Here at the checkered flag of this decades-long prison sentence, I figure it’s time to pay homage to the craft that saved my life…
“Why even bother?” you may be asking. Good question. I ask myself the same thing all the time. I write because I have to write. Because the empty half-life of the yard and its parlay tickets and its dope and hard looks and gangs and stabbings is the same at every prison. Because writing gives me an identity other than failure-loser-criminal. Because I’m growing old in this shithole and I’ll never have a child of my own. This book is my legacy, proof that once upon a time, a kid named Izzy James wandered the earth. Prose for Cons says everybody has a story in them. This is mine.” —On the Shoulders of Giants, 2016
I remember exactly where I was when I scribbled the above words into my notebook—the year, the prison, the unit I was living in, the faces in the surrounding bunks. I remember the uncertainty too. That old familiar self-doubt. Beginning a book can feel like staring up the face of Everest for me. I was unsure where or how to begin, unsure if I was even capable of writing a novel. This, despite the fact that I had already written two at the time. It’s something I’ve come to know intimately over the years, this low-grade anxiety—Who do you think you are, writing a book? You didn’t even finish high school. You’re an uneducated prisoner. Nobody wants to read that shit—all the way up until the moment the pen hits the page. Then, almost magically, the fear and self-doubt begin to fade. It may take a few sentences. It may even take a few paragraphs. But inevitably, the characters and narrative forces take over and the law of momentum kicks in. I am a conduit. The story moves through me.
This is precisely what happened with Giants, just as it did with all the other books I’ve written in various correctional institutions over the last fifteen years. I can feel it happening even now, in real time, as I write these words. Momentum. What a beautiful and exhilarating thing to experience. We’ll cover it more extensively in Chapter Eight. But it would be criminally negligent of me not to acknowledge it here, in the opening paragraphs of this book, considering the profound impact it has had on my life.
If you’ve read On the Shoulders of Giants, you may remember the craft manual that Izzy received as a gift from a teacher at the notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. It was a book that resurfaced on a dusty prison library shelf when he was a few years into a life sentence almost a decade later. A book that shaped him as a writer. I think most aspiring authors have probably stumbled upon a few of these in our noble pursuits of unlocking the Great American Novel within. I definitely have—and I’ll list some of those pivotal influences in Chapter Nine—but craft manuals (including this one) are similar to restaurant menus . . . sooner or later we need to eat the food.
When I was writing Giants, I kept envisioning a young person in a set of circumstances similar to my own—serving a long prison sentence, disgusted with the colossal mess he had made of his life, seeking an identity other than “failure-loser-career criminal.” Maybe he’s attempting to navigate the yard politics of race and gang culture or dealing with PTSD from the unrelenting violence or battling addiction . . . maybe he’s in solitary confinement when he comes across the book. But as he toggles between the alternating first and third person viewpoints of Izzy and Pharaoh and absorbs the subtle and not so subtle lessons on things like dialogue, irony, and the art of the twist; I wanted him to come away feeling empowered and inspired. To not just think it was an awesome book when he turned the final page, but to say to himself, “I think I can write a novel!”
I have no idea whether this has ever happened. I hope so. What has happened is a steady stream of kites, emails, comments, and letters from recently released prisoners—male and female—saying, “Dude, you wrote my life.” Supreme compliment by the way. Massive return on energy. The other thing that happens is, every once in a while, someone will complain about not being able to find Prose for Cons on Amazon. “It’s the book you quote in On the Shoulders of Giants, the one with all the rules for writing, the one that Izzy learned from . . .” The interesting thing about this book within the book they are referring to is that it was just a plot device, a means of conveying information. Prose for Cons did not exist . . . until now.
I’ve actually been meaning to write it into existence for years. But there was always the next fiction project tugging on my sleeve. Now, here at the checkered flag of this decades-long prison sentence, with eight books on the shelf and the next chapter of my life awaiting on the other side of the razor wire, I figure it’s time to pay homage to the craft that saved my life.
While this is fundamentally a how-to manual that explores the discipline of writing, it is also a love letter to the pursuit of mastery. And although the intended audience is the incarcerated scribe, a criminal record is not mandatory. This book is for anyone who feels a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the status quo. And it offers the tools—both mechanical and philosophical—to alter the trajectory of your story arc and embark on your very own hero’s journey. All via the power of the written word.
But be forewarned. This is not a book of shortcuts. You will find no cheat codes or life hacks in the following pages. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Not for you and certainly not for me. I’ve been pouring my soul into these books for fifteen years and have yet to see International Bestseller emblazoned across a single cover. This may never happen. Or it could happen tomorrow. But what I’ve gained in the process is more valuable than paper currency or fleeting notoriety. So if you’re committed to doing the work, for the work’s sake, turn the page. As the legendary Steven Pressfield would say, “Your unlived life awaits.”
