May was a wildly busy month. I worked more than fifty hours a week in my law practice. We released three episodes of The Write Approach:
- The Power of Consistently Showing Up to do Your Creative Work
- Beware the Toll that Writing Takes with Kristina Adams
- Writing Effective Dialogue with Tiffany Yates Martin
And I wrote more than 10,000 of my fifth novel. I’m currently writing the last chapter of the Act II and plan to finish the novel in July. I’ll then do several rounds of editing and start querying agents.
In the meantime, here’s some flash fiction based on a conversation that occurred in a hotel room lobby.
Interracial Interaction in a Hotel Lobby
“Howdy,” he said to the woman making her coffee at the station next to the hotel’s breakfast bar.
“Morning.” She returned the greeting. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
He smiled at her. “I’m in no rush.”
She paused stirring her artificial sweetener into the coffee that that creamer had turned blonde. “You must be from the South.”
His corners of his lips turned up. “Originally from Texas, but I’ve lived most of my adult life in Birmingham.”
She nodded as if taking a moment to appreciate what she already knew about her own powers of observation and assessment about folks.
He asked, “Was it the howdy that gave me away?”
She shook her head and returned her attention to her coffee. “Nah. Nothing like that.” She put the lid on her paper cup and made a gesture that the station was all his.
Before she turned to go, he said, “I’m curious how you knew where I was from.”
She looked him directly in the eyes. “I’m a truck driver from Jackson. It’s only when meet white people from the South that they talk to black folks. Everybody everywhere else?” She shook her head again and frowned. “Nothing.”
“Really?”
“That’s a fact.” She turned an ambled off toward the table where her breakfast waited on her.
