Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. I began writing that book because I was interested in the lesser-known history of these black soldiers stationed off the coast of my hometown.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I read every one of the books on the shelf marked American Negro Literature. I became a nationalist, a colour nationalist, through the writings of men and women who lived a world away from me.
Somehow, I realized I could write books about black characters who reflected my own experiences or otherworldly experiences - not just stories of history, poverty and oppression.
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.
I was planning to stay in the Army all my life, but I ended up being posted to a training camp in Wales and was so bored there, I wrote a novel.
I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.
On a very personal level, I have fond memories of spending a lot of time in the Library of Congress working on my collection of poems 'Native Guard.' I was there over a summer doing research in the archives and then writing in the reading room at the Jefferson building.
I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.
My history writing was based on what I saw in strange, exotic places rather than just reading books.
At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.
I basically wrote five books with 'Night Soldiers,' called them novellas, and came in with a 600-page manuscript.