We Should All be Writers
Emeka Mgbenu
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN WRITE? while and get to the crux of the matter. Writing
Although the cheesy one liner is a breakaway is not just moving ink on paper or whatever
from a popular TV show, it’s relevance is not medium you use. Be it a diary for your eyes only,
lost on us writers, we hear it in snippets of a world renowned journal or an international
conversation, see it in deeper looks, feel an air journal, all writing serves a purpose.
of indifference and feel it in infinitesimal pauses
just after we introduce ourselves and what we Firstly, the opportunity given to us to write our
do. own stories and share experiences unique to
us is not one to be taken for granted. Every
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This lurking feeling is alarmingly absent time you pick up a pen to write, you stand the
in bibliophile circles, and for good reason. risk of creating something entirely unique. The
Anecdotal evidence suggests that about 70% of probability that the exact string of words used
what we know presently is directly and indirectly by you to communicate would be the same with
gotten through the written word. another writers, who had no prior knowledge
The fickle nature of man has plagued us of your work is almost impossible. For this to
constantly since time immemorial, to remind happen, you both would have to have the exact
ourselves from time to time of all things, hence thought process, vocabulary, perspective and
our ancestors had to pass down be sharing the same brain! Like fingerprints, our
instructions. A manual of sorts, embedded stories may appear similar, but are always deeply
in stone. So why exactly should you start or different.
continue writing?
Secondly, in a world characterised by chaos,
Let’s set aside the technical jargon of writing is sometimes shrugged aside. The typical
prepositions and grammatical structures for a case of heeding the message but completely