Write On: How I Regrouped, Reclaimed and Renewed My Voice

For #ThrowbackThursday, let me tell you about the moment I claimed my authentic writer's voice.

But first, I should say that I've known since about age 8 that I had a precociously distinct opinion about the world I lived in.

Granted, everything around me conspired to make sure I kept it to myself. I was poor. I was black. I was female. I was profoundly shy.

But I also knew how to think. I knew I could write. And I knew how to connect the dots between what was inside my mind and heart and what I could write down on a page.

So I wrote. In notebooks, on scraps of paper, in the margins of magazine pages. I even celebrated learning how to sign my name in cursive by using a blue ink pen to scrawl it on the front of my mother’s new red leather purse.

There’s only one reason I’m still alive today after pulling that stunt. My mother, Eloise Jones, used to say that she “saw” each of her 10 children before they were born. She swore she knew exactly who we were and what our personalities would be like.

Growing up, Mama always told me that I was different. Unfortunately, she usually only said it when she was frustrated by something I’d done or hadn’t done when I was supposed to. It was only at around age 19, after I'd convinced myself that I was a total weirdo because I was so shy and awkward and didn’t follow her orders very well, that Mama explained what she meant by labelling me different.

“I knew you were special,” she said. “I knew you were going to be somebody.”

Ahhh….so THAT's why she didn’t throttle me at age 8 for autographing her prized handbag!

That's why at age 17, as I was leaving for the elite Northwestern University with about $60 to my name and a couple of plastic suitcases, she stopped trying to prevent me from going even though she knew we couldn't afford it.

That's why a few years later, after the tuition bills were way past due, she welcomed me back home. I spent the next few years holed up writing, sending impassioned short stories to The Atlantic Monthly and firing off opinion columns to newspapers and magazines….most of which probably wound up in the nearest shredder.

And that’s why on that afternoon Mama shouted up the stairs that I had a phone call from Washington, D.C.—from a guy named Ben Bradlee—I finally grasped that in her own sideways kinda way, all she'd been trying to tell me was what my subconscious had been whispering since I was 8. (BTW, I wrote about my connection to legendary Washington Post Editor Ben Bradlee back in October 2014 for LinkedIn.)

I was a writer. The words I wrote could make people laugh or cry. They could open windows in other people’s minds. They could make a difference.

That's when I had to face facts. I had a voice. I had to use it.

So thanks, Mama, for pushing me down that path toward self-acknowledgement. When you made sure your children had library cards in kindergarten, you were giving them the greatest gift of all. Writing changed my life. It gave me a life.

But here’s the wildest thing of all…as of today, I have more than 245,000 followers—from six continents—on LinkedIn. Go figure. And I’ve been named a Top Ten Media Writer twice on this site. I considered starting a cult, but finally decided to just keep writing and see what happens.

Even when it's hard. Even when it's lonely. Even when there's no salary for doing it. Even when I sometimes forget that I'm actually pretty good at this stuff.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t publicly thank my fellow LinkedIn scribe and #TeamHuman Ambassador Grant Charles Adams for the inspiration that unclogged my psychic pipes recently. His brilliant epiphany about his own writing journey gave me a tremendous boost.

And to think it all started with this piece in the December 27th, 1982 Newsweek Magazine’s “My Turn” column, “What’s Wrong With Black English.” It was first time something I'd written was ever published. I interned at the New York Times because of this piece. And at the Washington Post. It’s been re-printed in dozens of college textbooks.

It gave me my debut as a nationally-recognized writer, even before I’d ever had a full-time journalism job.

I wrote about the phenomenal reaction to that piece in a follow-up February 9th, 1997 “My Turn” column, “Not White, Just Right.”

I've written a lot of stuff since then. Some of it was good. Some was even great. Some has been just okay. And there's still a book or two clattering around in the old noggin. I suppose it's time to pry one of those suckers out of there, huh?

Now, I know there’s an ongoing debate about these kind of intensely personal, self-revelatory dialogues on LinkedIn. For every prosaic screed, there’s an equal number of posts arguing that LinkedIn should be reserved strictly for networking and professional development purposes, and that content like this is better suited for Facebook. 

But for us writers, this is what networking and business looks like. This is how we share insights and encouragement. This is our profession.

I’m just sayin’….

#ThrowbackThursday #writing #journalism #inspiration