I am trying hard to find an occaision for telling for my character Chaurisse. An obvious occaision would be that Chaurisse is at some crossroads in her own romantic life and she must assess her parents' marraige. Maybe she's considering a marraige proposal? Maybe her own husband is cheating? The problem is that I don't feel completely honest in those plots.
One of my lingering worries from my second novel, THE UNTELLING, is that all the women in the novel are dealing with a serious long term relationship. Aria, the main characters, is trying to keep her fiance, Dwayne. Her best friend is planning an elaborate wedding and her student Keesha has a relationship with a guy named Omar. These details made for good tension in the text, but it felt al ittle false to me.
I am a single woman, 38 years old. Many of my friends who are also "professional black women" (ugh, I hate the phrase) are in the same boat. (Did you see that NYT article that 70% of PBWs are single? Even if you quibble with the number, it's still a significant population.) I don't want to have written novels that don't even have one character that lives the life that is most familiar to me. So certainly there is a reason that Chaurisse is telling her story that doesn't involve her deciding to get married or stay married.
So frustrating. So frustrated. I have dedicated this day to working and I don't have a workable idea in my whole head.
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