Wednesday, January 28, 2009
My day began before 2:00 a.m. Last night I received an envelope from Carole that contained a considerable amount of correspondence from readers and visitors to my Web sites. Since I had to respond to many people today, I began early. After writing two blog entries, I turned to the correspondence. That work kept me busy until 6:15 a.m. I ran early again because I was scheduled to meet with the TOAD group at 8:00 a.m. One of the envelopes I received came from Angila, a teacher from Pennsylvania. She has been using a book I wrote to help educate at-risk kids. The students really enjoyed learning from my book and Angila included letters from eight of her students. They wanted me to write them with more information about what it has been like to live in prison for so many years.
I brought the package of letters I had received to the TOAD meeting and shared them with our group’s staff sponsor as well as the other members of the group. Since the teacher wanted her students to write regularly, I invited the other TOAD participants to join me in responding to the students. They expressed enthusiasm for writing about their prison experiences and sending them to the kids.
These types of projects accomplish many goals. They help kids who are at-risk develop a better understanding of the perils that come with criminal choices; they motivate prisoners to connect with society; they provide the teacher with original and creative content; they offer prisoners opportunities to develop their writing and communication skills. By making the letter-writing project a part of TOAD, I first had to seek permission from the staff sponsor. We’re waiting for that permission from her superior.
My running tally now reads 433 miles in 47 continuous days, as I logged 10 miles before my meeting with TOAD. I’ve run 261 miles so far in 2009.
Other than some editing I did on the manuscript I’ve been working on, I spent the afternoon and early evening responding to more correspondence. Since all of my writing is now done in longhand, the hours I devote are extensive, regularly requiring 16-hour days. I’m grateful for the work. It keeps my mind focused and sublimates my time in prison. Without the typewriter, however, my correspondence to family and my time available for reading has diminished. In prison, I find that I constantly must choose how I’m going to allocate my time. With release coming sooner, I focus primarily on the preparations I must make for release.
PDF 
