FINALLY. The book is D-O-N-E! I went to school, again, and helped to finish put the academic book to bed. It will be Fed-Exed to the publisher tomorrow morning. I'm SO glad to get it out of the way. I'm cranky and pissed and tired as hell as a result of having spent the last three days at school, but I am going to try hard to get over it.
I came home, got me a pizza and wings and just vegged out while surfing the net. Tomorrow, I'll be doing a bit of running around before hanging out with my bud, Bill. *HEY BILL!* :-)
Got some projects I'll be working on this weekend. Just bought the sites for SisterDivas and The Nubian Chronicles magazines, and for my own personal website. My website will offer a bio, info about my novels, and occasional reads for everybody. There will be a link to HERE...never fear, I rant and whine TOO much to not have this place, rest assured. LOL SOOOO, this weekend, I will be working on the magazines and on some writing of my new novel idea. I'm very serious about getting writing done over the next four or so weeks. Lord knows how much writing I'll get in once the semester begins.
ANYWAY...it's bed time. I'll go and surf the TV now for a bit.
I'll leave you all with a short piece of fiction. I wrote it about a year ago, but I took it out today and tweaked a bit. Hope you enjoy. More later! :-)
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The Little Gray House
There was something remarkable about the little gray house on the corner of Smith and Vine, despite the shutters that dangled from the windows and the porch steps that threatened to crumble with each heavy foot that climbed them. If you managed to climb the porch steps and live, you could peer into the Windex-cleaned windows and see Omar, the eldest son, dribbling his ball on his mother's just waxed, hardwood floors. She doesn’t come yelling after him. She will be too busy chasing the baby, Taylor, who at eight months, can’t stop crawling and tottering around the house, pulling the vacuum's cord out of its outlet and trying to stick his just-from-his-mouth, juicy fingers into the slits. A mother half-near losing her mind races after her kids. Typical day in a family.
If you could enter this little gray house, with its crumbling porch steps and dangling shutters...if you could walk up on this mother who is yelling, "Taylor, come here. Don't touch the outlet, Baby. You can get hurt," you would notice that she's barely touching on 30, but the faint lines on the corners of her eyes and the few, sparkling silver strands of hair laced in her black mane, makes her look older, well-lived, almost worn.
If you could see into her dull brown eyes, you would see that she just wants some time to herself to do what she loves: write. That's why she waits. Waits until the kids are finally asleep and her husband rolls in from his 14-hour-a-day job at the plant, tired and cranky. With her three men asleep, she will trudge up the stairs to the attic: her shop, where she sits with her old, black typewriter and types the stories that should be her life. Stories that only she will read because her husband tells her that writing is silly; her stories won't pay the bills. Stop trying to do things, he tells her. Your role is here, in the house, with the boys, and me.
But I want to write, damn it, she screams inside her head as she picks up Taylor and ushers Omar into the dining room for dinner. She eats. One bite. A few more, but mostly, she watches her sons and thinks, one page. If I can write just one page tonight, all this will be worth it. Blood throbs through the thick vein that takes up residence at her right temple because she knows writing will be the last thing on her agenda tonight. It's Friday, which means Harry will come home, eat his dinner, and will expect her to lay in their bed while he takes the last of her energy and will eventually leave her spent beside him, dozing off only to awaken and repeat the day again.
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