Blue Lines Blog – Issue #2.2

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Blue Lines, Key Yemaya Walker, Yael Naim

Origins of Blue Lines manuscript…Part 2.2

…Life cont.

Disclaimer – Before I continue, I would like to make two very important points in regard to my material and to anyone’s feelings. Because of my intellectual property, and my goal for this to begin my being published, I have to be vague in many areas of the story’s actual content. I would like to add that should anyone be offended by ANYTHING that I go forward with: 1) if it will offend you, please read objectively, my goal is not and has never been to embarrass or disrespect anyone; 2) although I am explaining why Blue Lines was written, this is a public forum and names will be omitted to protect the innocent; 3) if you know me now, and did not then, this also applies as this relates to why I wrote my work.

Summer came and went, she existed as a figment of my imagination of a reminder that I missed out on this beautiful woman, but let me temper this by stating, I knew that she was from the other side of the country, and to the best of my limited knowledge, she had gone back with no plans to return, I could live with that. I continued to take classes throughout the summer, finding outlets in activities to still combat the hole left in my soul by the passing of my Grandfather. By the time the school year rolled back around, I was a member of student government (yes, it’s relevant) and part of the whole welcoming committee for the incoming students, and as I crossed the small campus to head to the gym for Student I.D. duty, I was shocked to see her walking the campus in this blue dress. I half waved, to which I got no acknowledgement, and did not think twice about it and headed to my post. As we cranked out I.D.’s, she finally makes her way in, notices me to my surprise, and we have a brief conversation that was more substantive than the car ride from the previous school year. “Yes,” I think looking toward the year. “That’s the one,” I smiled. Or so I thought. Not too long after I found out she had a boyfriend…those thoughts ended as quickly as they had begun. I’m not sure if it was a statement in passing, “my boyfriend…” or from someone else, “she has a boyfriend,” I just “knew” that was a wrap. But again, I think too much.

It began as friendly conversation,

but you were crafty in your approach

I had thought about you briefly,

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Blue Lines Blog – Issue #2.1

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Blue Hurt, Blue Lines, California, Common, Cuban, Death, Grandfather, Hip-Hop, Jay-Z, Kenneth A Suffern Jr, Key Yemaya Walker, MW, Myla, Myla Watson, Myla Windham, New York, psychology, Queens, Rene Sotolongo, Sacramento, School, Tower Records, UNC Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Origins of Blue Lines manuscript…Part 1

                Let’s say that somewhere around 1996 I wanted to write a manuscript, book, whatever.  It was more of a focus on what was one of my loves at the time, Hip-Hop, therefore the plan was to tell the story of an aspiring MC and the girl that he meets along his way as a struggling artist.  Other than the concept, there was no plan for the story, no outline, development, or clear cut path for this to go.  It simply consisted of its Hip-Hop background, and somehow creating a story that at the end of the day was a parallel using live characters to illustrate that “love.”  I guess for those who listen, Common’s “I Used to Love H.E.R.” would be the best musical description of what my initial aim was. 

So it begins…

With that said, the initial 5 page story followed the story of an unnamed male protagonist, and pieces of him meeting a female antagonist simply names “L.”  Now, if you will indulge me, again we are looking at 1996-ish, Lauryn Hill was being promoted at the “IT” woman in Hip-Hop.  Rather than initially using her name, I simply shortened it to “L” until I could actually name the character.  Character names were pretty bad, her friend was listed as (homegirl) , and his friend was “Mello Smoothe” a self moniker that a friend gave himself around the time that Maxwell came on the music scene.  This initial version grew from one page, to two pages of scatter story development, and stalled out at 5 pages that gave a clear development of the opening, middle and an outline of an ending, the only problem is that it stalled out there.  And the dream to write a manuscript was stalled by an aspiring writer who had no inspiration. 

Blue Lines Blog – Issue #1

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Björk, blog, Cassandra Wilson, Joi Gilliam, music, OutKast, Pearl Jam, Tori Amos

Writing and music…

                Music was very influential and easily supplemented the mood as I made the attempts to relate both the mood of the characters and paint the scene.  When I initially began this project in ’98, my main soundtrack was Joi Gilliam’s (http://joilicious-online.org/home.php ) 1994 The Pendulum Vibe and the sampler of the unreleased classic Amoeba Cleansing Syndrome (damn Rowdy and Freeworld records).  But as I continued to write, there were times that simply hearing a song at a specific time, or for the first time spurred me to write.  While on a 1999 road trip somewhere between Fargo, ND and Spokane, WA, a friend played the song “Jóga” by Björk in his car cassette player (yes, remember those) and I, for the first time, heard this song and grabbed any piece of paper around me in the car to start writing anything to add to my manuscript.  It was the powerful effect that hearing the song for the first time inspired me to write.  Much to the chagrin of the driver, I repeated the song several times until I was told that they did not want to dislike the song and that we had to move on.  Similarly, upon making the return trip, we were listening to local L.A. radio as we took I-10 to return to Atlanta just before I ended up in some place called Blythe (where we had to order some Domino’s Pizza, and eat it on a bench in front of the store in an empty shopping center, when Mary J. Blige’s “Sincerity” feat DMX and Nas was played.  Whoa… I was taken by this song, and the message was of the concept of love, at the very heart, a very central theme in my manuscript.

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