I had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.

Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

When I'm sitting in the church alone, I can hear singing of the old people. I can hear their singing and I can hear their praying, and sometimes I hum one of their songs.

I still don't even know if the sheriff will let me see him. And suppose he did; what then? What do I say to him? Do I know what a man is? Do I know how a man is supposed to die? I'm still trying to find out how a man should live. Am I supposed to tell someone how to die who has never lived?

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

"What for?" I said. "What for, Tante Lou? He treated me the same way he treated her. He wants me to feel guilty, just as he wants her to feel guilty. Well, I'm not feeling guilty, Tante Lou. I didn't put him there. I do everything I know how to do to keep people like him from going there. He's not going to make me feel guilty."