Writing Inside

Every Saturday morning for at least four hours, I sit in my cut and write. I begin shortly after 6:00 am count is taken and continue nonstop until noon count, pausing only for the occasional coffee refill and bathroom break.



I’ve been asked almost every weekend “What do you write about?” That’s an easy question to answer. I’ll describe current blogs I’m preparing, or a short story I’m writing, or discuss a chapter outline or edits for a book I have underway. As I said, the question is easy. The tougher question follows. “Why do you write in here?” That question goes to the heart of who I am in this place.


It began three days after my arrest. I found myself in a totally alien world. People like me, I told myself, don’t go to jail. I was surrounded by people completely different from those I knew “in the real world”. I hated where I was, hated who I was. Everything I knew, everything I worked for, everything I believed in, was taken from me. I was lost, alone, scared and depressed. I had lost all hope. I wanted out and was willing to do whatever I had to to end the pain, fear and disappointment I felt.


As I sat there making all the necessary plans I thought had to be made, I heard my name called over the pod intercom. I left my cell and checked in with the duty officer who directed me down the hallway to the counselor’s offices. A middle-aged, well dressed black woman stepped out of one office and waved me in.


I sat down in a hard plastic chair in front of her desk. I looked around. Her walls were covered in rainbows adorned with the words “faith”, “believe”, and “hope”.


“I saw the article about you in the paper” she said and she handed me the prior day’s newspaper where details of my arrest were spelled out.


“I’ve watched you since you arrived. You may not know it yet, but you’re here for a reason. You have something to say, something to give. Your life isn’t over because of this.”


I listened intently as she spoke. A few moments and a phone call later, I had a job working in the jail’s GED program.


For the first time in three days I felt a glimmer of hope, a reason to go on. That afternoon, I walked down the hallway to the classrooms and began working with inmates as they studied for their GED. That evening, I sat down on my bunk and made my first diary entry. Every day since then, for thirty-one months, I’ve written.


Why do I write in here? Because every day, no matter how dark it may seem, writing gives me hope, gives me a purpose, gives me a reason for going through all this. There are stories I need to tell, blogs I need to write. Sitting in my cut, every morning, words roll out. Some are better than others.


Last week, I received a blog response from a person whom I’ve never met. She came across my writing a few months ago. She writes a newsletter for her church’s prison ministry. She wrote the following:


“You have much to say that I haven’t read anywhere else and I read at least two books a week. Just now reading all your entries the Holy Spirit spoke to me several times, and I even tweeted one of your excerpts – ‘How you accept those who hurt you says more about you than any single trait in your character.’”


I don’t remember writing that, but I know it was written during one of my Saturday morning writing sessions. I also know writing in here has made me a better writer. Somehow, I girded up the emotional courage to make that first journal entry which enabled me to glimpse beyond that black hole of my circumstances and offer me a glimmer of hope.


I’m reminded of the poem “To Althea”, by Robert Lovelace:


Stone walls do not a prison make,
nor iron bars a cage;
minds innocent and quiet take
that for a hermitage.


If prison is my hermitage, I’ve become a better writer and a much better man for it.