One of THOSE Moments

I’ve been procrastinating tonight. I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid writing a blurb for my book Morning Star. This morning I was even desperate enough to mop the kitchen. Anyway, I popped over to Grata’s blog. I haven’t been there in a minute, and I was delighted that she congratulated me on Pussycat and talked about how much she liked the book. Her comments were particularly gratifying because she hadn’t read a romance since she was a teen, and the book was inspired by a post on her blog. She also said that the book was like a movie. She’s not the first person to make that comment about one of my stories. I think that’s pretty interesting considering that I never considered writing a screenplay. 

Most importantly she said that should it ever be optioned for a movie she hoped I wouldn’t let them make the characters white. Of course, you can imagine my first response, but let’s go to Fantasy Island anyway. I’ve got nothing better to do (Besides write a blurb, start a story that’s due October 1st and another that’s due December 1st, but other than that? I got nothing.)

Initially I thought, hey, considering the state of my finances, if that miracle occurs I don’t care if they make the character an alien. Then I backed up. That’s not true. I do care, and I care deeply. For one thing, it annoys the living crap out of me when Hollywood does that. Don’t get me wrong. I understand perfectly that marketability comes before creativity and artistry, but first and foremost I write my books about black women because there’s a dearth of books about black women finding love and happiness in a non-dysfunctional manner. Yes, I realize that some people think romances are trivial and just so much fluff. For the most part, I don’t care what the naysayers think. I know that what we talk about in our books, LOVE, that miraculous emotion that binds our civilization together is anything but fluffy. Love is powerful, in fact I believe it is the most powerful force in the universe. This is why I’m alarmed by the fact that there is so little media showing black women as worthy of such an essential element of society is sad. Those who are not worthy of love are often not seen as worthy of LIFE. So yes, I would object, quite stringently, maybe even enough to go on an Anne Rice-type campaign if something of that sort occurred. But of course, this is all the stuff of fantasy in the first place.