The Writer Sessions #1

Place: The Casa

Pur­pose: The Writer Ses­sions (ramped up by NaNoW­riMo)

Par­tic­i­pants: Me, myself and I (Although I do have some ride-or-die girl­friends who are work­ing it out on their own terms else­where in the City Beautiful)

So, did I men­tion some­where along the line after it gets dark, this writer fan­cies her­self a bur­geon­ing nov­el­ist?  You see, while I’m pur­su­ing this blessed DASHEEN thing, and work­ing ever so dili­gently behind the scenes, with folks so much smarter than myself to see it through to its full poten­tial, I’ve also been work­ing on other impor­tant and life-affirming things.

What could be so impor­tant that it has taken up every bit of my mind this month: Well, I’m writ­ing my 1st novel!!!!

Walk­ing into my des­tiny is what it feels like and I am high stepping—Naturally!

I’ve been imag­in­ing this one—as yet unti­tled for a lit­tle over two years now, when the seeds were first planted as the poem Boy (Piano). And if I were to tell it all, when I’m try­ing to get an idea out, it feels so much more secure and real, if and when it comes through in some poetic form first.  I love how it can begin there, a sim­ply haiku, or maybe some free verse with the ulti­mate license to change and become anything—even a play.

The art of wrt­ing… Yes! So, there was some­thing there with that Boy…, but I didn’t touch it at all until NaNo 2009, where I thought:  Maybe. Just maybe this thing could also fly.

Since then, I’ve been writ­ing, not so dili­gently, but, but…  I L O V E how exer­cis­ing­what in my life rep­re­sents a gift—God-given and dri­ven make me feel so vital!

I bless God for DASHEEN and NaNo, as they have both served to encour­age me in the under­stand­ing of writ­ing as dis­ci­pline and not just art.

Cur­rently, I am mul­ti­task­ing here (post­ing) and there (writ­ing), while Face­bok­ing and vib­ing to Stephen Marley’s Mind Con­trol inter­spersed with his brother Ziggy Marley’s clas­sic Love is My Reli­gion album. It’s the per­fect mesh, famil­iar to me and these char­ac­ters and so the words are flow­ing everywhere.

My encour­age­ment to writers:

Don’t stop. DON’T STOP! Don’t ever stop, not even when you’re told to, or even when you think you have it in you to hate what’s on the page. You are a ves­sel.  You don’t nec­es­sar­ily con­trol the pour of the ener­gies, the direc­tion of the flow, or the hot, or the cold, or the lukewarm.

Your only responsibility:

To be avail­able and ever ready.

The fol­low­ing is an excerpt of my Boy…  And no, I am not afraid, for if some­one can take this next and make it mag­i­cal, I could almost bring myself to give you per­mis­sion to. Besides that, steal­ing is so NOT sexy!

After the prison of gray and Freud, the blaze at half-past dead should have made more of an impres­sion. He should have been undone by any and all of it. It should have absolutely brought him to his knees.

Instead, he stands tall, a peacock’s pride appar­ent in the mix of island swell and adopted New York swag­ger. He is flanked, quite obsti­nately, two feet in the back, by men he does not know. They didn’t see fit to intro­duce them­selves and he couldn’t see past their dis­ap­prov­ing glances to care one iota. Their only attempt at fraternity—black for­mal tails, tuxedo shirts with stiff ties, the buffed patent leather that traps their feet, and the pris­tine white gloves that play accompaniment.

They remind him of a chain gang revival, even as he might have placed him­self afar off riv­eted. And they looked the part, these men who had sized him up imme­di­ately as use­less, telling him to fol­low, when he should have led, regard­less of his best wishes.

Copy­right © Tynisha C. Leon 11/12/2010

He has yet to be named. I mean he’s been “Boy” for so long. What to call the man?? We’ll see what comes.

My endur­ing thanks to the ones (small cheer­ing sec­tion that they are) who already believe I can move moun­tains and will be stand­ing in line some­where just because) xo

ABOUT THE WRITER

Hi there, I’m Tynisha Leon, founder and Editor-in-Chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion! I am a cul­tural war­rior first and fore­most; and for me that sim­ply means that I am a light bearer for all things intrin­si­cally cul­tural and Caribbean. If you seek to inno­vate, pro­mote and/or con­tribute to posi­tioning a Caribbean peo­ple and gen­er­a­tion most pos­i­tively then link me! Bless!