In case I haven't mentioned it 13 zillion times in the last month (on The Muffin), my manuscript is getting published. The stack of papers I labored over for years is going to become a book. A publisher said yes, they liked it, they really really liked it. (Sorry, Sally Field--I couldn't help myself.)
However, there was a moment recently where I was stopped dead in my tracks.
You see, I'm white and old. I'm also a woman.
My main character is black and young. And he's male.
This is a problem these days, and I understand--or I think I partially understand. I obviously cannot fully or completely understand what it's like to be marginalized and ignored and silenced, since I am white. And elderly. And I have no idea what it's like to be a male and black, in a day and age where being black and male all-too-often means there is a target on their back. Literally and figuratively.
I wrote a post about what stopped me in my tracks. (Please stop by and leave a comment if you haven't already. I need some honest reactions.)
My book is still going to be published, but I plan on not making a single penny from it. Oh, I will peddle it from the trunk of my car and I'll set up book events and I'll go to Tulsa this May to be a part of the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, but my part of the sales will go somewhere else... it won't be going into my pocket.
And I'm not sure why I've been absent from this blog for months, but I hope my next post appears relatively soon...
