Preamble rambling.

First off, I had in mind what would become this guy's book. Bastard. But congrats to him, because that made me have to think of another take on it.

I like stories. I like telling them and listening to them, and probably I spend too much time doing both. I have a soft spot for the young, disaffected "urban" youth, and he ll show up here. More characters will show up here, too, and I hope to write them well. This is kinda my first time even attempting something of this length that centers around characters, so this should be fun.

Regarding content, this is decidedly not a kid or young adult story. It's the point of view of a kid who in some ways wants to seem tougher than he is while sometimes betraying that, well, he's not emotionally mature. There will be curse words. There will be sex, albeit the pretty clumsy sort, and there will be the N-word.

I'm sure the American audience is aware of the quandary this presents, and while I try not to use it personally, this kid will. A lot. In the integrated settings of college and the working world, most, if not all, black people are aware of the irony of calling others an abbreviation of a word that has long symbloized hate. That is highly political, but for the reason of staying true to the character I am attempting to bring to life, he will say it. It will be discomforting to type it out, to be read by a large contingent of friends and acquaintances who are not black and do not know my own thoughts on the politics of the word itself, and it will be unsettling to read it. But, I feel like it has to be done.

Nigga.

Okay, let's move this along.

The simple synopsis of the story, as noted in the above, centers around someone who is alternately celebrated and pilloried, doubted and hailed. He tries to maintain control over what he can while being thrown into a mess where he is merely a symbol of other people's biases and hopes. Is that vague enough? This is only written out in my head so far.

I think it'll be interesting. Why don't you come along?