Sharina Harris

A. Hello, everyone, I am Sharina

Harris; I'm an author. I write women's fiction and romance, and most recently young adult, fantasy and paranormal. So, kind of all over the place. I've been writing since 2016 and most recently, in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, I released two books, Judge's Girls, and (IM) Perfectly Happy. But thank you so much for the invite. Super excited to be here and to chat with your audience today.

A. I've wanted to do it for a long time.

I really honestly have known since I was 12 years old. And I think about it, I've been writing little books, very terrible books, but books here and there. But right around the time I got into high school, I said, okay, I want to be a writer, maybe journalism or something along those lines and so my English teacher, she gave me a book, and it had the salaries and the salary was really low and

I said: "oh, I can't be poor". So, I decided to pursue Public Relations and Marketing. I still do marketing to this day; it's my day job. I just really came back to it when I was laid off in 2012, I want to say. I just heard a voice, it was like, "alright, you can cry about this or you can take this time to write". So, I did some freelance marketing, and did some writing. It was one of the best years of my life. It was just great.

And then that's when I knew. I said, "okay, I'm going to go for it. I won't quit my day job just yet". But this is something I definitely want to do. I feel like God has a way of course correcting. And that was the course correct from me choosing money over what I really am passionate about. So, I'm really glad that I had this hindsight.

A. So, I will say that because my mother's friend gave me a whole bunch of romance novels, three or four big hefty bags. It started off with Nora Roberts to Jay Chris. And then I didn't really see any representation I'm like, okay, who the characters who look like me. And kind of got tired of that. So probably around high school I really got into Francis Ray and Brenda Jackson, Donna Hill, and Terry McMillan. Now I was definitely reading up. Steven King. So those are my favorites. I definitely focus more towards the contemporary romance side, and then a little bit of horror, but I really enjoyed it. That was my bread and butter. Ask me 10 years ago, Brenda Jackson, I've read all of her books. And then over time I've gotten exposed to a lot of great authors, both indie and traditionally published, and there are so many talented authors out there so I'm always reading, always discovering new authors and it's just been amazing.

A. To give you all an honest answer, I really enjoyed writing (IM) Perfectly

Happy and Judges Girls, because

It allowed me to kind of explore.

With romance, you have to make sure those characters are always together, the central theme is romance, it's just more prescriptive as it should be. That's what you expect as a reader, right? By reading a romance author, they need to be together and doing things. But with women's fiction,

I get to kind of explore different layers. And really, some of the things for (IM) Perfectly Happy in particular, there were things that my friends and I were going through or have gone through, or I knew someone who knew someone, right. And that felt more relevant to me at that time in my life. So, I like the freedom, that the women's fiction with romantic elements allowed me to have. And I will also say the industry, although they're kind of like, interconnected, from the publishing side; with romance, it's a little bit harder for African American writers to really get in there and get the support that we need to be successful, from a romance perspective, and so I felt like the industry was just a smidge bit kinder, it's not something that there's been a lot of reports out there about, being a black romance writer, and like the amount of the percentage with the big five publishers. So, it was kind of the bomb that I needed, but I will always go back to romance. That was a really long-winded question, but I wanted to be honest.

A. You know, I think of it. You know sometimes my friends are like "did you do that?" I'm like "listen,

I have a good imagination". But I will say this from a psychological perspective, I'll stay on the safe side of it. Like understanding that there's always context to what someone is thinking, we only get the surface, the dialogue, right.

But we don't understand that this person is saying that Sharina is saying this because of the wounds from her past. So, it's not that she's trying to be rude it's because of all the things that have happened.

So, for me, from a romance perspective, I am that friend who is like, "well, let's get some more context". And I think sometimes it drives my friends, and even my mom, she's like, "why do you keep saying that" I'm like, it's not just a surface dialogue, there's something there's always layers beneath that we're not considering.

So, give people a little break, now if they're being jerks, they're being jerks, but give people a little break of what they really, really need and what their intentions are.

Because most people have good

intentions, sometimes it's just not executed well. There's really going to be perspective from like our relationship. I'll give my husband a lot more breaks than I did before. Before. I'm like, Yeah, but that has forced me to be like, Alright, if I'm going to give my character that I'm creating breaks, I got to get my real-life husband some breaks too so that's been, I think about that, but that is destined.

A. Oh, so the idea was sparked because I definitely have a mixed family. So, my dad remarried years ago, when I was 12, I have a great relationship with my stepmom. And my stepsisters and they have my little brother from that marriage too.

She is Asian, dad's black. They're located in basically Alabama and so anytime, especially in the past when we would go out there it would just be like a bunch of stares.

So, it's just kind of like that tension in the deep south. So, it's just like, what if I didn't get along with my stepmother? The characters themselves, I'd say a challenge was writing a white woman and trying to have those layers. So, a lot of times I would write I would be drafting, and I would have this one-dimensional character because of my preconceived notions of like, "Well, you know, she's a little ignorant, right?" "She, you know, is tired of her kids", but I had to pull back to say, "Okay, how does she get to this point? She's not all that foolish. She can, you know", just making sure that I'm giving her an opportunity to really be a fully formed person, that she's soaking up with someone genies room speaking about the character. "Is she someone I would be friends with? No". And I think that was a challenge, because I usually like my characters, even if they're deeply flawed. I'm usually like, "Oh, yeah, I can be". And for her, maybe at the end of the book, I could be her friend. But like, the whole transitioning and her learning, it would have been really hard for me. So that was really a challenge, really getting into her psyche and stepping in her shoes. And her privileged shoes. And that was really hard for me to do it in a way that wasn't colored, fully covered with color with my personal opinion of how things should be. If that makes sense.

A. So, tours, nothing set in stone,

I'm still a little gun shy with the pandemic; but I was just thinking that maybe since the release in 2020, maybe I should reach back out to these bookstores that I initially wanted to work with so if anything is updated, it will be on my website, SharinaHarris.com. As far as books, like I told you all before

I am all over the place. And so, a book that I'm working on now, that was recently acquired by entangled publishing. It's a young adult, paranormal romance. It's a vampire slayer series. And so that's going to release in 2023, January 2023.

So, I am in the trenches working on that. And I'm also working on a road map. So, I'm really excited about that one. So literally I have it with my agent and she's going to give me feedback and it's not a state secret, but I'm big on tropes.

I love tropes. So, this is like, stuck in a snowstorm, enemies, to lovers, about two writers, one is an accomplished thriller writer, the hero, and the heroine is an aspiring writer and she's a fan until she got to know him and he's a jerk, and he's grumpy, but there are reasons. So yeah, I am working on that right now. And hopefully, someone will pick it up. Who knows that either way, even if they don't, I will definitely go the indie route because it's been a lot of fun and a lot of joy writing this book, for sure. So, this was like my pandemic fun. While things were going on, and pandemic, just writing this on the side was a lot of fun.

A. You know, I have thought about that. I was like, some people are going to be like "What are you doing?" But I've always loved paranormal so what I plan on doing is just making sure people understand the difference like this is the young adult, these are the books, and then this is the adult stuff, so I want to be as specific as possible. So even I'm working on revamping my website right now, so people can understand the differences. And if you don't want updates for this little vampire thing, then you know, you don't get it because I understand, as some friends are like, I'll read your contemporary, but I'm not going to read your vampire, and

I'm like, "that's fine, that's fine,

I respect that I totally do". So,

I want to have it, at least from an online perspective, in a way where people can really quickly understand the difference and what it is. But I imagine there'll be some people who will rock with it, and some people will be like, "I will stick to your contemporary".

So, my goal is to have a book in contemporary romance, women's fiction, have a book with the

paranormal, and just have a nice little trade-off. So, it's not like 10 years later, you get my next book.

A. I used to be like, "I don't get writer's block", I did during the pandemic, that was like my first time and not surprisingly, because there's just a lot going on. And what I try to do is just little by little I write, on average, between five to 10 pages per writing session, if I have writer's block, I will either just write an outline of what I'm trying to say.

Or it's just like a very rough draft with more telling than anything.

And it's kind of forcing me to go through the mechanics and get the words down. And just keeping in the process, and then something will loosen up. So that's one way.

Another way is through inspiration.

So, I'll read another book, I'll read like a favorite or something of mine, or "Oh, this person is getting really, really well". Or I'm going to read this book. So, during a pandemic, fantasy novels, in particular, by a lot of newer, black authors and young adult, they just like really good books, and helped me because it wasn't set in contemporary so I wasn't reading something saying like, "can't do that now you're in a pandemic. Oh! did you wash your hands" You have all this stuff in your head and when you're in an alternate universe, you don't have to think about that; or maybe not an alternate universe, but somewhere where contemporary vampires exist that you're not worried about. So those are the kinds of things that I did while watching movies. It's not just books, I love movies. I'll listen to podcasts. I love inspirational and it makes a difference. So, you can have that fear, you can acknowledge that fear but just say, "Hey, okay, fear, I'm going to put you right over here. And I'm going to keep writing, and I'll get rejected, and I'm going to keep writing", you cannot allow others to dictate your passion. So, you just got to keep going and you're going to get better. Your favorite author was probably garbage when they started and that's okay; just know that your favs had to start somewhere too. And you're no different and you can really keep it going. So just keep writing. Keep going. That's all.

YouTube videos, just something that gets me going and just remember what I'm trying to do and why I'm doing it too. So, it's like, it's writer's block and it's also motivation because usually, my writer's block is the source of it. It's not just like, "I got a block today" it's usually a mental thing or my personal life that's impacting my ability to write.

A. You know, I used to roll my eyes at people who would say this, but it's so true: just write. I think sometimes we get in our heads about perfection, being a perfectionist. But the more you write, the better you will get. I think about some of my earlier works that will never see the light of day. And then even some of the earlier books that I published.

And it's night and day, how much

I've grown as an author, but some people are like, "Oh, I'm not a writer" like, no, you're a writer, you're writing, you're a writer, keep going, you're just going to go up, you're just going to keep going up. Don't be afraid of feedback and rejection, it's one of those things that unfortunately go hand in hand. And it doesn't stop when you become a published author.

I got rejected on a proposal three weeks ago, right. It doesn't stop but you have to think "okay, that person wasn't the right person for me", because you want to get there and you want somebody who's going to be your cheerleader, who's going to push you up and make sure you're getting your marketing support

A. Yes, I will just give you a high level for maps it's basically this young lady, but basically, girl in college is attacked by you know her band, she's in an HPC Band and at the battle of the bands her band is attacked by two vampires and this activates her slayer powers this whole society that is dedicated to eradicating vampires and so that's kind of the basis of it. There's definitely love, some love interests and some twists and turns there.

But if you're a fan of Buffy the

Vampire Slayer with some black girl magic you might want to check it out hopefully you will like it when you do.

A. Yeah, if you want to check me out online, I feel like I'm pretty nice so you can find me on Instagram at Sharina writes and as my main on there. So just Sharina writes altogether. Same thing same handle for Twitter Sharina writes, on Facebook you can just search for author Sharina Harris. So yeah, you can check me out those places go my website you can subscribe and I promise I'm going to have some segmentation so if you don't want to read one particular genre you can sign up for the other so yeah, I would love for you to check out my latest books agendas

Judges Girl, (Im)Perfectly Happy and if you do and whether you like it or not, I would love to hear your feedback, drop a review too if you get a chance to. Thank you that's it thank you so much for having me.