Hey, Hey!
How's everyone doing! School is finally over!! I am screaming from the rooftops how excited I am about this much needed summer break. Being a teacher has it's ups and downs. This time to reset is definitely a blessing.
I am making headway on this #kindlevella thing! I am excited for #amazon to roll it out and being able to interact and immerse my readers into my worlds and characters. It is almost as if they have a front row seat to the stories and characters in my head. and have my readers interact with me. This platform will enable to me to asking my readers what they think and which characters they think I should keep, and which ones that should disappear forever!
I adore getting questions from my readers on Social Media! Some are author related and some are book related. Let's get into some of those!
Why did you make Jelena Hispanic and not black?
Coming up with the plot of my first novel Serial Killer, Con Artist and Jelena was relatively easy. I knew where I wanted to start and had an idea of where I wanted to go. I wrote without planning. I do that every time I sit down to write.. The planning comes in afterwards; I write down details so I don't forget and write something different later on.
Back to Jelena. I knew that I wanted her, (all my main characters actually), to be a woman of color. I knew I wanted her to have an interracial relationship and have that be a source of conflict in the marriage. Not only did I want culture to be the conflict, but I wanted the language to be one of the barriers that added fuel to the fire. This solidified my decision to make her Hispanic. However, there was a cultural element that I was unfamiliar with.
How did I remedy this? I asked for help! I hired someone specifically to ensure that my cultural elements were authentic to the character. I would be at work writing and pull my Hispanic students in and ask for their help. As the stories developed and played out, all those cultural elements in my stories are in the background, but I still wanted to be accurate and respectful.
Why do you write a lot of Genres? The first book is crime fiction but the second one is paranormal.
I just love a lot of genres. They all intertwine in the crime fiction genre in some way, but I don't think as an author I should be sidelined to just writing in one style. There are some authors that write or publish under pen names when they switch genres. I wasn't feeling that idea.
I actually didn't think about doing paranormal when I was writing Serial Killer, Con Artist and Jelena. It just wasn't the vibe. Immediately afterwards, I started writing the second one Shifter, Killer and Jelena. I didn't know if I wanted to do a stand alone book or make it a second in the series. I did know I wanted a paranormal element. I decided to continue Jelena, but have her be a part of a special task force. In that book, I wrote a lot of exposition, explaining the special task force and the rules, how one gets on it, etc. This was just in case readers picked the first installment to read and were like WHOA!
When I revisit the series, my plan for Jelena is to have her go back to 'normal' killers. However, the paranormal element will always be there because of her relationship to Jordan. It will seamlessly mix the two genres together.
Do all your books have interracial relationships?
Not all of them! I knew from the beginning that I wanted Jelena in a interracial relationship (to a white guy). During the development of the story, I came up with her abusive past. I knew then that I couldn't let Jelena and her second husband Dan end up together (Jelena wouldn't let me!). Throughout the stories there were hints about his mistrust of her and dislike of her culture/ language barrier which just developed that throughout the story. Jelena had reached her breaking point towards the end of story (you have to read to find out!), so I took advantage of that and it became Dan's breaking point which revealed his true personality.
During her 'off screen' separation from Dan, I knew she needed another love interest. I used what I call, 'book timeline', the stress she was under with Dan and the werewolf's intense feeling they get when they are around their mate to push her towards Jordan. This was I could work him in. I struggled with whether to keep the interracial element because his family was shifters. I ended up deciding to keep him a different race, just like a different culture from Dan.
Seeing Spied made me happy, what was your inspiration for that book?
Coming off four installments of Jelena (two novels and two novellas) I wanted to switch gears from a Hispanic main character to another race. I decided to go with Black because it was comfortable and came easy to me (of course). I knew I wanted to jump into the YA world. I played around with the setting, and the fantasy aspect for a while. I would write and things would develop. I would re-write and brainstorm. When I decided the school wouldn't be for magic, it would be for something else, I completely took the magical element out of it.
When I was writing the prologue, for the third time, I decided I liked the Magic. I gave the mother magical powers. I was unsure how I wanted to incorporate it into the twins' life. Having it be another element to discover, develop, and hide was just how my character development flowed. It turned out being the conflict which was even better.
Why do you write races that aren't yours? You're a black author, you should only be writing about black characters. We hate it when white authors write about our characters, it's hypocritical.
I agree that it is difficult to write about races and cultures that are not your own. I dislike when another culture puts out entertainment about black people and it is filled with stereotypes and poorly written characters. I also acknowledge that my world is not filled with only one race of people or one culture. When I write, even if it is a fantasy world, I want to depict diversity.
To me that doesn't mean just black people. It means a variety of people, races, and cultures. I always focus on one race or culture and those elements peek through, but there are other races. In Spied: A Deceptive Novel the other races are still races of color. In Jelena's novels, the other races are white with varying degrees of cultures.
We do not see women of color as main characters who are not a villain for a damsel. Who are not loud with poor language and exaggerated features. My stories are about women who are normal, with normal lives (besides the killing 😉) who are still connected to their roots and culture, but that is not the main focus. Jelena speaks Spanish occasionally and when she cooks an important meal, it's Spanish food. Lanelle (the female half of the Sparks twins in Spied) worries about her hair and her parents say those phrases all black parents have said at one time and again.
However, the focus is catching the killer, the love story, discovering that you're going to be a spy, learning you have magic. The focus is on domestic violence, being a woman in a man dominated field, growing up without a mother, learning your identity, uncertainly of a new environment, having relationship morals, and putting values to the test.
I don't believe I have the right to take another culture and claim it as my own. I do believe that if I am going to write about other races and cultures and input culturally specific things that I need to do it correctly, gracefully, and with help from people who have experience walking in those shoes. I do know that when that is done to people of color, it is done though the lenses of the intersectionality of racism and sexism, stereotypes, and negative personality traits. We are not angry black women, we are not men, we are not 'Mammy' and we are not promiscuous and we are not for the taking. My stories don't have that, and I'm sorry people feel that I have no right to write about races and cultures that are not mine.
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