My Rule of Three

I have three writing rules: Start with some action. Use the power of repetition. And don't hold back.
Writing, for me, started with a poem about butterflies in second grade. And I stayed with personal poetry and micro stories until well after high school, but writing was hard. I didn't know how to form a story. I barely knew what a story was. I connected writing with speaking. I thought speaking was supposed to be important. I thought a person should only talk when they had something of importance to say, so my writings suffered and were only sketches of my thoughts, blueprints on how I saw the world around me.
I knew I had a problem. I was shy and introverted. I was scared of personal interaction (shy) and thought about my fear constantly (introverted). My first two years of college were the loneliest parts of my life because there was the hope of making new friends from the current people around me along with a persistent inaction, creating a pulsating conflict. I wanted friends, and I didn't know why I wasn't making any. I didn't know what college was. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have a mentor. I was totally alone, so I spent most of my time in the college library, in the stacks reading everything that could explain my dilemma. Who was I? What was life? Why was I here? How did I make a friend? I thought I could get answers from books. I thought there was some book that could tell me the secrets to being happy. I rested my soul on dusty nonfiction from the basement archives.
I, of course, never found answers to my questions. I, of course, never found the book I was searching for. I flunked out of college and went from job to job to job to prison still looking, still afraid of relating to people (shy) while examining my terror (introverted).
In prison, I went from nonfiction to fiction. I absorbed stories. I munched on them day after day, week after week, and year after year. But none of the novels gave me the answers I sought. None of those books told me why I didn't have a friend.
Some of the novels were good. Some were fair. But a great many of the narratives didn't start the story the way I felt was best: The protagonist had to wake up while the sidekick told a few jokes; the antagonist had to spend the first five pages with internal dialogue; or the author had to surround the characters with long, drawn-out living-room furnishings, which made the beginning of most stories slow, confusing, and downright awful. I didn't desire the “morning” setup. I didn't want the “internal” layout. I didn't need the “living-room” conditions.
All my life, I had sat back and waited for something to happen while wondering why good things were not happening to me in my life, so I wanted the characters in stories to be more proactive. I wanted to see the dispute in a novel. I wanted to hear the squabble in a narrative. I wanted to feel the conflict in a tale. I wanted action, action, action!
I also studied Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches while in prison. Seeing how he used anaphora while saying “I have a dream” over and over at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. I studied his alliteration, his allusion, and his ability to influence with rhythm, metaphors, and repetition. Using the same meaning with different words was powerful, and I began to see the same “meaning” with differences all around me: Different commercials for the same product. Different book covers for the same tale. Different clothes worn by the same person. The world was made up of subtle differences of the same thing, and I wanted to put that power into my stories.
After reading so many books, I, then, knew what a story was and how to write one, so I started inscribing my first fable with my two new rules for writing the last two years of my prison sentence. The story was called Bang! Tick Tock Gold about a white dove running in a race with other animals. It was a metaphor about me “running” in life. But after two years, I walked out of prison with the fable still incomplete. I had come up with at least three good endings, but the endings were tiny epilogues of the running fable after the race had finished, and I didn't want that. My goal had been to begin the allegory with the start of the race and to finish the race with the last word of the tale. I didn't want the reader to know who had won until the story was over. No epilogue. No tailpiece. No afterword. But I couldn't do it. The ending was impossible for me to write. So the piece sat around unfinished for over a year. And for a year, I began to see myself creep slowly back into some of the past habits I had before my imprisonment with those same questions arising: Who am I? What is life? Why am I here? And how do I make friends?
I wanted action, action, action! The same thing I longed for when reading novels in prison, so I signed up and took a creative writing class, and the week before I was to turn it in, I sat down and finished Bang! Tick Tock Gold. I didn't hold back. I put in everything I wanted to say about “running” and finally discovered an ending I was proud of. But I was horrified (shy) about what was going to happen (introverted) that I cried the night before. I was shaking. I was sweating, but I went to class and read my story because I had “run” up against a wall. My life wasn't going to change until I changed it myself. I had to be proactive. I had to be motivated. I had to take charge.
After reading my fable to my creative writing class, I was invited to speak at a spoken word gathering. Since then, reading my stories has become a part of my life. I am saying something important. I am showing the world what I see, giving my point of view on life.
The title, Bang! Tick Tock Gold, has changed to The Running Poem, and those interested can see me perform this piece here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSxl9....
I have three writing rules: Start with some action. Use the power of repetition. And don't hold back. When I write, I enjoy saying the same thing more than once. My favorite word is tautology. I am an advocate of triads and tricola. And I roll my sentences in powdered synonyms.
I am the only one capable of putting meaning in my life.
Who am I?
A writer.
Why am I here?
To tell stories.