“Nigger Lover” Writes Anyway

Okay, because we haven’t read them together in a few days, here are my goals, my Life Mission and my Personal Power Affirmation:

1.I have a residence that I love in NYC.

2.I weight 260 lbs and have 15% body fat.

3.I lift or do CrossFit six days per week.

4.I write for four hours every day.

5.I have written 25 movies, 10 TV shows, 25 plays, 5 novels, 5 non-fiction books, a book of poetry and a short story anthology.

6. I am the man of my dreams and I’m married to the right and perfect husband for me.

7.We have three sons.

8.I make $110K or more every month.

9.I live off 10% of my income and direct the rest to do good on the planet.

10.I head a very successful non-profit that helps Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We teach Pure Peer Support techniques, host weekend retreats, sponsor creativity workshops, and offer paid internships in the entertainment industry to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans helping them to find work that fulfills them and sustains them financially. We have big, beautiful workspaces and headquarters in New York City and LA.

Here again is my Life Mission:

I co-create a world of Excitement, Wonder, Magic, and Mystery to positively transform the consciousness of Planet Earth in a good way by unleashing the Powerful Warrior Poet who lives inside me.

My Personal Power Affirmation:

As a Queer Poet among the masses, I am powerful! 

It’s helping me to go through the goals individually and get more specific about what they each looks like in detail. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the support in the form of prayers, good vibes, leads on places to live, offers of support for the foundation, and all the other ways that you all are helping me move forward toward the life I want to be living while accepting and yes (at times) remembering how to enjoy the one I’m living now.

There’s a lot that’s disconcerting going on in the world around us right now. I have purposely not focused on them in the blogs because I’ve been (as you know) trying to keep my head above water emotionally and just hold out until I get back to New York. If I go down the chute around issues like, say, racism— I might never come up again. And I do truly think the most efficient and effective way I can help with regard to issues that are important to me is through my writing— specifically through my scripts. RUTH has a lot to do with race. I need to focus on getting that play to Broadway. That’s what I can do to help right now.

Okay, Goal #4: I write four hours everyday.

I’ve been saying this was my desire for about as long as I’ve been saying I was a writer— and I have never done it consistently for any sustained period of time.

About three weeks ago, an accomplished writer (a novelist) wrote to me after having read my blog. He promised that we wasn’t writing to “discuss the blog” but that he wanted me to know that he had been inspired by it and that we had a lot in common. I wrote back and thanked him and we ended up having a phone conversation. Now he’s become my accountability partner with regard to the writing work day. We call and have a quick check-in before and after each work day. We make a commitment about the amount of writing we want to get accomplished that day (upper and lower limits on time or words) and additionally if there’s other things we want to do or not do during the day. I’m exceptionally grateful to him for reaching out in the first place and for becoming such a great support to me in this way. Additionally, during the check-in calls, we take five minutes each to “discharge” terror, grief, and rage that might be standing in the way of the work. There is no possibility for feedback, advice, or any other comment on what each man shares; there is only deep listening. In my experience, this allows for a type of sharing that is different that if the person thinks there might possibly be some “response” after the share. I’m exceptionally grateful to him for reaching out and for his support.

Getting this clear and focused on this goal, four hours of writing each day, has helped to cast light on what’s behind the fear of writing for me. It has also helped me realize how many of the other goals would “fall right into place” if I can only manage to achieve this one. The fear has been a big deal.

When I thought of writing this morning, I was immediately transported to 1977 in S.J. Hembrick Middle School. I’m walking across the lunchroom floor and I realize I hear laughter. I look across the room to see a table of redneck boys, older than me, and realize what they’re laughing at is me. When I realize the bullies’ attention is on me, the terror is immediate it is attached to every single incident like it leading up to that moment. I am afraid of what is coming next. I’m afraid they are going to hurt me. (This is coincidentally about the time in my life I was first molested– first, to my recollection that is. There were a lot of things that had me “on the ropes” at this juncture on the journey. It’s also the time when I started huffing gasoline and trying to score liquor.)

The rejection I felt in my “community,” exemplified by this instance and a hundred before it and since, is the fear of rejection connected with the writing that persists to this day. Today I will sit down and do a “final” pass on RUTH, my Jazz musical set during Katrina in New Orleans. The play touches on so many issues that are extremely important to me including, of course, racism. This is such an important time for us to be thinking about and talking about racism in this country. We had actually come dangerously close to being hypnotized into thinking we were “post-racial.” I believe with all my heart that RUTH can help in this important discussion. It is my gift, my offering. God gave me a heart that was designed to be hurt and horrified by racism. God gave me this voice to speak about it. I want RUTH to make it to Broadway and I want her to be on stages everywhere that race matters and racism is a problem. This is not about me in the least. The plays come through me and not from me. So if I believe all this, how could I be so self-centered as to not sit down and do the work each day?

That’s it. It’s self-centered fear, a problem so many writers face, a problem so many alcoholic/addicts (recovering or otherwise) face, it’s a problem I guess a lot of us face— those of us with a dream— those of us who aspire to be offering our gifts to God and to the world in a higher and better way than we are currently. If this is you, I pray for you now. My hope for you is that you step out of that self-centered fear and open that organic bakery or start those rooftop chicken farms or write those children’s books or whatever the heck your dream is. This is not about us, it’s about the work. It’s about making the world a better place through our gifts.

One of my favorite Christmas carols is The Little Drummer Boy. I find its message so clear and so touching. The part I can never get past without tears is:

I am a poor boy too, pa rum pa pum pum

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pa pum pum

That’s fit to give our King, pa rum pa pum pum,

Rum pa pum pum, rum pa pum pum

Shall I play for You, pa rum pa pum pun

On my drum

There is something so pristine and beautiful about the humility of his offering. And many of us can certainly relate to judging what we have to offer as “not fit to give a King.” I believe God appreciates those kinds of gifts the most— those that are unique and personal and given from the heart. God has all the money anyway; what should God care about gold, frankincense, and myrrh? What the heck is myrrh anyway?

When I wrap up this blog and start to work on RUTH here in a few minutes, I won’t be surprised when the fears crop up. With this particular subject matter, I know that the “flashbacks” will be associated in particular with the trauma around racism. What I saw and experienced as a kid growing up in the first generation of desegregated classes in Alabama (our house is 33.3 miles from 16th Street Baptist Church) was horrible. I’ll never understand how people can be so cruel. I hated seeing my friends being treated so poorly and I hated being called “nigger lover.” Beyond all that, I also feel self-conscious talking about ways I was injured in a racist society because I’ll never be questioned for checking the box marked “white.” As much as I want to be an ally, as much as I can relate to what it feels like to be part of an oppressed group, I can never claim “Blackness” and I will never know what it feels like to be black and have to put up with that shit. You bet your ass I’d resist arrest. If I had spent my life constantly being stalked by police, stopped and frisked, seen as a criminal by so many simply because the color of my skin— they be lucky if I didn’t just climb a tower with a sniper rifle and start popping off white cops. And that’s not good. And that’s not good for me to feel. But I can access that rage, even from just imagining it, and it doesn’t take me long to get there.

So what can I do? What can I do that’s not tantamount to tower-climbing with a rifle. What can I do that actually makes a change for the better?  I can work my hardest to finish RUTH and then do everything I can to make sure she gets to the stage. And that continues with this morning’s work.

In a few minutes, when I start the writing workday, I know the voices from the past will be laughing “nigger lover” at me. Furthermore I know that the other voices, the voices that are snarling, “You are a white man! How dare you try to write about race?” will also be doing their best to make me run away and dive into a day of porn-surfing or Amazon one-click shopping. I pray for Grace. I pray for Grace to do the work. I pray for the courage to play my song for The King.

See y’all tomorrow.