.

Oh well...

And that is one of the sources of my writing woes.

I have lost the "fun" part of writing. Everything has become about writing what someone wants to read or what someone will buy and publish.

I don't like that at all. And it has stifled my writing.

But at the same time, I have to be a big girl and do what I have to do: hone my craft...

Hence, the reason I am perusing the book of GLBT short stories, particularly those by African Americans.

I absolutely LOVE anthologies. This is how I come across new writers... This anthology served a different purpose. I have a very unique character in this character Paulette. I was looking for some stories of black women coming up in the 60s and 70s who felt the need to hide their love for women. I don't understand this or know anything about this, so I have to research this...

I just happen to see the aforementioned book on a cart at my local library, so I grabbed it up. I actually have 2 copies: the library copy, and a personally ordered copy. It had a lot of useful history tidbits that helped me understand some things, as the stories are set up by decade.

There's an author in there, Shay Youngblood, who Miss Celie (Tayari) hipped me to...

I read an excerpt from a book of Ms. Youngbloods in there (Soul Kiss). I bought the book and read it. Excellent book, superbly written, but let me tell you, it soooooo emotionally drained and disturbed me... But there were women in the book who were about the age and persuasion of my character. And it will help me flesh out Paulette's character a bit more.

So I am being mature about it all. I have to learn to hone my craft, and make an attempt to make my characters more realistic.

But at the same time, it has smothered and stifled me... I can't freely write without all kinds of thoughts going through my head. I can't freely enjoy my own writing.

Now, I can do that on blog... Because I'm not trying to sell the blog. It is like lotion for ashy skin. It soothes that writing beast within me, you know. I can write freely here, with no fear of judgment, of things not being good enough, etc...

So what is an Oldgirl to do?

That is where good ol' Miss Celie, Tayari, comes into the picture...

And ya'll know how I worship the ground Miss Celie walks on...

LOL...

to be continued...