It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea. This is my first real attempt at blogging, but now really feels like the right (write) time. I am in the process of working on my first book project. This project is something that has lived in my head and in my heart for a while now, though it isn’t something I imagined would be happening so soon in my career. My book, which takes on sports studies from a Black feminist perspective, is not based on my dissertation like many first books in academia are. Rather, my first book, if anything, takes its inspiration from the work I did on my master’s thesis “Sex, Drugs, and Barbie: Gender Verification, Drug Testing, and The Commodification of the Black Female Athlete,” though much more developed.

In 2012 if someone had told me I would be writing a book based on that work, I may have actually laughed out loud, and hopefully, my mouth would’ve been empty at the time—or the consequences would not be great for anyone sitting across from me at the time. At any rate, here I am, 9 years later, going into my third year on the tenure track, doing just that. My book will cover a host of issues faced by Black sportswomen including the representations in the media, the politics of Black hair, and Black athlete activism. This project is something that shakes me to my core. It keeps me up late at night with ideas and wakes me up early in the morning wanting to blog about it (it is currently 6:30 am on Thursday, July 22nd, 2021 and I have been up for two hours).

Will I sustain this momentum throughout the whole book writing process? I doubt it, but for now, I write whenever the mood strikes me, as well as during my scheduled writing times. Keeping this pace, for now, feels sustainable, but once it no longer serves me I know that I will have to make changes. So that said, I plan to use this blog space to chronicle my book-writing journey. At first, I planned to do so on Twitter, but long threads just aren’t the same as one concise blog post a few times a month—though I will still remain very active on Twitter so be sure to follow me there as well. I will detail the steps that brought me to my advanced book contract, as well as my wins (and I’m sure my losses) along the way. I hope you’ll stick around for the journey, and I hope when all is said and done that you’ll not only buy, but read the book as well—title still pending!