So if you know me, you know that I am neurodivergent, (yes, bipolar disorder is under the umbrella of neurodivergence), and with that, for me, comes the struggle to focus on one thing for more than 3 minutes. It’s really difficult and frustrating, I don’t know how I got through undergrad and my Master’s degree program with this jingly bell brain of mine.
Actually, I know how I did, I’m a Magical Being, but that’s beyond the point of this post; see what I just did? Anywhoodles…
Since I just finished my Master’s degree and have more time to catch up on books that I’ve been wanting to read for fun, for the past 6 years, I took it upon myself to see how other people were able to read so many books within a week or a month or so, because I have a TON of books to catch up on and read (movies are next!)
YouTube never disappoints me, I found a few Booktubers who had placed themselves on a reading challenge where they made themselves read 100 pages per day for an entire month! I think I want to do this for the rest of the year so that reading 100 pages become my new norm. (Doesn’t it take 21 days to form a new habit?)
I might make a YouTube video about how it’s going (or not). Right now I’m reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (I love saying her name! It feels so natural, lol), and so far it’s okay. It’s not what I expected from this book but I will shut up until I have read all 580+ pages before I give a review. I have a few other books from the library by Toni Morrison and another YA novel. I won’t tell you what they are until I get to them.
I started my challenge today, November 6, 2022. So, are you gonna join me in my Read 100 Pages A Day Until 2023 challenge? Let me know in the comments!
Khali LaBre breaks down for us the origin of the characters and the story of Scribe: A Novel. Here are some questions and answers she gives us about the novel.
Where did you get the inspiration for Scribe?
Scribe came to me back in 2018 while writing a short story in the Creative Writing class that I was in at The University of South Florida. We were asked to write a chapter and, boom, Scribe was born. The way that the story flows was inspired by the way Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I mixed in the repetitious rhythm of Jamaica Kincaid’s Mr. Potter. I was raised in Orlando, Florida, so most of the locations that are cited throughout the novel are real places, although some places aren’t around anymore, and some are fictitious. Checker Park, for example, is a real location.
Why did you stick to using the African American Vernacular in this story?
I had to stay true to my culture, and what I was exposed to while coming up in Orlando. Most of the people I came up around in Orlando spoke in AAVE and we would code switch when necessary, such as in a professional setting. AAVE is my native dialect, and I wanted the reader to get the feeling of being in the shoes of someone who speaks with that dialect. I also wrote this story for those of us who already speak in AAVE. I could have written this book in Standard English if I wanted to, but the story would come off as bland and inauthentic, so for the folks who prefer books written in Standard English, I have some projects lined up for the next few years that you might like, although I’ve never received a complaint about the way Scribe was written.
Who are the main characters, and where did they come from?
Demetri “Meechi” Joseph is the protagonist of the story. Scribe is written in three parts that explain different phases in Meechi’s life. I actually got that idea from the movie, Moonlight, and how it broke down the main character’s, Chiron, life in three stages. Meechi has to learn to stop being a bystander in his life and learn to take control of it, along with acknowledging his trauma. He uses his magical writing powers to write things into existence to happen in his favor but soon learns that he needs to be specific because sometimes things happen in his favor although it looks like a catastrophe, but it’s for his best interest.
Trenton is that friend I feel that most people have that are completely whimsical. Trenton is a wise character although he battles his schizophrenia throughout most of the story. I wanted to showcase Trenton in a way, for us who are neurodivergent, to show that our illnesses do not define us. Having a mental illness does not make you dumb, it just causes you to have to live your life differently from others to stay as mentally stable as possible. You can be philosophical and reasonable despite your mental illness. I was rooting for Trent the whole time I was writing this book!
Available on Thanksgiving Day
Miss Viv is my most favorite character in the book! She’s extremely intuitive and knows things that Meechi doesn’t think she does. I was inspired to write Miss Viv’s character based on several older women, including my late Grandma Emma who always said “I’m hangin’, but not so high!” whenever you’d ask her how she was doing. I grew up being around older women for much of my childhood, so that snappy Southern belle energy is where I pulled her energy from. I was also inspired by the Oracle from the Matrix for Miss Viv’s ability to detect things in the future.
Sheila is Meechi’s toxic mother. Meechi’s initial downward spiral in life is the result of Sheila. Years after Meechi finally leaves her and goes without talking to her or stopping by to see her, she has t reconcile with herself and God to try to make changes in her life, but she soon learns that it doesn’t pay to be ugly. We all carry some sort of trauma from something that someone has done to us, but that doesn’t mean we have to treat others the way that we have been treated, and that it what Sheila has to learn in this story.
Porscha is Meechi’s heartbeat. Porscha is a woman who became homeless after suffering a mental breakdown from her Major Depressive Disorder. She makes money at the bus station by playing her guitar and singing for the people walking by. She and Meechi’s connection is overwhelmingly magical. I’ll let you read the rest.
When does Scribe come out?
Scribe will be published and released on 11/24/2022, Thanksgiving Day, via major ebook retailers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple Books. Scribe will be released in paperback through Amazon, through Lemons & Gold Publishing LLC! This will give you something good to read while you’re digesting all that food!
You know Cheryl, right? Yeah, Dr. Cheryl Diane Parkinson…that’s right!
Well, she’s an amazing writer and her prose is like no other with her uncanny ability to switch between the Queen’s English and Jamaican Patois and to throw plot twists at you that will punch you in the gut.
After the successful launch of her psychologically thrilling book, Berthas, with Lemons & Gold Publishing LLC, we decided to give her book a new book cover that we believed fit the vibe of the story perfectly. Although, we’ve had some say that they liked the original book cover just as much.
original blue cover
Which cover do you like the best? The new, bright cover with a representation on the cover, or the original blue cover illustrating the four generations of women?
FYI the blue cover is available in paperback for a limited time only. January 31, 2023 will be the last day that it will be in print, so be quick and snatch it up fast!
Have you ever wanted to write a story, but you just didn’t know how to start, or where to start? Maybe you’ve never understood what writers meant when they talked about cross-genres, plotholes, or pantsing. Perhaps you struggle with getting your story to flow smoothly, especially when you get to the middle of the story. This course will teach you everything you need to know to help you become a fiction writer.
Participants in this course will learn the different parts of fiction writing, including storytelling versus writing elements, genre conventions and elements, the different arcs of a story, and how to do peer reviews and critiques, while they work on writing their own 4-page short stories to receive a peer review and critiques from their fellow participants and Khali LaBre. This course is meant to be fun and relaxing, so there will be prizes for those who participate and a raffle for 3 lucky winners!
This is a 12-week course that runs from January 7, 2023, to March 11, 2023. Classes will be held every week on Saturday online, on Zoom at 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. Participants will only be allowed to choose a one-time slot for the entirety of the course, and there are limited slots, so be sure to get your desired time slot first! The course is $120 to enroll. Participants will also receive a free ebook.
For any further questions about this course, please contact Khali at KhaliLaBre@Gmail.com and follow her on her new website KhaliLaBre.com where she will post any new information regarding the course.
And now we’re back…from outer space! If you’ve been wondering if things have changed, you’re absolutely right! We decided to change things up a bit to match our publishing brand.
Lemons & Gold started out as just a writing blog that was supposed to be quirky and fun, but now we are a publishing house with a mission, so we had to look the part. How do you like our promotional video? It shows a little bit of everything that we have to offer you as a small publishing house.
Still shot of the video intro on our homepage…we’re really proud of it, lol!
We also updated our donation pagewhere you can make a donation of any amount that you would like to contribute to help fund our authors’ goals, and our duty to help them as their publishing house. All proceeds go directly to funding our website, providing reasonable author advances, money to provide our authors with funds for book signings, and funding for us to be present at book conventions to show we mean business when it comes to promoting Black, speculative writers.
Your donation will also help fund our writing courses online and in-person, help us to keep inventory on hand of our printed books and merchandise, and will also help our part of the literary community in a major way as we continue to amplify the voices of Black writers everywhere. So, make sure you donate to this great cause before you leave our website today. We thoroughly appreciate any help that we can get. Donors of $100 or more will be listed on our donation page (and may also include an exclusive perk…hint, hint!) All donations go directly to our business Square account.
Our new discussion board! Come on in!
Besides our donation page, have you seen our sparkly new Book CLub and discussion board? We just put it up a few days ago and we think it’s gonna turn out to be a lot of fun! Within the discussion board there’s the Book Club that’s only $5 per year, and what we’ll be doing there is meeting up every 3 months for book discussions. The selector must choose a book they enjoyed reading and select it for the group to read and then we meet back up in 3 months to share what we thought about it. The selector gets to choose someone else to pick the next book, and then we come back in another 3 months. This Book Club comes with perks, such as raffle prizes, gift cards, free books, free merch, and a lot more which is why it’s a $5 fee 🙂
Also in the discussion board is a secret group for those who have paid for the Fantastical Fiction for Beginners writing course with Khàli LaBré where you can present any questions you have about the course, constructive feedback, or just connect and make new friends!
Everything else in the discussion board is free! So let’s connect and talk about all things reading and writing! You say you haven’t heard about the Fantastical Fiction writing course? Stay tuned for the next post!
Scribe is the most serious piece of fiction I have ever written! It took me 4 years (let’s not forget that this was also my thesis project for grad school!) to complete this novel because I wanted the story to turn out just as I pictured it in my head, and it had to be right. The book is undergoing multiple editing sessions to make sure that it arrives on your e-reader, or at your door, piping hot with action, drama, and magic.
I grew up in Orlando and the scenes are primarily based in the areas that I grew up in or frequented throughout my life, so if you’re an Orlando native, you’ll recognize different locations in the book!
Scribe has gone through several peer reviews with great feedback regarding the story’s feel and the dialogue’s fluidity. I speak fluent AAVE and this is one story that I had to write authentically. After all of the feedback and helpful criticisms that I have received throughout the years, I know for a fact you’ll enjoy it!
Here is the synopsis for the story, I have removed as many spoilers as I can:
Scribe is a compellingly magical story about a determined young man growing up in the inner-city streets of Orlando. We follow Demetri Joseph (Meechi), through three different phases of his life as he discovers and utilizes his talent and gift as a writer to find his way out of poverty, an abusive relationship with his mother, and into a life of prosperity and love. Meechi learns to be careful about what he asks for because sometimes loss is necessary to win, and sometimes instant gratification isn’t worth it.
Scribe is filled with lovable and relatable characters, like Meechi’s best friend, Trent, who faces challenges with his mental illness, and is a visionary who convinces Meechi to use his magical writing gift. We also meet the charmingly witty and wise Miss Viv, an elderly woman who is a retired school teacher and respected in her community, guides Meechi on his path to success.
Meechi continues to learn about himself, others, and the balance of duality between light and dark as he becomes a grown man. He realizes that a lot of things that the future holds have a lot to do with making peace with the past. The journey to success simultaneously comes with joy and turmoil, be careful what you ask for.
Scribe will be released on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2022!
Although it was initially written as a continuous series of action-packed, 1000-word flash fiction episodes, Lola Sky The Seriesis now a series of novellas (seasons) following Lola Sky and company on their journey to save the world after stealing a secret file from the CDC.
Lola Sky is one of my ongoing projects with 8 different seasons lined up from now until around the middle of 2023. It’s as if I’m challenging myself to see how far I can go with writing a single series. Come with me in this world that changes gradually into a futuristic scene with unbelievable situations. I’m definitely having fun on this one!
Keep up with the stories so you can see what happens next, and let’s figure out, together, what happens at the very end.
Here’s the synopsis for Season 2:
Things are heating up in the second season of Lola Sky The Series!
Lola, Garvey, Twelve, and Xuan are busy with strength and weapons training as they continue to hide out from the government. As they reside in the massive lair in an undisclosed location in Tennessee, Lola is struggling with coming to terms with the fact that she can’t just go back to living a normal life.
Lola attempts to run away and escape the situation anyway, putting the team in danger. However, in doing so, she ends up bringing on a new friendly ally, Pop Sickle.
Thanks to the immensely advanced technology in the year 2029, Garvey is eventually able to track Lola down; but you won’t believe where he finds her!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update, but I have been EXTREMELY busy behind the scenes, so much so that I eventually landed in a mental and creative funk. But the journey must continue, and for everyone that has been supporting me and Lemons & Gold Publishing, I want to say thank you and let it be known that you are highly appreciated.
Firstly, I’m just finishing a semester and heading into another one, which will leave me with one more semester to go before I graduate in October from Southern New Hampshire University. So, I have been slammed with writing my novel, promoting Berthas by our first author Cheryl Diane Parkinson, our crowdfunding with Indiegogo, and this year’s Super Summer Contest, as well as handling some personal issues and internal business affairs. So, that’s mostly where I have been.
Buy Our Books!
I am working on a way to make it easier for my avid readers to be able to find and purchase our books. A few of our major book retailers include Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo (international distribution), and more, and I just recently discovered the link that you can save to see all of our books together! Including The Visionary Chronicles, Berthas, and upcoming books that are on pre-order, such as Lola Sky!
I understand that funds are tight for everyone right now, so, keep checking the link because I do random book sales, but also have sales during the holidays (like Juneteenth). Please leave a review about the books if you decide to read them, it not only helps out the authors, but it will help to grow and improve our publishing company as well.
Operating a small publishing business, I can tell you that it can be expensive depending on which format we decide to publish our books. We are trying to raise funds right now to help us afford things such as ISBNs and printeries so that we can eventually distribute our books to different book stores in formats such as paperback, hardcover, and audiobooks. Right now I’m mainly publishing in ebook format and if the book does well enough after publishing, then I’ll publish it in print format. I will do a video that dives more into this (I actually did a podcast regarding this issue).
The thing is, I know how to go about having books distributed and formatted in various ways, the problem is that those things take money that my business does not have right now. I’m 5 months in the game as of today, but if you want to see our Black authors on bookshelves, as well as being promoted on other platforms, you want these books in audiobook format, please contribute what you can to the fundraiser we currently have on Indiegogo Our deadline is July 13th.
Lola Sky Returns!
OMG! I am so excited to announce that Lola Sky is making a comeback this summer! Originally created to be a series of flash fiction, I’ve decided to make Lola Sky a series of novellas. So throughout the month of June, I will be working on Season 1. Each book is a “season” (because I honestly want this series to be on Hulu or Netflix or something one day or whatever, a girl can dream…) and I originally set the plot up where there were 8 seasons total. So that means there will be at least 8 books total.
Lola Sky: The Series is jam-packed with action, adventure, hoodrat festivities, romance, scientific experiments, guns, machetes, talking cats, flights overseas, and more. It follows the main character, Dr. Quinita Jones who comes from a dark past, becomes an academic and a Medical Researcher, who finds herself coerced into a dangerous and insane mission to save the world with what she ends up stealing from the government. She meets some awesome characters along the way who she teams up with, and every character ends up revealing their superpower.
There’s money being thrown EVERYWHERE!!!
It’s a short read and it’s guaranteed to be a lot of fun! (Especially when you get to Season 3!)
This amazing story is currently available for pre-order for just $.99 cents!: books2read.com/u/bw1o2e and will be released on July 4th to celebrate the Birthday of our Brand, Lemons & Gold.
I’m On YouTube!!
Check out my channel! I’m new to YouTube and I’m still trying to figure out what works, but I’ve decided that from here moving forward, all of these kinds of updates will be on YouTube or on my podcasts Spotify at Squeeze Team Radio. Through these platforms, you’ll get to know me, my personality, and what its like to be a writer, and what it’s like to run a publishing business.
Right now I’m doing a series called Season of Authenticity, and it’s just some stuff about shadow work, finding yourself, elevating, and things I’ve noticed. I’ll be finding ways to tie this topic into writing and speculative fiction, as well as the reality of blackness and dealing with mental illness.
You can check out the latest video here (I’m awkward, I can’t help it lol! But oh well, it makes for great stories!):
So make sure you subscribe because YouTube is going to become my main spot for new information and interaction. I’ll still post here, of course, but the more in-depth stuff will be via podcast or video. Be sure to like and subscribe if you happen to stop by!
You say you want to read more diverse books. You want to see more Black superheroes, kings and queens, magical fairytale lands, space explorers, and everything, right?
Well, Lemons & Gold Publishing specializes in writing, publishing, promoting, and supporting Black authors who write Speculative Fiction novels! Only a small percentage of speculative fiction stories written by Black authors are published by the top mainstream publishing companies each year.
This is our first year, and by contributing to our crowdfund with Indiegogo , you will be helping us grow our small publishing company so that we can give our authors the love that they deserve to excel in their careers, which will help us get more diverse books in your hands.
Lemons & Gold Publishing is a Black-owned, Woman-owned, and Disability-owned company based in Central Florida. We are dedicated to raising the voices of the Black Superheroes…will you join us?
We have a goal of $50,000 with a Deadline of July 13, 2022, to reach it! We hope to reach this goal but would be just as grateful if we don’t reach that number. Thank you in advance for your support, it will not go unnoticed!
Wanna get your writing out there to be seen!? This year, Lemons & Gold Publishing is hosting our first ever annual Super Summer Short Story #WritingContest for Black writers who love to write short stories involving genres such as fantasy, science fiction, the paranormal, or magical realism.
Stories can also be a cross-genre mix, such as paranormal-romance, speculative-contemporary, etc. However, for the contest, they must have a Summer theme!
The first 3 winners will be published through different major retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Kobo (Internationally) as well as our Black Galaxy Literary Magazine.
First Place Winner will receive a cash prize, publication as listed above, and promotion of their work through all of our social media outlets for 30 days.
Submissions CAN NOT be published anywhere else in any way, shape, or form. (We will check! If we find your story published elsewhere, you will be disqualified.)
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