You might not have read enough of my writing to have figured it out, but I’m a black woman. I enjoy talking about my experiences as a black person, and that includes making fun of us–the stereotypes and the truths. And as a black woman, I”m allowed to–and I’m gonna–talk about black people. Even if it “offends someone”.

But the truth is, even if I weren’t black, I might still make inappropriate comments here and there, and I tell you what: being *fearless* is what makes me a good writer.

“Good writers avoid generalizations”? Good writers use generalizations when it suits their purpose: if it creates the right mood, if it tells the right story, if it pushes the right buttons. Good writers know what will work for their audiences and what won’t, and we’ll use every weapon in our arsenal–even black jokes–to spin a good tale and make a salient point.

As far as Bach: Minuet in G Minor is pretty simple. Extremely simple. It might be Bach but it’s no Mozart ;) I grew up in a musical family, so while I could read music and I understood the *concept* of meter, actually executing it reliably wasn’t something I had mastered–at all. (Hell, as a classically trained singer, I know the theory of minor key inside and out, but if you asked me to sing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in minor key, I don’t know that I could do it without much hair pulling and gnashing of teeth.) I was, and remain to this day, a terrible musician. And so while in theory I understood what a song in 4/4 meter should mean, that didn’t mean I could stop my fingers, with their own mind, from playing in the wrong meter. And, even more unbelievably, I was able to convince myself that it was good enough, and no one would notice.

I’m an editor My sister sent me to your site because she liked this piece. I did, too. But I have a few suggestions, if it’s OK with you.

Some readers find the reference to black folks living in their own time zones offensive. It may be true of some black people, but not all of them. That’s the trouble with generalizations, and why good writers avoid them.

I’m curious how at your first piano lesson you could be playing Bach already! If you had prior musical training, surely you would have known about meter. So it’s a puzzlement.