The Urbane Urbanite

I started working on my novel (for real, for real) in January of this year. I sat down and pumped out a couple of decent chapters. And I got some good feedback that propelled me to keep writing. As I started to use the momentum to pump out more work, something stopped me dead in my tracks: Procrastination. I would set aside time to sit down and write or brainstorm or jot down notes and plot ideas, but, instead, end up on Twitter shooting the breeze with hundreds of folks I do not know. I quickly zeroed in on the problem and scaled back on my tweets. In the past two weeks, Foursquare check-ins and blog promotion aside, I've only tweeted 23 times. That equals out to about 1.6 tweets per day. And more than half of those tweets were replies to messages sent directly to me. Just when I thought I had tamed my social media activities and was back on the road to literary success, my clever, crafty ass found o...

I attended my very first (and certainly not my last) National Association of Black Journalists Convention & Career Fair in Philadelphia last week. The Philadelphia Convention Center was the nerve center for everything NABJ: Ceremonies, panels, receptions, parties, film screenings, celebrity performances and a huge career fair. Although I was in reporter mode covering the event for VIBE magazine, I still managed to attend several panels, a couple of receptions and one lively film screening.

I've known for a while now that my short story "The Ballerina" had been selected as the fourth runner-up (fifth place) in Pen Tales ' inaugural short story contest. But I decided to wait until they made an official announcement before I blasted it all over my blog, mostly because I couldn't believe it. I am a very insecure writer. Very. I write with great confidence but I am terribly insecure about how others will perceive my work. If that makes sense. That being said, I had no intentions of winning anything when I entered the contest. At all. Whatsoever. Seriously, I wrote the story just for the sake of writing. I had reached a serious roadblock with my novel writing , which still exists today (more on that sadness in another post), and welcomed the opportunity to work on something else. Here's how I stumbled upon the contest.

You ever witness that awkward moment when folks are sitting around chatting about, let's say, pop culture and the conversation turns to politics and that one person who was once dominating the conversation, begins to clam up? That one person is me. I'm a great conversationalist, but when politics comes up, I start to itch and quickly change the subject. I find politics terribly boring, which, in turn, makes me a really lousy political gabber.  But I want to change that. I can't bill myself as a renaissance man and not be able to hold a conversation about what's going down in the political arena. The sweet Lord up above must have heard my cry, because no sooner had I proclaimed my desire to be a wee bit more politically savvy, did I stumble upon Prune Juice Media , a witty, intelligent, honest look at political news stories. PJM targets educated ( that's me! ) voters ( hey, that's me too! ) who are tired of "business as usual" in political reporti...

Less than a week into February, I stumbled upon a tweet from, Chris, one of my college friends on Twitter: "'Now everybody wanna focus on Black History. Y’all are so 'seasonal' .... SMH" We discuss (and often complain) about the fact that we celebrate Black History during the shortest month of the year, but has anyone ever taken the time to find out why? Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the founder of Black History month and the second African-American to receive a degree from Harvard University, believed in preserving one’s heritage. He wanted it to be in February to honor the birth of two men whose actions drastically altered the future of Black Americans, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. What started as just a week, eventually turned into a month. I attend an HBCU (Historically Black College/University), which happens to be the first university owned and operated by African-Americans. It was originally called Wilberforce College, and today is known as Centr...

A few weeks ago, I asked all of you to "like" The Urbane Urbanite fan page on Facebook, and in return, I would give away an iPod shuffle to one of you. Well, you guys turned out in full force! To date, I've racked up over 100 fans - and still counting. You like me! You really, really like! *Does The Wobble* And as promised, I've got an iPod shuffle here with someone's name on it. If Yolonda looks familiar, that's because she lent her expertise to a popular post here on TUU about finding time to read on a busy schedule.   Read that post here if you missed it. Yolonda will receive the iPod shuffle pictured above as well as a $25 iTunes gift card. Congrats, Yolonda! I would like to thank everyone who supported me by liking the Facebook fan page and everyone who continues to support the blog by subscribing, reading, commenting and sharing my posts.  I truly appreciate it. I'll catch up with y'all at the end of the week with a new post!...

Hey Y'all! *Waves* So. Earlier this week, I published my 51st post in less than six months. That's a lot for a slow, lazy writer like me. After I clicked publish, I sat back in my chair, stroked my chin and said, "I think I like this blogging thing. I'll stick around a while." That being said, I started a little fan page over on Facebook. I didn't create it to stroke my own ego (I'ont need any help in that department). If I'm being honest, I did it because everyone else has one. *Shrugs* And besides, it looks dope on the blog when folks see that tons of other folks like your site. For me, it's about validation. Here's what I'd like for you to do: If you've got a Facebook account, simply scroll on down a little bit... Until you see that little Facebook box on the right hand side of this page... That has all those pretty smiling faces in it and click the LIKE button. And you're done! Just like that, with a ...

One of my many dreams is to meet Oprah Winfrey one day - and I know exactly what I'm going to ask her: "Oprah, how the hell you find time to read all those damn books?!"   Can you tell I'm frustrated? Here she is, OPRAH, leader of the free world the most powerful woman in television, founder of O magazine, runs her own production company, builds schools in Africa, has her own radio station and television channel and she finds time to not only read but read a lot. So much so, that she helms the most popular book club in the world.   I work a 9to5, run this blog and freelance on the side. That's it.  And I complain that I can't find the time to read anything.   *sigh* I read two books this year. The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi W. Durrow and Platinum by my BFF Aliya S. King . Both books were excellent!  But I want to read more. I want to be that person who's engulfed in one book but already has the next good read lined up.  I'd love t...

Reggie Levine, a self-proclaimed tech geek, was one of the many talented bloggers who attended the Blogging While Brown (BWB) Conference in Washington, DC., in June. But I didn't get the opportunity to meet him there. It was the day after the conference while us bloggers were basking in the afterglow of the awesomeness that was BWB, that I stumbled upon his blog. ReggieLevine.net is a treasure trove of priceless information about how to make the most out of your gadgets, reviews on new accesories and great deals on technology. I learned how to look up words on my MacBook Pro without opening the dictionary application and how to create folders on my iPhone 3GS all from watching the videos on his blog. While this is an exciting time for gadget lovers like myself, we're inundated with many alternatives. To help make sense of some of the more popular gizmos on the market today, I asked the Atlanta based personal technology and social media expert to talk Kindle versus No...

I joined Twitter kicking and screaming. There was a time when I wanted no parts of the 140-character, nonstop stream of consciousness phenomenon that has taken over the internets. Mostly because I just didn’t get it. At the time, it didn’t make any sense. I was just fine in Facebook Land where pieces of flair, Farmville and party promotion wall posts run rampant. By the way, I've never played Farmville, I hate flair and despise party promotion junk mail. Please stop sending me that crap. Kthx. But in March of last year, on a whim, I buckled and joined Twitter - and it changed my life.