Author: lyndellwilliams47

Author exploring romance through intersections of race and faith.

Research – A Key Element to Storytelling

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#Open Book

What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

I spend a lot of time researching all kinds of things for various writing projects. I need to research curriculum development and pedagogical methods for my work with the Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. I just spent the past few days hitting Google for historical and cultural research while taking part in an anti-racism workshop.

My job teaching at the college and romance scholarship also requires time researching. Before leaving for Chicago, I looked for additional sources as I edited an essay about African American Muslim romance fiction (yes, it’s a thing) and how female protagonists are othered. It is interesting how Muslim authors use the other woman trope in love triangles.

Focus, Lyndell. Okay.

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It may seem that so many demands will make research a tedious exercise. The opposite is true for me. Continue reading “Research – A Key Element to Storytelling” →

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#MFRW Author: Me, Myself, and The Story-Authors in Their Narratives

read-3048651_1920Putting yourself in the story.

Considering stories are products of writers imaginations, it is hard for anyone to say that they don’t put themselves in their stories.  A good plot, messaging, and character personality requires deep reflection. A simpatico relationship with characters is also a must, so all authors become invested in the narrative at some level.

However, that doesn’t mean that every author injects themselves as an actual character. I have yet to do so, although other people are fair game. But, that’s not the point. I have to admit, that there are elements of my experiences in my stories. Continue reading “#MFRW Author: Me, Myself, and The Story-Authors in Their Narratives” →

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Problems when Working a Scene

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#openbook

What was your hardest scene to write?

The challenges that present when writing a scene vary from one writing project to another. A manuscript can have multiple difficult scenes taxing authors, making time drag as the cursor flashes or notebook page sits untouched, leaving them all kinds of frustrated.

Scene troubles may involve persistent issues with the plot’s structure, or they may be thematic and restricted to one manuscript. Continue reading “Problems when Working a Scene” →

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#BOOK REVIEW: Winter’s Beast

Review by Lyndell Williams
WINTER’S BEAST
By Twyla Turner
$9.99, 252 pp, paper
$3.99, 254 pp, Kindle (Free, KU)

Love and loyalty frequently clash in life and lead to a big ole mess of emotions. It is the same in the world of romance fiction. People are often conflicted between staying true to one person or following their love, desire, or lust for another.

In Winter’s Beast by Twyla Turner, the main character, Yury, a disfigured henchman for  Ivan, has to watch as his boss/savior sexually torments singer Winter. Ivan, obsessed with Winter’s beautiful voice and albino body, holds her captive and grooms her to become his sex slave and feature in his erotic club. This guy is all kinds of diabolical.

No, I’m not turned on. You are!

Winter initially resists Ivan, but he uses her sexual insecurities and inexperience to groom her into submission. While Ivan is preying on Winter, Yury tries to make life in captivity bearable while he falls in love with the beauty.

The world of kink simultaneously disgusts and enchants Winter, whose sensual history is dotted with sporadic moments of unfulfilling sex. She despises Ivan, but her body responds to his sexual abuse in a way that leaves her confused and titillated.

Yup, homeboy got her all kinds of messed up in the head. Continue reading “#BOOK REVIEW: Winter’s Beast” →

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Why Seasons Matter in Fiction

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#openbook

Do your stories and worlds reference seasons and do they play into the plots of your books?

Seasons provide important time elements to a story’s plot. The environment in which characters interact is significant in setting the tone and helping readers keep track of how much time has passed between plot points.

Time passage within a novel can be large (days, months, and years) or small (a few moments or minutes), and all of it can affect the story’s pacing, grabbing readers’ attention or losing it. A lot of my novels involve events requiring longs periods of time to pass from the book’s beginning to the end.

Anchoring Time

Continue reading “Why Seasons Matter in Fiction” →

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LWL Interview: Prolific Black Muslim Author Umm Juwayriyah

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I have known about Umm Juwayriyah’s (Maryam Sulivan) work for a while but became a fan after reading her amazing Muslim urban fiction novel, Tried and Tested. Check out the blurb.

A teenage Iman Johnson left home over a decade ago to follow behind a sweet, loving hustler who promised her the world. When that world became too much for her to endure, mentally and physically, she found herself back in Pittsburgh, PA at her Muslim mother’s doorstep, seeking refuge.

Will the Muslim family and community that she’d turned her back on years ago be ready to finally accept her, or is there too much time, emotions, hurt, and secrets built up between them to overcome? Iman will have to find the strength to face her past and relearn the basics if she ever hopes to find the sweetness of faith Allah promises.

She is a prolific author, whose works include poetry and prose. She has penned five books for children, young adults, and adults. I will never forget when she walked on stage at an event—for what everyone thought would be an author’s reading—and started dropping bars like it was nothing.

She is an educator and organizer of wonderful initiatives like the #MuslimGirlsRead literacy campaign. Every year, she raises funds to provide Muslim authored and centered books to urban youth. Yeah, she’s pretty dope.

So, it is clearly understandable why I was thrilled to have the chance to work with her on projects like the Black Muslim Authors event at New York University and the upcoming Black Muslim Reads anthology. I recently asked Umm Juwayriyah about writing and storytelling. Continue reading “LWL Interview: Prolific Black Muslim Author Umm Juwayriyah” →

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3 Writing Traps for Newbies

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What are common traps for aspiring writers?

Writing is a process rich with possibilities for errors. Anyone taking to the pen and pad or keyboard to share their stories and experiences with the world will inevitably trip, fall, get crushed, or end up a blubbering puddle of frustrations and regrets.

Count on all the above because our humanness makes it inevitable. Things will get messy just like us.

I spent years as a writing coach at a four-year college, where I saw students making the same mistakes and helped them hone their skills. When I ventured into professional writing as a freelancer, the easy transition from academic writing surprised me. I became popular with some online Muslim publications (I only write for them for personal reasons) and launched a cultural platform. Save for a few shifts in tone, I had it easy.

I didn’t encounter many bumps in the road of my journey as a writer until I wrote a novel. My strong writing background did not secure me from making some newbie mistakes, and I found many other authors who expressed that they made them. 

Continue reading “3 Writing Traps for Newbies” →

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#MFRWHooks- And Baby Makes Four

Book Hooks (2)And Baby Makes Four

A Short Story in Shades of AMBW Winter

Adrianna Kingston is ready to fight anyone who threatens her child’s future, including its father, Toma Matsumoto. and his brother, Sho. The two men don’t know what they’re in for.

Excerpt

And Baby Makes Four_CoverThe tapping sound Toma Matsumoto made by striking his pen against the mahogany desk filtered through the hushed room. He stared up at a pair of oval brown eyes. Streaks of red in the iris and obvious rage didn’t detract from their beauty nor the rest of the stunning brown face towering over him. Full pursed lips and round cheeks glowed in the afternoon light streaming in from the office window behind him. She’s even more beautiful angry. Continue reading “#MFRWHooks- And Baby Makes Four” →

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Call Me Rufus: Naming Characters

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How do you select the names of your characters?

I recently gave members of my Facebook reading group a chance to help me select a name for the main male protagonist of a Muslim vampire romance I am drafting.

Yeah, you heard right. Just wait for it. Anyway, I had initially selected the name “Rufus” for him. I had my reasons, but readers weren’t even trying to hear any of them. I got all kinds of negative feedback. Some asked how in the world I even thought up such an old-time name. Continue reading “Call Me Rufus: Naming Characters” →

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Short Stories: An Author’s Staple

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Since short stories continue to be essential to my authorship, I’ve decided to post a Facebook Live interview I did a while back with Muslim urban fiction, author Umm Juwayriyah about the importance of short stories in authorship.

Often overlooked in favor of novel writing, short stories allow authors to share stories that can’t necessarily be told in a novel.

Short stories are a great way for authors to introduce reading to their writing as well as keep them interested in reading their works. Continue reading “Short Stories: An Author’s Staple” →

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Pens, Knives, and Guns: The Power of Crafting Words

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What was an early experience when you learned that language had power?

I think humans have an innate appreciation for the power contained in language. We have a need to communicate from the moment we leave the womb. Crying, whimpering, whining and cooing are all methods that infants have to convey their feelings and desires.

It can be so strong that many mothers and primary caregivers learn the meanings behind each utterance coming from the tiny person, finding it almost impossible to ignore. The impact of our children’s infant cries frazzled each one of my nerves, motivating me to satisfy or wreak havoc on whatever or whoever was upsetting them. People didn’t start calling me Mama Bear for nothing.

Yeah, kinda like that. So, knowledge about the power of language is something intrinsic. We know its influence on those around us. When people are past the infancy, “cry to get what I want stage”, it is important to recognize how compelling words can be on one’s mindset and those around them, especially words strategically used to convince, inspire, anger and degrade—some of which may become branded in one’s psyche, influencing their internal dialogue and actions. Continue reading “Pens, Knives, and Guns: The Power of Crafting Words” →

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#OpenBook – “Masculine Energy” and The Woman Writer

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What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

I remember listening to a male lecturer talk about women, men, and gender relations. One thing that stuck with me was when he went on this diatribe about women who have a lot of what he called “masculine energy.” He waxed for what seemed like forever about how a woman who dares to have a lot of masculine energy is a problem because she will always be ready to challenge a man. He claimed that such women are too assertive and authoritative and proclaimed that he could tell when there is such a woman in his midst.

After I laughed my…head off, I cringed a little at the incendiary generalizations he made, that make life hell for women. I won’t go into an analysis of how his language dangerously allocated certain human behaviors like confidence, ambition, critical thinking, power, and resistance as masculine and categorized women embodying any of these characteristics as “manly” deviants straying from their feminine nature.

I won’t highlight how someone privileged by gender can be guilty of reinforcing oppression by demonizing those struggling against their subjugation, discrediting them as misfits. Really, men need to stop that nonsense, especially those disguising themselves as progressive but are actually just as chauvinistic as their fellow misogynists.

Continue reading “#OpenBook – “Masculine Energy” and The Woman Writer” →

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In Vitro: Short Story Audio Clip

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS! (1)Alhamdulillah, I am blessed to have Sabina Khan, a great writer, for a critique partner. One of the biggest challenges we have when it comes to working together is our often conflicting schedules. However, this being the digital age, we managed to come up with a method—at least on my end—to share.

I often leave audio clips of my work for Sabina to listen to at a convenient time. She expressed to me how much she enjoyed listening to me read my work and constantly encouraged me to upload audio clips for my readers.  I was initially hesitant, but I decided to give it a try by reading the first part of the newest Layla Writes Love short story, In Vitro.

Continue reading “In Vitro: Short Story Audio Clip” →

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LWL Interview: King Ellie Brings Readers on Dark Romance Mind Trips

Mis Quince Años (12)All right. Straight away, I have to let readers know that King Ellie is an author that knows how to apply some heat to a plot in a way that makes one cringe and tingle with excitement at the same time.

King Ellie discovered her love for dark romance through reading. As she read more, she found that it was the genre for her and decided to own it. I mean, all of it. She did not come to play.

When writing antiheroes and characters typically classified as villains, she tries to show how hurt, heartbroken males can love hard.  The author explains:

The heroines get a chance to be loved deeply and only by the antiheroes. Love isn’t always just black and white… it’s a spectrum of color. 

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King Ellie is one of a few authors who served as my introduction into dark romance. Much more than the bodice rippers of old romance times, her work encourages readers to consider how the unsettling mixture of sensuality, kink and depravity simultaneously disturb and titillate our senses.

Continue reading “LWL Interview: King Ellie Brings Readers on Dark Romance Mind Trips” →

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#OpenBook: Pouring out Money to Spill Ink

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What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?

I will have to split my answer to this week’s prompt into two categories: 1)writer and 2) author. It may seem like an exercise in semantics, but the distinction is important. In addition to my short stories and books, I do a TON of writing in different spheres that have required me to spend money in varying amounts and capacities.

You guys know how I get. Bear with me.

Continue reading “#OpenBook: Pouring out Money to Spill Ink” →

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New Muslim Romance Writers Group

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There is a growing number of Muslim writers venturing into writing romance. Romance can be a culturally specific and powerful form of social commentary. I explained in a Journal for Popular Romance Studies article:

Romance explores culturally-specific notions of intimacy. Because it portrays a group’s conventions about love and amorousness, it can provide outsiders glimpses of norms and practices. Authors can describe and critique features of a given social context—such as racism or religious prejudice—in ways that inform outsiders and, at the same time, allow insiders to recognize and identify with behaviors and situations described. Continue reading “New Muslim Romance Writers Group” →

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Black-Asian Swirl Presentation

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The Black Women-Asian Men (BWAM) movement highlights and encourages interracial relationships and intimacy between members of two social groups suffering from layers of social stigmatization, including notions that they are generally the least desirable inside and outside of their races and ethnicities. As a cultural phenomenon, BWAM involves Black women and Asian men shaking off dating and courtship conventions that isolate them and supporting the exploration of the appeal in each other.

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Promotion of BWAM infuses popular culture, including popular romance. The interracial romance (IR) subgenre contains a blooming compendium of romance novels featuring Black (mainly African American) women and Asian men. Continue reading “Black-Asian Swirl Presentation” →

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