Simply Cheris. . .

Being a black woman, to society, seems to mean that we have to forgive all the atrocities that happen against us. Not only do we have to forgive, but we need to forget and let it go.  No more.  Forgiving is one thing, but when you forget what happens to you, you're giving permission for it to happen again. You're rewarding bad behavior and not teaching people a lesson on how they should treat you. If you've read comments on stories about black women who are victims of crimes, you'll see that the victim is blamed for what happened to her.  But let's be clear, there is a war on black women. And sadly, black men are participating in it.  There's a story circulating about a woman who was shot and killed because she told a man in a bar no.  Janese Talton-Jackson, 29, was shot and killed Friday morning in Homewood, Pittsburgh after leaving a bar, and the suspect is now in custody after being shot by police. This isn't the first time this ...

Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee are calling for a black out of the Oscars. If you're a Twitter user, you're familiar with the #Oscarssowhite hashtag. Once again, no people of color have been nominated for an Academy Award. Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith injected some new drama into next month's Academy Awards, announcing that they both would be boycotting the ceremony over the lack of diversity among the nominees. The "Chi-Raq" director took the occasion of Martin Luther King's birthday to slam the movie industry and reveal that he and his wife, Tonya, would not be attending on the most important night in the industry. "We Cannot Support It And Mean No Disrespect To My Friends, Host Chris Rock and Producer Reggie Hudlin, President Isaacs And The Academy," the Brooklyn-based director wrote on his Instagram page Monday, name-checking a pair of black industry insiders involved in the telecast. Pinkett Smith made a video that has bee...

Deadlines are a part of the writing life. They are unavoidable.  But when you combine writer's block with a deadline, you really feel as if your life sucks. You do everything to make your mind get back into your story, the world you created. You go to Starbucks. You put on a funky outfit. You wash dishes, you take a nap.  NOTHING.  I want to finish this book before I slip my satin cap over my Afro tonight.  Less than 2,000 words to go.  This is the problem with being a pantser !   Simply put, a plotter is someone who plans out their novel before they write it. A pantser is someone who, “flies by the seat of their pants,” meaning they don’t plan out anything, or plan very little. Some people, like me, call themselves “plantsers,” which means they’re in a little of both. In reality, most people are plantsers, but some tend to lean heavily to one side.

The beginning and the end. Those are probably the hardest parts of writing. You have to hook the reader in the beginning. You have to satisfy them at the end. But I'm at the point in my current work in progress where I want to drop a bomb on the hero and the heroine. I tortured them really badly. #SorrynotSorry Why? Because I've put them through hell. I've done everything to them that makes sense in this story line. And y'all know how I like to torture my characters.  I've written the ending to this story three times. Once in my head. Once in a notebook that I can not find and the third time on my iPad. I don't like any of the endings —except for the one I wrote in my head that I can't remember. But, I'm pressing on. Today by seven p.m., the book will be done. Or I'm not going to drink Starbucks for a week. Talk about motivation.

I'm a writer. I love to write. I went to college and got a degree in writing —well, Journalism. Writing has been my world. From books to blog posts to letters and emails. There are people who actually know me as Cheris, the writer. Once, I was speaking the former president of JCSU and she called me the writer lady. Man, I was so proud. But my world changed in 2011. I was no longer getting paid to write. My day job was no longer writing. I went to a call center and stayed there for about a month. Couldn't do it. Wrote a lot while I was there. Great story too, and yes, you're going to hear about it. :) Then I applied for a sales job. I had no idea that this job would cause me to hate life. You've read the Wonderland Chronicles , you know that I've worked with some characters and what not. But now that I'm working with assholes, I can't take it. Walking into my job makes me physically ill. No lie. The closer at get to Horrorville, the new place...