Dealing with doubt

I received a message on Facebook the other day from a writer. Part of what it said follows:

You are really encouraging and inspiring. It takes discipline to write a novel and so many times I started and stopped, started and stopped, (listening to voices saying I can't do it, it's too hard, I'm not good enough, etc.) My goal in 2010 is to finish my draft and the arduous process of rewriting, etc.

I wrote back to tell this writer that I still hear those voices. I thought I would share here what I told her:

You know what's funny is that people think because I'm published I don't hear those voices. Not true! Even with 2 novels under my belt while I'm looking at my current work in progress I'm hearing all that same stuff about how I'm not good enough. I'm not disciplined enough. It's too hard. I've gotten myself in over my head. I'm not talented enough. The trick is to keep going any way. My tips for coping with those voices are praying, crying and listening to uplifting music to pump myself up before I start work. Jill Scott's song "Try" is a good one.

That got me thinking. "Try" isn't the only song I listen to. I posted some suggestions a few years ago. Here's a few new additions I've added.


"They said no you can't. We said yes we can."


"Keep your head up high. Believe in you, believe in me."



"I don't worry cause everything's gonna be alright."


"Well let the sun shine on your face And don’t let your life go to waste"


"I'm ready to go right now!"

Jill Scott to play Nona!

The great, lovely, talented, fabulous Jill Scott is going to play Nona is the Lifetime movie version of Orange Mint and Honey called "Sins of the Mother"!!! Read it in Variety.

Happy Labor Day

Prince - Let's Work
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Happy September

Chrisette or Estelle?

Is it me or do these women sound a little alike? I'm digging them both and I guess there's a reason for that.

Leaving for LaLa Land

Mani? Check. Pedi? Check.
Hair curled? Almost.

Bag packed? Soon as I get the cat out (is that where that saying comes from?).

Music uploaded to MP3? Check. I highly recommend Simone on Simone!! Wonderful reinterpretations of some of Nina's famous songs (especially "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair") and an original and very touching song called "Child in Me" that speaks of a daughter's loneliness while her mother is away. Another place for good music is Tayari Jones' "rejection correction playlist."

Left to do? Print out pages to take with (rather than my laptop) to get some edits done while I'm gone.

BEA here I come! I'll post a report and pictures when I return. (Be sure to check out the Author Studio Podcasts at the BEA site!)

Happy Dance

"Just Fine" is church, the club and aerobic class for me. Seems I'm not alone. Mary J's video for this song makes me happy, but this video of NBC's chief White House correspondent shaking his groove thang while Mary J sings cracks me up, in a good way. (his moves get the thumb's up on YouTube). It's 41 seconds of joy! Thanks to Lolita Files for turning me on to it.

Dance Dance Revolution!

For everybody on deadline or stressed out from the holidays.

This first song has been getting me through for almost 20 years now. (I do have a thing for James Browns' spiritual godsons, especially the ones who like to change their names. I'd include a video from His Purple Badness, but I'd get sued.) Best lines: "It ain't easy. Giving up is the easy thing to do. Time is on your side, but you just watch the clock and let it tick for you."




This song has only been getting me through a few weeks, but I can tell already that I'm going to listen to this whenever I want a boost. Best line: "Feels so good when you're doing all the things that you want to do." Yay, Mary J. is back!

OK, back to work!

My theme song

(At least the chorus is) What's yours?

Fried

Haven't been gardening (too bloody hot!). Behind on N2. And damn tired. BUT, there is good news: a high of only 80 today and high 70s tomorrow! That should help. So does this: "Ain't Got No...I've Got Life" by the High Priestess of Soul herself. By the time she throws her hands in the air at the end, you'll know you can go on one more day. (And, if you need to, come back tomorrow and watch it again.)

I'll Cry if I Want To

Music plays a huge role in Orange Mint and Honey. In one scene the characters discuss their theme songs. I wish I would have known about this site I just discovered on Siddity in the City, which tells you the number one song in the U.S. on the day you were born. Mine is "It's My Party," by Leslie Gore. That's right: I'm old.

How old am I? My best friend D ("Hey Paula" by Paul and Paula was #1 the day she was born) and I recently realized that we were bragging about our low blood pressure. LOW BLOOD PRESSURE! You know you're old when that's what you brag about! Old and tired.

"Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni..."

...just to name a few." Remember that? It's been going through my head since yesterday. In honor of Ms. Giovanni, a little old school from Teena Marie.

Spiritual guides

In Orange Mint and Honey, Nina Simone watches over Shay, acting as a a straight-talking Glinda the Good Witch guiding her toward her truth. Nina and Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey and Etta James are Shay's spiritual mamas, their wise words and soulful melodies the only guidance she ever had.

While I wrote Orange Mint, I kept a framed picture of Zora Neale Hurston above my desk. She wears a cool black fedora and looks down at me--guiding me toward my truth. Don't believe me? The agent I signed with for Orange Mint manages Hurston's estate.

Extraordinary music

Check out Extraordinary Renditions. The new CD from the trio of Dirk Dickson (bass), Ron Bucknam (drums and guitar) and Mike O'Neill (guitar). "It's out of this world, back in this world adventures for ears that have no lids." Very cool music! (And I named one of the songs...#10)

From Ron on CD Baby:

Extraordinary Renditions is a serious trio of improvisers with many years experience together and individually, trying to be true to the impulse to make music on the spot, through grace and skills. The emphasis is not on what hot shot players we are (no slouches in the ranks however), but instead on group listening & interplay. All sonorities, rhythms and approaches are welcomed, but the basic activity is: listen & contribute / listen & hang back.On the first track I am playing what sounds like a guitar. It is a guitar. When you’ve listened to the music you will see that it is not altogether straight forward what is coming at you). On the cuts where you hear drums (me) you are most likely hearing Michael O’Neill on guitar – unless he is playing the percussion part through his guitar synthesizer. At most other times it is difficult for me to listen and tell who is playing what, when. There was no overdubbing. All of the bass playing and engineering is from Dirk Dickson, who you might catch on a jazz gig, playing with a dance company or doing whole shows of solo bass. Michael is involved in projects ranging from playing guitar in a group otherwise comprised of computers, a free improve Flamenco / jazz duo and solo extended guitar performances. I play drums and guitar, but have spent a lot of time in recent years composing for electronics. Check out CD’s by Dirk and me elsewhere on CD Baby.

Enough with the words, we very much hope you enjoy our efforts. Ron Bucknam.

Cool Cat Billy Melton

On April 24, my grandfather, William Oliver Melton, passed away. He was 85 and had lived a full, joyful life. We, his family and friends all over the country, were sad, but that night we knew they were partying in heaven!

In his obituary he wrote, "Without music life is a mistake."

(Any wonder I married a musician?)

At Papa's house, you could listen to music,

look up at music (This is the ceiling in one of the basement

rooms.),

walk on music,

sit on music,

tell time by music,

party to music (My grandparents once had more than 1,000 people

attend a 24-hour-long party in their one-bathroom house!),

learn about the history of black music in America,

(Grandmama, Count Basie, Papa)

And simply appreciate music and life.

He was one cool cat and oh how I miss him.

Old girls' night out

Yep, the Pajama Gardener was out of the house after dark 2 nights in a row. Last night, my friend Leslie and I went to go see Corinne Bailey Rae and John Legend in concert. It was a great show (though they couldn't quite get the sound right for John Legend's set).

As we walked up to the theater, Leslie said, "I'm glad we're not the oldest people here." And sure nuff, we weren't. There were lots of gray and bald heads in there. And didn't the singers know it--they did a few flashbacks to Robert Flack, the O'Jays, Carole King and Led Zeppelin. We old girls danced and sang along and had a great old time...after we got some cough drops for the smoke during Legend's set. (Not that kind of smoke-it was dry ice-I only smelled that kind of smoke once, as if someone near me took a quick toke.)

I was feeling pretty good, being up and out after dark and all, until Rae said, with no irony at all, that she was 28 and had been playing in bands for a long time, since she was 16, and it looked like things were finally happening for her. I guess in a Beyonce world, you get worried if you haven't made it by the time you're staring at 30. Thank God publishing isn't like that (yet). Speaking of the rest of the pop scene, it was a pleasure to listen to a singer-songwriter, a young woman who is indeed making it without shedding her clothes or wiggling her ass.

Then John Legend came on, looking all of 7 years old, and everyone pulled out their cells to take pictures. I looked at the sea of blue screens in front of me and remembered when people held lighters and joints up in the air, not cell phones. And I began to feel my age again. But then Legend and his band got us dancing and singing and, yes, screaming like teens. Much fun.

Tonight I go to my critique group. Tomorrow, I collapse.

In Praise of Nina Simone

The professor taught us to worship the great men of jazz, but it was the women who drew me in: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey. They were queens, priestesses, goddesses — encouraging me, pointing me away from danger, schooling me in the ways of life. Especially Nina Simone.
From Orange Mint and Honey (Ballantine 2008)

That’s my character Shay Dixon speaking about the late Nina Simone, who would have turned 74 today.

Known as the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone was fierce, brave and maybe a touch crazy (actually, she might have been clinically depressed or might have suffered from borderline personality disorder).

She was a black woman who wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in 1963 after four little girls were bombed in a church in Birmingham. She was a dark-skinned woman who put the words “Young, Gifted and Black” together at a time when many black folks couldn’t imagine gifted and black being used in the same sentence. Raised in a tiny town in the Jim Crow South, she grew up to stand on stages around the world in front of wealthy white folks and command their attention (and sometimes berated them if they didn’t give it to her).

In other words, she did things you’d have to be brave and maybe a touch crazy to do. May we all be so brave and crazy.

At the beginning of my novel Shay listens to Nina Simone’s version of "House of the Rising Sun" and it sets her on an unexpected path back to her mother. (You can watch Nina Simone performing the song here.)

Interesting coincidence: Nina Simone is a mother-figure for Shay, and my mother died on Nina Simone’s birthday (which I didn’t know when Nina Simone first appeared to me as a character). So yes, today is also the anniversary of when my mother passed, six days after she turned 45.

Happy Birthday Dr. Nina Simone. And here’s to all our queens, priestesses, goddesses, mothers of the spirit, play-mamas and real mamas!

Funk soul Christmas

We had chicken and waffles for Christmas. It was pretty good. Not as sublime as the chicken and waffles I had a few years ago in L.A. (not Roscoe's, some other place I don't remember the name of). But still pretty good. It's our tradition to have something nontraditional for Christmas dinner. Last year we had appetizers. The year before we had green chili. This year it was soul food.

Speaking of soul, let's take a moment of silence for the Godfather. When I was about 7 years old I got into an argument with a group of kids because they had the bad taste to say that The Jackson 5 was better than James Brown. No way. If you don't believe me, listen to "James Brown Live at the Apollo" sometime. It's fierce.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Have a Bootzilla Christmas

I love Christmas music, and I'm always in the mood for some Bootsy. So imagine my delight when my husband brought home Christmas is 4 Ever, Bootsy's new Christmas album. Go get it. It'll put a smile on your face and a shake in your booty.

Motivational play list

When I need motivation, encouragement, energy, uplift, solace, I turn to these songs. Something tells me I’m going to be needing them all this NaNoWriMo. Maybe they’ll work for you too. What songs do you listen to keep going?

Dance Little Sister/Terence Trent D’Arby. I’ve been using this song to help me meet deadlines for almost 20 years now. Never fails.

House of the Rising Sun/Nina Simone. It’s filled with energy and good juju (and figures prominently in Orange Mint and Honey, so I have a special fondness for it).

Try/Jill Scott. Try to feel discouraged after listening to this song.

Three Little Birds/Bob Marley. Good reminder when I’m worried that “every little thing’s gonna be all right.”

Oh Happy Day/Edwin Hawkins Singers. A classic. It reminds me of childhood, going to church with Grandmama and Aunt Susie.

Get By/Talib Kweli. Great energy, great anthem.

No More Drama/Mary J. Blige. If only for the line, “I don’t know, only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins….”

Keep Your Head to the Sky/Earth, Wind & Fire. Self-evident, right?

Chain of Fools/Aretha Franklin. The best opening of any song ever. Makes you wanna get down and praise God at the same time.

When Doves Cry/Prince. Second best opening of any song ever, and my favorite song by His Royal Badness. (Speaking of, it looks like I’m going to Vegas, baby!)