Writer's Block

I pick up the pen for the umpteenth time, racking my mind for something to write about. My mind still refuses to help, it is as blank and empty as Tom Sawyer's slate. I start a tale about a boy and a girl falling in love with each other, then i stop, because it sounds so cliche, just like an indian or mexican movie. How can i even expect anyone to read romantic bullshit, when even i do not care for them.

I start another tale about the woes of my country, and i begin to sound like every nigerian writer that i know. Make no mistake i love their stories, i just dont feel so attuned to the woes of my people. I am just a typical nigerian willing to watch the condition of the country deteriorate while i do nothing but rant on twitter and facebook.

Sometimes i feel like i was cheated, no great or memorable tragedies has occured in my life that warrants writing. My parents aren't dead or divorced, my brothers don't have cancer or diabetes, I didn't grow up in a tiny one-room apartment in Ajegunle. I know that my logic is flawed and these are reasons why i should be happy and thankful to God but i sure would like to have my own David Copperfield .

I think about God and start a story, but the fear that accompanies the thought of God envelopes me, and i become scared of blasphemy. Even I 'the unreligious one' know how one can easily offend God, and with all the crap that has been happening in my life lately, i can't afford to take that chance.

I slip my earbuds on and get on my Kendrick Lamar grind and all i can hear him talk about is; his niggas getting shot or drug peddling in the hood. I don't know anybody that got shot, i haven't even heard the "doo doo doo" sound before. I don't know anybody hooked to Crack or Crystal Meth, am not even sure its sold in Nigeria but i have friends that are hooked on tramadol and promethazine. I pick up the pen and start to narrate Efe's life, but how can i talk about a stoner when i have never been stoned; not as Stephen and definitely not as Amy Winehouse.

My roving eyes falls on a novel by John Grisham, i pick it up and began reading hoping "ori story ma pe story waye" as my people would say, meaning a story begets another story. Its a book i've read before and its about a boy who died of cancer because the insurance company that held his claim refused to pay for his bone marrow transplant. His parents sued with the aid of a rookie lawyer and won the case but they didn't get a dime because the insurance company declared bankruptcy.

The ending of the book got me depressed, so i ate a box of danish cookies and drank 2 bottles of coke at a sitting. I asked my friend Kabir what to do and he stumped, and humphed and thought and he came up with the answer.

So i picked up my pen and wrote about a writer who found it hard to write.

Creative writing is much more on the side of imagination rather than experience. I'm sure J.K Rowling never flew in the sky with a broom stuck in between her laps.

Its all fiction

Thanks tho, and about Joanne flying on a broom, stranger things have happened