You dont need to become a writer, you just write. That is a paraphrase from a dear author I just came across, Jeff Goins. Quite an inspiring fellow. If you want to be called a writer so badly, you only have do one thing; write. Now I dont mean that you write one article and then you wait for a publisher to come knocking on your door, and if the publisher does not come by, you put your pen down and fold your arms. What does that make you? Someone that's afraid of what the public might say without a recognition that can defend you. You are also doubting your writing. Or perhaps you are writing for the wrong reasons.
I personally went through a period where I completed a manuscript and knocked on all publishers and their mothers' doors but got no good news. Yes I stopped writing for a little while because I began to doubt my ability. Instead of creating more work, I got stuck on that one manuscript for about a year. A breakthrough came forth that helped me to keep writing. I stumbled across a blog that kicked my rear end. Yes Mr Goins, your blog.
Writers write. That's what we do.
Free yourself. Writing is an escape route for most of us writers really; you free yourself into the letters that fall onto your page like pieces of your hardship shedding away little by little.
Also, it is no surprise that the best selling authors are the ones that speak their minds as it is.
I write for the love of the art, like Jeff Goins and many more who care to express him/herself without caring about who might disagree; be it a reader, an agent, a publisher...
What if I decide to write for example, about homosexuality? Lets face it, in the world that we are in today, there are claims that homosexuality is now common. But is it really? No, its still a subject that makes some poeple raise an eyebrow. Back in the days...okay back in the days of my grandmother, a spade is a spade. A woman can not marry a woman, full stop. The belief is a man sleeping with another man is wrong because if God had intended to make it alright for the same sex to touch each other in places that unleash romantic dragons, there would have been some changes in the making of the universe and its entity. Something like this for example could have occured in the garden of Eden...
"Adam I shall make you two help meats...one that feels soft and tender and the other that has moustache hair to caress your very own moustache face." or something like "I now pronouce Adam and Steve to go forth and be fruitful and multiply." I believe in the days of my grandmother. I believe that the preaching of the apostles in the bible is right. So what do I do? I write about it.
This had been at the back of my mind for a long time but because I had thought over and over about what the world would say about it, I kept quiet.
The issue here is, do i believe in what I write or is my work based on emotions? As a writer, I must be able to stand up on my work.
For a little side track here, the maker of heaven and earth does NOT hate homosexual people; He hates the act because by design, God intended for man to marry woman. He despises the fact that His design is being abused. Just like an architect that gives rules to the builder and comes back a week later to find a night club instead of a bank. Whatta??!! I can only imagine the frustration.
Now, for all writers that are hiding behind what needs to be glass but decided to paint it to be as opaque as possible, stop keeping what you gotta say and let the world read all about you. Emelie Sande said it in Read all about it, theres no need to be ashame, you've got the light to fight the shadows....so write.
For we are all pregnant with a story
Funkè Ojo.
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