Seressia Glass: Blog Me

Seressia June 26th, 2008

What I want today is more vacation days.  A lottery win that enables me to retire from my full time job would also be nice.  I do think I would probably have to have property in which I would have to “go” to my office, whether that’s the garage, the pool house or a turret room, so that I could get into the mindset of being “at work” and thus be more productive.

And yes, I am writing this post during my lunch break.  I have a new wireless broadband toy that enables me to surf while I’m not at home.  No more paying for access while at Starbucks or Barnes and Nobles or (as has seemed a lot lately) the airport.  I haven’t decided whether I want to boot my DSL yet, but the thought of getting rid of the home line (which is only there for the DSL anyway) sounds lovely.  Because if someone’s calling and they can’t pronounce my name, it’s probably not someone I want to talk to anyway.

Anyway, I only have two weeks of vacation.  Most of those vacation days are used to attend writing conferences, with a few squeezed out to actually go away and recuperate.  Next year, I’ve already decided to go to Romance Slam Jam (March 12-15); PASIC (RWA’s published author chapter) Power Conference March (19-21); and the ROmantic Times Booklovers’ Convention (April 22-26).  The only way I’d get a decent vacation next year would be to tie it to Labor Day or Memorial Day, which I normally try to turn into Writing Weekends.

I want more vacation days.

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Seressia June 17th, 2008

Isn’t this look into the mind of a writer fascinating?  Not.

Must remember to order a real Mojito at dinner Wednesday.

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Seressia June 4th, 2008

The next time you lean out of your window and say, “Please don’t hit my business car,” you may want to consider the following:

A. My co-worker’s Cadillac cost more than your Ford Focus.

B. Be glad that my other co-worker asked me to keep walking and let it go and I did, thinking you were on a business call.
C:  Be further glad that I was on my way to a birthday luncheon at the Cheesecake Factory, and therefore in too good a mood to deal with your trifling self.

D.  Deciding to go to the mall at lunchtime and/or park in front of the five main restaurant chains to then sit in your little Ford Focus business car with the windows down on a 93-degree day so as to prevent people from hitting your door with theirs is not exactly the smartest thing to do.  Considering who you are though, perhaps that actually makes sense.

Next time, park in the %^$##@! back 40 behind the Costco.

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Seressia June 3rd, 2008

Even if you’re a Republican–heck, if you’re an American–you’ve got to be amazed at our political process.  For the first time since I’ve been voting, every state has mattered in a primary.  Every vote was important.  It went down to the wire, to the last two states on the last night of voting.

This was better than going to the movies.  This was real life.  This was history in the making, no matter who secured the Democratic nomination.

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Seressia May 29th, 2008

I’m catching a plane to LA to attend BEA in about 8 hours. Considering at least 1 hour of that is traffic-sitting and another shaping up to not scare the other travelers, I need to take my neurotic ass to bed. TTFN!

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Seressia May 16th, 2008

First of all, a big congratulations to romance author Brenda Jackson for being the first black romance author to hit the New York Times extended list at #34 with her black romance novel, Irresistible Forces. It’s the highest opening rank for a series book I believe, so double congrats to her. And she does this while working a day job!

ANother big congratulations goes to Joshua Packwood, 22, for being the first white valedictorian at Morehouse College, a Historically Black College in my town, Atlanta.

Life hasn’t always been easy for Packwood. He grew up in a poor area of Kansas City, Missouri, where he says he found himself gravitating to the black community at a young age.

Adolescence was rough. His mother’s second marriage to a black man ended in divorce and family tension forced him to seek refuge with his best friend’s family - who were black and middle-class.

The experience of living with his best friend’s family had a profound effect on Packwood, who says he saw a “different side of black America.”

He got interested in African American studies and decided that the best way to understand it and learn about it was to experience it honestly, choosing Morehouse over a full scholarship to Columbia University.

“What Morehouse stands for at the end of the day, and what Dr. King epitomized, it’s not about black or white, it’s about the content of [a person’s] character,” says Packwood. “It’s about me, representing Morehouse in that light — not as a white man or a black man.”

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Seressia May 13th, 2008

So yeah–I did not update the other days of Romance Slam Jam. Suffice it to to say that a good time was indeed had by all, some more than others. Karaoke was fun but my goodness!–Proud Mary is a freakin’ long song! The signing was amazing and validating and seeing Beverly Jenkins win all her awards did me proud and made me want that run someday (soon). I left Chicago energized and rarin’ to go on my work.

There have been several “race in romance” discussions around the blogosphere, and there’s an article in the May Romance Writer’s Report. I think that’s a record–and it ain’t even Black History Month. I will not even offer my opinion on the photo used to illustrate the “color” or romance article, cause you know, it’s in black and white–I can’t tell what race the four women with long dark hair are.

I got my Rita scores back yesterday for Dream of Shadows. Two 9’s, two 7’s, and an 8.8 put me in the top 25%. Felt really good about that–until I opened my royalty statement from Genesis Press. Four books, no checks. Color me unsurprised. I think I may have to change my name, pretend to be white and write black secondary characters so they’ll give me a decent sized print run and shelve me in the Romance section. This reminds me of the job I had where I had been employed with the company for more than five years and had some college education. They hired a white lady to do the same job–she had a GED, no college and off the street she made $2 more an hour than I did.

And people wonder why there’s such a thing as an Angry Black Woman.

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Seressia April 4th, 2008

Forty years ago today, I was two months away from being born. I had no idea of the world I was close to being born into. I had no idea what changes were being wrought, how the hope of a people faltered and nearly died on a Memphis balcony. I saw newsreels and events of that time and the funeral and days that followed. When I was 18, I wrote a speech that gave my interpretation of living the dream.

For a long time I lived in blissful ignorance, thinking the job done. True, I can sit where I want on a bus, drink from the water fountain, ostensibly live and play were I wish. But when interracial couples are still looked at as an oddity, when people claim they “can’t relate” to black people in love, when educated blacks are criticized for not being black enough, I have to wonder.

I think we have come a long way. But I say, as many others do, that there is a long way to go. Yes, today we have a man running for president who embodies much of the hope that Dr. King espoused. But it’s still sad that in this day and age, more than eight years into a new millennium, such a candidate is a remarkable event.

You can read a very compelling article about the sanitation workers strike that led up to King’s assassination here. This part stood out for me:

Soon after [the first riot], a new slogan appeared on the signs the black men carried. Four words, but they were provocative. Four words, but in that time and place, they were incendiary. Four words, but they managed to encapsulate at long last something black men had never quite been able to get America to understand.

Four words.

I AM A Man.

My wish is the same wish that I write for my characters in my books: acceptance. We want the same things: life, love, success, happiness. You can have yours. Why can’t I have mine?

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Seressia March 29th, 2008

I’m sitting in my living room in complete darkness. Six candles are on the Asian storage table beside me, while my neighbors in the townhouse next to mine are making me want to write about their slow and exceedingly deaths via rabid ninja hamsters. I have unplugged my laptop and I’m draining its battery by listening to the emo mix on my iTunes while finishing up my final installment in the Vegas Bites universe.
Today is all about Earth Hour, an event in which more than 20 major cities and 200 smaller communities go dark between 8-9 PM for climate change awareness. Even Google got into it by darkening their search page:

I’m gladly participating, though I’d have much preferred 7-8 PM instead. At least I would still have some daylight coming through the windows. However, more daylight would lessen the impact I’m sure. I usually only have the electricity going in the room I’m in anyway, run the major appliances like dishwasher and dryer when I go to bed, that sort of thing. It’s as much about being environmentally conscious as it is that I’m a cheapskate who doesn’t like paying high utility bills.

I actually learned about Earth our through my company. Our corporate office is also participating. They normally power down at 7 PM anyway, but tonight, everything but emergency lighting will be turned off. Very cool of them.

Ah, the neighbors have decided not to prove how much bass their speakers have and I have 18 more minutes to go. I guess it’s back to black werewolves instead of rabid mutant ninja hamsters. Darn it.

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Seressia March 20th, 2008

Let me start with a confession: my first crush was on Bruce Lee. The movie was Enter the Dragon, and my mom took us kids to the Rialto theater in downtown Atlanta to see it. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Now I love Jet Li and Jackie Chan. And April 18th, I get to see them both in a movie, called The Forbidden Kingdom. Happy Spring for me!

PS: Speaking of spring, I’m blogging over at Blogging in Black today. Look for my post entitled “The Call of the New”. and comment if you can. I’ll be going on a writing vacation tomorrow (checking into a hotel for the weekend, coming out with an edit, a novella, and a couple of proposals, I hope. And a blog post for Divas of the Dark.) Here’s hoping your weekend is a happy and productive one!

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