Spread the Love Blog Tour: My Writing Process

what are you working on?

What am I working on?  What am I not working on?  At the top of the year, this prodigal writer returned to the blog that she had forsaken because she took a sabbatical to care for her soul.  It worked.  I'm back.  So I'm always working on this blog—thinking of what I want to say.  Also, I'm working on some essays, including one about African American women and the U.S. feminist movement, PLUS a sketch comedy piece.  My most precious project, a partial book draft tentatively titled "Young, Christian and Black," sits on my  bookshelf, collecting dust, waiting for the day when I feel it's right to return to it.

how does your work differ from others of your genre?

I tend to write spiritually-infused social commentaries on what's happening in the news, pop culture, and my life.  A book lovin', cross-carryin', Jesus followin', African American woman living as an entrepreneur-artist in arguably the most self-absorbed city in the world (L.A.), I tend to write cultural critiques, that are (hopefully) inspiring as well as challenging. I speak from a place of honesty and vulnerability.  Sometimes, I say things that will get me blacklisted, and I'm afraid, but I say them anyway.  

why do you write/create what you do?

I write because i have to.  It's how I make sense of the world, and my life.  I write because it unclogs me.  I write because in 2006 a voice told me to write, and pursuing life as a professional writer has been one of the most life-giving endeavors I've ever pursued.  I write because our world needs more voices that make us look within.

how does your writing/creative process work?

All of my work stems from ideas.  Some ideas hit like quick flashes of lightning; others are like spring showers that speak to me for weeks.  I do my best to honor these ideas.  I record them everywhere—in

voice memos  notebooks, journals, scraps of paper.  Then, I let them stew (for hours, days, months), and finally I sit down at my laptop to let them loose!  Some ideas are conveyed quickly, in a blog post that takes an hour to write.  Others take a few sittings and require more refined thinking and a little Internet research. Others take either weeks, or maybe years to flesh out because I'm still trying to figure out 1) exactly what I want to say,  2) the best way to communicate it to the reader, and 3) the right words to use.  

A recovering perfectionist, sometimes I spend minutes scouring dictionary.com for the perfect word to complete a sentence.   Other times, I let it slide, telling myself that putting something out now is much better than waiting a few days until I get more time, because that day may never come.

When I finish writing a piece, a feeling of satisfaction and peace envelopes me.  There is a sense that my gift to the reader is also a gift to myself.

meet a few of my blogging buddies…

I know AmberAwosanya through church.  She's getting her MFA in writing.   Her blog, FromUnderTheNet is where she posts first drafts of short non-fiction bits she is working on from the experiences of her and her interracial family and their life in Uganda.

I met SamanthaButler when she was a student at UCLA.  She's a teacher and writer. Her work consists of short stories, executed writing exercises, poems and life stories: LeeParkerWritings  

Lastly, I'd like to give a HUGE shout out to Grace Sandra, the woman who tagged me in the #ShareTheLove blog tour.  We were in a leadership development cohort when we worked for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA.  She is one of the most vulnerable bloggers I know. Here is what she says about how her writing differs from that of other writers:  “I’m a human. I’m a sinner. I suck. I am loved by God. The end.  That’s my genre.  My story.”

Check out these ladies. They rock’n’roll!

Welcome Back, Chante!

This blog sat blank for most of 2013, not because I didn’t have anything to say, and not because I lacked the discipline to write. It sat empty because the impetus needed to write well either wasn’t there or ebbed before I managed to plop myself in front of the computer screen to type. Instead I spent most of my free time praying—by myself, with my housemate, with my prayer partner, with my spiritual director, and with my church family. Some days I spent hours praying; other days I snuck in only a few minutes. But all of the focused time that I spent with God last year provided me with the perspective and fuel that I need to fill up the cyber-pages of this blog in 2014.

I plan to share some amazing stories with you this year—events that happened in 2013 that changed the very make-up of my being, along with the startling, awe-inspiring, wondrous things that will happen this year. I hope that these stories enlighten and encourage you along your journey. And if they do, please drop me a line to let me know, and please share them with your friends and family.

Happy New Year!



Much Love,

-C

AKA Chantisha

AKA Chantico

AKA Grandma



P.S. Please let me know if you have any prayer request.  I'd love to pray for you!

Help Wanted, Help Needed

Have you ever feel like everyone around you felt one way about something, but you felt another way, but were afraid to say anything? Well, that’s how I’ve felt about the movie, “The Help.”  Lots of my friends and colleagues have raved about how good the movie is, but I haven’t been able to celebrate the movie.  As a student who majored in Media Studies in college, (looking specifically at how women and people of color are portrayed in TV and film), I can’t help but notice the dearth of roles for women of color in Hollywood.  And as a black woman, I can’t help but notice that when we are portrayed on screen, it’s often as a sexpot (hoochie or otherwise), or in a completely non-sexual way (like a maid or a grandma). 

Although I could easily write a dissertation about this (and I’m sure that many have been written about this topic), I will keep this short: I’m tired of Hollywood telling the same stories about black people on the movie screen. I’m tired of slave narratives, stories about when we were oppressed, stories about the first African American to ____ (just fill in the blank with any first that you could imagine—like the first to ride a hot air balloon across the U.S. alone, while brushing his teeth).  I’m tired of biopic, “Oscar-worthy” performances that show us as subservient, oppressed beings, or those who rise from the ashes of oppression to the heights of success. I’m tired of stories that focus on the bleakness of our past, while ignoring the brightness of our present.  But more than this, I am tired of stories about black people, written by white people. (Hopefully I didn’t offend anyone with that statement.)  What I mean is that the author of a story (whatever that story might be), tells the story from his/her perspective, even if it’s she/he is just the interviewer because the interviewer shapes and hence begins to outline the story even as she compiles questions.  And then the editor takes those answers and edits the interviews to weave together a story.  And while all voices are valid and needed, an anthology of stories about poor, oppressed, or otherwise marginalized black people written by white people feels incomplete and culturally biased.

But my problem with “The Help” doesn’t stop here.  The author of the book wanted black women’s stories to be told in their own words, from their own perspective.  However, when I looked at the film adaptation, I couldn’t help but feel that the story was told form the white protagonist’s perspective.  (Was that just me?)  Yes, we got a look at the lives of the maids, but I felt that the story was driven by the thoughts and actions of the white character.  And if that’s so, doesn’t that go against the book’s purpose and premise?  (Now, I only saw the movie one time, so maybe a second look would warrant a different response.)

What are your thoughts? 

I’m Just a Blogger But…It’s Just Okay to Me

Book Review: I’m Just a DJ But…It Makes Sense to Me by Tom Joyner with Mary Flowers Boyce

My Grade: C, but worth a skim if you have an interest in either entertainment or African American culture

I’m no professional book reviewer, but I found Tom Joyner’s I’m Just a DJ But…It Makes Sense to Me, though filled with illustrious tidbits of advice, to be only mildly entertaining, which is disappointing because Joyner has made a living entertaining audiences.

Throughout the book, Joyner, with the help of Mary Flowers Boyce, recounts his rise to fame and wealth, beginning with his chubby roots in Tuskegee, Alabama. His story is inspiring, but his voice felt muted throughout the story. Perhaps this is what happens when you write a book with someone?

Ordinarily, I’d write a full review, but since it’s a comical, playful book, I’ll write a lite review.

Here are some noteworthy topics covered:

• The importance of dreaming bigger
• Why he’s unapologetically ethnocentric
• How he bought a college (and how you can make enough money so that you too can buy a college)
• Why he loves all women (even though he's happily married)
• Random snippets of advice, such as “If you get busted making a videotape, make a hit gospel song.”

It wasn’t my favorite read of the year, but it did give me insight into a man I’ve only heard about in passing.  Plus it offered tips on how I too can create and run my own media empire!

Eat, Pray, Read

Oprah’s done it, and so has one in four American women, so it seems.  And now, so have I.  I’ve joined the legions of women oohing and awing over Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.  I’d heard how fabulous it is, heard it lauded by Oprah, The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Book Review, and Entertainment Weekly.  But now I too must stand up and give a round of applause to Elizabeth Gilbert.  And I’ll go a step further and sing the book’s praises in this blog.

Gilbert did what most writers fail to do—she wrote a memoir that covers an extended period of time, but she managed to keep the reader engaged page after page.  The book was divided neatly into three sections, one for each country she visited.  It didn’t feel three hundred and thirty-one pages long; Instead, it felt like three extended short stories, connected by theme, time, and spirit.

Each country’s section could almost read as a stand-alone, but together, they told how she ascended from the ashes of the “ideal” life she purposefully destroyed to the center of a new life rich in fulfillment and purpose. Italy described her love affair with food, India, her love affair with God, and Indonesia, her love affair with…well, I won’t spoil the surprise.

Although I don’t agree with either her new-age beliefs or with many of her feminist practices, (I label myself a Christ-centered feminist), I appreciate her courage and her candidness.  Anyone willing to go on a year’s journey with the sole purpose of finding peace and meaning, with little in the bank to back her up gets my respect.  And anyone willing to write about it blow by blow, teardrop upon teardrop, replete with embarrassing details, gets mad props from me as well.

Her memoir was delightfully honest, oh-so-memorable, and at times felt magical.  As a reader, I was amazed at her ability to weave together past and present experiences, spirit and body encounters.  To present three different countries, a dozen characters, and detail the workings of her inner world over the course of one year was a monstrous task, which she mastered beautifully.  Page by page, she spun her web of words around me, drawing me into her whirlwind journey.  I felt…seduced by it.  Seduced because although she did grow in her spirituality, I felt that she missed the Ultimate Spirit.  And her revelations, although profound and life-changing, felt incomplete and resultantly lacking in the depth that they could have had.

Some of my friends don’t like the book because they say that they can’t identity with Gilbert.  To her she feels too elitist, unable to paint accurate pictures of the people she encounters, her vision tainted by her privilege.  Maybe they’re right.  Gilbert is a privileged white American woman who writes from her perspective, about her life, using her tone.  But that’s what any great memoirist does; they share the world from their perspective. I suspect that my friends just don’t like her, or her privilege, which is fine. 

I enjoyed spending several hours of my life, over the course of several weeks, reading about her life. Mine is definitely richer because of it.  I am making it a point to enjoy my food more, enjoy just being in God’s presence, and am opening up my heart to love.  Life’s greatest joys are indeed found in three small words: eat, pray, love.

Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

Hungry for a good read? Meeting Faith is two hundred eighty-one pages of deliciousness you don’t want to pass up. I now know why the book won the 2005 PEN Beyond Margins Award for Best Memoir and received an enthusiastic thumbs up from O Magazine. In it, the author does what good writers should: She takes me on a journey, shows me something beautiful, and makes me not want to come back.

Meeting Faith details the period of time in which the author, Faith, on the verge of flunking out of college, takes some “time off” from school. But unlike most students, who travel to Paris or Italy, backpacks in tow, Faith Adiele travels to the Far East—to the remote areas of Thailand. A self-declared sociologist, she jumps head first (and hairless might I add) into a Thai wat seeking to understand Buddhism and women’s roles in the religion. (Are you sensing her ardent commitment?) She exchanges comfort, pleasure, and daily communication for a commitment to refrain from entertainment, touching money, all forms of entertainment, sleeping on soft surfaces, and consuming food at inappropriate times, which is most of the time. Sound fun?

The reader follows Faith as she attempts to live by seemingly impossible rules (You try not killing a single bug while living in a forest!), watching her comical failures and her thrilling successes. Pushed by her teacher, Maechi Roongduan, she progresses, so that what once seemed impossible for Faith’s mind and body becomes customary.

Fusing together journal entries, detailed sociologist’s notes, classic Buddhist texts, and childhood memories, Faith weaves together a tale of her time with a group of Thailand’s maechi (Buddhist nuns) that is educational, yet extremely personal. Faith learns that while studying them, she must examine herself, and in discovering their faith, she must uncover her own as well.

Yes, this book is about faith, but it is just as much about identity—what defines us—what drives us. And whether you are a person of faith or one who is searching, I would definitely recommend meeting Faith because she writes with an honesty that is refreshing and challenging. With bravery and beauty, she bares her being:

“…The surprising decision to ordain and what I learned during my short, short tenure as a nun revised the very premises of my life. I’d been raised to believe in myself, in intellect, in the Western tenets of self and science, and I’d taught myself not to fail. Soon everything I knew and counted on would be stripped away. As it turned out, failure was the first step toward real life.”

Daily Affirmation #5: I Persist Until I Succeed

I arrived to class thirty minutes early. The room was packed. The professor took roll. He peaked over his wire-framed glasses, and mumbled, “I don’t know the best way to do this…” As he spoke, two more people walked in and stood by the wall. They wanted to add, too. Dang it!

“The only fair thing to do,” he responded, “is to have a raffle. Everyone who wants to add this class, write your name down on a slip of paper and put it in this hat. I only have room for thirty-five students.” Paper tears echoed throughout the classroom. I wasn’t excited about a raffle. Couldn’t we find a more fair system—like who had arrived first? I had arrived in class thirty minutes early, but I had arrived at school an hour and a half early. Didn’t that count for something?

As the raffle began, I was hopeful. Surely my name could be one of the six picked to remain in the class. After three names had been selected, my hope began to diminish. By the time the fifth name was called, all hope was gone. My name was not going to be called. And it wasn’t. I sat in my seat, surrounded by a blanket of disbelief. But I had felt that I should take the class. How could I not get in?

“If you didn’t make it in this semester, you can try again next semester,” the professor told us, in hopes of absolution. For a moment, I thought that I should just take the class the following semester, but the next semester was six months away.

That was six months of putting off my dream. Six months of trying to figure out the art of writing by myself. That was unacceptable. I thought, I persist until I succeed. With heavy backpacks in hand, and heavy faces to match, the rejected students walked out of class.  “Or, you could try again next week. Maybe some folks will drop…” the professor muttered.

I sat in my chair. I couldn’t—wouldn’t move. I had to get into the class. Two other students sat in their chairs, unwilling to move. Eventually the professor said, “If you’re not enrolled in the class, you should leave now.” I walked up the front. “May I stay for a little while, just to see what the class is like?”

“Sure,” he responded, hesitantly.

Hearing the professor detail the books and topics to be covered, I became more convinced that I did belong in the class. So, I decided that I would just stay. I would participate, like I was a student, and then return the following week, like he said we could.

So, as he walked us through the syllabus, I took detailed notes. He divided us into groups and had us brainstorm story ideas. I created my list and shared it with my group. They liked it so much that they selected my idea to share with the entire class during discussion time.

During the break, the professor looked at me intently and inquired, “You’re not in this class, right?” “No…but I will be,” I responded confidently. “How?” he asked. ”I don’t know, but I figure that if I leave now, then when I do get in, I’ll be behind.” He looked at me and smiled, very slowly. “I like your persistence.”

“I persist until I succeed,” I responded, almost robotically.

Then he gave us our first assignment. “Interview someone in the class and then write a story about them. If there is an odd number, one of you can just interview me.”

I walked up to a beautiful Filipina woman and asked her if she wanted to be partners. “Sure,” she responded. But just as I began to interview her, I realized that there was an odd number of students in the class. One of my classmates was stuck interviewing the professor. I walked up the front and told the guy to take my spot because I wasn’t actually enrolled in the class yet. This way, I wouldn’t be disturbing the flow of the class, plus I would get to talk with the professor, which would increase the likelihood that he would let me in the class.

“What was your very first writing gig?”

“Who was your favorite interviewee?”

“What would you tell your daughter if she wanted to become a writer?”


Thirty minutes later my professor was smiling as he reminisced about his twenty plus year career as a writer.


“Now it’s time to write your stories,” he instructed the class.  It was at this moment that the weight of my predicament hit me. Yes, it had been a good idea to interview my professor because it enabled me to build a relationship with him. However, is it ever a good idea to write a story about a writer? Especially if you’re a novice writer and your subject is a professional writer with credits that make you salivate?


I began to type. The words came, ideas emerged, but fear lay submerged. What if I misquoted him? What if I got the facts wrong? Was my tone okay? It had been years since I’d taken a news writing course.


I handed the story in to the professor, very hesitantly. In fact, I took it back. (I wanted to spell check it again, just in case.)

To follow up, I sent him and email the following day:


“Professor Stambler,

I had a lot of fun in class last night. (I wish that I could say that I had interviewed Quincy Jones! )

Anyways, I am eager to join the class. If space becomes available during the week, you can email me the add number. If you don't know until Monday, however, then I can add it when I arrive.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to learning a lot this semester.

Sincerely,

Chante Griffin”

I arrived at class the following week early. I looked around for the people who had left the week before. None of them returned. Professor Stambler handed my interview to me. “Chante, “ he wrote, “How can I refuse you now? Here’s your add code: 282983022.”  Then, he took roll. I was number thirty-six.