Please Don’t Take This Wrong…

Sometimes I do brag, but only to balance my shortcomings so that I don't have to be tapped on the shoulder and told I have a low self-esteem. My self-esteem is just fine, but often when I'm just shrugging things off and preferring to hang in the background of things, I get provoked into coming out of my comfort zone to prove just how big my ego really is. And please don't laugh... or frown. It's really no laughing matter. This happens to be one of the items on my wish list this 2011 Christmas. That I stay securely tucked in my humble zone, having nothing to prove to no one.

This is why I ask to please not take this wrong. Having not blogged in a while I'm going to be jotting down a list that may come across as boasting. In this case I'm not. I really plan to go through and share a few blogs and blog-posts and comments that have made my year. I certainly have to post my TOP TEN book list. My New Year's resolutions, that's coming too. And can't wait to introduce my 2012 novels!!! Looks like there will only be three, plus the poetry anthology, on the front of the year. The other two, I'll see. I know one is going to make for one heck of a post as I'm going to be divulging something new I learned about this thing I call my writing style.

I also have a Christmas wish list I'm working on, plus I (hopefully) plan to share a little treat in the next post or two, by way of an interview I have scheduled. All that said, I'm a busy woman with the writing and reading projects I have going. And I still must post my review of Le Freak by Nile Rodgers. Man! That book freakin' rocked!!! Now I'm wondering if I should add on a few more challenges to all of this... just in case I find a little down time... you know, to make things interesting.

For this post however, I'm musing on music as it relates to my published novels. In case I've neglected to say, music inspires me most, even if I rarely listen to it while writing. It's (ironic) funny how music works for me. Like in the case with Pleasure, a song will play in my mind until I have to stop what I'm doing to find it. And if, and when I find it... well, it goes like this. After a few rounds on repeat, it's all she wrote. Words and thoughts started flying left and right.

At any rate, here's an annotated playlist of songs that takes me back to writing a few of my novels. You know, what played to put me in the mood to write.

(2008) Leiatra's Rhapsody – We Belong Together, Mariah Carey & Please, Toni Braxton
(2009) Something Xtra Wild – Got Love, Gerald Levert
(2010) This One I Got Right – Gladys Knight's Make Yours a Happy Home & If I Were Your Woman; and Bonnie Raitt's Love Sneakin' up On You
(2011) Rye & the Rump – Loves Changes, Mother's Finest
(2009) Black Table – A Heart is a House for Love, The 5 Heartbeats
(2010) Storytella – Wildflower, New Birth
(2011) Pleasure – I'm Leaving Baby, Con Funk Shun
(2011) A Piece of Peace – Jesus is My Rock, Rev. Gerald Thompson & the Tennessee

Maybe this will get me off the hÔÔk for the songs I've been playing on repeat for these next novels. Woo wee Woo!