In First Published Book, We Missed A Meeting, There Is A Relatively Vast Use of The N-Word, And It May Make Some Readers Uncomfortable.Alright, so We Missed A Meeting is officially out now and available on Amazon. By now, most people have probably received their copy if they're using Prime, or are currently awaiting their signed copies from me personally. But before you break the book's spine, there's something that is to be said about this piece, both in warning and in dismissal: there is use of the n-word all throughout the book. More importantly than the use of this very controversial word is the fact that I have no plan on altering this very key element from the text. I don't feel strongly about any of this, to be honest, because I haven't even given it much thought. This is a work that I developed myself very extensively and intensely. It required me to do a lot of research about topics that I knew enough to have conversation about, but not enough to develop a science fiction story about. Not to mention that in the original plannings of the bigger picture, We Missed A Meeting was intended to be a 10-part novel series. I hammered away at plots, names, developed the settings, drew the cities, created the metaphors, and challenged my own thoughts of what could happen in this story. I've come to find that writing a book is not just writing the text, it's investing your creativity and your imagination into a commitment make people voluntarily suspend their expectation of reality. For me, I prefer the reader walk a fine line between what's real and what's not real so that at all times they have to question not the validity of what they're reading, but the process in which they take in validating information. "You ain't got the 'Gang Gang' with you, Richard. You can't Rambo your way through all these niggas." - To be honest, it hadn't even hit me that this might be a problem until about 15 minute before writing this post. If you've committed your $12.95 to buying the book, then, I feel you at least deserve this post. I think there's a lot of power to this book. I also think that regardless of who you are, and where you're from, it is going to make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that that feeling of discomfort when you've completed the book is the intended outcome. If I gave you a list of some of my favorite books (Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Hawthorne'sThe Birthmark, Jackson's The Lottery, Steele's The Journey Outside), you'll find that I really enjoy that feeling. When you watch shows like Black Mirror, you as the watcher enjoy pure entertainment through being purely discomforted. You sick masochist.
So, why, then, wouldn't I give them real dialogue? But I know, it's the n-word. So many people, of all colors, races, and creeds will be reading this book. Do I really want them to justify the use of this word by lathering it an astonish 18 times through the book? The answer is "no". And to further add, anyone who'd need to use We Missed A Meeting as their reasoning for using the n-word was likely using the n-word prior to August 16, 2018. The weight of responsibility to end the use of the word is really ambiguous. More than that, though, I would really hate that this story, which its long list of things it makes commentary on, was reduced to "a problematic use of the n-word". There are, indeed, bigger problems presented in this novel than the word. For example, and for starters, we missed a meeting. Purchase Your Copy of We Missed A Meeting: They Chose You, Mr. Ferguson, Available On Amazon Today!
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