I DO BELIEVE I AM A WRITER

I do believe I am a writer. I probably have been in this writing business as far back as my late primary school days. I remember how I would take my school’s magazine and write out all the articles and featured presentations on the magazine into my notebook. You would almost have thought I wanted to infringe on my school’s copyright and produce exactly the same stuffs in my own magazine as were featured in my primary school’s magazine.

Anyway, it will be probably more right to infer that my interest in writing was kindled during that period. I most likely didn’t start writing anything then. It’s occurring to me now that I was more interested in improving my writing aesthetics than in writing articles. I really had a bad handwriting in those days.

In my secondary school days, precisely in September 2000, I met Uncle Seyi Akinyoyenu, he is my mum’s younger cousin, which makes him my cousin too. And then I stumbled on his diary

and for the first time in all my life, I saw poems… readable poems. As in, I was extremely intrigued by the construction of his poems and the kind and manner of things he wrote about. Suddenly, it was like power and belief was imputed into me and I immediately knew I could write anything I wanted to write; that I could be the best writer in the world. That experience changed my writing profile.

Well, *sighs*. The best writer in the world? I once had that dream to be not just a great writer but to be the best at what I do. For a very long time, I envied great writers. I bought newspapers, magazines, books and all formats and types of writings. I cannot forget that day in May 2009 when I had just 165 Naira with me for the day and I still used 150 Naira out of it to buy The Nation Newspaper, my favourite daily for that year.  I used the remaining 15 Naira to buy biscuits and was hungry for the rest of the day. That was the height of my “addiction” to newspapers and writings that I even once believed that anyone who could not read stuff like me was most definitely a dunce.

Well, this is getting quite boring, right?

Anyway, this is to formally announce to you that I have finally abandoned my ‘ambition’ to be the best writer in the world. Yeah! I’m not doing this because of the futility of my dream, neither am I doing it because of my realisation of an inability to achieve this dream. More importantly, the complacency that has crept into my life as regards my writing in recent times is not the motivating force for abandoning my dream.

Why then don’t I want to be the best writer in the world again? Because I’ve come to discover that being the best in a particular field might not be the pinnacle of achievements. I suddenly realised that being the best writer is a different ball game to say, being the best doctor in the world, or the best lawyer around.

Let’s put it like this: William Shakespeare is probably one of the greatest literary giants that ever lived. However, I’ve not read a Shakespearean novel in the last 8 years. Dr Benjamin Carson, the renowned neurosurgeon is not particularly a great writer, but I’ve read each of the four books he has written at least once in the same last 8 years. Suffice it to say that I’ve even read some of them twice viz Gifted Hands. So, you get my point?

So, what exactly is my new ‘ambition’ as regards my writing?

I probably would like to be the regular guy…lol. I want to be a writer. I want to write what everyone would read. I want to devote my life to penning down my thoughts for posterity to judge.

I’m beginning to reason that I might now be able to write. When I still had that lofty dream, I ended up not writing. I am pushing myself to believe that now that I have ‘reduced’ the heights of my dream, it would lift some pressure off my shoulders and afford me the pleasure to write. In these I hope, I might be lucky and eventually achieve my abandoned lofty dream through the back door, taking the advantage of my non-concentration on the objective.

Okay, this seems to negate a lot of principles especially those that have to do with setting targets and focus, but I just know that this is the most effectual way to achieve this.

So, get ready as you come with me on my writing expenditure on this blog.

I cannot promise a daily update neither can I promise a weekly update to this blog. All I can promise is I would update my blog regularly. This is my dogma and this I intend to achieve.

Catch ya…