As promised, although a little late, I'm here to tell you about the first task on my 2014 To-Do List. The first task was to work on a novel, and even though it wasn't the first thing I crossed off my list, I was still able to cross it off. For some time, it looked as if I wouldn't even be able to cross it off my list. Life threw me a lot more curve balls this year than I originally expected, but I must admit I've been handling it pretty well, if I do say so myself.
Anywho, I've been working on two of my novels this year. Sliding into Love, my first baby, was completed back in November 2012, during my first year of NaNoWriMo. Although the experience was extremely stressful, it was also empowering. Ever since I was a little girl I knew writing was something I wanted to do. My first love was writing novels, but as I got older, and started consuming more television than novels, I fell in love with Screenwriting. I'm currently getting a degree in Screenwriting, and although I've learned a lot, I wasn't happy. I didn't experience true happiness until I completed this novel. This was a huge deal to me. I'd NEVER completed anything when it came to writing screenplays. I always came up with an idea, worked on it for a bit, and then came up with a new idea, started working on that one...and the cycle continued for some time.
I haven't gotten that antsy, start working on a new idea feeling in a really long time. I think it's safe to say that I'm happy to have found my love for novel writing. I can't tell you how many wonderful people I've met during this journey. They've been so supportive and I've learned so much from them.
Last, but not least, I've also been working on my novel, Beyond Their Beliefs. I didn't officially start working on this novel until November 2013 for NaNoWriMo. When I originally came up with the idea, back in 2010, it was meant to be a screenplay, but since then things have changed immensely. This novel deals with the heavy subject of interracial dating. I didn't think this story was worth telling because nowadays a lot of people tell me that interracial dating is fine and no one has a problem with it, but this couldn't be far from the truth. Just look at the negative feedback that Cheerios received when they released the commercial featuring an interracial family. That's not even including my struggles with negativity for having a Caucasian male friend.
For the longest time I didn't think that Beyond Their Beliefs was something people would want to read, in fear of it not being realistic, but I'm not writing this story for them...I'm writing this story for me. I've let fear hold me back from a lot of things, but not this. This is a story that I'm going to tell, and I hope that people realize that negativity towards interracial relationships is STILL A BIG DEAL!
