by Lisa Marbly-Warir Or not—when I write my stories I’m sometimes nervous of the presumption of some readers that because my female protagonists are Black that they will assume she is a boss bitch—cut throat, chews men up and spit them out types. And when someone who is not your target audience gets your book it can spell trouble for how your book is rated if they were expecting one kind of character but got another. I’ve had a couple of people not care for two of my characters because they felt they weren’t strong. But as I’ve posted online before, I can’t help what my characters tell me. That may sound funny, but if you’re a writer you know this is true. You can be writing, thinking one way, but the characters say, um, no this is how it goes down. My characters tend to be more than boss bitches, matter of fact; I wouldn’t call them boss bitches. I don’t like care for how the term bitch has been turned into a positive. It may be generational; it also depends on the environment of the women who embrace the phrase--boss bitch. I see nothing endearing about it at all but that’s just me. I know a lot of women do. Or maybe I’m just hung up on the word bitch.
A female that is extremely successful, stunting, and has plenty of power. You see that girl over there, she's a boss bitch. Credit to Denel June 08, 2006 Now of course boss bitch can mean different things to different women. My characters, Destinee, Jewel, Evermore etc. are strong, successful and independent women in their own right—but they would never refer to themselves as boss bitches. But that doesn’t make them less strong because they label themselves differently. I wanted to write about women who convey strength and independence, but they are also vulnerable and insecure at times as they go through this thing called life and dealing with the men that come their way. It’s ok to be strong and have it together; however, it is also ok to be delicate and feminine. That doesn’t take away who they are. I guess I am writing this because as mentioned above there is sometimes a misconception that all or most Black women are boss bitches especially in books, too strong to be vulnerable and even we perpetuate that perception.
Our strength comes in many different forms and I want my characters to reflect that. Thanks for reading. Twitter @Lwarir Facebook Destinee Romance Novella www.shimmergirlbooks.com
Comments
By Lisa Marbly-Warir 4/27/2017 I’m going to be honest, Vegas, has never been a place that was on my bucket list. I figured if I ever went—good, if I never went, that was fine too. Thing is when you have a spouse, you have to compromise and my husband wanted to go. So I went. I always did say, however, that if I ever got the chance to go—I had to see an Elvis show. Yeah, I’m corny like that. Forget what you see in the movies—Vegas is a place you have to see for yourself, if you ever want to go or plan to go. I immediately started showing pictures of my trip on Facebook—and got a lot of responses from fans of Vegas, and perhaps people who hope to go one day. One of my former coworkers private messaged me to ask me questions because he’d never been and wanted to take his wife. First things first—we landed at Mccarran International Airport 5757 Wayne Newton Blvd. I didn’t know the name of the street until I started writing this post. You’ll see many streets named after famous people—Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra. It was easy to get a feel of what Vegas must have been like during it’s heyday with the Rat Pack, Elvis and even Redd Foxx. My husband and I stayed at a hotel on what is considered the old Vegas Strip. I don’t want to put the hotel we stayed at on blast. The hotel—is considered a 4 star but, my husband and I gave it 3 stars. There were a few things that took away from a full 5 star experience. The blinds were broken and maintenance was in our room for about 30 minutes fixing it. And after a long flight and a snafu at the car rental—coming to the hotel to relax an hour or so was priority and it didn’t happen right away. Then on top of it all, our bathroom sink didn’t work properly and I’m not sure if housekeeping was as thorough as they could have been. We had a view with a mountain in the distance, it was very pretty—we certainly don’t see mountains every day in Michigan. As a first time visit to Sin City we would do it again, only next time we will stay on the newer side of Vegas. People watching was also fun—the characters you see are probably unlike anything you will see anywhere else, except for maybe Times Square. Though I’m sure people don’t walk around almost butt-ass naked in Times Square (sorry, didn't take any pictures of butts and other unmentionables) I’ve never been to Times Square in the summer, so maybe some people do walk around almost naked. Before visiting Vegas I was told food prices were high. I didn’t find them to be any higher than where I live. Our last night in Vegas, we went to a Legends in Concert at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. There was Elvis, Michael, Marilyn and Janis. All of the performers were pretty darn good. We got the tickets for free after being tortured at one of those 90 minute time-share meetings. It was my 2nd time doing one and hopefully my last. Avoid them if you can—they will try to lure you off the street with promises of cash, dinner or shows. It may be worth it to some, but for me and my husband we wished we’d just bypassed them altogether. We missed some other attractions messing with them. All-in-all, first trip to Vegas was a wonderful experience and we plan to go again. |