In the holiday spirit, I'm doing a free giveaway for the next few days of my new short story, "Christmas in New Orleans." An evil force has been unleashed in the Big Easy. Model-turned-actress Chloe Bareaux and her screenwriter boyfriend, Alex Michaud, jeopardize their budding Hollywood careers to solve the supernatural mystery.
If you like romance and suspense, I hope you'll enjoy "Christmas in New Orleans." To read and download the story, click this link.
"Christmas in New Orleans" offers a preview of a new edition of "The Chloe Chronicles" that I will release in summer 2018.
I adapted "Christmas in New Orleans" from a sequence in "The Chloe Chronicles." The book follows the adventures of Chloe Bareaux —her sheltered upbringing in Parisian high society, her bold move to New York to pursue her lifelong dream of breaking into the movies, and falling in love with a hot young writer named Alex Michaud.
This is an excerpt from "Christmas in New Orleans":
Chloe awoke in darkness, covered in sweat and gasping for air. She reached for her phone, knocking over a vase on the nightstand. She picked up the vase and glanced at the glowing cellphone screen, which indicated it was just after midnight.
At the sound of a knock on the door of the Michauds' guest room, she started.
"Honey, it's me. Can I come in?"
Chloe slumped in relief, recognizing her boyfriend Alex's voice. "Sure."
He padded into the room in pajama bottoms and sat next to her on the bed.
"Hi," she said in a whisper, placing her hand on his bare, ripped chest, comforted by his presence.
"Hi," he said softly, stroking her hair. "I heard a noise and thought I'd come in and make sure you're okay."
Chloe remained silent for a moment, turning her gaze to the moonlight streaming in through the balcony door and curtains swaying in the breeze.
"I had a nightmare," she said.
Alex's brow wrinkled into a concerned expression. "About what?"
Chloe shifted in bed, suddenly uncomfortable in spite of Alex's soothing demeanor. "Red."
"Huh?" Alex looked confused.
"Red," she repeated. "In the dream, that building we passed today was all covered in red. Just red — not red and green, not Christmas colors. Just red." She shivered in spite of the warm bayou breeze. "It was like the building was oozing blood."
One of the biggest highlights of 2017 for me was having the honor of being invited by my friend and fellow writer Professor Frederick Luis Aldama to speak at his film classes at The Ohio State University in Columbus. I addressed the students in January and October about my soon-to-be-released documentary "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring."
The experience of speaking at the university had a special significance, since OSU is my alma mater — I graduated cum laude in '96 with a bachelor's degree in English. Adding to the specialness (as an English major, I hope that's a real word!) was that Professor Aldama's classes are held at the Gateway Film Center. "Lady Wrestler" screened there in June 2017 as part of the Film Festival of Columbus.
My lecture in February outlined the similarities between the brave women featured in "Lady Wrestler" and the fictional character Diana Prince in "Wonder Woman." As I pointed out to the students, wrestling legends such as Ethel Johnson and Ramona Isbell, whom I interviewed in the documentary, are similar to Wonder Woman in that they battled sexism and seemingly insurmountable odds to become heroines adored the world over.
As some of Professor Aldama's students prepare to graduate this Sunday (Dec. 17, 2017), I have to give them a big shout of congratulations. And I have to give them an even bigger shout of gratitude for their attentiveness and asking insightful questions during my appearances.
This is the message that Professor Aldama posted on Facebook at the conclusion of the "Film & Comics" class at the end of November:
Film & Comics 2017
It's a Wrap
Will miss this bunch of amazing students (including Groot,
our resident guide/rescue doggie) after a semester's
transmedial journey through the distillation and reconstruction of comics into films and films into comics as they make new our perception, thought, and feeling regarding race, sexuality, gender, and differently abled subjects. . .
Big Grx to my amazing co-pilot, Kristen Ferebee, as well as guest lectures by Cathy Ryan, Lindsay Harper Cannon and a guest appearance by director Chris Bournea. . .
Note: Poster art by Jason Gonzalez
“Why is it so hard to do the little things that would improve my life? Our minds are designed [to keep us] from doing anything, at all costs, that might hurt you. ... We are not designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult. Our brains are designed to protect us from those things in order to keep us alive.
"In order to change, in order to build a business... in order to do all those things that you want to do with your life, with your work, with your dreams, you’re going to have to do things that are difficult, uncertain or scary.”
The above quote is from an excellent motivational video titled "Retrain Your Mind" that I came across on YouTube. That quote really captures why it's so hard for us creative types to deal with rejection. And in this digital age where social media dominates our lives, we face rejection each and every day.
I had a breakthrough in this area last week. I started out 2017 last January by turning over a new leaf and writing a new "social media policy." I vowed to check my Facebook, Twitter and other accounts throughout the day, reply to any comments and thank people for taking the time to respond. But by this fall, I had back-slid into my old habits.
I'd post something and then never check to see what kind of response it got. I was too afraid that the post would receive an embarrassingly small number of "likes" or comments or — oh, the horror! — nothing at all.
It suddenly occurred to me that if I went to the other extreme and started checking my social media accounts and looking at the responses (or lack thereof) obsessively throughout the day, it would take away the sting.
This tactic has worked. I started making handwritten spreadsheets to track the status of my social media accounts: 989 Twitter followers as of 6 a.m., 986 Twitter followers as of noon, etc. Doing this has given me at least some semblance of control.
Looking at these cold, hard numbers has taken away their power over me. But the trick is that you have to keep up with social-media monitoring, or it's easy to slide back into your old ways of posting content and then never looking at the response. It's like anything: consistency is the key to turning an action into a habit.
I totally get why it's hard to look at social media stats. As artists, we're sensitive to begin with. Looking at your numbers on social media is like opening a stack of potential rejection letters every time you tap the Facebook, Twitter or Instagram app.
But to use another analogy, I've come to realize that trying to use social media to promote yourself and your artistic endeavors without ever looking at the stats is like driving with your hands over your eyes. Wouldn't it be foolish to set out on a road trip, cover your eyes and just hope and pray that you arrive at your destination?
Examining social media stats is necessary so that you can see what you’re doing right and what you need to adjust and do more or less of in order to get the most traffic and positive feedback.
Here's yet another analogy: using social media is like learning a different language. I'm learning Spanish, and it's difficult to remember sometimes that the adjective goes after the noun. In English, we say "blue sky," but in Spanish it's "cielo azul" (literal translation: "sky blue"). And just like in language learning, there are nuances and exceptions to every rule.
So one day, you might post something that gets a lot of enthusiastic responses. The next day, nothing.
For example, one day while doing dishes, I posted the following random thought: "Dirty dishes are like Gremlins: you put them in water and they multiply!" So many people responded to this mundane observation that Facebook sent me a notice that this inconsequential post I dashed off was performing better than 95 percent of the other posts I'd so painstakingly crafted.
But just the other day, I posted what I assumed was also a clever observation: "Add to my to-do list: remember to look at my to-do list to remember what I'm supposed to be doing." Nothing. No comments. No likes. No shares. Crickets. Go, figure.
The nature of social media is that it's constantly mutating. Many of us who are from Generation X and older scratch our heads, trying to wrap our brains around this ever-changing, puzzling medium.
In real life, if someone is your friend, it's safe to assume that they'll continue to be your friend unless you sleep with their spouse, rob their children's college fund or run over their grandmother. But on social media, people will "un-friend" you for no apparent reason.
Twitter is especially fluid. One day I inexplicably lost 30 followers; a couple days later I gained 30 followers. I hadn't done anything different either day. As a general rule, I try to avoid posting about controversial topics such as politics, religion, etc. So I have no idea why people would un-follow me.
It's so random. Sometimes people un-follow you on a whim: they misinterpreted something you posted, they may be irritated that you’re so perky and positive all the time, or they simply got up on the wrong side of the bed.
Or they glanced at your profile picture and decided they don't like people with dark hair ("pelo oscuro" in Spanish).
To draw another analogy, looking at social media stats is like dieting. When you set foot on the scale, sometimes that dreaded number doesn't reflect all the hard work you’ve been doing to lose weight. You can't figure out why you've hit a plateau. It's easy to get frustrated and give up.
But it pays to persevere when tending to your health. And it's worth it to keep at it with the whole social media thing. It's all about trial and error.
And just like the number on the scale, the number of people who "follow" or "friend" you on social media is just a number. It doesn't reflect your true value or self-worth.
(Follow me on Twitter at @chrisbournea for updates about my forthcoming documentary "Lady Wrestler: The Amazing, Untold Story of African-American Women in the Ring.")
