A Little Bit About Me...
A little bit about me?… I’m eccentric, yet traditional. I shop way too much, but I cannot bring myself to overspend on any one thing. I love my kids to the point of smothering, but I adore, strive for and maintain my independence as a woman above all else. I watch more television than the average person and honestly believe the Major Motion Picture Association of America has been kept afloat during these rough economic times because of my addiction to new releases. I’ll read anything in front of me, live for “chick flicks” but hate Romance novels. I’m a little bit of a tomboy mixed in with a fashionista combined with a fierce and protective mom and sprinkled with aggression, compassion and a terribly off-color sense of humor. Basically: I’m complex.
When I was a little kid, there were two choices for me: attorney or writer. I knew I loved the law because frankly, I was probably the only ten year-old in the world obsessed with Law & Order. Fast forward: after graduating from the Academy of Mount Saint Ursula in 1997, I started as a freshman at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, majoring in Legal Studies. Immediately after that, I started working for a sole practitioner in the Bronx, first as a secretary, and eventually as a Paralegal. It wasn’t until I realized I’d have another three years of law school after college to do that I decided becoming a lawyer wasn’t for me. So I stuck to the background work and fell in love with the law all over again.
Upon graduation, I got married, moved to Florida and had a beautiful little girl, and then my gorgeous son. I have since returned to my home, to New York, and am embracing the new avenues that my life is traveling while this super-power called publication creates a long-awaited and terrifyingly fantastical whirlwind around me. Recently, I underwent training to become a Certified Child Support/Visitation Mediator in New York State; a choice I feel will enhance my career and take me in the right direction towards doing what I love and loving what I do. I draw my inspiration from the women I know, the women I see; all women- the survivors, the fighters, the ones that you call angry and bitter but I call strong and determined. I have different viewpoints about controversial topics and some don’t always coincide with the majority opinion, but I’m okay with that. I know that if it has to do with my son, I’m a softie who’ll mother him until the day I’m gone; but I’m a feminist at heart and will do my best to teach my daughter that women are resilient, powerful; and in general -they rock. And I don’t really know how to write a story where the female protagonist doesn’t kick some butt. But still I write. In the last 10½ years, I’ve completed four manuscripts, several short stories and started to co-author a children's book with a good friend and fellow authoress, Nakia D. Johnson (author of the newly released Uptempo, now available for purchase at www.nakiadjohnson.com). I still love the law, as evidenced by my career choices. But I have an unrelenting and unforgiving fire inside of me to write and talk and let out words I wasn’t even aware existed. I don’t know how not to write and I hope I never have to. Right now, the immediate goal is simple: watch my kids grow up. Make sure they are happy, healthy and successful- successful as human beings, regardless of the life they choose to live. To be happy in my own career and be content and intellectually stimulated on a daily basis. To see much of the world, to appreciate what’s come before me and try my best to leave my mark for what comes after. To take time to work on being a better ‘me’ and letting the people that matter know that they matter. To share my words and stories with the world and hope that they feel in reading what I felt in writing. And to sit back in that theatre seat and look up, smiling, to read: “The Blue Brotherhood, Based on the novel by Yokairy Tavarez.”
As far as the latter, I always knew I wanted to write because I was just itching to say something, anything, to anyone who would listen. That’s why I have a WHOLE lot of stories to tell. None are about me; most aren’t even about anyone I know. But they are all tales spun from my wild imagination and a penchant for ridiculously long-winded and detailed dialogue. I don’t know how I frame my stories and probably would never be qualified to teach a course on Creative Writing, since my methods are so off-the-wall. Most of the time I hear a conversation in my head and it explodes from there.
But still I write.
"Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now."
~ Modified from a quote by Rumi
