Sometimes I feel as though I’m passing life by in a rush.  My days are a cycle of work-home-work-home-sometimes school and there never seems to be enough time to relax.  Could be those eleven hours days I’m putting in at work, or perhaps I don’t have enough time because I try to cram too much into twenty-four hours.

I don’t watch movies because they take up too much time.  If I do see one, it’s something I’ve seen a hundred times before (like the Mummy or the Mummy Returns).  This means I can watch while I’m editing or writing.

I do try to get some reading in, but unless the book spikes my interest, I’ll start it and never get to the end.  The last book I read was Undercover by Laurinda D. Brown.  It was fascinating for me because it was only the second novel I’ve read about a man living on the down low. I don’t think the first was even a novel.  If I recall, it was an expose written by a man who lived that lifestyle for years.  I’ve yet to do a review on it, but I’ll get to that.  Sometime.

I’ll give a run-down on what I’m reading.

I’m at Page 357 with this one. I wanted to read it because the idea of a white female slave owner making a connection with a black male slave intrigued me. It’s been done before, but on a plantation.  I find the book interesting, however, it’s begun to drag, so I’m letting it rest for a bit.

Page 105 is where I stopped reading The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. It was such a news-maker and list-maker that I wanted to study it, but it hasn’t held my attention like I expected it would.  I’ll finish it though, simply because I believe in reading books that do fabulously well.  It’s something  writers can’t help doing - scouting out the highly touted works of fiction.

I stopped at Page 125 and can’t believe I did.  If Jeffrey Archer was commissioned to write the ingredients of bread on a plastic bag, I’d read it.  I love the twists in his tales (pun intended). This one I’m gonna stick in my briefcase and shunt around every day.  That way, I’ll read the next story soon.

I’ll have to start from the top with this one. Can’t even remember where I paused, but I know it’s a heart-stopper in the making.  The drawings interspersed with the text, along with the storyline, made me decide to buy this one.

I just started this one. Got to page 21. The writing is good, but it’s a tad bit slow for me. I have to  be in the mood.  One thing I like about it is that you get an authentic Jamaican flavour from the get-go. Something I always have to go back and put in on my second draft.  No doubt, I’ll read The True History of Paradise because this writer is of Jamaican parentage and the book got some great reviews.

When I read that sort of review, I get an inferiority complex based on the genre in which I write, but that conversation is for my next blog.

More anon…

A friend of mine did me a favour this morning by sending the link to a talk given by Chimamanda Adichie entitled The Danger of A Single Story.

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Ms. Adichie spoke about stereotyping countries and people, based on limited experience. For example, many see the African continent as a place where chaos and suffering reign. We never think about the other side that we don’t see, and perhaps that is because what we see on television in news clips usually covers only one aspect of what happens on that continent.

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She spoke about people in Africa being stereotyped as non-readers. We have this same concept in Jamaica, and actually have a saying that if you want to hide information from a black man, put it on paper or in a book. However, part of the problem is that books are so expensive as to be out of the reach of low income earners.

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Novels do get passed around by friends, but half the people I know are not habitual readers. And I don’t see non-readers encouraging their children to read. And now more than ever, it is extremely important that our children are able to understand and process what’s happening in the world around them.

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Having heard this message from Ms. Adichie, I have a deeper appreciation for my culture. I’m sure many can relate to hearing about Jamaican gangs in the news. In Jamaica, we’ve seen a sharp increase in crime over the years, which is frightening, but along with that, there are the good things that identify us as Jamaican. Our athletes have done us proud for years, our music is known internationally and I’ve heard it said time and again that Jamaicans are warm and helpful.

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In my writing, I try to showcase my country, but by their very nature, some stories cannot capture everything Jamaican. My romance novels do not explore poverty (as of yet), however, the family drama, Dissolution, has some scenes set in a middle class neighbourhood and others take place in the ghetto.

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Ms. Adichie has raised a new level of consciousness in the writer who lives inside me. I’d like to think I can do even a little bit to turn around some of the inaccuracies that exist in people’s minds as it pertains to life in Jamaica. I’m not aiming to write a Travelogue, but hey, it won’t be much of a challenge to write about a country I love and revere.