the wrITe FACTOR

The wrITe FACTOR
(written for an English speaking writing class while on Premiere Writer’s, The Emerging Voices of the 21st Century virtual tour--India)
I really, really, really (yes I used 3 reallys) think I can write. I have awards, as well as award winning tags after my books. I have followers and have received writing accolades galore. I’m a guest columnist for the newspaper, had plays I’ve written produced, had things printed all over the world, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera (yup I used 3 etcs…) For every great thing I’ve written there are thousands upon thousands of words that have been burned up in a landfill some where. At 55 I don’t have the same writing leisure that I had at 25 or 35 or 45 for that matter. People, writers, artists are dying all around me. Many of my friends are dying without a written legacy, leaving this earth without anything that will last beyond their graves. Big deal you say, don’t be such a diva you say, don’t take yourself so seriously you say…but look at our world…the beauty as well as the devastation.
Have you seen the Rocky Mountains in bloom at full moon? Have you seen a newborn billygoat? Have you been splashed by the Niagara Falls? Have you ridden a mule or an elephant or a camel? Have you hugged a Heisman Trophy winner? Have you swatted flies off of a dying baby? Have you hooked your brother in the forehead with a fishing rod? Have you kissed Maya Angelou or the Cowardly Lion in the original Wizard of Oz or Bob Hope? I have. But nobody will ever know unless I write about it and write about it well or at least write about it “good”.
I know that a little girl got raped by her father and nobody knows about it but the little girl, her father and me. I know that millions of dollars have ended up in somebody’s pocket instead of going to directly aide the people of Haiti. I know that consistently African American children are getting to High School reading at a 3rd grade level and not knowing that 8 X 7 is 56. I know that one of my female friends got slapped so hard by her husband that it dislocated her jaw but nobody knows that except me, her and her no good lousy husband. I have known that a pastor was sleeping with one of the married women of the church. I know that a little boy in the 5th grade placed on Ritalin is selling his pills to the teenagers on the corner on the way to his elementary school every morning. I know a woman who relocated to Louisville from the Katrina devastation and she only got $200 dollars from all the money given by good hearted folks from around the world for hurricane relief. And once again nobody will ever know unless I write about it and write about it well or at least write about it “good”.
What do you know that the rest of the world needs to know? Nobody needs to know all that stuff you say? You are just stirring up more trouble than its WORTH. Imagine if somebody had written about the Priest’s indiscretions with just one little boy, how many little boys would have been saved. What if I printed in the paper all of the names of the graduating seniors in Kentucky who can’t read the Preamble of the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address or the 23rd Psalms let alone understand what those documents mean. Would the “gap” then become WORTH closing? (Thank God you say, that I’m bound by the student privacy act.)
How many children would not die in Haiti if I had the guts to write Clinton, the Red Cross, Save the Children and Samaritan’s Purse to ask WHERE IS ALL OUR MONEY GOING? What do you know that you should not take to your dying grave? What will you say when God asks, “What did you bring that information with you to heaven for, when you should have left it in writing to be known while you were alive and as a reminder after you were gone?” If that becomes the case for me, then I guess you would have to put on my tombstone. Yolantha Harrison-Pace, 1955-20??. “She will never rest in peace because she was--THE WOMAN WHO NEVER WROTE.”
Yolanthapace@gmail.com
Twitter.com/writerwriter07
www.premierewriters.com
www.capacityInc.org