“One writes out of one thing only — one’s own experience. “ - James Baldwin
Inspiration doesn’t just fall out of your head and onto the page. You experience something, and that something stays with you, fighting against everything else you know, until it grows too big and has to come out somehow. That is when that something is pulled out of you and onto the page.
Writing isn’t a miracle; it is a process.
Everything depends on how much of your life you can capture.
The only real concern for any artist is to organize the chaos of living. It can be a sweet song or bitter tale, but it has to be true; it has to have happened. Maybe not you, but to someone.
Because something is always happening to someone somewhere and it is your responsibility to tell that story.
The problem is that black writers are too busy dodging dangers in our lives to write about them.
We can’t write and survive at the same time. The food is scarce, the water is poisoned, the cops are knocking, and the bills don’t take no breaks. I can’t look at the page if I’m looking over my shoulder.
How can you write when you’re starving, afraid, worried, tired?
The truth is, you must.
By any means necessary. You have to write while you’re running from what’s trying to get you. I know we are tired of having to persevere.
But there is no other choice.