Walk Worthy Press: Good To Me by LaTonya Mason

Author Testimony

I grew up not knowing where I'd spend the night, when I'd see either of my parents, or what I'd eat, but the one thing I did know was where to find something to write with and something to write on. I would easily be found writing on the back of old cereal boxes, match books, in the margins of books, anything I could get my hands on. To this day, there are times I feel like I could fall apart unless I get my hands on a pen and some paper. Writing was my first saving grace.

Before I knew that writing was a gift, a talent, and a calling, I believed in its' power. It was the note I penned to my neighbor that had me forcibly taken out of a neglectful home. My mother was an alcoholic and I had been sexually abused by one of her long-time boyfriends, and I wrote an account of the last incident. I was ten. A year before that, I wrote a letter to a nearby church and earned my first Christmas gifts. A few years earlier, my second grade teacher published a poem I write in her collection of poems. I still remember that poem:

Me and the wind
Are very good friends
He tells me every little secret.
And when I make him very mad
He blows on me very hard.

Yeah, I know I wasn't blessed with any lyrical skills but if someone had've been paying attention, they would have been able to see I was writing about the man who was sexually abusing me, and exploiting me with gifts. And, at the same time talking about the Wind of the Holy Spirit, Who knows all the secrets and mysteries of God and tirelessly comforted me through those helpless days, nights, and years.

I also penned a letter and sent it along with my college application. It overshadowed my average grades and made room for my acceptance at Appalachian State University, for undergraduate and graduate studies.

I went to ASU with great hopes of becoming a writer. In my first semester, I took a writing course. On the first day of class, the professor professed that there were always two types of students in his classes--stars and BS'ers. I sat in his class anxiously taking notes and listening because I wanted to prove that as the only black student in his class, I was a star. Two weeks later, after our first exam, he returned mine with a red inscription at the top that read, "D+, You're a BS'er." I dropped the course and gave up my dream of becoming a writer.

That is, until the writing bug hit me again. The university's newspaper staff hired me, and put me on their "no more assignments" list after I turned in my first article. For several years, I wrote for ASU's black student newsletter, The Harambee, and earned my own column. But, I didn't recognize this as an accomplishment, I just thought they were desperate to fill some space.

What I wanted to learn in the writing course that I dropped out of, I learned five years later at a faculty development center where I worked during graduate school. While editing and evaluating tenured faculty's grant proposals, and organizing professional workshops where I had to write tantalizing blurbs to get professors to sign up, my writing skills went to another level. But, after graduate school, I didn't write anything except daily entries in my journal.

In 2001, my father sent me a newspaper clipping on Denise Stinson and her company, Walk Worthy Press. He admonished me to write her. I stuck the clipping in a file that can't be found to this day. Two years later, I purchased Victoria Christopher Murray's book, Temptation. The book was so good, I read it in one sitting. The next day, I went back to the bookstore and bought Joy. That's when it dawned on me to look to see who her publisher was. When I saw Walk Worthy Press on the book's spine, I thought I was going to pass out.

I wrote to Victoria praising her for her books and thanking her for opening doors for writers like me who would come behind her. I was surprised to get a response from her, and in her kind words she admonished me to write. "...Remember, the gifts and callings of God are without repentance," she wrote. "If you've been given this gift by God and if you're called to deliver His message through writing...you just have to do it!" Her words filled me with such a reverential fear that I began writing the very next day.

Just as I used to do when I was a child, I went to a quiet place in my house, quieted my mind and searched my heart. And I wrote by faith, trusting God as He gave me the words to write. Good To Me is the outcome. Like 2 Timothy 3:16 says about the Bible, Good To Me is inspired by God. When I went back over the final versions of the book, I had to give God credit for what had been written, because I didn't write it alone. He gave me the characters, the lines, the plots, and the words.

I remember writing about Emmitt and his mother, and I tried to force her to make her get up off the floor after she'd collapsed, but she wouldn't. When I realized that she was dying, I started crying. So, here I was at my computer, writing and crying, acting like more of a fool than Emmitt was.

The characters are based loosely on my life's events and my personality. I used to be as wild as Iesha. I'm a lot like Charity, our upbringings, but she's bolder and riskier than me. My adoptive parents are just like Charity and Iesha's parents. They are funny. And while I was writing Emmitt's character, I had a real strong aversion to my ex-husband. When he'd call or visit our children, I was ugly towards him because of what Emmitt was doing to Charity. I don't personally know anyone like Harmony, but I meet people like her in the world and on the psychiatric unit where I work. It is very easy to fall into the new age trap.

Readers, it is my hope that Good To Me will encourage, entertain, and empower you, all while exalting God. Be blessed.

LaTonya Mason

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