The release of Making it Real has been amazing! Thank you to all of my readers who have tried the book and let me know your thoughts on Kareem and Neecie. It all started on release day with a recommendation by Michelle Monkou on the USA Today Happily Ever After Blog that called Making it Real “edgy, enjoyable, and definitely entertaining.” To say I was thrilled is putting it mildly.
This was followed by The Romance Reviews saying: “MAKING IT REAL was a beautifully written story of second chances.”
I worked hard on this story and hoped you all felt some emotion as you watched Kareem and Neecie get to their Happily Ever After. I relied heavily on Pinterest as I worked on this story. While I never had a specific person in mind for Kareem, I used lots of pictures of guys with dreadlocks to get a sense of what he would look like sitting, standing, giving Neecie those hot looks. So there are several men on my Pinterest board.
As for Neecie, I visualized Jennifer Hudson. J-Hud seemed to have that girl-next-door sweetness of Neecie with just enough strength and sass to give it back whenever Kareem tried to push his weight around.
I also used Pinterest to keep images of the Baldwin household, high end barber shops, and various ladies with natural hair styles to help me describe my characters and settings. Sometimes I feel like my “tooling around” on Pinterest is a waste of time, but in the end I think it helps make a better story.
I’m sharing the Making it Real Pinterest board here for you all to check out my inspiration. Let me know who you visualized for Kareem and Neecie. Do my descriptions work, or are they messing with you mind, man! I’d love to hear from my readers.