So, I did a thing to celebrate the Genius of Prince for his 60th Birthday using his song titles.
Ode to Prince
Yes, I Gotta Broken Heart Again, because I Can’t Make U Love Me. I
should Dance On, think about Dinner with Dolores, but this is a
Condition of The Heart.
I wish U heaven, Emancipation, Everyday Winding Roads, a Good Life,
really. You see I Feel For You. Yes, I Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got.
But 4 The Tears In Your Eyes, we should be 2gether. If Eye was the Man
in Ur Life and you were Forever in My Life, we would have Good Love, One
Kiss At The Time as we Play in The Sunshine. Your love is like 3 Chains
O’ Gold, wrapped about me. Hello. Baby, Call My Name, you Most
Beautiful Girl in The World.
It is Undisputed. When You Were Mine, this was the Greatest Romance Ever Sold. But now you Tell Me How U Wanna B Done?
Sweet Baby, Beautiful One, I should have seen this in a Crystal Ball,
but I was Courting Time, waiting for the Dream Factory to Start.
I close my eyes. It’s So Dark. I see the Slave I’ve become. I’m So
Blue. So Dark is my world. My Soul Sanctuary holds too much Purple Rain,
too much Hallucination Rain, too much Pink Cashmere. For The Rest of My
Life, I will remember when we went to Hollywood, how the Housequake
sent me spinning with you Under the Cherry Moon. It was a New Power Day.
I should Release it, these feels, this Reflection–all the how it was
When I Was Your Girlfriend. But the hope that you will be Right Back
Here In My Arms is Insatiable.
No Escape. I’m Face Down in my denial. I Hate U. I truly want to you,
Partyman, you Nasty Girl. But I can’t. I can’t even drive away in my
Little Red Corvette.
So goodbye again. This is my Last Heart. It must stand for truth.
So even now with the Illusion, the Coma Pimp and Circumstance gone, I’m
still Dreaming About You. I think of our Slow Love and Silly Games, and
that time with the The Morning Papers and The Ladder. La La La He He
Hee. We both know La La La Means I Love You.
Damn U, Darling Nikki. I crossed that Graffiti Bridge just thinking of
us. I Wanna Melt With U, Die 4 U. Hello, you Hot Thing. Come On. I know.
I know. Call The Law for it is a crime to forgo The Screams of Passion,
this love that Still Would Stand All Time.
Shhh, I know now I Can’t Make U Love Me. No Wedding Feast for us. It’s
Wasted Kisses. We Gets Up and go our separate ways, no Sensual
Everafter. No Joy in Repetition. No Comeback. So there is no Righting
the Wrong. I will Release It like I toss my Raspberry Beret in the air.
It’s three ingredients, and they are so good. I love to cook, so you’ll often find me in the kitchen. I like elegant great tasting easy to create recipes. So this is one of my personal favorites.
Ingredients:
1 cup of peanut butter, the crunchy type with peanuts
1 egg white (You need to cut the cholesterol somewhere.)
1 cup of sugar (I use raw cane sugar, sounds healthier, but you may eat so many that this doesn’t help)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a baking tray with parchment or a silicone mat. They will stick to your tray if you don’t, not good eats, a big mess. No one has time for all that cleaning.
Combine all three ingredients together mixing until you have a smooth dough-like consistency.
Take a scoop of it and form a small ball. Flatten it out onto the tray.
Get fancy and make crisscrosses with a fork’s tines. Place the cookies at least an inch apart.
When your tray is full and your oven is ready, pop these into the oven for about 7 minutes. Be careful not to overbake and adjust your timing based on your oven. They should be a light golden brown. You want these to be chewy.
When you take them from the oven, let them cool on the tray for about 2 minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire cooling rack. I usually just pick up the parchment and set it on the rack to cool completely.
Your patience will be reward with chewy yummy goodness.
Frederica is quite the hostess and loves to make sure her guest has the right treats. Find out more about her in The Butterfly Bride:
Frederica Burghley wants to be married by Yuletide. Or else her father will set her up with one of his friends. The bonbon-loving illegitimate daughter of the duke wants to choose her own husband. Advertising in the newspaper seems like the way to go. But a sinister response, with threats against her life, leads her to enlist the help of her very handsome, dear friend Jasper Fitzwilliam, Lord Hartwell.
A father and widower, Jasper is not only tasked with keeping Frederica safe but also with helping his vibrant friend choose a suitable husband. The more he tries to keep the ever-surprising woman alive and find her a good match, the more Jasper realizes he cares for her. The two friends risk their lives for each other, so they should be able to risk their feelings for a chance at a deep and true love together. But he’s not looking for marriage and she’s not looking for convenience.
It Happened One Christmas is one of my favorite holiday things–a Regency Christmas Anthology! Even better, it features three novellas by fellow Harlequin Historical authors–all award-winners: Carla Kelly, Georgie Lee, and Ann Lethbridge. These ladies have generously offered to give away one … Continue reading →
My writing room hasn’t changed too much from the last picture I posted–boxes and boxes of books, still unpacked, alas. However, I have been making progress on replacing the home office furniture that didn’t make it around the bend in … Continue reading →
Let’s face it, ladies, even if your new dress is up to the very latest fashion standard in style, color, and fabric, if your accessories are not equally splendid, someone’s bound to notice. And you know what that means. If … Continue reading →
Moving has kept me from a lot of things I enjoy–like hanging out at the Risky Regencies. This move has been more problematic than most, and I’m still dealing with items that were damaged by the Movers from Hell and … Continue reading →
Inquiring readers, Rachel Dodge has once again submitted a superb article. This time she describes the fathers in Jane Austen’s novels. This Sunday marks Father’s Day in the U.S. I lost my own father four years ago. This article once again proves that my father, in every way, was superior to those described by Jane, […]
One of the joys of writing Historical Romance is the research and the best way to research is to go to the places you write about. Some writers get a story idea and then they go to the location of … Continue reading →
My last “unsung Regency hero” (Dr James Blundell, May 2) was aware that his pursuits could have a huge impact on the future, and indeed, he was right. Today’s hero, a cobbler named John Pounds, also had a great impact … Continue reading →
Before I begin my essay, I want to take a moment to thank all Write of Passage Subscribers, and especially my paid supporters. At the end of the SubStack, I have resources for you, all who help make this broadcast possible, week after week.
Wantonly Treacherous
I’ve been reading Psalms lately—Psalms 25:1-6 in particular. When anxiety, uncertainty, and unrest are high, the wisdom and comfort in David’s words bless my soul.
This week has been heavy. It marked the 24th anniversary of 9/11, one of the largest attacks on American soil. More than 3,000 lives were lost, including children, and over 3,051 children lost a parent that day. I often think about life before September 11—on the 10th, I was working at a high-tech startup preparing for a visit from Cantor Fitzgerald. Then we watched the towers fall, the attack on the Pentagon, and the downed flight in Pennsylvania. Soon we learned that Cantor Fitzgerald had fallen too, with 658 of its employees perishing. America awakened to new threats. And the startup—my startup—never closed that round of financing. In essence, it was another casualty.
“O my God, in you I trust.”
Back to the present: On September 10, 2025, three students were taken to the hospital in critical condition following gunfire at Evergreen High School in Colorado. Gun violence is not new. It amazes me that the death and injury of schoolchildren—kids with their futures ahead of them—are barely covered in the news. It’s as though we’ve accepted such horrors as part of our lives.
“Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame.”
The very next day, September 11, several historically Black colleges and universities—Spelman University, Alabama State University, Hampton University, Virginia State University, Southern University A&M, and Bethune-Cookman University—went into lockdown due to threats of violence. People wanted to take their anger out on innocent students. White rage targeting Black communities is not new. White rage bringing violence to Black folk minding their business—like these college students—is also not new.
The Memphis Massacre of 1866 left 46 Black people dead and destroyed homes, churches, and schools. Later that same year, the New Orleans Massacre saw a white mob attack newly freed Black citizens, killing more than 35. In 1873, the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana claimed the lives of about 150 Black militia members who were attempting to surrender. The following year, the Vicksburg Massacre of 1874 in Mississippi killed an estimated 300 Black citizens.
The violence continued into the 20th century. The Springfield Race Riot of 1908 killed at least 15 Black residents. In 1920, the Ocoee Massacre in Florida took the lives of up to 80 Black people, while homes and churches were burned. The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 left as many as 300 Black residents dead, as thousands of White rioters looted and burned the thriving Greenwood district. Just two years later, the Rosewood Massacre of 1923 killed an estimated 150 Black residents, and the entire town was destroyed by a white mob.
“They shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.”
And when violence on September 10, 2025 also struck a college campus in Utah, members of Congress, media voices, and others pointed to the marginalized as the source. In now-deleted tweets, they stoked the raw underbelly of anger in this nation. Instead of waiting for facts, people grabbed hold of their insecurities and hate, clamoring for civil war.
Unfortunately, this too is not new. People are desperate to blame someone else for their pain. The immigrant, the stranger, the marginalized in society carry invisible targets on their backs.
“Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.”
Then, the news broke the shooter who assassinated a man on Utah’s campus—a man whose speeches proclaimed white supremacy, who said he could not trust a pilot because of his skin color, who claimed slavery was good—was killed by a White young man from a conservative Utah family. The victim who espoused the right to bear arms and dismissed gun violence as inevitable casualties, died from a single shot fired from the young man’s assault weapon. A wife and young children are left heartbroken and bereft, facing the very world this husband and father had worked so hard to wantonly paint the world with treacherous words.
“Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation.”
This assassination is a tragedy. Every incident I’ve listed is a tragedy. But this one makes me think about the words I say—and the words I will leave behind in my podcasts and in each of my books. I don’t want to be wantonly treacherous. I don’t want people to dismiss my message because they lack empathy or understanding. I also don’t want to craft arcs of cynicism. My message is clear: there is too much wanton disrespect, too much treacherous loss of life, and too much excuse-seeking to blame rather than finding true answers.
“For you I wait all the day long. Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love.”
So I pray—for mercy, for me and for this country. I pray for those who mourn, for those who have lost loved ones to violence. I never realized how fragile and special our democracy was until I began to hear calls for civil war.
Everything is fragile. Everything is at risk. I fear that we’ve all been wanton with our actions and treacherous with our words.
Why is it so hard to see truth? We must see it—even the hard truths. And I wonder: if truth had consistently found its way into the news, into broadcasts, into the halls of Congress, would there be fewer senseless tragedies? Fewer people waking up without the ones they love?
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone discusses the two most emotionally charged symbols relevant to Black communities, the Christian cross and the murderous lynching tree and their interconnection to the souls of Black folk.
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi – Traces the history of racist ideas in America, showing the ideological roots of wanton treachery.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin – Highlights the consequences of ignoring racial injustice and moral responsibility.
The Filling Station by Vanessa Miller is a historical fiction rooted in the truth of the Tulsa Massacre, and it explores themes of racial violence, the resilience of Black communities, and the complexities of faith and justice in the face of systemic oppression.
For everyone listening, I want to encourage you to use your words. As I promised at the beginning, I have something for you: I’ve built out my YouTube channel, Write of Passage | History, Culture & Writing, with tons of writing resources to help us all use our words more effectively. You can find me at @vanessarileyauthor.
🎬 YouTube – How to Journal to Write A Book
Video:
Times Writing Prompts:
🎬 YouTube Playlist –
🎬 YouTube – Build-a-Character, Session 1
Course Title:Build-a-Character: 10 Sessions to Shape Your Story’s Heartbeat
Episode: Session 1 – The Spark: Introducing Your Protagonist
Video:
🎬 YouTube – Build-a-Character, Session 2
Course Title:Build-a-Character: 10 Sessions to Shape Your Story’s Heartbeat
Episode: Session 2 – The Heartbeat: Core Beliefs & Values
Video:
I’ve completed and recorded the other eight sessions for Building a Character. All of my paid Substack subscribers have access to these lessons now. Click the private links below.
The preorder campaign has begun, get the collector cards for characters in Fire Sword and Sea—Help me build momentum for this historical fiction. Please ask your library to carry this novel and spread the word and preorder this disruptive narrative about lady pirates in the 1600s. This saga releases January 13, 2026. The link on my website shows retailers that are in on the campaign. Get the collector cards while supplies last.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.
If you’re ready to move with purpose and power, hit that like button and subscribe to Write of Passage—be a part of my crew. Your journey deserves community.
Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
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I know that one of the things we all love is peeresses in the their own right. I’ve been preparing for a workshop on the inheritance of titles in the UK, and I’ve come across a couple of cool and … Continue reading →
