The collective

[Antwan]

Hey guys, so I want to get into writing more.
Going to look into taking some classes and what not.
I've always been told I was good at it, in the past year I've had one writing published in a book of essays.
It was about my experience with the newyork skate scene.
It goes deeper than this though, skateboarding has and still shapes who I am.
I've always looked at interviews with people in places I aspire to reach being an invaluable resource.
I often watch one in the morning when I get up and have some coffee.
I had never seen an interview with richie jackson and watched about 2 hours of him and another guy shooting the shit at General life evaluation and relation to skateboarding.
I was shocked at how much I could relate to his trick process.
He said a lot in 2 hours so I won't go into all of it.
So my reason in posting this is to see where you guys are at with it.
If you would like to contribute some ideas to a potential book Id be more than happy to take it on.
The way I skate has changed as my life has changed, but it is still the same thing.
The determination, the drive, the building tool for something higher.
It has been an escape from what's bad in my life but also I seem to have entered an alternate demension.
Everything is the same there but the view of everything shifted almost immediately.
If you know me by now my thoughts are always heavily jumbled so that's why I need some writing classes it demands structure haha.
Stories about skating, outlook on it, what is it when you break it down?
I would love to hear from you guys.
I really dig the idea of a collaborative writing about this kind of stuff.
It would really help flesh this type of project out and give it more value for sure.
Not financially speaking, just something that's for skaters by skaters.

Update
It was Brought to my attention that a published book should compensate its writers and I agree. Anything you guys want to share will be taken in but not used until I figure how to compensate everyone, I'm leaning toward PayPal as an idea.
I'm already writing heavily, have two local skaters on board and reached out to one local skateshop.

[TheIronz]

I would be up for contributing, don't care about compensation, but would like to try and express the passion for the board by any means possible, Skate 3, Edits, Written word...

[Antwan]

Cool man, still undecided on a title..
I think "vandal" is an interesting one, maybe something like that.
Some word that depicts the modern skater before they open it and read it.
I may just make a temporary website and take on live submissions.
As for compensation, maybe everyone recieves a copy or two of the final product.
I don't see this being a huge thing, but I still have research to do so who knows.
If anyone knows any websites that could set something like this up that would be great.
Otherwise I'll be looking into it.

[TheIronz]

Will we just be free reign for the content? Or will it be a perspective of a idea that we each try to vocalise?

[Antwan]

Yeah man, whatever you want really.
I may clean some of it up depending on what I learn from writing classes.
I just want people who don't to see what skateboarding can be.
If you want to post in the thread or write it down have at it.
I may ask you to resubmit it on some kind of website later though.
Participants may need to sign some kind of document too, not entirely sure what publishing everyones writing entails yet.

[TheIronz]

Well I am down, I need some time to think it over before I start but I would definatley be down for it.

[TOATISCOMING]

I am down to contribute my theories. Stuff that I tell people all the time when it comes down to certain questions from trick selection, getting sponsorships, etc. So if you want to talk more about it, and add it into your future book I would be down for that. Or another idea you could interview different skaters from flow guys, ams, pros, hometown heros, etc.

[Antwan]

Cool man, I'm open to ideas.
Honestly I'm just putting feelers out to see if it interests enough people at the moment.
I did think about interviews but I think there's just something more genuine about reading what people have to say versus asking them.
I like to think of this as a blank canvas, the only thing I feel we should have in mind is positive vibes.
Skateboarding is its own language, think of how to translate that into something positive for people who don't know about it, if that helps you anyway if not just whatever you want to write up.
If I get enough people on board I'll definitely look into setting it up so we can all submit to a sort of writing pool and get copies of the book out to everyone.
I've got a couple projects to finish up and then I'm going to look into some writing classes.

[Antwan]

Connected

Just some raw thoughts. No agenda, no bullshit and no organization.
If people want to discuss this or not I don't know, it can get personal but so can skateboarding.
This kind of ties into the idea of my book About skateboarding.

So I've spent a lot of my time in this life just thinking it through.
I've had so much going on since I moved from Florida at a young age.
I was a drunken party goer, skateboarder, artist and this was just in my early highschool days.
There was a point where I slowly started to divide up, and really flesh out who my friends were. Who might've helped me or held me back. From here it was just skating, every day, every spot. We would also skate any park we could get to with an occasional vans warped tour venture thrown in. I went through many phases growing up but "scene" or "hardcore" probably being the one that stood out most.

Does this interest anyone in the slightest? Haha.. I was going to continue the life story and break into how everything connects and your mindset really is what puts it together. How skateboarding helps so many, and remains the same through anything you do.

If someone wants to help me get this thing setup that would be so dope.
I just want a raw book about skateboarding positivity, maybe a place people can just post their writings and I can accept them. I have a couple theories on how to go about that, but I've never done this before.