Tag: #MondayBlogs

Writing Addiction: Part 1

I once heard that “if you wake up in the morning and all you can think about is writing, then you’re a writer” (ok so that was actually Sister Act 2, but I did say this is what I HEARD).

picAre YOU addicted to writing?

Are you SURE about that?

• Symptom #1: You Take Your Computer to The Movies

Now that is what I call OCD for writing, except this isn’t literal (I take that back, for some it just might be). With the technology these days, trees must be rejoicing from bark not shed for pencils….uh oh, I feel a poem coming on, but I’d stick to the topic here. Don’t wanna get stoned or nothing…you guys are tough.

So instead of walking around pen stuck to pad like we used to, there’s no way I’m gonna miss the opportunity to write a good story because of bad memory. So bye-bye eraser and hello backspace! From mini computers, Mac Books, Tablets, Notebooks, Lenovo’s, and even cell phones, all are getting in on the action. While many are not literally “taking their pcs to the movies”, today’s techno-nerds are practically glued to the cell phone. No matter where you turn you will not escape the hype; everyone has their fingers stuck to text messages and their eyes in one location: down. Every ten minutes we are scanning our fingers across tiny screens, updating social media post, scratching our heads for the next idea, and rolling our eyeballs at the slightest interruption. We spend hours researching, reading, revising, proofreading, and oh? That thing called eating? Not until this sentence is finished. Actually, this chapter. “Is that coffee?” We’ll take it!

Does this sound like you? If your husband/wife finds him/herself competing with you and the notepad on your smartphone, or you can’t stay away from the power switch and alphabet keys long enough to look up, I must say, you’re definitely showing signs of an addiction. Hey, c’mon now, don’t look at me like that. You do know the first step is admitting it….don’t you?

The Bible and Black History

4b97bb3247922b8da36c3838cca7ffdbSpeaking of Black History month, one of the primary concerns I hear among African Americans about the bible is: “Where am I?” With movies like Noah, Exodus Gods and Kings, and The Ten Commandments it is difficult for most black people to have faith in a book that rarely include them. In fact, many of them have been told that the bible is a white man’s book (which is not just insulting to black people but other nations as well). For centuries we’ve been taught that we’re non existent in this book or that we have small rather than significant contributions. But is this true? Were there any black people in the bible at all?

Fun Facts:

  • Location of The Garden of Eden:
    Pishon surrounding Hawilah > East Africa
    Gihon, surrounding Kush > Southern Egypt
    Hideqel, East of Assyria, Euphrates
A skull of Mitochondrial Eve was discovered, and through digitally reconstructing her features, this image was constructed.
A skull of Mitochondrial Eve was discovered, and through digitally
reconstructing her features, this image was constructed.

The Garden of Eden stretched from East Africa to the Euphrates River

  • Ham: Means Burnt Black
  • Moses, the Israelite, passes as the Grandson of the black, Egyptian, pharaoh for 40 years – Acts 7:22-23 (This means that he had to look just like him)
  • Kush > Ham’s first born son. Traced back to the Ethiopians and Nubians
  • Moses Hand Turns White – Conveniently left out of every 10 commandment movie is the second miracle. The one where Moses puts his hand in his bosom and it comes out white as snow. Wouldn’t be much of a miracle if it was already white- Ex. 4:1-7

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  • Paul mistaken for a black Egyptian – Acts 21:37-38
  • The Kushites lived south of Egypt in what is called the Sudan today.
  • The Israelites with dred locs: Numb. 6:5, Ezk 8:3, Samson, etc
  • The messiah’s feet compared to burnt brass, hair like wool – Rev. 1:14-15
  • Ethiopian comes from the Greek word Atheops meaning burnt face
  • Joseph looked like the Egyptians – Gen. 42:7-8
  • Egypt: Ham’s second born son < Blood brothers to the Ethiopians
  • Ethiopian > Burnt Face
  • Egypt > Burnt Black
  • Phut: The Somalians – According to the ancient record of Egypt, Phut has been traced back to the Somalians
  • Shem: Means Name
  • Elymites – Descendants of Shem, black men with Afros and full Beards

The Bedroom

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The bedroom is the most intimate place in the house. It is not a place where everyone is invited in. It is a place of intimacy. Your time spent here is very valuable; it is your place of rest and refuge. The bedroom is representative of your mind.

My sister used this as an example yesterday and it struck a cord with me as something that would make for a much needed discussion. You see, we live in the age of information. No longer is it required to read 5,000 page encyclopedias at libraries. All you have to do now is Google what you want and technology takes care of the rest. We are in a time of knowledge and information. This can be a good thing, but it can also in many ways be a dangerous thing.

Not all information is good information and not all knowledge is good knowledge. Our minds can be so easily cluttered these days with the opinions and feelings of others or distracted by something that mean nothing. Everyone is on a quest to sound more intellectual than the next person and in the end they both give birth to foolishness. Deception wraps its arms around the four corners of the bed and hides underneath beautiful plump comforters that are outlined in gold. But what does your mind really look like? What about stress? What about being so busy that you don’t have time to live? Mental clarity is essential to a person’s overall daily operation. Are you allowing the wrong people, places, and things to occupy your mind?  Is all your business on Facebook?

A bedroom is not a kick it place. It is not a discussion place. A bedroom is an intimate place. A relaxing place. Are you letting everyone in? What’s going on in your place of refuge?

Today, visit your bedrooms. What’s there?

1. What am I doing right now that I can rejoice in?
2. What am I neglecting to do that I know is right?
3. What needs to be evaluated, examined, and then held onto or removed?

Remember, you can’t find rest in a crowded room.

Williams Wells Brown – Novelist

We have talked about some of the first black poets. Now, Williams Wells Brown is considered the first African American to publish a novel (recorded). Brown was born into slavery to a black mother and a white slave owner. Wells served various masters before escaping slavery in 1834. He then took on the name of a Quaker who helped him in his escape, Wells Brown, and in 1847 published a slave narrative, A Fugitive Slave. Brown’s only novel, Clotel was published in 1853 and tells the story of the daughters and granddaughters of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave woman. Wells also wrote a play “The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom” in 1858, along with other historical writings.

Race and Rights

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When did race and rights become separate entities? Since when has the black problem in America not have to do with both race and rights? Dare you to walk the streets of the 1920s and 40s and 50s with your prophet scented blood and expect to transgress the law of separatist signage. That “Whites Only” sign ain’t there by mistake. The one that says Negroes like you must order from the back door. Yo money may be colored like your skin but green has always been worth more than brown. I don’t like to have to go back to slavery. After all, it ain’t like I lived it and yet I can never forget what it feels like. But since we on the subject of feeling, I’m feeling like the same blood pulsing underneath my ancestor’s skin now pulses through mine so what they felt I feel it too. Perhaps I too was a slave long ago and its just taken me this long to find my voice. So, therefore, let me tell you something about what it means to be a slave. A slave is never granted the same rights as a free man, not a physical slave or a psychological one. An inferior race is never granted the same rights as a superior one. Thus anything that’s got to do with rights has also got to do with race. For the Black problem in America has always been centered around identity and always will be. Rights would have never been a problem if the problem wasn’t race. If the hierarchy of the superior and the less superior didn’t exist. If black people never walked around with bywords and proverbs tattooed on their skins there wouldn’t have been a need for them to watch movies in the Nigger Heaven1 of southern movie theaters. Would have been no need of me taking my seat alongside Miss Parks or Miss Morgan all them years ago. A Black Man’s rights and his race are always connected here, like the careful structure of his bones before he emerges from his mother’s womb. It’s the yearning for freedom written in his DNA. Black America’s rights have always and always will be centered around their identity because their problem is not physical it is spiritual. And because a spiritual problem has been long fought with physical weapons the condition of black people in America continues. And so their fight has always been and always will be centered around their freedom.

1. Nigger heaven, n. a designated place, usually the balcony, where blacks were forced to sit, for example, in an integrated movie theater or church as part of Jim Crow Laws.

Social Media Automation – Why I Don’t Use It

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It probably would make life much easier if I posted to one account and it automatically posted to all of my other social media accounts. There is a way this can be done by enabling social media automation and I am sure the busier I get the more I would be willing. But for right now there are some key reasons I am just not attracted to this strategy.

They Are Different Platforms

I’m probably the only person in the world who does not want to link her social media accounts (including this blog). Those of you who follow me on IG, FB, and Twitter have probably already noticed that I use them as separate entities. I’m not into linking them at this moment. That would be slightly annoying to me actually. This is because for me, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram may be the top 3 Social Media sites active right now, but they are three totally different platforms. This means they require similar but slightly different navigation techniques. Let’s start with Instagram.

Instagram

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Instagram is all about the image. This, in my opinion, gives it advantages over Facebook and Twitter in the promotional area when it comes to pictures. When you scroll through Instagram, each picture is shown one by one according to your followers most recent uploads. As you scroll through, you cannot help but see them even if you skip through the ones that are not interesting to you. This means there is less distraction here than on the other platforms. Instagram is a go-getter for attention because there is not enough space to browse through anything else outside of that timeline. People can also upload videos, another major attention keeping strategy. While Instagram allows room for wording and descriptions of the pictures, the most important thing is the photo itself. Bold and bright colors that capture and keep people’s attention is a must for IG which makes Book Cover designs and promotional flyers very attractive for authors and they garner lots of attention. Quotes and Meme’s have also become a favorite. Authors can upload pictures of books they are reading, screenshot Amazon reviews, or post quotes from the authors they love. Lots of wording in the form of an Image is not something I would want to upload to IG. Instead, I would much rather use images with wording that stand out. Far as IG is concerned, the most important thing to remember for me is the strategic use of the image.

Twitter

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Twitter’s restriction on word count is a plus for me. In fact, it is what attracted me to this platform in the first place. It is a fun way to post constant updates and does not take up a lot of time. Twitter is the hub for short promotional shout outs and gives me the opportunity to be creative with words. People’s attention spans are short so its not necessary to be long winded. Instead, authors can boost the visibility of posts using the #hashtag, a social discovery mechanism that is actually taken from the tagging strategy of using keywords that others are also using and networking through those words. Twitter gives you the opportunity to upload photos as well, but it is not the platform for pictures in my opinion. When I scroll through my IG timeline I can instantly see the pictures. When I scroll through my Twitter timeline however, I will either see half of the picture or (via automation) I’ll see a link to the picture file that is uploaded. This is not very attractive or important to me in the moment I am browsing the Twitter timeline. I’d much rather read a short quote or click on a link to an article. Articles, this is another major plus with Twitter. It is so much easier to click on news articles and blog posts from Twitter. In fact, Twitter is the biggest hub for sharing news and taking advantage of real time information. Is there a crisis happening? You are sure to get real time updates through your Twitter feed. Re-tweets also make it easy to share and promote the work of others.

Facebook

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Facebook is the place to be for a combination of all of these things: pictures, family, friends, quotes, news articles, etc. Facebook also does not have a word count limit which gives posts the opportunity to have a longer shelf life, meaning more people are likely to see your post last week on your Facebook profile than your Twitter timeline. Twitter is “What’s Happening Now?” and Facebook is just “What’s Happening?” For authors, Facebook is the place for storytelling, poetry, etc. Because you can write longer posts, you can really go in on showcasing your writing skills because FB is really great when it comes to longer conversations (You can give everyone a taste of your skills 🙂 ). When you publish a popular post (lots of likes, commentary, views) it will stay at the top of the timeline more which will give it lots of attention. In addition, old posts that have new comments will make their way back to the top which means new people will get to see it. Facebook’s major negative is that it is too crowded, or at least to me. There is a lot going on. People are chatting, playing games, watching videos, looking at pictures, and even listening to music through Facebook. Facebook is a large platform by which to expand a network and garner attention for a product but it can also be a show off. Because its such a large platform, people are sometimes less genuine than they should be. Everyone wants to prove that their lives are the best thing since sliced bread even if its not really this way in reality. People also tend to confide in Facebook more than they should, venting thoughts, actions, and family issues that should never be put on display for the world to see. For this reason, I find myself neglecting Facebook a lot unless I really have something important to share. However, I will not completely neglect it as a social media marketing strategy because together, with the use of Twitter, and Instagram, it can create one strong marketing dynamic if used correctly. Facebook is also great for connecting with family and friends whereas Twitter and Instagram opens the door for networking more with professionals and strangers. You are more likely to connect with a family member or someone you know by way of Facebook than the other platforms.

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Social Media Automation combines these accounts into one, making everything you post on one automatically post to the others and this is cool (for well established businesses it may just be very cool) but right now its just not for me. It may save me time, but it doesn’t give the impression that a real person is behind the computer if every post is automatically generated. It can also get boring at times (at least to me). Right now I would like to continue to use my social media platforms separately. Why? Because they are separate platforms.

Critique a Piece of Work – “A Raisin in the Sun”

I love experimenting with symbolism and imagery in my writing and in my poetry. Last year, I participated in a Writing 101 assignment that asked us to Critique a Piece of Work, in which I shared my thoughts on Gwendolyn Brooks “We Real Cool”. I thought that would be fun to experiment with again today.

Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” is the classic play by Lorraine Hansberry that was performed on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. A Raisin in the Sun is a piece that is loaded with symbolism.

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To start, heat from the sun is very intense and it drains just as much energy as it gives. It is exhausting and causes death to those who cannot escape a temporary refuge away from its obvious danger. While some sunlight causes plants to grow, too much sun can be destructive.

Raisin

Raisins come from grapes that are dried out by the sun. The sun sucks its moisture and nutrients until it has withered dramatically. However, dried grapes writhe and get small, but they do not turn to mush and rot. (Which is totally awesome. I love raisins!)

A raisin in the sun is symbolic of a family’s dreams under the intense struggles they must endure to reach it. It symbolizes that the family’s dreams and hopes for a better life will never dry up, but more importantly, their dreams will never rot despite the intense struggles they are under.

The Plant

The plant that Mama keeps near the apartment’s sole window is barely surviving because it lacks adequate nourishment.  Yet she is completely dedicated to the plant and lovingly tends it every single day in the hopes that it will one day be able to flourish. This is by far the play’s most overt symbol because the plant acts as a metaphor for the family.

Cockroaches, Rats, etc.

These creatures heavily reinforce the Younger family’s undesirable living situation.

Sunlight

Hansberry writes about sunlight and how the old apartment has so little of it. The first thing Ruth asks about in Act Two, Scene One is whether or not the new house will have a lot of sunlight. Sunlight is a symbol for hope and life, since all human life depends on warmth and energy from the sun. Light is also symbolic for truth. It is the truth that truly sets a people free.