Who am I?

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My Childhood

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    Hi! I was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. My mom and I moved back to her hometown of Rockingham N.C. when I was three weeks old. Growing up as a child, writing was one of the things that I drew to. I was fascinated with words and I liked to put them on paper. I remember my uncle and I having a conversation about writing a My Book of Jokes. I grew up in an era before computers were as prevalent as they are now. But I remember bringing my uncle my neatly written jokes that I had spaced out strategically on wide ruled paper (I write in bubbles as my mother says, so I couldn’t use college rule-the lines were too small). Anyway, as I continued to move through school, I loved every opportunity I could get to write. I would write so until my finger would be sore and have an indention from my pencil or pen. Another time I remember was when I was in high school, a group of us (my peers and I) were voluntold to enter an oratorical contest for church. We had to prepare and write a speech, memorize it and deliver it to our church family and a panel of judges against each other. I WON locally and for our district. Now I am headed to the state level!! HOW EXCITING RIGHT? During preparation for the district level, I had to honor and pleasure of working with two phenomenally distinct female educators. These ladies were veterans in the game, respected and not to be fooled with. I remember proudly handing them my paper to read and when I got it back, it had so many red lines and marks. How could I have won the first two rounds if it had that many mistakes you asked. It wasn’t that it was full of mistakes per say. They were pushing me to expand my writing on another level. They pushed me to be intentional with details and formulating thoughts that left little to no error when executed. Unfortunately, due to a series of miss fortunes that happened that morning on our way, I didn’t get a chance to compete on the state level. However, I did get a chance to share my work that I’d labored to correct and make perfect over those past couple of weeks to prepare myself for the event. I shared my work with a room full of people from many parts of North Carolina. I don’t remember whether I received a standing ovation or the size of the crowd. What I do remember was- I captivated my audience and I remember vaguely the accolades that were laid upon me. What I remember the most about that day was an older gentleman walking over to me with a sense of pride and accomplishment, telling me he was so impressed with the words I had spoken. He looked at me as a parent would look at a child when pleased. He reached in his pocket and handed me some money. I can’t remember the value of the currency, but I never forget his face.

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My young adult years

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     Now I am off in college and I have declared my major in child development from the esteemed North Carolina and Agricultural and Technical State University. You already said it, “AGGIE PRIDE.” Yes I followed my mother and attended that college as well. Growing up, I wanted to be a singer, but told I should have been a lawyer. But I loved children. They clung to me like little magnets. Anyway, I remember walking across the campus and saying in my head, “Lord I sure would love to be writer and write books.” No lie a few days later, in my campus mailbox I received an application to the Young Writers Institution. Crazy right! I filled out the application, sent it back and was accepted. My entry piece was on the topic, My Dog Rusty. He was our childhood Chow. I remembered thinking, “yes this is great!” But then reality sank in and I realized, I had already established myself at A&T and I felt safer staying there and finishing the degree I’d already started as opposed to running off starting a new one in a foreign land. I should have gone……. NOPE! A&T is where I met the man I would figure out eight years later was the man of my dreams, my muse for my first book (Blue Volume 1 and 2), my love, MY HUSBAND and at that point I hadn’t met him yet. Moving on, I have graduated, working in my field as something I never wanted to be. A teacher. I had nothing against them but just like a minivan, I didn’t for see it in my future. Great for whomever wanted it, but not for me! At the beginning of my career I went to the dermatologist for a skin issue and the next thing I know, she is asking me about a mole in my hand. I snubbed her because for as long as I could remember this mole had been in my hand. Well she did a biopsy. We get the results back and it is a melanoma. WHAT? IN MY HAND? WELL JESUS! A week or so later I had my surgery on that spot in my hand which also required a skin graph. I had to have help the week I was in recovery due to being down a hand and a whole right side of my body. My help was my mother, who felt like I didn’t get enough rest anyway, confined me to my room and since I couldn’t really do anything else, besides lay there, sleep or watch my limited channel television, I wrote. Nope lol, I read a book. By the time I spent that week in bed and finished reading the novel by a famous author I was inspired to begin writing a romance Novel of my own. I picked up my pencil and wide ruled paper and began to write. I didn’t get very far with it, due to the fact that I had two jobs working from eight am until eleven pm much of the week. And besides, life was happening. I would play around with it and what I wrote was good, but that wasn’t the time. I was sent to another site location and still anytime I needed anything for my classroom still in a time where computers didn’t really have the resources we would find now, I would write out and then create what I needed to solidify the lesson being taught. I remember at one of the facilities where I taught, there would be a lady that would come in and see the things I was doing in my classroom and ask me where I got my ideas. My response was always even in 2005 Out of My Dome Piece. She would always follow up with you need to do a resource book. Aah there it is again; you see the pattern? But I was like nah, I don’t have time for that, I just got married, was adjusting as a wife and a bonus mom of a preteen and was back in school, holding positions in a local organization, and for a short period of time still holding down two jobs. Any other time I was at school. I’m good.

 

My coming into and taking being a writer “seriously”

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     I had switched jobs and began working in the public-school sector at a year-round school. I was no    stranger to working all year, the difference is we were off at different times of the year than traditional schools. I still came up with whatever writings or ideas my students needed but now I am a new mom. I want to spend every waking day and all the free time I have with my baby girl. During this time I got my master’s in educational administration. I am trying to find jobs in that, but no luck! However, I did write and produce a mini black history program for the school. Eventually, my husband and I are on child number three and there is not time for books, he had just started with his side business as a photographer. You better know I was now the secretary and second hand in helping him get that business off the ground. BY NO MEANS DO I REGRET IT. See starting his business will have a major impact on where I didn’t know I was going or needed on my journey. Somewhere in all of this I’d written a Christmas play that someone had asked of me, that was never used. GO FIGURE! I was transferred to a new school. At this new school, I revamped the first production from the last school and done it at the current school. MOST importantly, I got summers off!!! YEEEEESSS!! But, what do I do now? YOU GUESSED It! I began to write again. I would get up very early in the morning and while my girls were still asleep, I would WRITE. By the third summer off, between working summer school because we needed the income, because I am a teacher, I finished Blue. I did not write during the school year, because of all the mandates and stress during the year, writing was more of a task and not fun. When I finished, I remember sitting at the table balling my eyes out because I had finally finished something that I honestly believed in, had a passion to do but felt I had no time. And YES, IT WAS JAW DROPPING GOOD! When I finished that one, I immediately began to work on another book, trying to cram my writing in during my summer months. I was so wrapped up and focused on writing, I began to neglect my family. Putting off spending time with my girls and husband, because I am in this race against time and it keeps winning. Blue has now been finished since 2015 but I am still beating my head against the wall trying to get it published. Finally through a friend and church member, this past summer in 2019 I met an independent publisher who began to work on publishing by heartbeat. By the way, in December 2019, I was blessed enough to meet two more phenomenal women who helped me bring another dream to life. That Christmas play I mentioned earlier that was never used back in 2014 was a three-night event for our church, neighborhood, friends and family. YES GOD COME THROUGH! Every year school gets ready to start back my complaint is that I don’t have enough time during the summer to write like I want to. I had been saying for years that I was leaving the classroom, with no real push to look for anything different. Now my book is in the process of being published-this is my ticket out! Nope. The first day of this school year. I was struck with the Bell’s Palsy. The pain of it, slurred speech and other complications has caused me to spend all but six and a half days out of my classroom. But in that time as I heal, I have been able to spend more time with God and be hands on and give my attention to my girls (granddaughter included), husband and other things I could not have such as my book and my play coming out literally in the same week. I would have forced myself to choose and work would have won again, leaving room for those things to suffer or not be executed properly. Even researching different ideas to continue this path. Why could I have not done all of this working my job you ask? I would still be at work spending sometimes two-four extra hours after school even on Friday, making my children suffer through it with me. From meetings at school and away from school for school, planning and writing lesson plans and researching materials trying to make it make since so I could pour into other people’s children sometimes having nothing for my own. Leaving my oldest daughter and husband to fill in to come and pick the younger two girls so they could at least be home at a decent hour. Or my husband staying late with me because my car is the only or one of the only cars on the school grounds. Not to mention meals were not the best because it was “throw something together for the family and now off to bed.”   As a woman, as we often do, I put off writing these books and getting them published longer than I should have. I put everything else before it, even when the signs to do it had clearly been there. God removed me from the classroom for a greater purpose. Although I loved it, my job was consuming most of my time. He had to force me out, because I would not have done it on my own, which was God’s total point! Here is how my husband’s business has been able to help me. He is the beautiful mastermind behind the cover of my book. My husband and I have become a power couple in our own right. I would be remised if I did not thank my family and friends for their support and encouragement. Ultimately give thanks to the Almighty, God MY Father for this beautiful journey that has led my family and I to this moment. Stay tuned folks, we are a team you are not gonna want to miss.

Peace and love to you all!