rants

message to authors/aspiring authors.

I'm not a perfect writer, and no one is. But a conversation neeeds to be had about urban books.

My first book, I got hate bc my male character was not masculine enough.

(I'm guilty of it too) but we gotta stop pushing this narrative in our stories that a man has to rough and tough. Rough and tough characters are awesome! But that's not what a man HAS to be.

I feel like sometimes we put characters in a box of what they're 'supposed to be'. But this creates problems for people who wanna go outside of this box.

I've gotten comments coming for my "excessive" gay side characters but that's REAL life. Like I don't like to delete rude comments but when people get homophobic like..I can't leave that up. I have gay readers bro.

I feel like we should make more stories with lgbt, or disabled, or neuro-divergent, men and women. So that way, people aren't so turned off when they see it.

I feel like there's so much untapped potential when it comes to what we're doing bc we feel like we gotta fit a mould. We don't! Your female characters don't have to be perfect, smart, and wanted by everyone. Your male characters don't have to be assholes, players, thug-type, etc.

And let me reiterate, those characters are great and there's nothing wrong with them.
But please don't think that's what you need to have a great story. That's what I thought and I ended up creating shitty uninteresting stories .

Do what you want!! Please.

just felt like mentioning that