By Joshua Ryan

I realize that writers need to predict the questions that their readers will ask, so I’ll answer the question that’s on your mind: Did I think about what would happen if I found out I wouldn’t actually get celled up with Steven?  Or if I found out that I hated him or something?

So the answer is, yeah!  I thought about it.  It got more interesting during the months between my passing the first check to Donald and my appointment with the arresting officer. At first I hadn’t wanted to give it much thought.  I was so fascinated by the idea of getting close to this man whose story I was putting myself into … It would be a tragedy if anything went wrong about him.

But gradually I was getting a feel for writing my own story.  I don’t mean writing, like, on a keyboard.  I mean, I’d got this idea about going to prison, and I’d written the whole script, and now it was getting produced, and it was exactly the kind of story I wanted to be in!  And if Steven got cut out of the script somehow, I would still be in it.  It was my own story.

Continue reading The Prison Writer – Chapter 17 →