I despise writing about pain, and I'm learning to avoid talking about it as well. Though pain is an inevitable part of life, I want my writing to inspire hope, provide comic relief, and be relatable. However, today, I'll write about a long-lasting pain popularly known as Writer's Block.
Writer's Block is excruciating... continuous experience is torture. As a writer, you are a creator, constructing your own world, inventing characters, weaving events, patterns, sending powerful messages, and changing destinies at your leisure. You are the voice of the people, the hope of the people and the people as well. You alter emotions and lives. You are the master of an entire Universe; and all the characters kowtow to you and look to you for their next moves. With that powerful spell, you also manage to seize the attention of your audience. The audience hopes that their favorite characters triumph over all odds, complete that great goal, live happily ever after. You influence the audience's adoration for any character, good or bad.
You are a powerful writer. You have that "pen is mightier than the sword" sensation, and even if it's all in your mind, you're fine with it. The mind is truly unlimited! For a while, you forget that you are still a part of the bigger picture and are not immune to sad realities. Sad realities can consume all of your creative energy and cause you to spend so much time trying to find solutions to your problems that you lose sight of your abilities as a brilliant creator. You get weakened by the fact that the superpowers you freely provide, the perfect quips, and the wishes you grant so readily don't work out here, in the real world. You are still a character in the Author of life's book and there is lot's of obstacles available for people in all walks of life. The more you solve one, the more you keep solving till you become totally engrossed in sorting life's issues, happily brandishing yourself as a "solution architect" on your resume like a badge of honour , while slowly the visitor, Mr. Writer's Block, becomes the landlord.
My first writer's block was caused by a series of disappointing occurrences in my family. I began reading at an early age and fell in love with the world of illusions. Because my father and his brother were taking an English course, I read Wole Soyinka and a lot of English literary novels. "Trials of Brother Jethro", "our husbands have gone mad again", "Joys of motherhood", "Doctor Faustus", and Disney fairytales, which I reworked with a touch of Rosa, creating new stories and spill-overs in cut-out papers with broomsticks for binding. My mother, who operated a printing firm (business center), was supposed to turn them into books and I would have been the youngest publisher at 6 but she lost them all, I destroyed her telephone later on. I was super angry, I had a terrible rage as a child
I never to wrote anything again until JS1, when virtually every week there was one composition assignment in English or another. Mrs. Lawal, our English teacher, would read my article about my favorite person in the world and declare it the best work she had ever read, and a spark of optimism was ignited. I picked up my quill (my Eleganza biro) and parchment (80 leaves book Paloma and Diego cover book) I finished two enormous stories. A book titled Priscillia and another epic adventure novel about two girls fighting various powers to acquire something from the wicked forest in order to save their village. My bestie (the late Deborah Fagbemi) also wrote with me. She wrote a contemporary drama about a very stubborn child with illustrations. We both joined reading clubs, and our stories were published chapter by chapter on the school's bulletin board.
The second writer's block came after Debbie died and I was transferred to my hometown to complete my secondary education against my will. This would be the longest writers block ever. I had no muse, no critic, no motivation. I was trying to discover myself, my niche, my clique, my sing-song tale among a sea of 419 classmates. I was lost but took solace in friendship. I had Adorable Meg, SugaPlum Princess, Nelly Ally, Zinny, and Daisy. We became friends over cartoons, and we made noise in the hostel with our animated babble. My next book had a cover drawn by Daisy. I never completed that story before Daisy went to the great beyond.
University made me explore other forms of writing - formal writing, research writing, and other boring academic stuff. I was competent but not enthused. Though I always received good grades, it did not feel rewarding to write about established knowledge as opposed to inventing an entirely new universe. I attempted to write for contests, but because I researched the judges and catered to them in my writing, I was never shortlisted. I wrote for blogs for pitiful pay for about a year before stopping when I couldn't balance it with work any longer. After that, I limited myself to writing on Whatsapp Status for another 13 years. Every year, I set a goal to publish a story. However, even though I had a writing corner next to a beautiful view of the outdoors, I never finished any of my stories.
Remember Priscillia and my Epic Adventure novel! My proud kid sister lost them, happily boasting to her friends about with my manuscript I left at home, Thinking it would be safe at home because FGGC girls can gbab for Africa. I learned that when experiencing Writer's Block, give it time, be gentle with yourself, stare at a blank sheet, change your environment, all other remedies, None of that helped me.
Wait, I said I didn't feel like writing today! How am I here, 4 paragraphs and more to go! Well, That's it! It just happened. Fast forward to first time, I wrote State of Grace. It was as if some chains were broken. I love to keep my writing to myself and share only with a few friends. But this time, something changed, I wanted to be held accountable or properly create anticipation. I wanted people to critic my work or love it or find it relatable or just hate regardless. Not that I cared much about opinions! Maybe I used sarcasm to get over my writer's block; occasionally you may laugh in the face of pain and scare the shit out of it that it goes away on it's own, leaving you can escape into the million dreams keeping you awake.
Dear Writer, you can write again, you just have to get yourself to type or write the first letter, then make it a word, coin a phrase, add a verb to make it a clause, then a sentence, then another sentence, then let your mind do the magic and pour all emotions in. You may hate the first draft but hey! applaud yourself, you made an attempt. But try and try and try again, the more you fail, the more you learn, one day it would finally make sense. This is not just just for writers but for every person experiencing some hobby/interest block!
This week, I wanted to write another epic adventure fantasy story, but something's still missing. Soon the pieces would come together and we'll get out a story.
Love Dauntless
Written by Rosemary Ugwuogo aka Dauntless
Don’t give up for anything, I love your stories and just so you know. You have a fan.
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