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both know
that you are
not
going to be happy until you get
whatever it is
that you want. So I say, stop wasting your time with everything else and go after whatever
scheme
you have in your mind to do. And I won’t judge you for it, because that’s who you were born to be, just like I was born to be me.”
    â€œWell, why does it have to be a ‘scheme’?” I asked her. She made it sound like I was still a gold digger.
    â€œBecause whatever it is, I’m quite
sure
that it’s going to be hard to get. That’s just how you are. If it’s too easy, you don’t want it.”
    I broke out laughing. Whatever it was that I wanted, it was so hard to get that I couldn’t even figure out what it was.
    Raheema asked, “Isn’t your book
Flyy Girl
being republished this year by a major house?”
    Prior to September 1996, my novelized life story was only a local thing on the East Coast.
    â€œYeah, and I’ll be getting more royalties from it,” I told her. “I already received my part of the advance.”
    She said, “That was real cool for Omar Tyree to write your story like that, or should I say
our story,
but I kind of thought that you would follow up with that and become a writer of some kind yourself.”
    â€œI
do
write. I still write my poetry,” I said. “I Just finished one before I called you.”
    â€œAnd how does it make you feel when you write and perform them?”
    â€œOh, girl, you know my poetry is the shit,” I bragged. “That’s when I really get a chance to sit down and think and bring stuff together.”
    â€œWell, why don’t you go for that?”
    I said, “I’ve been told that poetry doesn’t really sell like that unless you get a contract to do music with it or something. Everybody can’t be Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni, you know.”
    â€œWell, there you go. It’s hard to do, so go ahead and do it then. That sounds right up your alley,” Raheema advised me.
    I was very hesitant about the poetry thing, even though I knew my stuff was good.
    â€œOr, you could even become a screenwriter or something, because once they put that book out nationally, they might want to take it to film, and that would
really
make us famous,” she joked. It was a shock to everyone when
Flyy Girl
came out, especially how people began to like it and talk about it. Most of the people who read it just couldn’t believe how fast I was as a teenager, but it was all the truth. However, I had calmed down a lot since then. I was a mature woman, or trying to
be
mature.
    â€œYeah, I daydreamed about all of that,” I admitted. How could I
not
dream of making a movie about my life story?
    â€œWell, what are you waiting for? You need
me
to tell you to go for it? Just get busy and do your thing,” Raheema persisted in pushing me. “Once you put your mind to getting what you want, Tracy,
nobody
can stop
you,
and that’s the
truth!
”
    I tried to play it off and act reserved about her suggestions, but by the time I hung up the phone with my girl Raheema, I was nervous for some reason. I guess I could feel it deep down in my soul. I really
could
make it happen. I had the energy, the talent, the passion, and the drive to do whatever the hell I wanted to do. It was all up to me.
    I stood up and took a deep breath. My decision was made already. That’s why I was nervous. It was like that single moment before you hit the stage to do your thing. The anxiety. The anticipation. I was filled with it. I wanted to go where the stars were and see just how brightly I could shine, or see if I was only bullshitting myself.
    â€œWell, here goes everything,” I said out loud.
    I had a college friend at Hampton who moved out to Los Angeles to teach at the elementary level. She was a Spanish minor, she said, to make more money out there. So if I wanted to try my luck at writing, performing