Miniseries Overview: “You Can’t Say That!”

Reference The Writers’ Block Podcast Episode 95, published on February 23, 2023.

As one who happily identifies as a Black writer, language is both color, tool and canvas. There are certain things I as a Black writer will say, do, and use which go along with that experience. Moreover, people whom are non-Black will not get away with those same vehicles.

For this second miniseries of this year, I am going to break down what this phrase means, and why (in certain instances), this a farce.

Part 1: March 4

“You Can’t Say That”

Part 2: March 11

“Why I Say That”

Part 3: March 18

“You Can’t Get Like Me”

Part 4: March 25

“Anything You Can Do, I Can Write Better”

Language is power, and power is language.

Here we go.

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To The First Work-Day 27

There is a subtle power to admitting you love someone. Admitting that there is a person in the world who you want to know, want the best for, and perhaps think of before yourself.

This is what we chase. This is what I strive to convey on screen, on pages, or by voice.

This thing, this power, I seek to capture, or remind the world exists.

For that cause, I write.

For that cause, I can’t give up.

To The First Work-Day 26

Motherhood has taught me how dexterous love is, and how tough it is. While I am at the end of this first leg of motherhood (my children are teenagers), I am reflecting on how many times my heart had to break and be put back together.

And for that cause am I mystified why my heart didn’t break. Through divorce, deaths, struggles co-parenting with a man I married to forget another one I couldn’t live without…

My heart kept beating.

It began to beat…for them.

While it broke for the loss of a love…it beat for them.

The responsibility of being present in their lives, being a guiding force, a safe place? It is powered by love.

I learned that a mother’s heart is its own army. Even in death, I’ll leave love with and within them.

To The First Work-Day 23

If you were to ask me when I fell in love with words, I would tell you I don’t know.

I would tell you that I fell in love with language and accents first. I fell in love with storytelling before I ever wrote a story down. I believe it is with that particular proclivity, that made room to love words.

From that, yields the roux for creativity.

Some use color to paint the world. My color has syllables.

To The First Work-Day 22

If I can get it off my head, and I can see it to deal with it.

There is a reason why I journal, why I write, and why it is I use that visible pain to write characters that are believable. I am learning to honor what I feel, how I feel, and give myself permission to do what I had not before: feel.

At this portion of my life, I have the need to honor what I emote. Even if it is just to myself.

I am learning that as I protect everyone else dear to me, I cannot neglect myself.

To The First Work- Day 20

Audre Lorde said that self-preservation is a radical act.

It took me to getting to age 40, to appreciate that. When I sit still too long, I feel a pain in my left hip. Not the joint, but the tendon. It pulls at me, reminding me of my age…and that I survived COVID-19 as a PCT during the first wave of the pandemic. Then, the snowball happens.

My mind wanders…it reminds me that I am still here.

I’m a rape survivor.

I’m a survivor of domestic violence.

I’m surviving racism.

I’m surviving sexism.

And misogynoir.

I am learning to say ‘No’, and absolutely mean it. I am learning to listen to God, and His gift of intuition. I am appreciating the fact I am a survivor–in control of the story I present to the world, and I tell myself. I am looking at myself in the mirror and smiling back at the woman that is there.

She and I? We gon be alright.

To The First Work-Day 19

I haven’t turned my back on love. I don’t think that I know how. There is a part of me which is cautious and reckless when it comes to love. I am at the age where I am confident of what I want, who I am, and the caliber of relationship I want. Yet, I am still reckless enough to give into the abandon that new love brings.

I don’t think that is me being jaded –I’m a love poet. I don’t think that I have the right to be. Yet, what I do have is the realization love is still really…and can still be mine too.

I deserve a love that will be healthly.

That will not demand I break when you will never bend.

I deserve a love big enough to hold me up, keep me close, and causes me to remember how deep it goes.

Indeed, I am not built for the shallow–the forever love, wherever he is, cannot be built for the shallow either.

To The First Work-Day 18

Michael is the name of my favorite archangel.

Which is funny seeing that the most protective people I have ever dated were named, Michael. I have often wondered why that is, and what I did to attract them to me.

My childhood sweetheart: Michael.

The first guy I loved: Michael.

First man to break my heart: Michael.

The man that loved me to the point the gift of writing came back: Michael.

On some end, that’s fitting. Oddly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

To The First Work-Day 17

I count myself as a unique, mystical woman.

And for that cause, I think it was natural that I would be a writer.

It seems natural that I would be one that would fall in love with a world unseen, and subject to my own imagination. Next February, I will be celebrating 10 years as a published author.

I will be celebrating 10 years of doing what I love…what I have dreamt of doing since I was 10, 11 years old.

Daily I chase this talent: daily I am amazed by it.

To The First Work-Day 13

The sexiest thing I have done is choose myself. All of me…

Choosing me has required accepting myself on a level that I wasn’t brave enough before. I think—especially as a Black woman!—you must accept yourself so that you can move in the world unencumbered!

Racism makes Black women shrink, second guess, and hate themselves.

Being Black and woman is a revolutionary act.

Self-love is a revolutionary act.