I was over visiting and checking out the current CORA Diversity Roll Call over at the Color Online blog.

This week is covering food and memoirs so the first book to come to my mind was a memoir that I read last year.

Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love, and Spain by Lori L. Tharps was an intriguing memoir that raises lots of questions about race and identity. It’s a coming-of-age tale not only of the author’s journey into womanhood but also of her own preconceived notions of what it really means to be a woman of color.

The author was born in a sheltered middle-class life usually being the only person of color in her classrooms and neighborhoods. It is here in her teens years that she finds a love for the country of Spain. As she moves through her life to college, she finds it hard to fit in with people who though look like her, cannot relate to her. But then also feels the sting of not fitting in with friends outside of her race and culture.

When she fulfills her dream and travels to Spain, her idealizations of the country are challenged with the truths of how Spaniards relate to her difference. But it also where she meets Manuel, the man who would later become the love of her life and husband despite all of the obstacles and prejudices. There is also a bit of mystery where the author unravels a secret in the cultural roots of Spain. It is this historical part of this memoir that was most fascinating to me.

The memoir may affect people in many different ways—like most books. Some resonate more with some people than with others.

For me, this memoir was most of all a love story. The love that the author had for a country, the love she found in Manuel, and most of all the love the author found for herself.

Your protagonist realizes something about himself/herself.

Questions to ask about this scene spark:

*What is the epiphany?

*Is your protagonist happy or sad about the realization?

*What actions does your protagonist take with this realization?

Whew, it’s been 10 weeks. Seems like 10 years, LOL.

Only 3 more weeks to go in the Challenge. Although it’s August, I’m still on Act 2 scenes, which is okay. I don’t know if I’ll make my personal goal of 60K words, but since I broke the 40K barrier, I’m definitely going to make the challenge goal of 45K words, and I can’t feel too shabby about that.

I’m writing scenes out of order right now, and I’m finding that I have a mess on my hands. One of my goals this week is to step back and see exactly what I have for my Act 2 scenes. This may slow down my progress but at least I’ll have my sanity.

But for the most part, I’m happy about my progress this week—especially since the day job is still hectic as ever. This was a draining week but I still managed to write for the Challenge.

Here’s the statistics for Week #10:

Total for Week #10: 6,059

M-327
T-419
W-0
TH-1,512
F-1,263
SA-1,751
SU-787

Total for the Challenge: 40,571

Words to Goal for the Challenge: 4,929

As we move into Week #11, another great quote from The Writer’s Portable Therapist: 25 Sessions to a Creativity Cure by Rachel Ballon, Phd.

“Don’t feel guilty about being afraid of the blank page. Don’t think you aren’t a writer if you don’t rush to the computer first thing when you get up in the morning in order to face the empty page. Writing is hard work. Filling up an empty page with your thoughts, your pains, your joys, and your creative ideas takes immense courage.”

Here we go again…

I’m the kind of writer who must have noise in the background. Writing in absolute silence is creepy. So I must have some kind of noise—whether it’s the sound of a bookstore or a cafe or music.

I can’t listen to music with lyrics though. I find them distracting for some reason. Unless I’m revising—it doesn’t seem to matter.

Here’s my current writing music that I’ve been listening to for the Summer Challenge—with my favorite star tracks I sometimes put on repeat.

Daft by Art of Noise

*Star Track #10 “Moments in Love”

The Complete Nocturnes by Frederic Chopin

*Star Track #2 “Opus #9 Andante in E Flat Major”

Piano Dreamers by Various Artists

*Star Track #3 “Wonderful Glider”

Zen Garden by Kokin Gumi

*Star Track #1 “Dawn”

Publisher’s Weekly broke the news the Bloomsbury has decided to change the cover for Justine Larbalestier’s novel, Liar.

Based on my previous post, Judging a Book By Its Cover, it’s interesting that Bloomsbury invested money to change this book jacket and not keep the “whitewashed” cover.

I must say that I’m surprised that they chose to go with a similar cover. I thought that they would just go with maybe an abstract cover without a cover model.

Will this cover satisfy everyone? Probably not. But it is a major improvement from the original. Plus, I really want to read this book and now I can go into the bookstore and support Justine L. and not feel like I’ve condoned the decisions behind the original cover.

Will this automatically make all the other problems in publishing concerning these types of issues go away? No. But I think we are seeing a watershed moment here. Things CAN change. And for me, that’s GREAT progress. However, this also means we must be diligent and voice our displeasure over issues such as these.

You can go over and read the PW Article, A New Look for Liar.

Justine L. has also posted her thoughts on her blog post, The New Cover.