Writing to Heal the Soul

I’ll never forget my first experience with marijuana.

We were all sitting around talking and laughing. Jorge, the leader of our little pack, pulled out a Baggie and started to roll up a portion of its contents. After he licked the paper and sealed it up, he hit it a couple of times and then passed it to me.

I tried to act like I’d done it before. I gingerly took the joint, placed it to my lips, and took a long drag.

That first drag was the worst. I coughed so hard I felt for sure I was going to cough myself to death.

I think back to that day and shudder.

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So begins a tumultuous tale of lost innocence and redemption, the story of Destiny--a fictional South-Central woman who began using marijuana at 13, got pregnant at 15, then overcame her past to become a trusted community counselor.

But the bigger story is who wrote this gritty urban parable: 14-year-old Alexandra Gomez.

The Jefferson High School freshman is one of 12 students who have formed a writing club and are using the power of the pen to transform the tough realities of inner-city life into a series of developing stories by and about teenagers.

Titled “Growing Up L.A.-Style,” these aren’t typical tales of teenage angst and awkwardness. The budding authors sometimes paint a harsh landscape where characters struggle with flawed families, poverty, drugs and deferred dreams--issues reflecting the communities they know.

They tell of tragedy and despair, hope and triumph, using details drawn from their own lives or the lives of those around them to inject psychological realism into their accounts.

“That’s what it’s about--writing about life, writing about the painful things,” said English teacher Bettye Sweet-Carter, who started the club three months ago. “It actually helps them cleanse themselves. I call it writing to heal.”

Alexandra’s mother, Anna Gomez, says that in her daughter’s case, it’s writing to prevent. Gomez said that through long discussions with her daughter, she knows the written passages about marijuana and other experiences aren’t drawn from Alexandra’s life. But she believes the fiction has real power.

“If it helps her to see that these things are wrong and if it keeps her away from the ills of the street, then it’s a big help,” Gomez said.

Alexandra and the other students are following in Sweet-Carter’s footsteps. She wrote “Growing Up L.A.-Style: Byron,” a 130-page morality tale, because her teaching experience showed that inner-city youths needed reading materials relevant to their experiences.

“They weren’t interested in the Hardy Boys or ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ ” said the Los Angeles Unified School District teacher.

Her novel is a fast-paced story about Byron Williams, a South-Central teenager being raised by a crack-addicted mother.

With the support of his grandmother, aunt and uncle, Byron is able to obtain an academic scholarship to UCLA. But after one night of celebration with the wrong people at the wrong time, he lands in jail accused of first-degree murder. It is only after he is unjustly convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison that he begins to see that, while innocent, he is guilty of making bad choices.

“The choices you make shape your future,” Byron tells the reader. “Sometimes I wonder if we weren’t cursed instead of blessed by God giving us free will.”

Sweet-Carter’s book has sparked a literary movement at Jefferson, located in the 1300 block of East 41st Street. She passed around “Byron” in March for her students’ perusal.

It grabbed their attention. Some were moved by the story. Others were amazed to know a teacher who had written a book. She mentioned she was starting a book-writing club and that anyone interested should see her after class.

News about the club spread to Sweet-Carter’s other classes and it continued to grow, attracting writers and non-writers alike.

“I’m not the kind of person that really likes to write,” said 14-year-old Sha’Ronda Woods. “But since Ms. Sweet had faith and believed that I could write, I just decided to go on with it.”

That’s what many of the students did. Although none have computers at home, they wax poetic after school on computer terminals at the public or school library. Others rely on Sweet-Carter to type their handwritten pages. She can hardly keep up.

Sweet-Carter meets with the budding writers individually and in small groups. There are no big club meetings, no deadlines or public readings, because she wants them to take their time, Sweet-Carter said.

“I want it to come from the heart,” she said.

No one has completed a book yet; most of the students are laboring on their early chapters. In one case, Sweet-Carter helped Lakeisha Garbutt convert a 65-chapter story she had already written into a screenplay.

She has even established a company called Zimmerman and Carter (https://www.blackhill.org/zcpublishing) to publish the students’ works when they are completed.

But no matter what life may bring their way, club members said Sweet-Carter, whom they affectionately call Ms. Sweet, has taught them lessons that go beyond writing.

“I see her as a role model,” said Erika Salazar, 15. “If she [published a book], then I know we can. All we need is the faith, the guidance and the encouragement.”

The students’ writing shares the frankness of Sweet-Carter’s book, “Byron.” And it has also proven cathartic.

For instance, in the first chapter of another “L.A.-Style” story, one Jefferson student creates a protagonist as an alter-ego. The novel’s main character lives with bothersome sisters and a neglectful mother, whom the narrator finds an embarrassment at times.

I love my mother, but there aren’t too many things I can thank her for except bringing me into this world. . . . My mother doesn’t work, she gets welfare and food stamps and still never has time for me.

The most embarrassing thing for me is to go shopping with her when she pays with food stamps. It seems as though I am suspended in time with everyone watching as she slowly tears out the coupons, one by one.

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The writers often walk a fine line between fact and fiction that leaves the reader guessing just how much is real or make-believe.

It’s a mystery that makes the writing all the more intriguing.

“The way they’re writing--it’s like it’s true,” said Sweet-Carter. “I’m like, ‘Did you really do that?’ ”

In some cases, it’s not what they did, but what they aspire to do.

Such was the case with Lakeisha Garbutt, who wrote a not-so-thinly veiled account of her own writing aspirations.

The South-Central teenager’s notebooks are filled with scribbles detailing dastardly characters and unpredictable plot lines. Her own spy novel--”In Perfect Time,” about the journey of an amnesia-stricken CIA assassin in search of her identity--is just one of the four books she’s completed.

In “Growing Up L.A.-Style: Sophi,” Lakeisha writes about an 18-year-old girl bitten by the writing bug who loves to pen spy novels. With the help of a motivational teacher, she converts one of her books into a screenplay--that is later nominated for an Academy Award.

It all felt like a dream as I glided up the aisle, on my way to the podium to accept my award. I spent two hours getting dressed, choosing a long, form-fitting gold lame dress to make my debut. I looked great, but I was more nervous than I could ever remember being.

Sophi’s dream is Lakeisha’s dream. That’s the kind of drive Sweet-Carter hoped her students would discover. She would rather hear them curse, she said, than say “I can’t.”

“I tell my students all the time how powerful the spoken word is. The written word is just as powerful, or even more,” said Sweet-Carter.

“They know they have to have action with the talk, but I don’t want them to be afraid to dream and hope.”

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Times staff writer Manuel Gamiz Jr. contributed to this story.