Literature
- The Reader?s Heart Is The Most Important Award To Win ? Abubakar Ibrahim
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim discovered quite early that he would be a story teller while growing up in Jos, where he was born, even before he learnt to read and write. A graduate of Mass Communications from the University of Jos and the current Arts Editor...
- I Wrote My First Novel At 16
Adelakun Adunni Abimbola, winner of the 2010 edition of the Literary Journalist of the Year, awarded by the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, with B.A and M.A from the Department of Communication and Language...
- Writer's Block Is Excuse For Lazy Writers
You recently published a short story collection, Hoodlums, centred on the violence rocking the country. What inspired the theme of the collection? Sumaila Umaisha: The collection was inspired by, as you put it, the violence rocking the country. I probably...
- I Have Books That Are Yet To Be Published - Binta (interview)
Binta S. Mohammed, who passed on 4th May, 2009, is a notable poet and novelist and a lecturer in the Department of English at Bayero University, Kano. She had an interesting interview session with Muhammad Kabir Yusuf last year. Here are excerpts from...
- Enrich Your Imagination (tips)
Imagination is the engine room of creativity. And experience is the main basis of imagination. Most of the contents of creative writings are sourced from experience, personal or otherwise. To be a good creative writer, therefore, you have to be a keen...
Literature
Who says you can?t be a writer?
This week my discussion is inspired by the experience at a reading session a few months ago when the Kaduna State Library Board hosted me. It was an exciting experience as I read the riot tales from my collection of short stories, Hoodlums, to the audience made up of mainly secondary school students. What was more thrilling for me was the kind of questions the students asked. Young as they were, they were intelligent enough to question the senselessness of the violence being perpetrated in Nigeria in the name of religion, politics and culture, as reflected in the stories. But the question that touched me most was not the ones on the stories, but the ones on how to become a writer. You could see the eagerness on their young faces. They wanted to know how to go about acquiring the skills of writing, and they thought I had the magic wand. They didn?t know that I?m also still trying to acquire the skills.
Well, I tried my best to explain to them what I felt were the right steps to take. And after that I thought I was through. But no. As the event came to a close and we were dispersing, one of their teachers called me aside and said that was a good presentation; but could the lecture be also useful to adults like him? I said why not?
?But I haven?t written anything creative before,? he said. ?I don?t think at this age??
?Have you tried to write?? I cut him short.
?No.?
?So how do you know you can?t write??
His face went blank.
So I started another lecture there (which I will now share with you), explaining to him that one cannot be sure of his inability to do something unless he has tried it several times and failed.
In fact, many have failed only because of their failure to try. They have lived all their lives without discovering their talent because they have not even tried to see if they possess it. Creative writing is the major casualty of this I-can?t-do-it attitude. Some people regard writers as very special human beings no one else can dream to be. To them, the popular axiom that ?writers are born not made? means those who are born with literary talent automatically become writers. But the question is; in reality do we refer to those who are talented but have not written any creative work as writers? The answer is definitely no. Rather, we consider those who have written something in the name of creative writing as writers even if they have only managed to write trash.
So, to believe that you haven?t got the talent to do something when you have not even tried it is to be crippled fast. And no matter how talented you are, you must put it to test before it can be realised. In the case of creative writing there is always the subtle urge do something about the hidden talent. This is more apparent in children. A child who is always reading, always scribbling something, who often tells tales about a dog with human head or castles in the air, might be manifesting his innate tendency towards creative writing. If the parents are not ?enlightened? enough to know this and guide the child accordingly, he might grow up without knowing who he is.
The signs of literary talent may even follow some to their adulthood, but the past failure of their parents to make them realise this, and the resultant mind-set that writers are special people out there, usually prevent them from recognising the alert. One of the major clues is frequent daydreaming; thinking about fantastic happenings, creating mental pictures of events that did not actually take place, or re-inventing real events to suit one?s fancy. It is a common phenomenon to virtually every human, but the mental images are more vivid and impressive in the case of someone with creative ability. In literary parlance, this is called creative imagination. The only obstacle between creative imagination and creative writing is the ?creative imaginator? himself, who has ignored or resisted the natural promptings because of the belief that he cannot write.
At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker (which I?m not!) I urge you to try your hand on writing today. There is a strong possibility that you may possess a very latent talent spoiling to be let loose. Just pick up your pen and paper, it is not too late. Don?t die without unleashing that great potential. Rather than allow yourself to be described at your funeral as a man of great potential, endeavour to be remembered as a great man. You might not become as great as Chinua Achebe or William Shakespeare, as not many writers are that lucky, but you would have contributed your widow?s might to the development of literature and humanity. And that is enough for posterity to confer on you the title of Great Man.
http://blueprintng.com/2012/11/who-says-you-cant-be-a-writer/
- The Reader?s Heart Is The Most Important Award To Win ? Abubakar Ibrahim
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim discovered quite early that he would be a story teller while growing up in Jos, where he was born, even before he learnt to read and write. A graduate of Mass Communications from the University of Jos and the current Arts Editor...
- I Wrote My First Novel At 16
Adelakun Adunni Abimbola, winner of the 2010 edition of the Literary Journalist of the Year, awarded by the Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, is a graduate of the University of Ibadan, with B.A and M.A from the Department of Communication and Language...
- Writer's Block Is Excuse For Lazy Writers
You recently published a short story collection, Hoodlums, centred on the violence rocking the country. What inspired the theme of the collection? Sumaila Umaisha: The collection was inspired by, as you put it, the violence rocking the country. I probably...
- I Have Books That Are Yet To Be Published - Binta (interview)
Binta S. Mohammed, who passed on 4th May, 2009, is a notable poet and novelist and a lecturer in the Department of English at Bayero University, Kano. She had an interesting interview session with Muhammad Kabir Yusuf last year. Here are excerpts from...
- Enrich Your Imagination (tips)
Imagination is the engine room of creativity. And experience is the main basis of imagination. Most of the contents of creative writings are sourced from experience, personal or otherwise. To be a good creative writer, therefore, you have to be a keen...