When I am writing or reading a story. I am dropped into this world or this life with some stark differences from my reality. When I am reading I am this silent observer or the receiver of this barrage of sensations and emotions. When I am writing I am the creator of a world where anything can happen and often does. Most of my readers will notice that my stories tend to have common themes. Shared connections.
One of the themes is family. Growing up and even now in my adult life, family is the corner stone of everything that I do. I was taught to honor my parents. Care for and look after my siblings. Work towards a future with the ability to sustain and provide for children.
My childhood was not an easy one. My parents divorced. My father was unfaithful and my mother was bitter. They were the two biggest forces in my life and my childhood was marred by their inability to at the very least immunize their children from the ensuing war.
I love my parents separately. Together they generally combust, unless in public, unable to engage in the simplest of conversations without digs and barely camouflaged anger.
My mother has never really let go of her hurt. Fifteen years later she is still the scorned woman. A fact she is loathed to admit, but is unable to deny.
Intelligent, caring, and completely driven by the success of her children. My mother is a force of nature with only two or three blindsides. Most of them revolving around her romantic entanglements.
When I write about Mothers I usually take the qualities I love most about my mother. Her ability to throw a meal together out of nothing. Her love of children and her traditional caribbean influence. My stories reflect her push for her children, not only to succeed, but to start pushing out those grandchildren she thought would at least come from the oldest of her brood by now.
More often then not the mothers in my stories are fierce, independent, and a source of comic relief.
I also explore the qualities I do not love so much about my mother. Her stagnation when it to the end of her marriage and her anger in the way it ended.
In Wintr's Homecoming, readers are introduced to Jinx Wintr. The not quite orphan. Her father was in the shoulder's in which their family stood. He had a bond not only with his wife, but also with the child. When he dies, Jinx's mother falls into this trap of the Mate bond and becomes this despondent shell of a woman. Leaving her daughter to deal with feelings of abandonment and searching for a new family while avoiding such things like romantic love. Jinx saw what love did to her once vibrant mother and when confronted with her own mate seeks to avoid the pain of such loss by running away from it.
When I write about Fathers I also focus on the qualities I admire in my father. His conviction, boisterous personality, and warmth. I was a daddy's girl for most of my life even after the divorce and love my father in spite of what I consider to be personal failures on his part. The fathers in my story can fall on two spectrums even within one story.
Take for instance, Prince's Heart. Vashti is the illegitimate daughter of a King and spent most of her life as a slave. Her father is this cold hearted dictator. He does not care for his children but focuses on his own wants and needs. He offers her freedom by serving her to his allies as a prize in exchange for continued peace and protection.
The flip to this is King Cyrus. Vashti's father in law. He is this large war forged King. He has the love and respect of his children and shows her the qualities of a father she'd never experienced in her own life. Cyrus is there for his children and while he may not be the best husband, the family bond is a strong one.
My father continued to see the woman he cheated on my mother with. They have a daughter together and live in the same house. She and I have a contentious relationship at best. Not because she was the "Mistress" or because I consider her to be the reason why my parent's relationship failed. But because she as a woman embodies all of the traits I dislike in other woman.
We have a history of actions taken on both sides that have culminated into a situation in which it is best if we do not acknowledge each other. She is not my stepmother or stepparent. She is, in my mind, one of my father's failing. Their continued relationship has and probably will continue to confound me until the end of time.
When I write, this is also explored in my stories in shorter snippets. In Prince's Heart, Vashti shares stories of how she was treated by her own stepmother.
In Cold Sun, Talia Gage is on reincarnated life number four. Her previous lives were marred by murder and betrayal. In her second life she was killed by her father's second wife. Driven by jealousy and greed, she killed Talia in an effort to elevate the standing of her own child.
Writing for me is not only an expression valve, but also a way of exploring my own feelings. It is why writing is such a personal thing for me. I am reveling parts of my soul and trying to create reality within the fiction. Order in the center of Chaos.
The characters I create are embodiments of what is around me. The good, bad and okay is embedded in the scenes and dialogue.
Completed Works:
The Secrets,
Lies, and Betrayal Series:
The Virgins Club:
Lipstick Diaries
The Young and The
Powerful
