Ann A Myta

“Who I Am Is Who I Am”
By Ann A. Myta

"I never ever in my wildest imagination, ever envisioned myself becoming a writer --- let alone a prison-writer, but nevertheless --- there I was in prison, and writing.
It took me years of denying the endless possibilities of what I could’ve accomplished in life, as well as who I could’ve turned out to be, other than the person who I ended-up being, in order to find my way into the prison system for the very first time at 51 years-old.
Although during the course of my life; there were plenty of near misses and close brushes with the law, and only because of the lifestyle in-which I led --- but I’d never made-it to the inside of a prison cell, up until now in 2008.
With over two years already served, and only a couple of more months to go before my (M.R.D) mandatory release date: to which that, and the phrase the big house, were two of the many prison terms that I picked-up on as a ward of the state --- and up to this point in my life, I’d never given too much thought to either one of them, at-least until I found out just how big the house was.
But in the mean-while, as I bide my time looking at the world differently from behind iron bars and concreted walls of a prison world, I shared a broken down typewriter that seemed to follow me like a lost puppy from institution-to-institution, and with hundreds and thousands of other inmates, who also require the constant use of a pens and pencils, typewriter, and, or a computer terminal for one reason or another, and by that mass process of use, there was never a fully functioning and working typewriter, or a computer on hand, no matter where I went-to, or where I ended-up at the end of the day, thereby with this and a number of other things that could go wrong, that did go wrong, made it all that much-more harder for me to adhere to the standard rules of composition writing, especially when it came to using proper spacing, and corrective punctuation marks, along with a full understanding of certain words and their proper uses in sentences, paragraphs and phrases. ---- So please, To Whom It May Concern, don’t think me inconsiderate to the task you may have of rendering a fair and impartial judgment on my works that are soon to follow. In addition to the lack of a working typewriter, or computer, it was also the books that I occasionally found in the less than accommodating so-called prisons libraries regarding rules and guidelines of writing, where more times than not, they tend to be out-dated --- and not to mention, lots of times I come up short simply because of missing pages. So in the meanwhile in my defense, I did my best with what I had to work with, meaning my own thoughts of mind that’s been constantly developing over the course of time through my many years of life’s experiences out on the streets.
So let me begin this formal introduction of myself by saying that I have a hook (writers term) one that possibly sets me apart from all others when it comes to my own self proclaimed original style of writing. Where each and every one of my stories, tales, and documented essays that I’ve ever written, originates and ends in the state of Wisconsin, more-so around the immediate Milwaukee area, the one place, that I’ve come to truly love and call my home ever since I arrived here over 48 years ago --- and as it stands, I can’t rightly coin a colorful phrase, or turn a gray sky blue with words, but what I can do is tell a story from beginning to end with a little sump’um sump’um in the middle that’ll make it interestingly intriguing, in addition, if needed, I can make it mysterious, or even diabolical with an added twist --- for this is how my once idled mind now operates, full throttle with the pedal to the metal.
I’m not sure if it was just the ramblings of a caged mind longing to be free from its present day prison surroundings, or could it have been an actual talent that enables one to align words, setting them up like dominoes as they fall into place forming sentences that turn into paragraphs, which eventually becomes an ideal, or a thought once you knock them down.
I now go by the name of Ann A. Myta (animator) and I’ve written a number of books on various subject matters, and I’ve managed to accomplish doing all of this in just one two year prison sentence, without once coming-up for air, which in itself I feel is a remarkable feat. Where up to this point, I’ve written short stories, short short stories, long short stories, and even just stories, and for all I know, I may have already written a Nobel Prize winning novel, or some sort of a mind blowing essay, and I just don’t know it, yet!, while it temporarily sits on the back of my worn out money receipts waiting to be transformed into a no.1 best seller.
I don’t know how, or why it happened at this particular point in my life, I just know that on that first day, clear out of the blue, upon realizing that I was about to be locked down, and my life was about to be put on hold for a predetermined amount of time as I sat idly by without the possibility of ever getting that lost time, or gaining anything from its once existence back --- but then again, maybe it was just me, feeling the sorrow and the guilt of knowing that I’d messed-up, and the next two years of my life was about to be spent under the control of an uncontrolled situation that could easily, at any given time, turn my life for the worst --- but for whatever the reason, it was something within my sub-conscious that caused me to picked up a pencil and started me to writing, and I haven’t stopped or slowed down ever since.
Each and every one of my stories is uniquely written (at-lease to me) in their own right, and at this time, I’m just trying to get my foot in the door from someone; anyone from within the publishing world to hear my story, which is not my life story, but just stories about life’s ups and downs, which includes the good, bad, and it’s ugly, along with stories that have yet to be told --- so like I said just stories.
I’ll be coming out in less than three months time with an uncanny thirst to become more than just a writer of words, for I was raised just like Casper the friendly ghost, an empty spirit who wanted nothing more than to be a friend to all. While all the while coming-up, I grew-up with a problem that no one could detect, and no matter how deep a person thought to dig into my soul in order to find the real me, I was never there to be found, and for reasons that I can’t even begin to explain, for at that time in my life, I didn’t really care to be found.
I wasn’t born a crack baby, I was a baby boomer. I wasn’t hyper, I was just curious. I wasn’t illegitimate; I grew up in a single parent household. I wasn’t autistic; I simply chose not to speak when not spoken to. I wasn’t lazy, I just always thought of a better way of doing things. I wasn’t incorrigible, I was just never encouraged. I never knew anyone that I admired, nor did I have a role model other then my mother to patient my life after, and although my father wasn’t in the home as I grew up, he was always within calling distance should I ever really needed him, as our relationship was not estranged --- so it wasn’t a broken home that I came from, whereas I grew up just being me. And as I got older I learned to hide myself behind a cloud of drugs, which only seemed to mask the things that were hidden beneath the surface of my rough exterior. It was also in the bottom of 40 ounce bottle of beer where I could be found and on some days more than others; that or either bumpy face (Seagram’s gin). However, when it was all said and done the only thing that I managed to find at the end of what turned out to not be a rainbow, was my own way into a prison cell with minor happiness along the way, which was nobody’s fault but my own.
It wasn’t so much that I avoided a life that could have been, but I took it to the extreme and did it without thinking of the irreparable damage that I may have cause to my own future state of mind, that somehow managed to remain intact, or so I’ve convinced myself to believe, as I now reflect back on a life that once was, I can clearly see with a sober, and free thinking mind each and every step that I ever took to cover up and avoid the pain and the hurt of not seeing a future, or any kind of happiness on the horizon, which now comes out in the forms of my writings.
For the longest time I thought that Fannie Mae was a brand of candy, and Freddie Mac was this ol-skool pimp from down on 15th and brown street.
I thought a parachute golden or not, was something that jumpers used when jumping from a high flying airplane; In addition, a bailout was what you did after posting money that a judge ordered you to pay as a condition of your release from jail. So imagine my utter surprise when I found out that these were all terms and phrases used to describe current economic situations that the world economy has come to find itself in these days during my incarceration --- I remember the maverick, but didn’t that star the late James Garner, and not John McCain.