Dr. Taylor Cummings

No, it's a lot.

You know what I mean?

I've been struggling with that, honestly, on my own.

One, because writing at one point in my life was my lifeline.

Like I was literally writing just to stay in not an anxious state.

Like I was literally writing to save my life.

Like it was the only thing that really grounded me.

I was connected with myself because that's your stream of consciousness just flowing.

And so I think because of that, writing was...

difficult for me and then also like as much as it is a liberatory thing in terms of the power of the pen I also started to understand how oppressive it could be because our history also has a lot to do with the oral tradition and feeling like one I'm a natural talker yapper if you want to say it but that's that's a strength of mine you know and so understanding that I do have the gift of gab and understanding that we have been socialized and trained to feel like it's not important unless it's written down and then also knowing that if

They're burning our libraries down.

So what the hell am I writing a book for?

I was like, I want to be one of those old wise ladies.

I saw a professor say that if you got a 50, you got 50% right.

I do feel it's like a yin-yang type of thing.

And I think what you're talking about is the discipline.

And I think even for me, it's like the dissertation was a huge hump to get over.

There were so many days I did not.

I'm like, I signed up for this.

And I'm like, what the heck?