Writers aren’t born…they are self-made. Creative writers are therefore nurtured and cultured by self. Most writers I know carry a portable/digital recorder back in the days of yore. Today, it is in their hands. They carry it around all day, drive and text on it, and text some more even as the Professor is standing before them, wafting poetic.
They sleep with this modern day contraption, and only record those moments with pure disdain for another, or the moments they know they have caught you in a lie. There are other valuable, and just as useful, despicable benefits of having this device with you at all times. I would leave the muddy, filthy grim be, and stay on aspects of the renowned virtues that would include the capture of a masterpiece of an idea you know could escape your mind, if you didn’t have it cornered and restrained.
With me, and that was before this day, I had a shallow groove dug up on the left side of my brain…just deep enough to hold the rough draft of a comprehensive story idea. Believe that, and you’ll never make it as a writer.
If you are lucky, that moment of spur and inventiveness could be the start of a brilliant hint that gives birth to a masterpiece.
Back then, writer-wanna-bees carried a pen and a tablet of paper they would just as quickly use to squash a fly, or wipe off one splattered against the windshield of their car…to write on, that is, in the event they were hit flush with inspiration. If you are lucky, that moment of spur and inventiveness could be the start of a brilliant hint that gives birth to a masterpiece. You’ll write, and then, you will truly write. And when it is done, and your ego is riding a high wire act on it… Bang!!! That’s when you rewrite it.
And just when the rewrite is fine and looking as dandy as ever, that is when you should really, really rewrite that baby. Clarity begins to set in…and you experience the initial burst of euphoria inside a toothed grin. You have arrived…and you believe yourself…you believe no one could come close enough to wax and spew with the same Badasssery verses as you have proffered. Hell no; you are not Achebe, Soyinka, nor are you Ben Okri. You should keep your day job. I have. Keep on writing.
The rewrites are where the secrets are embedded. If your ego is flying high, you are never going to make it as a writer…especially when you couldn’t change that one word for something simpler, or rewrite that construction that took you all day yesterday to put together.
The rewrites are where the secrets are embedded. If your ego is flying high, you are never going to make it as a writer…especially when you couldn’t change that one word for something simpler, or rewrite that construction that took you all day yesterday to put together. For all those who rummaged through the Inbox where the art of writing was stored, and came from it, believing they have cracked the stern veneer of inscrutability, and that they would make a fantastic living sitting in a stuffed room typing away…well, that is a different story, and the plot line is always predictable: Failure!
Writing is a beast. You cultivate certain cultures to build a wholesome one, before you would even begin to think about the possibilities of you as a writer. Your success as a writer, in any genre, is purely accidental. I guarantee that going in, sitting down to create that first, mind-blowing sentence that you had no clue where your story would end up in the annals of great prose. All you had was that one sinew of greatness…the story the world must know about.
just like the man in the nation’s house who calls himself a genius. You earn this stuff. It is not given to you to wear around your neck like a badge of honor…like one wears the Medal of Honor.
That’s it. So, you dared yourself to be disciplined enough to create this baby. The rigors of an adventure into being an Author is, well, rigorous. Predictions in this one dominion of complex imageries, flamboyance of verses, and the intricate weaving of styles to craft your own protectorate where no else is allowed are for rundown minds…just like the man in the nation’s house who calls himself a genius. You earn this stuff. It is not given to you to wear around your neck like a badge of honor…like one wears the Medal of Honor. Actually, it follows you wherever you go…you know, like a halo. You the hallowed one do not see this…you do not even know you have been dressed in a robe of awesomeness…again like a certain man, up north, who lives in a borrowed robe that is not even his. It is that unseen fabric that certifies your brilliance as a master in one genre.
Most authors extraordinaire are meek and gentle, even in their stroll you will find that lilt, that inflection of a true heavyweight. The braggadocio is missing on a true genius. That fake elegance wobbles in if you have self-crowned. The self-enthroned one is flailing on the precarious edge of a hard fall. The entire metropolis of Washington D.C. couldn’t waltz in to lend a hand.
If you have ears prepare to use them. Your story is always talking to you, telling you that there is a monster laying in wait at the next bend. If the scene you just concluded is supreme, your story has a way of telling you that. If it is a piece of inane crap, roped inside an endless drivel, it tells you that, too. So, just like you do your lips; pucker up your ears, Buttercup…and listen.
♦ Film-Maker, Professor Don Okolo, is on the Editorial Board of the West African Pilot News. He is an author of many books.
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