Is my book life imitating art or art imitating life?
- Carlotta A. Berry, PhD
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
#ElevatedInferno #MonetsMoment #ContemporaryRomance #Urbanromance #AfricanAmericanFiction #BlackWomanSTEM #AfricanAmericanRomance #FirstResponderFairyTales #WomensLiterature
I have written a master's thesis, 300 page dissertation and numerous conference papers and journal articles. All of this was expected on my journey to get a PhD and then tenure and promotion in electrical engineering.
However, in some ways, writing my first fictional novel was so much harder. I started the journey during the pandemic when I collaborated with several other Black Women Engineering professors who decided to use fiction to amplify, market and normalize the journey, successes and trials of Black Women in STEM. Although we are Black Girl Unicorns, we were looking for a way for us to not seem so rare in an unattainable field to the general public.
It required me to change the way I wrote on a major level. I had to step into the perspective of multiple characters and completely develop them. Then, the two most difficult things for me was using visual language and writing dialogue.
Does anyone really care what color the bedspread on the bed is or what type of flowers are in the vase on the window sill? Or about everything the female main characters has on from her hair in two long cornrows to her purple crocs on her feet?
The engineer in me who hates this minutia gave a resounding NO! Until my writing mentor slapped some sense into me. 😂 Similar with dialogue, I had to break myself out of the habit of telling rather than showing the reader what was happening in the scene. These are actually things I still struggle with to this day. Although I can definitely say I am much better than I was.
Writing my romance novels during the pandemic was so much easier. My writing was not as good and I was not as fast but it was much easier to find room in my life to keep moving forward in the writing journey. Also, once my writing mentor taught me about outlining, it made the process so much less onerous.
In fact, my latest work in progress was set to be published July 2024. It has been written since before then and all I had to do was edit based upon beta reader feedback. I also have several short stories written for a Black STEM romance collection as well. I know, I know. That means that Heart Lessons: Jordyn's Journey is now officially one year late. Since July is my birthday month, I like to time my romance book birthdays to all release in the month of July.
With the July 1, 2022 release of Elevated Inferno: Monet's Moment, I was off to a great start. Then when Moses from Elevated found Chandler in Breaking Point: Chandler's Choice, released July 21, 2023, I knew I had hit upon a great formula. Then 2024 hit, I was visiting scientist at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, I was doing K-12 STEM and teacher workshops for the Indiana Department of Education and traveling to schools, museums and libraries to give book and STEM and robot events. So there you have it my perfect July book release track record was ruined. The engineer in me is so linear that I hate breaking that streak but such is life. So here we are during Mini #NaNoWriMo in July 2025 and I am finally getting back to edit my work in progress which will absolutely not be released in July 2025. Heart Lessons: Jordyn's Journey will be part of the shared universe of the first two books where EMT Zion finds love with college student, Jordyn.
Now that I have stopped babbling, back to the point at hand. So I was scrolling on social media yesterday and saw a post from an old classmate. It was an Instagram post about a husband and wife entrepreneurial team who were being interviewed on a podcast. Part of the interview focused on some of the challenges the wife had while in college on her journey to earn her math and engineering degrees. As she spoke, my mouth dropped open because it was so eerily similar to my first draft of Jordyn's story. I felt this was a sign from the heavens to get back on the horse and finish this extremely late novel. Considering the long list of romance and children's books ideas I have, it is unacceptable to be this far behind. Then two, OMG, somebody is telling my story before I publish it. 🤯😲🤭
Although, I am not sad about how similar my story is to reality, the question becomes since I am still in the editing stage, should I change it? I mean I'm okay with some overlap or similarities in my stories since an Instagram story is what inspired Elevated Inferno: Monet's Moment. However, when is the alignment too much or too close?
Let me know in the poll at the end: Should I embrace the “art imitating life” vibe, or revise to keep readers guessing?
What should I do about my WIP?
continue with your original vision and trust your process
change the WIP to be less similar to the real story
do what you feel makes for the best story
not sure
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