She said it...

twice.

When you say it aloud, that you’re writing a book, you set up expectations. You are now expected to write a book. I’m writing a book.

There. I said it here, publicly. First I said it privately in the safe, intimate circle of women of color writers. I said it boldly as if playing my cello’s G string with all the resonance it sings, like I said the four most significant words ever spoken. “I’m writing a book.” Maybe they are. They have heft in my hands.

Authors are asked when they first knew they were writers. They answer, “When I was 2 years old and I stole my brother’s graphite crayon.” Or the summer they turned 12 and devoured Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” Nothing so ambitious from me. I fiddled with calling myself a writer in my early 20s, but only to a girlfriend who was just as tepid about the whole business as was I. So we said it to each other, but not in earshot of her husband or anyone else. She wrote her poems, I wrote my stories, and we both read everything published by Black Sparrow, Seal, and Kitchen Table Press bought at Lammas Bookstore. Annually we each bought the Pushcart Prize Anthology and the Writer’s Market manual. We were closeted, armed with what we believed were all of the necessary accoutrements of legitimacy. Unfortunately all of those submissions on extravagant linen paper in engraved self addressed stamped envelopes went unacknowledged. Affirmation was not streaming. Not for 20 years.

She had three babies. I had manic depression. Things between us got sketchy and alas we broke up (a few times until the final time which involved ghosting). Something happened along the way though. My father gave me permission to grab at that thing, whatever I believed that thing was. There are only so many trips around the sun before you’re toast.

I applied to the MFA program of my dreams. My childhood dreams. You know, the childhood where other people were writing in crayon and reading “War and Peace.” My dreams manifest not in reading doorstops or coloring creatively outside the lines, but instead with an affinity for number 1 pencils. They were soft. They didn’t make ugly black smudges when I erased the crooked cursive Q. I no longer know how to write a cursive Q. But when I was 7 I did. I wrote and erased so much that I mastered that damned Q.

Last week, after a wretched day of crappy health, sour mood, and lack of sugar, I scrolled the internet, landing at the General Pencil Company. There they were. For $17 I could have a dozen number 1 pencils. My 7 year old self didn’t have to say a word. First name. Anita. Last Name. Taylor. Employer. Self - Writer. Card number. XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. Two business day USPS delivery. They arrive tomorrow.

And then I typed “Final” on my masterful literary essay. I knew it was masterful. I downplayed my knowing because my old Black Baptist teaching says, “Remain ever humble.” I’m still a little shy about sin. Humility aside, I sent the perfect essay to two mentors from my MFA years, not for affirmation or validation. I sent it with a note. “Look what you taught me to do. I did it. Thank you.”

Hey Substack, I’m writing a book.