How Doing Time Inspired Me to Write
- By Michael Colbert
Writing has really helped me tremendously while incarcerated. Writing for me at first was basically in the form of letters to the outside world, particularly to my loved ones, I’ve written so many letters while incarcerated and I didn’t realize that, “Hey, I could actually write.” All of my letters was short or long stories told, or asking about what was going on with everyone, some of my early writing was of myself in lock-up, then I started writing fantasies on myself of how I wanted to live and be useful in reality, making a new life, creating a new lifestyle. Then once I started reading more books, different authors’ perspectives (writing styles) it all came together like two love birds, it really showed me so many writing styles of how one could write and make things, stories seem so real, taking them beyond a world where one could escape, which help me escape at times to a better world, so when I finally joined a creative writing course while in prison, it was a blessing in disguise to take me beyond, to meet a new family of gifted phenomenal writers with many talents and backgrounds of (writers knowledge) professional and non professional, editors, professors, storytellers and genuine book writers, which is now a big part of my re-entry as well as recovery in helping me stay extremely focused with a disciplined reason to stay out of trouble and with the creative writing family that I’m now associated with, I now have the feel of love and responsibility that helps me in my meditation, preparation, and sensibility, so therapeutic it is.
When I started out in prison I was bored, but I noticed a lot of books was laying around untouched in the 70s, the books mostly in the library was a bunch of hood books like Ice-Berg Slim, Donald Goines’s, and the book of life, Book of Toast by Dennis Wepner. So I started reading those books at first because of the lure of the attraction of seeing my slick criminal minded self, oh I read some stories that was exactly like me, so the attraction was up my alley, like the sun and moon’s light shining on Earth, all of a sudden the hood books became not really boring but I was seeing guys reading other authors (books) like Jackie Collins, Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen King, so now I’m reading some great stories that not necessary hood but then this gave me a idea that as you write, you have to be talented and flexible to not just write one way or style, you might start out writing about Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy speaking that hood language and culture, then you are in China, Poland, or Russia the Kremlin speaking a foreign language with different cultures; so now I know just how talented an author can be with their perspective point of views rather its bias, prejudice or what have you may!
I’ve learned that being a good storyteller, author, is delving into research, to places, times, events, maps to become better in writing storytelling, putting a story together with a good beginning, a superb middle and a great ending. So as I graduated to a higher grade in the school of hard knocks (prison) I started reading more books on different levels, on any and everything, fiction, non-fiction, science, astrology, you name it, I would read it or glance at it, but when a brother introduced me to an autobiography (YES! Malcolm X) I fell in love with a brother, a brother (Malcolm X) who went through a transformation in his life like me from crime to reforming in his ways and thinking to articulate his mind set for the better to righteousness, I felt that something in me, so now I am reading autobiography books of conscious thought, May-O, Marx, books in histories, Egypt, Rome, Greece, Stalin, Martin Luther, Mandela, so now I’m doing time and writing letters a little different from when I first started doing time with (I hope this letter finds you in the best of health) to being a little more articulate in addressing whoever it is I’m writing, so I’ve read poems, essays, narratives of all sorts which kind of shaped my writing.
My last time in prison was the best time I had because I accomplished so much to help me in re-entry or recovery, joining a creative writing course with John Proctor as that guy, that instructor was the best thing that inspired me to write, my first writing of a short story, a short storied book called Subway Stories, which actually described me and how I fantasized on how I want to one day become this best book seller, writer on books, the first page tells that story, not the subway story, that’s just me in one of the stories trying to get it right and staying out of trouble.
Michael Colbert, pictured above in the green shirt, is one of the pillars of this intriguing creative writing course who would like to share and welcome all to a fun reading and writing of his personal experience in a long journey of an imaginative mind. Michael has been part of Re/Creation since participating in its earliest workshops on Rikers Island, and has been instrumental in developing our organization.