This was the hardest venture… finding an illustrator who could see the exact vision that I had envisioned for my first book. I looked all around, asked friends, coworkers and acquaintances if they knew anyone who could draw, and had experience in graphic designing. Some knew them, but everyone had their own time, and I wasn’t waiting for anyone to do me any favours. Long story short, I could find someone who’s work that drew me in and the rest was history.
I’ll explain further what the colour schemes were, the reasons behind the art, and the symbolisms of each placement.
I’ll just start off by saying that this is my first book. It’s a chapbook, so there won’t be a lot of pages. The maximum number of pages there will be is 43 to 44 pages with the sum of 18 poems. I say that range because I’m publishing this on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and there’s an extra page on Barnes & Noble.
The season of last summer was bittersweet for me — things just came and went. My birthday falls in July… another year of life that’s worth celebrating, meanwhile my Uncle’s in the hospital fighting for his with Cancer. Even while I took the week off to celebrate my birthday, it was hard to ignore the fact that this may be it for my Uncle; I didn’t know when, I just knew it would come, and four days after my birthday, he passed away. It seemed to be the finale of that week with my birthday.
Death puts things into perspective. Last year, especially during the summer, I was trying to find myself creative wise. I attempted to practice playing the keyboards (still an ongoing process), painted, sketched, began doing pottery, started singing again, and writing short stories that eventually turned into poetry.
Growing up, I was always fond of poetry. I just didn’t know how to write it. It gets a bad rap for being a snobby form of creative writing, with the stereotype of having to bring a dictionary to look up fancy words hard to pronounce and intimidate many. Also, there’s that stereotype of having to rhyme per sentence and paragraph, which is beyond false. Some of the best and most notable poets barely rhymed in their poems (Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, etc.). The misconception of feeling out of place for the reader, creates the imposter syndrome not appealing to the general crowd. However, through trauma, I finally got it.
All these pent-up frustrations of why I made it feel as if I couldn’t breathe. Anxiety’s a bitch for real. There were times where I felt like I couldn’t breathe, over hyperventilating, other times it was just pure worrying. I’d worry about when and where I would have the seizure. Would it be at work? At home? While I’m out for a run, or worst event full of people? A concert, the movies, crossing the street? What about at the groceries? It was no longer me being afraid of the nocturnal seizures that I’ve had before. All thoughts let to my demise. Just trying to navigate this change in my life has been an uphill battle. Most days are good. I release the frustrations through journaling, being outdoors, going for a run, laughing, spending time with family and friends, and just being creative, but I felt mad and sad.
So, with the evolution of my writing, I journaled. The journaling inspired me to write short stories… specifically horror themed stories, in which led to writing poems. I know that’s an ironic order— from horror short stories to poems, but this was the case I couldn’t control the journey.
I didn’t want to just start off by the struggles of being black, because we all know that struggle. Despite it, I wanted to state the message of the struggles of mental health, having an invisible disability, being a woman while being black. It was a message that we’re human and we struggle too.
I’m 90 percent finished with this book. I have the cover-page; I’ve reedited the manuscript while cutting down several poems (from 30 to 18 poems). The colour theme of the cover page will be purple, which is the colour to bring awareness on Epilepsy.
Creatively, there’s joy in expressing the trauma. Overall, my life has not been an easy journey besides this condition, but I’ve always pushed forward. Poems are not about fancy words and rhyming per sentence and paragraph, it’s about painting words to a canvas creating a mental picture, in formation to any aesthetic you want in whatever rhythm you’d like.
I’m not even sure how good the poems are, but this risk is something I need to do for myself to feed into my goal of publishing a book, in my own terms and creative control. I’m not expecting this to sell a million copies (although the money would help and I’d welcome it greatly), but I hope it reaches someone who’s struggling with whatever. Because that’s the whole point:
The writer connecting with the reader.
The name of my book: The Lover’s Pool (Out June 14th)
I know I said that I was ready to write a series of topics that interested me, but there’s been a slight change in that project.
For the last month, I’ve curated a new blog that’s inspired me to extend writing my thoughts in a poem format.
It’s with great excitement that the work that I’ve been putting into these poems will be part of my new project of self-publishing my first book.
This has been a long time coming. I’ve had so many people saying that I should write a book, I just didn’t know how I’d go about writing one. In the past, so many thoughts had run through my mind as to what I’d write about. I’ve considered writing short stories, children’s books, and memoirs. I knew I could write them, but I wanted something I could resonate with, what I believed to be as genuine as I could be. It struck me that poems would be the best format to express my feelings creatively.
For the last three years, with everything going on, especially being diagnosed with Epilepsy, I went into a confusing place. It was a dark place, but I was also hopeful and felt a sense of freedom.
Doing therapeutic things like running, listening to music, and journaling spurred a need to expand my creativity. I expressed this beyond writing. As I became vegan, my interest in baking came about. I even dipped into playing the keyboards( it’s an ongoing process); all of these things helped my journey toward getting into a place of clarity. I can’t stress enough how journaling has inspired me to write poems.
My choice in going towards the self-publishing route was already a plan that I made even before coming up with a full plan as to what I’d write. I’m just ready to display my work out to the public… big or small.
This is all in fun for me, not something where I’m considering to be famous…it’s a creative project of mine.
On this blog, I’ll be sharing my journey in the stages of the process of writing the book.
The other topics that I’d plan to do will be in pause, as this will be taking up a lot of time for me. I need to focus.
Get ready for this journey and also what I plan on writing: the themes, how long I plan on writing this, and also the title.
Hammer Style Girl 