On Tuesday, my novella “A Professional Pact” will be released along with nineteen other novellas in the Crossroads Anthology featuring some of the most notable authors of interracial romance writing today. I’m humbled to be part of the anthology, a special shout-out to LaVerne Thompson of thinking of me in the first place. And I can admit I have some anxiety about this story. Well, I have anxiety about all my stories, but this one is making me particularly raw. It’s not because I haven’t done a friends-to-lovers romance before—I have—but I think Deena, in a lot of ways, represents an archetypal character of mine that makes me feel insecure in this current social landscape of Strong Heroines FTW (TM) , but one I can’t stop writing…and one I don’t think I could stop writing, to be honest. One that, if I’m honest with myself, hits at the crux of one of my main foibles that I’m constantly negotiating to the point I sometimes think I’m on a hamster wheel going nowhere.
Deena suffers from stage fright, a type of glossophobia, which is a fear of public speaking. She also doesn’t like crowds. She can handle small gatherings, groupings of people she knows and trusts. But large stages and large groups? She’d very much rather not. And I didn’t go into a backstory of why because, well, that’s more of a “like-to-know” rather than a “need-to-know” for the purpose of the story I’d written, at least I think so. What mattered was she has it now and is taking steps to work through it. She has an online therapist. She has a found family who is in her corner. And she has Granger, a once-upon-a-time improv classmate who becomes something more, who brings friends along with him. And despite the arc their relationship takes, he doesn’t “fix” her, nor is she “fixed” in the end. Rather, I think, the point of where the story ends is the knowledge Deena has found someone who will be her safe harbor as she navigates the choppy waters of her flaws.
I have a type of glossophobia, too, in that I’m also afraid of the spotlight, but not exactly like Deena. I’m afraid of that light shining harsh and unforgiving upon me, highlighting all the aspects of me that I want to keep hidden, all the parts of me that will be laid bare and exposed to be poked, prodded, teased, and rejected. But the worst thing of all—the worst thing of all—is when you step into that spotlight and people still don’t see you. Still don’t acknowledge you. Still don’t notice you. And there’s nothing more frightening than that. It makes you feel insubstantial. Inconsequential.
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I feel like that a lot. Professionally. Personally. Romantically. Unseen, unheard, unregarded. Unremembered. I know now that’s mainly my depression talking and my glossophobia is likely a spinoff from it. I know I have friends and family who care about me and love me. But depression is a mental siren that leads you to the rocks of self-sabotage, and sometimes it’s all you can do to keep your hands on the ship’s wheel, let alone wrestle it away from said rocks. And then when I am seen, I am acknowledged, all I have to show for it is the wreckage of my attempts to steer clear of failure. The disappointment, the untapped potential, the unearned return on investment. And that, coupled with the mantra “how can somebody love you if you can’t love yourself?” leads to a feedback loop of lovelessness that does nobody any favors and makes it less and less likely for me to try for that spotlight again, to say “I’m here” in all my imperfect glory.
But that’s why I write romance and the heroines I write. I write them imperfect and wholly unready for love, yet rising to the occasion and the challenge anyway. I write them learning about how to have grace and kindness for themselves because while I haven’t reached that place in my personal life yet as consistently as I’d like, I’m striving toward it, constantly, sometimes even begrudgingly. Not only that, I think it’s important to show not-always-perfect, not-always-strong, not-always-confident, not-always-“beautiful” Black women getting happily-ever-afters without having been “fixed” at the end. That it’s a struggle to drown out those sirens and listen to the people who truly love you and want you to love yourself as much as they love you. That sometimes, you can’t wait for yourself to catch up with everyone else, but at least you get on the right track and start running. Or jogging. Or walking.
I write my romances for me, #ownvoices, and I write my romances for those who need to see imperfection being loving and loved. I gravitate to those types of heroines and stories as a reader as well. One of my recent favorites is Portia Hobbs from Alyssa Cole’s A Duke by Default. I had to put the book down occasionally because reading Portia was like reading about myself, sans a newly discovered sword-wielding Scottish duke. But watching Portia’s journey through her imperfections as she worked to realize she deserved to be loving and loved—familially, platonically, and romantically—irrespective of her past mistakes was something that I needed. It lets me remain hopeful that one day maybe I can get to that place too. And if I, too, can give readers that same hope, then I will have succeeded.
I hope people like Deena when she steps into the spotlight on April 23, 2019, in the Crossroads Anthology. She’s lovably imperfect. Just like Granger. Just like me. Just like us all.
