Today is my day to travel down Blog Tour Lane, where authors answer questions about the writing process. My author friend Kelly Keedy posted last week. See below.

What am I Working On?
I am currently trying to maneuver my way back to Notes of Bernhart Holmes. Since my novel Finding Hollis was just released earlier this month, I have been rudely inattentive to the goings on of Bernhart and his group of quirky friends, all of whom live in some other country, in some other century. Their names I randomly plucked from my family tree, their stories plucked from imagination. Fighting for my attention is a novel wanting to be written about the underground railroad and Walt Whitman. Living in an area rich in the history of both, I had dinner with a group of 70ish-year-old women who dared me to tell the story written on their faces and hands. And Walt... he just keeps after me.

How Does My Work Differ From Others In Its Genre?
I like to to uncover something historically interesting and weave a story out of it. I am fascinated with the setting, the mood, the feel of each scene. I attempt to take the readers somewhere they have never been and give them characters to worry over. I want them to remember the slant of the sun, the smell of motor oil on the choppy water, and the crow's sharp cry when it has come and gone. For me, the whole point of writing is to offer that within me that no one else can duplicate. To be authentic is the artistic goal, otherwise I'd just let whats-her-name tell it.

Why Do I Write What I Do?
At some point I realized while I was pretty good at a number of things, creative writing  brought out the truest part of me. Writing is a way for me to make my world more vibrant, more subtle, more real. It starts with paying attention, looking at everyday things with a curious eye and then exploring the infinite possibilities of describing something that has been waiting for me to do it justice. Like the trunk of a tree or why my children's skin color still matters.

How Does My Writing Process Work?
I see writing as a two-fold process. First it is a craft to be honed. The more I write, the better I get. The more I read other writers, the better I write. Secondly, writing is a pact I make with the creative force both within and without. When I am really writing authentically, it is way bigger than me. All that I have absorbed thus far – from the r&b albums of my older sisters, from hopscotch on the pepple-strewn playground, from the smell of earth after sundown, from all the books with titles I can't remember, from my husband's hands, my children's toes, my mother's cheek – it all goes in. How could I claim credit for it all?
I write whenever the house is quiet. And cloudy days are the best.

Next Week

Jovelyn Diane Richards is a writer and performance artist. Ms. Richards lives and works in the bay area performing a series called "Nappy Headed Love Stories: Black Love & Intimacy." She teaches writing and performance as an adjunct faculty at Sophia University, holding an MA in Women & Spirituality and a MFA in Creative Inquiry. 

D.S. Rippy is the author of Pirates in the Robosphere, an adventure thriller about teens working with robots, and his first book of fiction. He has a background in health science, and technology, and is an advocate of lifelong learning and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

The Book Launch Party last night at the Casket Arts Building was a blast! So many people came with so much amazing energy that reading in a puddle of water (everything is flooding in Minneapolis) amidst sculptures and sparkling faces was perfect. So many people with the same blood in their bodies as mine. And so many ancestors smiling among us.