Stepping to the stage is: Nah'Sun
“You like them fat chicks, cuz” – Rico to Lakim, main characters of the novel Thick When the Chances are Slim
After a year and some change in the book game, I hated writing. I was through with the publishing industry. The political bullshit I faced in a short period of time sucked the blood out the lifeline of my penmanship as if I was tied and locked down on to a bed with ticks and leeches dining on the wheat of my flesh.
I didn’t want anything to do with writing anymore. My first book did well, but most of my readers didn’t “get it.” They didn’t understand my voice. I knew I was great, but the readers didn’t know that. At one time I foolishly blamed them for not figuring out what I was striving to say in my work. It was intellectual masturbation with only a few experiencing mental orgasms from reading my first book.
My first joint in the book game was my baby. Of course I was going to feel a certain way when folks didn’t understand my vision.
So I stopped touring and writing for a few months. I needed to re-energize. The politics of the book game, whether it was industry heads playing favorites or book stores failing to promote my signings, wore me the hell out. I disappeared into the mountains on some Buddha Monk type shit to meditate and re-work my focus.
I officially lost my passion for writing. Not a lot of people knew that, but I did for a hot second.
The passion was lost and damn near forgotten until I was told to write what I like. The “Ah ha!” moment struck me fast and hard when I noticed there weren’t a lot of novels written about plus size women. My homeboys used to playfully roast me about liking big girls growing up. I didn’t give a damn what they thought. I liked what I liked. After a while they accepted it. Shit, they had no choice. I’m flexible with my preference, but I have a sweet tooth for thickness. I figured, “hey, why not write a book series about plus size women.”
As a man writing about full-figured women, I didn’t have to do the homework. I knew the homework. Dating big girls since elementary school gave me a front row seat to their feelings and how they viewed the world. Everybody has similar emotions like fear, love, hate, insecurities, etc., but every specific circle in society has their own tailor-made experiences. Shedding light about big girls in a small world through my work would open doors to reveal their soul without making it seem like I was kissing up to the plus size community.
I did my research and checked out novels written about full-figured women. I wasn’t impressed. Not taking anything away from those authors, but the one-dimensional stories felt as if I was playing Atari. The stories lacked depth. It was almost as if I was reading a reality show on dead trees. I constantly ran across your stereotypical “big girl with low self-esteem” type of story with countless materialistic paragraphs that didn’t have anything to do with the content.
I wanted to pen stories that were like the X-Box 360 with 3-dimensional characters where you felt their soul. I scratched my blue or black colored pen on the loose leaf paper to dig deeper than miners reaping for diamonds so you can feel and see the depth of each character as if you either knew them personally or you saw yourself walking in their shoes.
So I went to work.
Snapping out of a writing funk in late-2010 had pushed me to write Thick When the Chances are Slim. That’s the first novel from the Thick series. I ran through countless names for the book title. I’m not gonna lie. Most of them were terrible. I mean terrible with a capital T in bold letters. As a lyricist, I played around with a few words and cooked up the title you now see. It’s funny looking back because it took me only a matter of seconds to come up with Thick When the Chances are Slim without twisting my brain like a pretzel.
I finished the novel in the fall of 2011. The book release was a blast. I sold half of the first pressing through pre-orders before its December release. I switched up my writing style to a simpler form. I cut out a lot of the metaphor and symbolism style I used in my first novel by writing with a straight forwardness for the novel infamously known as Thick.
A lot of women appreciate the book. It wasn’t a diss toward slender women. The book is about accepting yourself regardless of size. Thick When the Chances are Slim is the mirror to reflect the beauty of a population of women that’s largely ignored. The artwork of the books in the series is also a testament to that beauty. The Thick series is not the be-all-end-all work representing plus size women.
In fact, I’m not necessarily speaking for women. I’m more of an ambassador carrying the flag for big girls worldwide full staffed.
Facing obstacles in the book industry head on gave me the drive in the fast lane to swerve around speed bumps. Only crash dummies quit at the first sign of trouble. I fell, brushed off the dirt of nonsense, and stood stronger than ever before. I took my war wounds like a champ. I now know what to expect in the book industry that not only has a bad side but also a good side when you know how to flip a negative into an energy to keep going without looking back.
And it’s only fitting I kick off those positive vibes with a book series bigging up the thick and sexy by showing the world that “big” is no longer a dirty word.
Nah’Sun is an award winning author of the Thick series and currently spends his time between the Midwest and East Coast. The Bachelor of Arts graduate uses his spare time blogging, songwriting and anything else that doesn’t bore him. He’s currently working on part 3 of the Thick series tentatively entitled In the Thick of Things slated for a 2014 release. Feel the blaze, a Nah’Sun blaze. You can preorder Thick in the Nick of Time (part 2 of the Thick series) @ www.nahsunblaze.com on December 12th, 2012
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