I Refused To Be Ignored!

What's up, Guys? I want to start off by wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving (no offense to those who don't celebrate such). I'm thankful for so many things, and having this gift of writing is definitely one of the things I'm so thankful for. Writing allowed me to speak freely to others, to express all aspects of myself while also connecting a bridge to others.

Now, to what I want to speak on today.  I don't know how you guys feel about it, but the number one pet peeve of mine is being ignored. I hate it to the core and it's the thing that irritates me the most about my writing journey (and people in general). Before I explain further, I must give you the origin of why. It all started with my father. When I was a child (before I knew I wanted to be a screenwriter), I was madly passionate about basketball. He tried to get me to play, but I wasn't ready at that time. I wasn't confident in myself and was a prolific cry baby. I wasn't ready to try to play until the start of my middle school years. Unfortunately, my dad no longer wanted any part of helping me. Sadly, he didn't say it like that (even though he might as well have), It showed in his dismissiveness and the disinterest when I'd ask him. It was always some kind of excuse why he couldn't. Here I am with this All-American father bashing me for not playing sports like him (for the record, I ran track, was pretty fast and still is *smirk emoji*), all because I wasn't ready in his time, and that was something that really hurt me. I wanted to play so bad, I just could never get him or anyone else to work with me, to acknowledge me. I was dedicated to basketball. I'd research all the basketball players on YouTube (especially Kobe, I admire him), study the basketball games on TV, study the different play styles of the teams, study the mentality of the winning teams, practice dribbling and jump-shots from morning to dawn. I lived for basketball, but I was the only one that knew it. Getting cut at the basketball tryouts always hurt me, but not like the last one from high school hurt me. I was the best shooter out there, there was a midrange drill where I made every single midrange shot, I was so proud. But, "You can shoot the lights out, but we need more than that." It hurt me so much, I had to let it go... Just kidding, I still watch it and stuff. I even go out on the court on occasions, it's just that passion I had for basketball migrated somewhere else.

Fast forward to my solidified writing journey, that neglected boy still lives in me, he eats at me. I can't cast him off because he lives in my passion. The same little boy I told you about with the wild imagination. There's another version of that boy who's all grown up (almost anyway). He's woke, he's poised, he's ready, and he's fed up with being ignored. I'll admit I wasn't all ways ready on this writing journey (as you know from my introduction post). I'm a person who embraces doing things the hard way because the easy way was never assessable (and it still isn't, but I'm black so...). Trial and error comes with that, but I didn't get discouraged of rejection, discouraged of feedback, discouraged as a writer. I kept at it, and kept at it, and kept at it. As a result, I stand before you a better writer and more inspired than I've ever been.

Despite what I stated in the latter, I'm still equally ignored. That's the shit I have an issue with accepting. I put in all this hard work and effort into my craft, into professionally presenting myself and my material, into ideal matches for my material or writing jobs, only to be ignored when you send them a message. That's some real inconsiderate shit. Like, I have a fucking creative writing degree. And for us young black writers/creatives to be treated like our degrees don't mean shit, like we're beneath a response really pisses me off. Now, some of you may say, "That's not the case, writing is hard for everybody." Okay (*Jay Z voice*), there's an recent article that informs us that five percent of the writer rooms in the television industry (good thing I don't want to be a TV writer) are black, go look for it and then say that quote with a straight face. Not to mention there's probably a very small number of young black writers within that five percent. And as far as young black writers in the film industry…My Blavity Article, that'll take care of that and everything else with this argument along with a hint at what I will speak on the next post date. 

This shit is not a coincidence, they not trying to include us, which gives them more entitlement to ignore us, to pass on us, to have every other excuse why we can't work for them. I'm here to tell you that I'm not going for that shit, and you shouldn't either. Especially if you're ready, you know you're ready, you know that you as a writer have something to offer in whatever field of writing you're pursuing. Our voices cannot be ignored because we are the majority in this country now, and that's not even a we're taking over mentality. It's more of a take your ass to Walmart and look around mentality (not at night though, lol). There's no excuse to succumb to not maximizing your full potential because it's ignored, you got to keep pushing. I refuse to continue to be ignored. I refuse to continue to go unheard. I have this gift of writing for a reason and I'm going to use it. And when the opportunity is provided to me that's on the way, it's going to be really hard to ignore me, just watch. Make sure it's hard for them to ignore you, too.