A testament on how lazy a writer I've become will be evidenced on the following lines. You see, we have lost an amazing writer today. Nikki Harris was truly on some other shit. If you weren't a reader, I'm sure the archives are accessible. The link is on my blogroll under DeliciousClam.
But the reason I've called myself out on the writing tip is simply this: I want to make this post about Nikki, but it's gonna come out being all about me.
I started blogging with the intention of being as raw as possible. I used to read Nikki and realize a fatal flaw in my writing. It wasn't that I was raw, it was that I was mean. Nikki had the ability to be as raw as they come, but there was an emotion, a passion, a REALNESS underneath it all. Realness is a word that gets thrown around much too often, but it's what comes to mind when I think of Nikki and her blog.
I was a part of a couple of online writing groups with Nikki once upon a time. We (she, I, in one incarnation, Will, and a couple of other bloggers) would come up with writing assignments, as difficult as we could make them and try to write to them. It was fun and breezy, but it allowed us to witness each other at the height of our imaginative powers. I appreciated the push.
I've been writing recreationally for the past couple of weeks after a lengthy layoff. I'd say it was due to being blocked, but really it was due to being scared that my talent isn't what I think it is. I read Nikki, Hassan, Slish, Nisa, Allison, et al, and I think "Why the f*ck do I even pretend to call myself a writer?" I've come to the conclusion that I write because I can. It comes easy to me. But when I read a writer like Nikki, I know there's a depth that I can tap, another level I can reach that I'm not coming close to yet. I can go deeper. And I have my muse.
-Knockout Zed.
5 comments:
Agreed.
Brother, I've just about read a ton of other blogs and tributes and such and it is hard for me to respond. I think a few people knew about the connection we had, so I don't want to taint folks tributes and words with my stank... SO this is the only place I decided to post a reply.
If you never knew how real a person could be then you did not know her.
I am glad I got the chance to know such realness. Most of us in our lifetime will never experience that.
We were kindred and there is a piece of me gone but I have more than than words to go by when I feel that void.
This is hard, but not harder than what Aswad and her parents have to go through. Pray for them, for it's folk like us that have to pick up after we mourn and carry on.
Right now, I gotta find a way to do that. I'm sure some lesson I learned while walking the path with her will shine not just for me, but for others who feel that same void.
Man you said a mouthful and much more. She and some of the others are hard to measure up to. Yet I still try on occasion.
She will be missed.
And after Brother Hassan, I can't add much more.
when hassan told me last night, I think part of my heart melted right then and there. I don't say this lightly...I've lost my sister. I know yall feel me. my thoughts are with her family now.
i couldn't put the words together to answer how losing her has made me feel. it hurt hurt hurt. her words were a constant reminder that writing was magic, that this thing called blogging brings us together, when often times writing is a solitary act.
i'm so thankful i've gotten to break bread with you and wifey, develop a friendship with Blah Blah Blah, meet Slish, and Will and a few others.
it reminds me that i'm not crazy that these words are not in vain.
her life was not in vain, which means that nor can be this pain.
We will be hard pressed to find another like her. In fact, I think we never shall.
Thank you Zed for writing this.
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