Welcome Beat editorial note readers to this latest double issue, 27.07/08, of writing and art from inside juvenile hall and beyond. Before you begin to flip through this one-of-a-kind issue of writing and art from our many standout contributors, we hope you will take a moment to read our editorial note. This week we are all in for a treat, as our dear friend and colleague, Alyssa, steps up to write this latest editorial note, giving OT a well-deserved break. For those of you who know Alyssa, lucky you, she is simply an amazing colleague, facilitator, and friend. We are all so fortunate to have this thoughtful hardworking colleague in our lives. Before we pass the keyboard to Alyssa, we want to inform you that on behalf of The Beat Within, David Inocencio won the 2022 Justice Trailblazer award, from The Crime Report! For those of you who don’t know, The Crime Report is based in New York City and has been a long-time partner with The Beat, posting various Beat pieces on their award-winning website for nearly 20 years. Of course, we are all humbled by this acknowledgement of our work, given for over 25 years and counting we have stayed true to our mission, giving voice to our young and old inside the criminal justice system and beyond. Be sure to give props to yourself for believing in this work enough to contribute, and more props to your Beat facilitators and friends, this work is truly a team effort!
What’s up my Beat Within readers, writers, artists, and facilitating/editing team! It’s always a pleasure to be able to hold space here from Sacramento, California and talk to y’all for a bit!
The few times that I have done the editorial note for our magazine, I’ve always had some intentional purpose, or at least an idea that I wanted to share with you all. However, this time around, I don’t. But what I do know, is that I will find my purpose as I write this, and in the end, I will know why I was forced (not really forced to, but you know what I mean) to sit down and write it.
Like so many of our TBW contributors, I am a writer. I have written journal entries, poems, you name it. And one thing that I have learned as a creative individual, who needs to inspire others in order to feel purpose, is that when I have absolutely no desire to write, or create, that’s when I need to do it the most.
For the past couple of months, I haven’t written one piece of anything – no journal entry, no poem, nothing. I actually think the last thing I wrote was my editorial note for TBW at the end of the year. With that being said, when the opportunity came around to write the ed note for this issue, I willingly took it, for the mere fact that I’ve had no inspiration to do so.
I think this entire situation is ironic, because for about the last nine or ten years that I have facilitated workshops, I have never taken an uninspired excuse to not write from a young person. Every time that a young person told me they didn’t want to write, or they didn’t have anything they wanted to write about, I always took it as an opportunity to say, “Well, what do you mean? You have a ton of amazing things to say, and you could influence so many readers if you just tried to write something, ANYTHING!”
Yet here I am. Avoiding the pen and paper. This is not the first time I’ve had writer’s block, or a time where I felt uninspired. Yet every time I forced myself to sit down and overcome the resistance, my creative energy came back. This idea translates to such a bigger picture!
What I have learned about being a creative person (which essentially is all of us to our core), is that resistance will come, and it will come hard. Right when you are about to put out your best work, there will be this powerful sense of resistance not to produce.
Right when you are about to write your best song, produce your best film, or put your best idea into action, there will be a resistance that tries to stop you, slow you down, or leave you sometimes completely uninspired. That choice to ignore that resistance and push through it, is the critical choice we make as humans to say yes to what we want.
It is the determining factor that will either put us closer to our dreams, or stagnant in our current position in life. For me personally, writing is my direct way of telling the universe and God what I want in life. When I write just random journal entries, I am putting that energy into the world and leaving it there, so that the universe will show up for me.
When I hold onto those words or those ideas, I am not allowing the world to make room for me. I am not allowing the universe to know what I want, and make it happen. If I don’t plan my life out, and write it in a planner, I am not setting up myself for success as far as time management. Writing has always been the key for my goals to come to fruition.
So when I go months without writing, nothing else in my life seems to be in alignment. I don’t find myself progressing in life, my mental health goes all over the place, and my spirit just doesn’t feel up to par. It didn’t click until a couple years ago, when I realized just how powerful writing is in my life.
I also realized that I need to take that same advice that I tell my youth. There will be times when we feel uninspired, or feel like we have nothing to say, and in those times, you probably have the most powerful things to say, because your words are coming directly from raw emotion.
It’s coming from a place in your life where you’re down or confused. Just like we put our amazing ideas, our intentions, and our positive and negative thoughts out on paper, we need to also be sure to put our uninspired thoughts down as well. The act of making ourselves put our thoughts down on paper is the act that could spark that change. That simple decision could be the catalyst to get your creative momentum going again.
So now that I wrote a bit for you all, I know what my purpose was to do so to begin with. It was to reignite the spark that I needed to continue my writing and my creative process. This is exactly why I love my job here at The Beat Within – not only do we hold space for our young writers to express themselves, but we are also constantly reminded of the power of writing. I thank you for always giving me the platform to teach, but also to learn. Keep writing!
Thank you, Alyssa, for finding inspiration to write and we are sure inspiring us readers to do the same. We think you will all agree that the writers features in this latest issue do not need much inspiration to write as they truly showcase their talents as writers, poets, thoughtful students, aspiring teachers, and important messengers. We can’t thank you all enough for your time and work. Enjoy this latest issue of The Beat Within. There is truly plenty of wisdom to be taken in. Reach out anytime. See you all soon…