What If Elizabeth Bennett Had Met Her Match?

Welcome to the weekend, Baby!  What a week and not a bit of writing for the whole month of March. It's too deep for words how a writer's good writing depends on a clear and healthy unstretched mind which I could not yield the entire month.  This is to hoping by May 1 to have a clean, out-of-this world final draft.  Yes, that is my goal.  To have a romantic comedy with spitfire rhetoric, snide remarks, jokes and an actual funny story.  All I have now is the basic foundation to a house.

We all remember Mr. Darcy's wildly arrogant aunt who boldly let's it be known that Elizabeth was not worthy of Mr. Darcy's hand for many accounts, plus he was betrothed to her niece since birth.  She has everything on paper that says she belongs to Mr. Darcy forever why would he possibly want Elizabeth who doesn't even have the ability to trace her family lineage and the ones who do show up are not worthy of the fine caliber Mr. Darcy.

I think this is the second appeal that draws the masses of swooning women to this tale.  The chance that someone out-of-their caliber per se would actually be able to look at the truth, the heart and forsake everything to unite their heart despite circumstances to be with them.

This is what drew me to Pride and Prejudice because it was similar to my situation, only the out-of-the league in the original guy who rejected me was only in his head as he was an unemployed and only thought his class and extreme beauty was in his head. He was like Mr. Darcy in the fact he looked his nose down at me because of my color even though he is black but doesn't know it, when I was more educated, nicer than his uncouth meanness and had hidden class. But this book resignated with me because I felt the essence of Elizabeth's pain after experiencing such an offensive person.

Remember how sickly they made Mr. Darcy's betrothed?  All of the movie versions have her looking weakly, ill, wearing glasses and not holding her head up and some characters are mousy and unattractive.  She seemed very docile and unchallenging to Mr. Darcy as if she would jump at his very command. This I did not like about the book.  It made it all too easy for Mr. Darcy to leave his position than if he really had affections for his fiancee.

What if he was actually in love and they have a nice history together and THEN here comes this charlatan who waltzes in and he has to make an even tougher decision to leave his position.  His friend's sister definitely tried to bring in this challenge in every way to undercut his attention from Elizabeth only to cut the very feet from underneath herself.

In my version I do not even bring any challenges either as it does seem it would interrupt the flow.  There is plenty of challenges just between Elizabeth, my Giselle and Mr. Darcy, my Mr. Washington's pride and prejudices of class and men/women relations.  BUT, I do plan to bring in certain other women challenge in part 2.

Well, that's enough jabbering for today, until next time see you next Saturday.

XOXO,
Denise Rochelle

200th Anniversary P&P: Jane Austen and Women Roles

Good morning and happy weekend to you!  I just recently found out that this year marks exactly 200 year since the first publication of Pride and Prejudice.

I read some facts about Jane and her story that she is said to have treated just like her child.  I thought that was awesome.  As I pen a rewrite of the tale from the black perspective, I see the story as precious and my first baby as well.  I also, know that I am not alone in writing on my good days.  Especially when I completely lose my broken English and write words I haven't heard in modern society only to look them up and find it is a perfect fit. 

I also found out that Jane Austen sold the book for only a few hundred euros. :(  She would loved to read her book aloud in her house and had a great following while she was alive.  At least she was able to see the book be accepted, where some women like Emily Bronte died before seeing her tale "Wuthering Heights" become the success it is still in this day.  In fact, though it was a failure due to the harsh criticism of how mean her characters were, Emily was accepted by modern time.  She was born before her time.

Jane, I hope you are able to get some satisfaction through My Black Pride and the sequel.  Yes, that's right.  I already wrote the first chapter of the sequel and a subsequent outline just to see if this would work and I believe it does. More on that at a later date.

After 200 years, I wondered how would Jane have penned her tale if women's liberation happened in her time.

Yesterday, the "View" women spoke about the role of men and women in a marriage.  Elizabeth Hasselhoff's husband sat crunched between the women on the stage as the guest for the day.  She said that she admits she is not one of those women who go off about how they do not need a man, and she pointed to him and exclaimed she needed her man. 

Then Whoopi Goldberg, the forever bachelorette and outspoken woman said, "I like a man, I don't need a man'. 

If I remember correctly, Whoopi received more claps than Elizabeth if she even received any at all.  Then they spoke about men switching role and needing to help around the house with the traditional roles and with the children. 

Elizabeth's husband said that he knew he changed more diapers than his father and said that if he is responsible for cooking that it would be less than desirable.  Another host said that, "So, what if a man doesn't do it right, women need to be responsible for men's laziness?".  Overall, women want to split responsibility of the household duties with their husbands.

This is a far cry from the women in Jane Austen's era, and far from anything she wrote about in Pride & Prejudice. Except there were no children and everyone had handmaidens to take care of the traditional roles of cleaning and care of the house.  Hence, many people's number one complaint, if there is any, is that Pride is mostly about women talking a lot and walking around in rooms. 

I have seen people say this a lot.  Elizabeth, her mother and sisters never even had to worry about going to work.  I do not remember what the father's business was, but we don't remember mention of him going to his factory or employees or work-related speak.  This is what makes Jane Austen and many other 1800's novelist so desirable, they showed us and continue to give us a ghost's eye view of what it felt like to be at the top of society in that time.  The ideal. 

So,when I updated P&P with My Black Pride, I am making it more realistic, where actually my Elizabeth character must find work and does odd jobs just to accumulate money until she gets a job.  I placed in there that she has the traditional role of cleaning the house once everyone else is gone and the mother cooks for the whole house joyfully.  The father is the Mayor, so traditional roles are in play even in their relationships of husband and wives.

Have we really evolved so much from the Jane era when it comes to love?

I believe not so.  Despite the role reversals in several areas of married life within 200 years, love still takes place the same way...boy meets girl, boy and girl have affections whether one is first or second in initiating it and boy and girl fall in love forever. 

Jane 200 years ago knew the basics about love even if we never heard about any of her affairs.  True love is unchanging.  She knew about the true love that will always be cherished and felt throughout the ages, and conveyed it very well in the way Mr. Darcy fell for Elizabeth.  It is the same reason we still know who the novelist of Pride and Prejudice is exactly 200 years later.  Love is timeless and is liked and accepted by everyone. 

If we authors take this quality and add heart to every story, maybe we can hope that 200 years from now, someone will be writing about their story and cherishing it as much.  We dream.

Thank you everyone for reading and until next Saturday, smooches!

Enjoy the weekend,
Denise Morris 

Good and Prosperous Morning to all.  I actually was productive the total week.  As matters change in my life in relation to my Elizabeth character, Giselle, I have just sat back and played the spirit world of my version of Pride and Prejudice in my mind as an outsider. There aren't MAJOR changes, but some that will definitely make some P &P lovers heart skip a beat from not sticking too closely to the original.
Without giving away too much, well, just a little. 

For those who aren't as familiar with Pride and Prejudice, the main character is a strong English woman who has of course as the title a lot of pride and refuses to let anyone into her world especially men.  To me it seems everything about Mr. Darcy in appearance alone just made her angry. 

He was rich, he was good looking, he was arrogant etc. and she was against what she prejudiced him to be by appearance alone.  But in the Jane Austen version, Mr. Darcy gets rid of all of these character flaws to get closer to Elizabeth and pursues her twice after being rejected.  And through Mr. Darcy softening his heart, Jane changes her pride and accepts the one man she said she would never love.

Okay, with all of that said.  My story refuses for me to let Giselle, Elizabeth's bitter twin, off the hook.  I have added several scenes where Giselle struggles with her pride to let Mr. Washington (Mr. Darcy) know how she feels.  In fact, her father tells her that she already rejected him and unless she opens the door wide for him to know that he will not be rejected a second time, he would never walk through.  So sort of a spoiler, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy switch positions after her rejection where we focus more on Elizabeth trying to approach Mr. Darcy to open his heart.

So, the past few days I let Mr. Washington back off from Giselle and make her struggle with her own
character issues.  Jane Austen is awesome, but she made it too easy for Jane to accept him the second time without too much struggle for her own character to change.  I believe because I am telling it from a black experience point of view where there is hundreds of years of deep seated hatred between black men and women dealing with their pride, I made these changes.

I am again satisfied with my revisions.  I will be focusing from now on reading my story as if I have never seen it before.  I will be tweaking along the way, not trying to write grammatically correct yet or speak in high society manner.  I will leave all the little details for my final edit next month.
Because I see more the people visiting starting to pick up, be prepared to get a seven page blurb of Black Pride in the coming weeks.  Not soon though, I'm protective of my baby.  It is the very first scene we all get to see Mr. Darcy.  Yes, that one at the party.

Well, this is it for now.  I will see you Wednesday or next year btw. Cheers and Happy everything else.

Love,
Denise Rochelle M.

Pride and Prejudice Update: Ending Change

Wow, the holidays was less about gifts and 90% about the people in my life all across the world.  I actually might be growing up.  I was able to do a little writing.  I believe the literature is a living entity once it is placed on paper or in object outside of our minds, and there is so much I would like to have accomplished with my comedy rewrite by now, but ...  I was able to add and tweak only two scenes since Saturday.

My routine is I think of the story visually as scenes and feel which ones need it the most that day.  This time, I thought that the ending to Pride and Prejudice, yes, the lovely scene after Mr. Darcy's aunt comes and chews the heck out of Elizabeth and then Mr. Darcy comes to apologize to her.  That one.  The other scene is not in the original book, but is my Elizabeth character Giselle's epilogue which I posted, and is only the first layer and will go through two layers before the final release.

Let's first start with the ending.  I found strongly, that the way P and P ends for Jane Austen is beautiful and I ended it that way ... but the spirit of my book and the fact that my Giselle character is a strong black woman with strong prejudice against black men and strong pride to let love in, the story screamed to change it.  I won't reveal more, but the flow of this version, I guarantee that there will be some gripes with the change, but it is ingrained into my character's world.

That's another thing I found out recently that hundreds of screenwriting books and few classes and my screenwriting group never could drill in my head.

Every story creates a living reality, a spirit world of its own that as you read that story, you become part of that world.  If the writer is able to tap into their character's spirit and world it becomes a classic, because their world lives infinitely.  Jane Austen was able to do this.  Luckily, her character's spirit are easy to grasp like no characters ever before.

Secondly, I saw that my epilogue needs to set up a lot of changes that you P and P lovers will encounter.  First of all my character has a past, but she has let go of her baggage.  Secondly, she has dated before, where Elizabeth never dated or had a boyfriend.  I added references to how she became strong and too prideful to show her feelings toward men or let her heart be open so when Mr. Washington does all these things by being exactly opposite of her prejudices, it has more meaning.

So, I still have a lot more tweaks to do by Saturday concerning these same aspects.  I will let the comedy flow through from now one wherever as I don't see where else to put it for now.  So, as a writer, I am very satisfied where my story is right now. VERY.

Plus, I no longer feel guilty about my story not allowing me near it until my heart is straight.  Now, after a week off, I have a fresher understand of Giselle and her world when I started to read the story pieces after staying away from it.  Writers should be at peace with not always working for THAT particular project every single day.  Rest the eyes, stay silent and it will come, and like love you will have a higher appreciation for it once you resume.  I have rested a total of three weeks on Black Pride whereas other stories I worked on for years everyday trying to hammer out the problems.  I have never been this far along and unworried about my story world before after only two months of it coming to me.

Watch out world, another Pride and Prejudice redux is coming.

I love you sincerely across the globe,

Have sanctity in your words,

Love,
Denise Rochelle M.

Update: Can't Force A Good Thing

Merry Messiah celebration and Merry Christmas, everyone!  As I said, I didn't write.  It was a natural week off to let the story rest and settle and come to me.  You can't force a good thing.  I do realize that by surviving this tough year, I need to be tough with my character Elizabeth character, Giselle.  If you have studied screenwriting, you know they tell you to throw your character up a tree and be mean to them and throw rocks at them when they try to get down.  Well, I never was mean to my characters, hence boring story.  As a writer, sorry to say, but you are God to your story world and its universe.  I wouldn't accept this. 

I always let my story tell itself and not DIRECT or guide their journey which, hell, I have to admit leads to no focus or direction.  It just becomes an elaborate journal that I wish others would like.  That is selfishness and I realize this 35 years later of writing, that I need to give my character a rough time and to make come out of it a better person in such a way that the audience can go, oh, they survived this, maybe I can too.  Because essentially, my character is me who has gone through something that an audience or reader is going through and it shows that they can conquer this problem as well.

 

There are many issues in Black Pride, but the main one if you look at my about page, is the issue that Giselle deals with her black prejudice and it holds her back from the ONE.  The forum has not gotten to my question asking men to voice their opinion on their grievances with black men.  I'm waiting on this website because they are very truthful and honest.  

 

So, now I will write this week focusing on the comedy when it comes to me and figuring out how to make Giselle's life harder than just people and men problems.

 

Until then, smooches, enjoy the family and see you Wednesday!

 

Love and Hope,
Denise Rochelle M.

Update: Black Women, We Need to Chill

Happy, Happy Wednesday or in the industry Hump Day. 

For clarification, I am a reformed man hater and found this type of black woman, including my mother, made me think this way at one time. Then I look and see how they chewed up their men and try to give me advice and thought ... you are WRONG. 

How is it I would have tens of cool men friends yet when it came to my past dating I viewed them as evil?  When actually, I never had been treated wrongly, EVER, by a black man.  I've been wooed just like in the movies with flowers, sweet words and I was the one screaming at them.  Black women just kept telling me black men were nothing, they lie, cheat etc.  Yes, maybe to THEM, but by being friends first this never happened or it ended before it got to that point.  And the one guy who did cheat I asked him and he told me straight yes, but he was still in high school and I was a cougar at 23!  Ha, ha.

Sisters, this is wrong.  You bring on what comes to you, change the mindset.  I would love to represent this more in my book and any black men complaints.  After living with my mother and see how she can bring even my docile fun attitude to the brinks of hell, my thinking changed.  Men aren't evil, we bring it out of them, Sisters.  I think men are beautiful creatures like children and their attitude is just a mirror of your own.  Anyway, I will be focusing more on this in the novel and think it needs to be addressed and end in black society.

How was my writing this week?  One word.  Exactly.  That is all that I was able to write for my story this week since Saturday.  One aspect of creativity I found out, it is a living entity once you apply it to a substantial plane like paper or material.  It does NOT want to be touched if your Spirit or Mind is not giving it its 100 percent attention as I was not giving Pride and Prejudice this last few days. 

But, I have finally had a conversation with a person off line that I could have good give and take about this idea and they can't wait to read it because they think this is a great idea.  Can you believe in over a month this is the first feedback I get? 

Where does my energy come from to pursue this venture?  She loves P&P and thinks having it told from the high black society side hasn't been done and will be awesome.  I needed that encouragemental shot!  Anyway.  I am waiting for all the responses from one forum where I asked the men all of their complaints of black women because I think it is lacking in this story.  Besides, I think black men catch enough slack on the big screen, time they get represented and show the black  female side is actually deserving of their wrath sometimes. 

It looks like I will have my first real draft as planned by the end of December but want to take another month to clean up the details and final edit before I self-publish a few copies and send them out to readers for their feedback. 

I found this is the best way. I  did that for my "Last Cottonpicker" story, to which I moved back to the countryside to write.  The feedback on that story was it was a beautiful rich story, but it had no focus.  Now, recently with the heavens opening and giving divine inspiration, even that story has become more clear to me. 

Anyway, I will return Saturday, but it doesn't look like I will be writing so much, and I learned not to force it either.

Have a good one and thanks for checking back.

BLACK GENTLEMEN Do you have any grievances that you would like for me to put in the book of the number one annoying thing black women do that you must have added to the story?

Love and Peace,
Denise Morris

What Are Your Prejudices?

Warning,  May Be Offensive Not Intended, Honesty Is:

This book and blog is not going to be for people who think these thoughts on their own, but are afraid of looking like racists for saying it out loud.  If so, maybe another blog is more suited.  Who knows, I may be the only one who thinks this way, but that's why it's called "My" not "Black Women's Prejudice". 

If you look at the about page you will see that the biggest offense that started it all was that I was seen as lower and less by a black man just because he had strong black mama issues.  He saw every black woman in a negative light and wanted to do anything possible to be distanced from any woman who said anything about him when it came to romance, no matter how truthful it was.  "The sky is blue".  "You think, you know everything.  The sky is not blue." Along these lines.  If this is news to you, then maybe you are lucky to not experience such injustice.

My prejudice was that black men that were like this were kind of a sissy who do not want to be around 'real' women who have an opinion. They like their women to be exactly what society thinks is beautiful and outstanding before they decide she is worthy.  This type of guy is similar to Mr. Darcy, the co-character of the original 1800's Pride and Prejudice, and he who sparked my rewriting the tale in modern day, black society.

It will offend, but I am tired of keeping quiet; if only I am the one who views this blog, or reads my book upon its release it will be enough.  I will be fine with just me, God and the angels knowing of its existence because it has been a very, very befitting healing process to heal my heart of people who have shown prejudice and never seen me as equal, and I came close to believing them.  Anyway.  That is all for now.

What are your grievances about black men or black women, or men or women in general if you hate to use color as a reference to a person?

Love you,
Denise Rochelle:)