Blog Post One: Fall ’22

“Inspired to Write”

“Inspired to Write…”

As writers, we all find inspiration for our craft from various places, some public and some private; some of these points of inspiration are deeply known and very important; others can be more general and seemingly insignificant. There is always that question of what motivates us to write, to pen words to paper, to build stories. My earliest experiences with writing, both fiction and non fiction began at about age six, when I would watch my mother typing out poetry and prose on an old Royal typewriter, which held a single carbon sheet between two sheets of typing paper and allowed her to make duplicate copies long before the age of Cannon and IBM copiers. I read these as early as first grade, and though I understood that they were important, I cannot truly say that I understood their import. Years later, in my late teens and early twenties I would marvel as I read and comprehended her poetry and prose, wholly impressed by the eloquence of her articulation, and her mastery of the King’s English. She was the first writer that I really read, other than my first Alice and Jerry Primer, and later the Nancy Drew Mysteries I loved so much. She was the first writer that I idolized, not because she was my mother, but rather because she was both exceptionally gifted and skilled, and seemingly so without effort. Besides that, she was my personal connection to the writing life, as she chronicled my family’s history in the pages of her poetry and prose, told me of a rich Bahamian heritage far removed from my humble life in South Florida. When she died in 1995 at the age of seventy-two, I inherited her writings, which I maintain today, and I can’t help but think of all that she could have accomplished had she been afforded the resources and opportunities in her day which are available to me today. She serves as both an inspiration and a challenge to me. I am inspired by how much she was able to accomplish with so little, and I am challenged to make the best use of my skills and abilities, as I try to make certain that I do not under-produce; that I reflect, inform, and persuade with my pen, my keyboard, and my mind fully engaged. The pages of her writings are yellowed now, yet well-preserved in acid-protecting sleeves, but they still speak profoundly to everything that lies within me as a writer. I can still pick up a page or a poem to read, and gain a deep and abiding sense of the passion and meaning of the message that was recorded so long ago; when I do, I think of how important it is that I carry this tradition of writing, this gifting and skill, forward; I think of all the reasons why I must write, not because I want to or feel obligated to, but because I must. The writer within demands to speak, to be heard. Whether it is writing to inform, to persuade, or to reflect, what is your reason for writing, and what inspires the writer within you?