WHO, HOW AND SCHEDULING YOUR WRITING ROUTINE

 

Recently I had my phone stolen and in the process lost a lot of my documents. I felt so bitter; I decided to suspend MTN, my network provider. You see, it was MTN sim card that was in the phone. Yeah, you’ll want to ask what relationship has MTN with the thieves who stole my phone. That was the question practically everyone I told the story asked. But, I did not care and I would always say, ‘I cannot be bothered by a network that allowed its sim and my phone stolen,’ but, the real reason was, I had two other network and phone to use. But, when it done on me that I was losing too many clients and close friends and families who were familiar with the line and who preferred to call it stopped calling, I quickly joined the ‘welcome back,’ queue. I’m glad I did go for a ‘welcome back’ because in the process, I met two fine young men at the MTN center, Abulegba, Lagos, one of who attended to me kindly and speedily, resolving all issues; but had misconception about ‘the writer’ and kept me at his table longer asking loads of questions about ‘who, how and when, of writing: the resulted is this piece.

So, who is a writer? My simple answer was then, as it is now; a writer is he or she who has written because writers write.

‘How’ and ‘who’ writes? According to him, a writer is one who is highly intelligent, has focus and articulate. I said, sorry, some of the best writers in the world are complete opposite; disorganized, sometimes stupid and talk nonsense or shoot straight below the belt with words without a care in the world, yet loved by many because they’re damned good putting those thoughts in written form. Writing as any other social activities in life makes demands on your time and as you daily survive managing the so many other things requiring your attention, a writer has to manage to write amid the many other priorities. Being a writer requires that you develop a passion for it so as to be able to find, create and sustain the time you make available for it and the demand it makes on your available shared period, and doing so, twenty-four seven. Some writers are born with the pen, while most others are self taught-spending hours to pour over samples of what and how others have done it; going through trial and errors, some others have had to spend life time and money to acquire the knowledge and skills, others horned their skill starting in a place like a workshop, while many others with better ideas and stories than the Soyinkas, Clarks, Shakespeares, etc of this world, remain grappling and groping in the dark, doing all their writings in their heads or talking people to death with made up stories about themselves and others. Writers are pagans, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, black, white pink, brown, have one leg, one eye, one arm, two of each, there are slurred, sloppy, smart, saints, etc writers and those in between. Writers are sorts in different shades, characters and shapes. In essence, a writer is the mad man you see always scribbling on jotters in the bus or train, the professor, doctor, engineer, brick layer, plumber, farmer, the slave, the master, the clergy, laymen, the prostitute, the skilled and unskilled ones, the odd you or me. Even the Oxford Advance Learner’s dictionary acknowledges that a writer is ‘one who forms letters in a particular way when writing;’ so, no back ground, intellectual ability, physical form or profession - just one who writes, playing with the letters.

When and where to write? Anytime and anywhere; write when feeding the babies, cooking, doing your office work, jot at mechanics workshop, on the train, bus, plane, in the cab, at seminars, conferences, workshops, on the streets, anywhere:

A)    Write when inspired and you have ideas that may disappear at anytime. Pour your heart to paper, text in your phones, computer when the ideas, thoughts, and words you hear in conversations, in music hit you, red hot. Do so or you may never hear it, or remember it in its original form(s) again. So, when you can, put it down in any form, shape or scribe.

B)     Stay up late or wake up early. I like to stay up late than wake up early because I can be very lazy in the morning and because I have too many churches and mosques where I live, and I get easily distracted. But late, the people in these worship places, except on Fridays, go to sleep and so do vehicles. I can’t do anything about the birds, crickets and frogs, so I just ignore them. Find your best time to do your writings.

C)     Read and reread whatever others have written, and do so whenever to learn from them and for inspiration and ideas. Reading helps you to refresh, get ideas, learn of others’ styles and methods and helps to remind you that you really do need to get going.

D)    Where you are standing in a crowded bus and can’t scribble or write in your phone, write in your head; speak your thoughts out, if you have to. Yes, you might be looked on at like lunatic, most professional writers are, anyway, so..., maybe not, maybe you should just do the writing and speaking in your head in public places and do the talking to yourself in the privacy of your home or office.

E)     Keep a note book or jotter with you, always. You never know when the ideas might come and where and when you would hear the inspiring words. It could just be while you are in the pulpit and a congregation member is making face at you for being boring or nodding on end to everything you say. Take a note, scribe as much as you can and at wherever - your notes at first read maybe meaningless to you at the time, no matter, store it away and you never know, that note(s) may turn out to be the tonic to your breakthrough in future. So, like I have always advised, amass and store away all the scribbled nonsense and wait, they turn into a book, seminar/conference papers, poem, etc later. I have had testimonies from many who listed to me saying that and I have used and still using mine.

F)     Structure your time, if you are the orderly type, work out your time to spend a minimum of two, four to five hours, anytime of the day-morning, afternoon or night-to write. Do so to making writing a part of your daily routine such that it becomes an addiction or compulsion; go at it, practicing to the point you’d always feel something missing when and if you have not written. Another way of doing this is, make out how many, minimum, hundreds of words you can manage every day and stick to it. Reward yourself when you pass it and find appropriate sanctions when not done or you fall short of your minimum.

All these sound so simple or damn impossible, right? Come to think of it, we all have social engagements, daily work environment routine, family obligations and commitments, self-doubt, starting problems, writing blocks or brick walls, the feelings that we lack the requisite skills to do so, etc. All these are problems and issues that will always be there, that we have and always will face whether it is in writing, planning parties, doing your paid jobs, etc and yet, you find time to do the others anyway, so why not writing? Unless you’re one of those plain lazy types, full of the usual excuses and cursed to fail, you owe it to the world to share that story or pieces of messages divinely planted in you with the world. Where you’re a clergy, imam, motivational speaker, counselor, etc, you have double obligation and responsibility to WRITE and reach your desperate and tasty audiences. Start something today, as follow up to this write up and let your positive, creative productive self come alive.

I am a writer and author of many years experience, yet still learning, I have been learning and will: Long after I had started writing and been a journalist with the guardian and vanguard, I went and enrolled with Writers Bureau, in London, I also went on a short course at Oxford and have at every opportunity attended countless workshops and interactive seminars, still I burn with the hunger to learn more for I have come to discover that those thing I find difficult, others have found ways to make them easy, the things I do with writing and thought to be awesome or clever, others see them as common place and routine. And I have also discovered that there is no one way of writing, no writer fits into one template. Truth is, what works for you is ultimately what matters. And, interacting, reading and continually learning, help the writer in you find that pathway to being good, better, skillful and ultimately, successful.

Thank you.