What Does It Mean to be a Writer?

By BradQuan Copeland.

What does it mean to be a writer? I ask myself that every time I struggle to pick up a pen and stroke its point against the loose-leaf canvas. Thoughts live as murmurs within the oubliette of my mind that I struggle to make sense of and set free, leading to the thought that a writer who can’t write is utterly useless. That’s so often the feeling. But I’ve come to learn it’s far from the truth. Hell, if anyone would have told my younger self, who managed a C on my English Regents and had to take Basic Writing my freshman year of college, that someday I’d be writing a column for an indie magazine, I would have laughed in your face,  among other things. 

The truth, as I’ve learned it, is that even when one can’t write, the story writes itself throughout the various daily motions we move through. And with time, in some way, shape, or form, the narrative will reveal itself. I learned this at the tender age of 17, knowing nothing of life, yet feeling I had it all figured out. And then, my mother passed, my father and I became estranged, I was aimlessly drifting through college, and two years later, the woman I thought was the one abruptly ended our relationship. 

Cracks morphed into ravines far beyond my leap. There was no safety net, no reprieve, and no salvation. All I had was the loathsome kinship of bottles, blunts, and pills to accompany the five-ton onslaught of raging emotions, bawling and battering against the walls of my skull, yearning to be heard. 

Somehow, a pen and pad found their way into my blurred existence, and I began painting the desolate atmosphere I inhabited. The work was raw, unremarkable, but it flickered with potential. I continued to write, explore, and evolve through both self-inflicted and uncontrollable ruin, finding inspiration in every blemish that revealed its wretched head.  Poetry turned into rapping, which grew into screenwriting and other forms of prose. Then came the 10-year block, and as I slowly threw myself to the edge and faced the cavernous howls of the abyssal beast, I once again found the pen. 

A suicide note became a poem, marking my return to form. When I placed it in a Facebook poetry group, it caught the attention of a woman who would soon become my mentor, Merlina Davis, a worldly, rebellious soul and esteemed poet who confidently colors outside the lines. She helped me realize that my purpose bleeds through the pen, and since then, I’ve never lost sight of what it means to possess that ability. 

A writer writes for pleasure, therapy, and survival. I can admit my obsession with perfectionism often hinders my joy, but it’s that very flaw that pushes me to carefully and relentlessly craft my work beyond what’s expected of me.

“Wow, you wrote this?” is the question I’m often asked when I share my work. That reaction convinces me I can speak to generations both before me and far after me. Great work, no matter when it is created, will always find its audience. Socrates, James Baldwin, Pierre Boulle, and Charles Bukowski wrote long before I was even a thought, and yet their words still find and inspire me. 

Great writers find diamonds within cindered soot that drags you down with every step. They aren’t afraid to push boundaries, to test the limits of sanity and madness. They are willing to saw themselves open and throw their flesh onto paper because they know that, no matter how rough or ugly it may be, someone, somewhere will feel it, and maybe, just maybe, it will provide the spark needed to challenge what we call acceptable. The pen has journeyed with me through unhinged bursts of wind formidable enough to gnaw shingles from rooftops and lift men from the comfort of their feet, to the uncomfortable yet serene and enlightening process of internal rebirth. This is why I write: because conformity has never managed to weave into the fabric of my existence. I don’t just want more; I strive to be more. With a pen, I can mold my lane, but it’s with grit and sheer audacity that I can own it.