Character #1
I was walking by the Wildlife and Fisheries building across from the Royal Orleans and it was actually so beautiful outside I found myself almost like a character in a book that I’m writing in my head. I had walked by several young black men, all very, very handsome (the eyes of some New Orleans blacks are so distinctively ethereal it’s hard to describe, they are a lighter shade of brown, entering a gold or green or yellow), and I thought how handsome these young men are and I thought about young black men in New Orleans and how 94% or whatever the percentage was of murders are perpetrated by young black men (and are the victims of said crime as well), but I digress.
My character is a writer, and she is walking in the French Quarter, the weather is beautiful, and she is thinking happily about her life, but in this version, she is introduced to people as the author whose book, “Black Boys Need Love Too,” swept the nation and created a movement where (forget about the million man march these men all turned to the young boy next to them instead of marching away from their problems and said, “Young man, I’m here to be your mentor. I’m here to show you the way” – but I digress again) older black and white and Asian men took the hand of a young black boy and showed him the way.