Member Feature: My Journey into The World of Writing by Albrin Junior
In Picasso Pablo’s words, “every child is an artist”. My love for story telling I believe began as a child, when my mother would gather I and my siblings beneath the little twinkling stars, and the blue crescent moon. She would tell us animal fables and stories, then afterwards ask us the moral of these stories. One day after the other, she often pointed at one of us to tell a story and we’d conjure the funniest of stories from our minuscule brains. Those moments are unforgettable, we referred to them as tales by moonlight. Those stories resonated in my mind, and the literature books I read in primary school cemented that love: ‘Ralia the sugar girl,’ ‘Koku Baboni,’ ‘Without a silver spoon,’ ‘Incorruptible judge,’ ‘An African night entertainment,’ and stories like ‘Agbo lives in calabar,’ ‘Edet and Wakama,’ which we read in our Primary Macmillan books.
As I grew, I stumbled onto and fell in love with poems by Tupac Amaru Shakur. I was amazed by his flow of words, how they weighed with emotions and how beautiful it was reading them. I soon began to read poems and novels by William Butler Yeast, Robert frost, Alfred Tennyson, John Milton, George Orwell, Charles Dickson, Wole Shoyinka, Chinua Achebe, William Golding, Daniel Defoe, Nora Roberts, and then I fell in love with Shakespeare’s literary works. In general, I was marveled by the intricate description, vivid imagery and rich choice of words. In no time, I began writing poems.
In my pursuit of writing, I have found that there’s beauty in art, in literature, in writing. At the most basic level, writing is an experience inspired by love and or hate, which are produced by two elements of language: “sense” and “sound.” The end goal of these experiences is in the message the writers intends to pass across, and how this message is passed. A writer always has something to say, which might be a straight forward statement of public interest, or it might be an expression of a private problem, joy or interest. It is for these reasons people write, to express themselves, to put their thoughts and emotions on paper, to mix the truth, the fact and the ideal in other to present the beautiful. Writers in this sense are perceived to be seers because they have a great knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul than that which is common among mankind. He is a man pleased with his own passion or volitions and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that’s in him. A writer is universal, the voice of the society.
The good news is, like I am fond of saying, anybody can write. The only thing stopping you from writing is you, and the only thing stopping you from becoming a professional writer is you. Starting a writing career begins with sheer passion, or at least, that is the case for me. As in any other career path, your writing will suck, you will be discouraged, your works will be rejected, but in all, never, never give up. As Shakespeare put it, “do not, for one repulse, give up the purpose you resolved to effect.” And, if perchance you do not intend to go professional, keep writing. For some it is therapeutic, for some it is an escape, for some it is pastime. It is important to know that we’re all born to taste the more abundant of life and we only have a brief span of years to get the feel of existence. In other to add to our limited experience in time and in space as well as thoughts, we must turn to literature and especially to poetry which is the most condensed and noble form in which men have recorded emotions and wisdom.
While writing is a beauteous thing to behold, it can be a lonely endeavor. It is why writers are often perceived to be introverts. As experience has taught me, lonely is the writer’s room, alone is the writer’s mind, and so a writer must be allowed to dream. If you must write, dream, and if you must dream, write those dreams.