Prior to your novel, I had never heard of a loom room. What prompted you to write The Loom? Right, and you know what, I hadn't either. I felt like it was back in the "90s. I won Miss Black Heritage, a pageant when I was in college. I received these books, basically a whole library of African-American history books. I have always been interested in history. There was one particular book that had a story about the loom that I just discovered. And I felt like I really knew African American history – I had never heard of this!
Can you describe to me your writing process? What I normally do is, I start out with some structure. I actually outlined my book. I wrote out 100 notecards of what was going to happen. And then, I got to about notecard 12 and then the book wrote itself. So then, none of that mattered! But I feel like I have to start with that structure until I know the characters well enough, and it literally starts to write itself. It's like I was watching actors on a stage and they were saying things and doing things, and I was just trying to type it in as fast as I could. It takes on a life of its own after awhile.
Is it more difficult to write characters that you closely identify with or those in whom you see very little of yourself? I am writing them; they are really like people, so I'm just getting to know them. It is not until after I finish the process of writing that I discover how similar I am. And I can see myself in all of them. I liked all my characters. I even loved Jackson; of course Jackson wouldn't like me! But I actually really like him. I let them take on a life of their own and then after I read it, I can see similarities. I guess I am Lydia. If there was one character that I am really like, it's her.
