Pain is bad. Morphine is helpful, though my hopes that it would take the pain away entirely were misplaced.

The combination? not so great for writing.

Then, of course, we have the US police using protests against their murdering Black people to rise up and form literal death squads and use military tech against unarmed civilians. #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackStoriesMatter so if you like romance, hit me in the comments with a favourite trope or genre and I’ll rec a Black author.

As for the promised hint for the current WIP? onlh this:

Richards, Dona. “The Nyama of the Blacksmith: The Metaphysical Significance of Metallurgy in Africa.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, 1981, pp. 218–238. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784243. Accessed 18 June 2020.

I wrote something, realised I hadn’t read that yet, and when I did I realised I’d used a culturally appropriate metaphor. The characters are real. Always listen to the Voices, peeps!

Anyway… Kinti and Malik won’t write themselves…they’ve had weeks to try!