₦airaland Forum

RE-VISITING NIGERIA

(Holding fire and water together)

I don't know why the rain keeps writing the
name of Nigeria on the ground in every corner.
I don't know why we are this broken and
tortured like the fragments of the dust.
I don't know why the Dapchi girls returned yesterday while their chikbok friends are
still in captive.
I don't know why every street in Nigeria is
known with an imprint of good leaders.
I don't know why we cry yet point accusation fingers back to ourselves, who is fooling who?
I don't know why the sun cry here with a
closed lips.
I don't know why we keep writing love stories
while our brothers and sisters perish in shame!
I don't just know why but I think you should know.
Are you not the one that collected a cup of rice, clean notes and Abrahamic lie from them?
I won't speak ill of this land again, I won't!
I won't judge any one, no, I won't for the
sake of my unborn children.
No, I won't for the sake of what happened to Dele Giwa and Saro Wiwa.
We poets are abnormal psychologically.
We paints abstraction from the abstracts creating fears that might hurt those true patriots.
My muse fell out from me yesterday night,
When my television opened to a scene of genocide.
Men on pants, women on trousers painting out the tears made for people inhabiting hell.
Their laughters and smiles were printed to be archived among themselves.
I won't speak ill of this country, no, I won't!
Because of my unborn children, I won't!
But I will tell just one tale for them to remember
Of how monkeys carted away with our monies!
Of how Snake swallowed our currency!
Of how good our leaders are, I think you know!
I have been holding these demons in me until last night they came out horribly in fierce protest to revisit this land again.
To tell of those girls raped under the bridge,
To ask why boys like me are named after me,
To speak against shadows of death lurking here and there.
Nigeria is grey and black, red and violent,
Retrieving this oceans of mysteries from the hidden abyss of grave corruption is the passport tabled on the pyramid top to recreate a versatile muses of a lyrics calling for a right to write our rights.
Take a walk to memory lane pass your shadow, that of your father, mother & grandmas
You will see a Nigeria in another angle trying
to free herself from the grip of corruption, then, revisit her tears and struggles you'll know we
are the cause of our own misfortunes.!



©John Chizoba Vincent
From_A_Pen_Refusing_Frustrations

meobizy:
Being a writer is too easy nowadays. I've learned with the amount of information people imbibe these days especially in the era of cheap internet bundles it only takes a few years and common sense to quickly become one.
If something is ubiquitous it becomes cheap. Such is the situation of Facebook writers. I see it a foolish endeavour for one to believe he/she can make money solely from writing considering the environment we live in. Writing should remain a side hobby till one gains full confidence in their skill.
Why is money the final aim of the writing process? It strikes the bell of the trader who starts a business with profit being his only aim.
There are a lot of online platforms where one can get financially rewarded for write ups, the Facebook writers should aim their sights there first before anywhere else.


Besides, I hope you have a blog you post these write ups. They are getting too good to stay here languishing without at least making money off them.

I don't really have a blog. I'm planning of getting one soon . But before then, let's continue with facebook and other sites.

THIS HOUSE IS NOT FOR SALE

This house is not for sale-
beware of my kitchened wife,
beware of Emeka, my son
& Tobi, my Son-in-law;
even Musa, my gate man.
Everyone is a thief in his room,
everyone is a saint outside his room-
Trespassers will be persecuted.
Behind the closed doors are unscripted scenes of scenery stones of miscreants
hanging their tainted memories on the
eyes of souls to take away their vineyard.
This land is not for sale,
Politicians are here;
Pot bellied looters are here holding selfishness as the right hand of God.
Yesterday,
100 soldiers died laughing out their skulls-
the politicians keep mute hoping to see
the spirits of the soldiers return home
to defend the country from buyers.
We are not selling this country to get paid, beware of 419-
This is military Zone, keep off.
We are preserving it in the stomach
of the Leaders.
How long do you hold your house in your body?
How long do you have to sell to make that profit that never existed?
From the fireflies of the boundless rainbows,
We would hold resistance of greed into being tying itself like the dog of wisdom.
This house is not for sale, buyers, beware,
The C of O is with the righteous politicians,
God has learnt to save their tainted freewill on his palms.
He could not find a way to punish them in hell anymore.
Do not allow other lips to hold onto this saying.
the road on the tongue of this house
has led me to places:
to be a politician & extort from the poor masses
& to lead them astray into oblivion of darkness.
Days are gone when we see moon in
the smile of the sun that peeps through
the window of this house...
Do not come home to this house anymore,
Its no longer has your loved ones in it.

©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidPoetry.

Popular Award Winning Nigerian Poet and author, Ike Ikeogu is dead
.
In the late hours of Saturday, November 24 2018, it was reported that the popular award winning poet and the recent winner of NNLG Prize for Literature died after a brief illness.
.
https://www.myaceworld.org/2018/11/popular-award-winning-poet-ike-ikeogu.html

djshevytee:
Ok thank you

Thank you for reading me.

WE SHOULD ALL BE WRITERS

(FACEBOOK WRITERS PHENOMENON)

In many cities of the world, especially the under developing countries, writers have been subject of abuse, neglect, exploitation and even in extreme cases murdered by evil critics who doesn't critique constructively. These writers, expected mirrors through which we see the society or rather the eyes of the society or something like that, experience various obnoxious and unbearable frustrations, depression and suicidal thoughts which in most cases make them end up in the street thereby being labeled as street/Internet writers or the most common one "Facebook Writers". which is not suppose to be so. The problem still lies in our society, we commonize these set of people. We never thought of their feelings and other things. We prefer celebrating them more in death rather than when they are alive. We all should be Writers to know what it means to be one. We all should be Writers burning candles and fuel to write those things that will remain tomorrow after we must have gone to the other world.

These Writers, either by design or default, become victims of circumstances created by the environment; sometimes emanating from the past experience with lackadaisical attitudes to the well being of their Successors. By extension, some of these Writers are on the streets of pain because of poor reading culture , lack of encouragement resulting to vain praises, mistreatment, neglect and lack of basic necessities of life to make their writings very easy and fun. I once told a friend of mine sometimes ago that it is very easy to push from outside to Nigeria as a writer than you pushing from Nigeria to the outside world. If you look at the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Tomi Adeyemi, Helon Habila, Wole Soyinka, Onyeka Nwelue and many others, they all pushed from outside into Nigeria and that is why you hear their names carved on the sand of time. They were first welcomed by the white men first before home welcomed them. I could remember reading that Wole left the shores of Africa to study abroad when he was 19 years old and there, he must have made the necessary contacts he needed as a writer. Chimamanda did the same thing at the age of 19. And many writers by default want to leave home as quick as possible once their voice is recognized over there. They want to remain there as writers than coming back home because there is better than here.

As a result of dangers posed on the career of home made writers, they found ready homes in unoccupied dwellings, uncompleted buildings, under the bridges and wastelands more than their dreams and aspirations.

They end up dying with their dreams as writers, they end up not reaching their goals as writers. This is depressing and frustrating when a writer can not really say he wants to be a writer here and make living through writing and educating people on how to leave a footprint on the sand of time as a writer without being frustrated.

This also includes home base writers who might not necessarily be worthless and hopeless to themselves, it also includes writers who are homeless and voiceless out there or without families, but who live in situations where there is no protection, finance , or direction from responsible publishers as well as writers in such a wide variety of circumstances, issues, problems and characteristics that our law makers and service providers find difficult to describe and target. These writers out there are frustrated moving from one particular publishing house to other seeking for help on how their works could be published. Some of them are tired of being called writers because they ain't making a living through what they call profession. Yes, they ain't making a good living through what they stand to be known.

Besides the country's economic situation and other vices, these Writers may have chosen to make the streets and libraries as their resort for other reasons. Unfortunately, some of them may have no choice as writers - they are abandoned, Rejected writers, or thrown out of their homes by poverty and depression as they are termed Facebook writers or something like that. Some may choose to live their life in defiance, another condition that has to do with the psychological make up of writers. Disappointedly though, some writers also work other jobs especially those with families because their earnings are needed by their family members and relations for their upkeep and other things, they have other reponsibilities to cater for privately and publicly and taking writing as only profession here in Nigeria won't in any way provide all these to them. It won't pay their bills. I know a writer who spend #250,000 to publish a book but he could not sell up to 500 copies of that book for more than one year. The last time we spoke, he told me that he has decided to be giving those books out in a literary event so that they won't get rotten in his room. in fact this particular case is becoming very rampart as it were. Everybody can write but there are purposeful writers who enjoy what they do whether there is money or no money. These set of people live their life on daily basis depending on other jobs to provide their bread. We all should pick up our Biro to mirror the society as it is and tell others how we see our own very society whether it is encouraging or not. Wear their shoes and know how it's hurt. Writers are more like teachers here in Nigeria.

The challenges posed by these Writers both to the government, Econmy, Commerce and the environment at large cannot be overemphasized. The resultant effects created may appear very immensurable but on the long run it creates a devastating imbalance on the society at large and to the Africa.

There is no doubt that government is saddled with a number of issues bothering on the well being of this profession and also has the responsibilities of addressing the danger on home base Writers in the country. But the challenge as it were is that no particular measurable step has been taken so far to address the issue facing Home base writers in Nigeria. No measurable step has been taken to help raise new voices from these young generations spring up everyday as writers rather the ball is still in the court of our ancestry heroes, the ball that was played yesterday remained in the hands of our predecessors. New voices are created every year but their throats are getting dry everyday because of frustration and depression it entails being a writer in this side of the world.

Writers and Readers no doubt are part of the larger society. However, the underlying factors responsible for poverty or breakdown of writers and readers could be traceable to social, economic, political and environmental. It is only someone that has food in his or her belly that would have the strength to read. Without food, you can never concentrate while reading.

The facebook, magazine and internet writers phenomenon in Nigeria is gradually assuming alarming proportions, particularly in urban side of our country. The immediate cause of this challenge appears to be deeply entrenched in finance, poverty and lack of traditional publishers in Nigeria (like in the days of Macmillan, University Press and lots of them) which defines lives of the vast majority of the Nigerian Home base Writers. Invariably, broken writers and aspiring writers who find it difficult to provide the basic needs equally end up at some point frustrated and give up on the career and the phenomenon very much alarming resulting to: suicide, desperate health issues, alarming fading of reading culture in our country, particularly now that every one is some how broke no one think about reading again rather we all think of how to make fast money. We all should be writers to re-write these evils penetrating gradually into the system.

©John Chizoba Vincent
#LiquidWords.

My father is a stranger in my heart


I want to run away from myself
bury myself in the thought of a madman
he understands grief as a mouth filled with pebbles, as ghosts whistling in his pockets.
Life is such an empty bird without a song,
My father is a lurking stranger in my heart-
I know his smell each time he is wrapped in
a story that has no beginning but deadly end,
Each time he is ceased in a graveyard that has
No opening but a bottom of endless nightmare.
his days are gardens washed into the nile
he emptied his mouth into a song & birth certificate of tears leaving home to find hell.
he is there flapping into tenses of gazing men
in every lisp on his lips like a wisp
waiting for the last gaze of a july sun.
I followed the steps of Enya from his eyes,
I understand the only time in an exile is the time
You are suppose to leave your skin to another skin to stay till you regain yourself in yourself.


Let me help you understand this:
My father is a song in an exile mile away.
My mother is his lynched lyrics painting his sins.
He bottled her like a maji from Tomi Adeyemi'
Thought, before I was born there was a raid.
I'm lost in his assaulted plights daily
I tried to save her but saving her is a sin
The more mouths I created, the more plights
she swallows as the time ticks away with tears.


I want to run away from myself
& hide in another's skin whose shadows were dedications to the gods of waiting &hoping.
I don't want to have this man on my skin again.
I want him to remain a stranger he is to me...
Like the pages of burnt men' stories, let him be.
Like the elephant wills of the African night,
Let him continue dreaming about tomorrow,
Do not hang him on my skin when we see tomorrow!


©John Chizoba Vincent
# The_Boy_Hero

segunoz:
this is quite inspirational. keep up the good work man.

Thank you. I promise never disappointing.

I don’t care how many times you have been rejected by magazines and online journals, yes, I don’t care because it is normal to writers. I don’t care how many publication houses your manuscripts have gone to and that they bounced back to you dirty and rough. I know how it hurts because I have been in the same shoes as you are in right now. I have been rejected several times, one publisher/editor once throwing my manuscript at me. He said I was writing rubbish that he could not comprehend, and I was on my knees begging him to publish it. He then walked me out from his office. I have to sell many of my manuscripts to get one of my books published. Yes that was the only option I had then. I could not have done anything better than at that time.



One editor in one of the publishing houses in Lagos told me that I won’t go far in writing if I am not living abroad. Yes, I understood him very well. It is easier to push from abroad to Nigeria as a writer than to start or push from Nigeria. To become a writer here in Nigeria is an endless torment, an endless dreadful torture because no one cares about what you have written or what you have done. Your manuscripts remain on your shelf, no leave no transfer. Cockroaches make a meal of it, cobwebs build their homes on it. Each time you look to your shelf, you will see your treasure wasting because no one cares about it. Editors will tell you what they told Kenneth Grahame: “An irresponsible holiday story that will never sell.” This might possibly be the most whimsical description ever of the adventures of Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger in the best-selling children’s tale The Wind In The Willows.



Kenneth Grahame could have given up when he was told that but thankfully he never did. He kept pushing until that book was published. So, I don’t care to know what they have told you as a writer, poet, author or novelist that you can’t make it beyond their level, don’t mind them, just push a little more. You don’t need to write like Chimamanda Adichie, you don’t need to horn your voice like Habila Helon, you don’t need to possess special strength or smoothness of tale like Tomi Adeyemi, Buchi Emecheta before you can be published and; you don’t have to sound like Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Chris Okigbo, and many of them to be known. You just have to be yourself. Yes, be your own weak self. Learn the art and keep moving at your own pace. You will be rejected, they will rape your sanity, abuse will come but never relent in your pursuit of happiness and joy in that thing that gives you joy.



Writing is a lifestyle in which you have to imbibe. No one sees your struggles, they only want the result. You never knew how Chimamanda Adichie got to where she is now. You never knew the struggles and pains she had to go through writing those books. Yes, she didn’t wake up one day and became this famous, she started from somewhere. She had sleepless nights, she was abused also, she was brave enough to stand her ground. Why do you want to quit because one magazine rejected you? Why? Do you know what you really carry within you?



If you are a writer, before you write, learn the rules of the language you deploy. Ignorance is not poetic licence.



Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick, was turned down by multiple publishers, some of whom had creative suggestions for the author. Bentley & Son Publishing House wrote: “First, we must ask, does it have to be a whale? While this is a rather delightful, if somewhat esoteric, plot device, we recommend an antagonist with a more popular visage among the younger readers. For instance, could the Captain not be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens?”



Melville nevertheless got his tale of futile revenge published—by none other than Richard Bentley, of Bentley & Son. (The American edition debuted less than a month later). That said, the author still made some serious sacrifices, paying for the typesetting and plating himself.



Ernest Hemingway was also rejected. The Sun Also Rises is perhaps Hemingway’s most widely read work, but not everyone was a fan. In 1925, Moberley Luger of publisher Peacock & Peacock wrote to the 26-year-old author: “If I may be frank — you certainly are in your prose — I found your efforts to be both tedious and offensive. You really are a man’s man, aren’t you? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you had penned this entire story locked up at the club, ink in one hand, brandy in the other. Your bombastic, dipsomaniac, where-to-now characters had me reaching for my own glass of brandy.”



It’s a harsh assessment—though from what we know of Hemingway, it proposes a scenario that is not unlikely either. Still, this rejection hardly damaged his career. The novel would be published by Scribner’s the following year.



George Orwell: Sometimes fellow writers give the thumbs down. In 1944, T.S. Eliot was working at Faber & Faber and wrote a largely apologetic rejection of Animal Farm to George Orwell that included this appraisal: “… we have no conviction (and I am sure none of the other directors would) that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time… Your pigs are far more intelligent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm—in fact, there couldn’t have been an animal farm at all without them: so that what was needed, (someone might argue), was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs.”



The work was rejected by at least four publishers before making it into print in August 1945.



H.G. Wells was told that his book was “An endless nightmare. I think the verdict would be ‘Oh don’t read that horrid book.” Despite this editor’s rejection on The War of The Worlds, the tale of alien invasion is still in print nearly 120 years later.



And this was what Kurt Vonnegut was told: “We have been carrying out our usual summer house-cleaning of the manuscripts on our anxious bench and in the file, and among them I find the three papers which you have shown me as samples of your work. I am sincerely sorry that not one of them seems to us well adapted for our purpose. Both the account of the bombing of Dresden and your article, ‘What’s a Fair Price for Golden Eggs?’ have drawn commendation although neither one is quite compelling enough for final acceptance.” Sent to Kurt Vonnegut by a response to three writing samples, this is one of the more pleasant rejection letters. Vonnegut turned the Dresden bombing account into Slaughterhouse-Five.



And Marcel Proust was bashed with these words: “I rack my brains why a chap should need thirty pages to describe how he turns over in bed before going to sleep.”



Rudyard Kipling got this kind of response from a newspaper editor: “…you just don’t know how to use the English language,” Kipling getting this response to a short story he pitched to a now-defunct newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner. He never give up with his quest as a writer.



Another example of writer-to-writer smacktalk. Hunter S. Thompson sent this doozy of a rejection to his biographer, William McKeen: “…you shit-eating freak. I warned you not to write that vicious trash about me — Now you better get fitted for a black eyepatch in case one of yours gets gouged out by a bushy-haired stranger in a dimly-lit parking lot. How fast can you learn Braille? You are scum.”



When D.H. Lawrence submitted his own book, he got this response: “…for your own sake do not publish this book.” D.H. Lawrence did not take this advice and Lady Chatterley’s Lover was soon published.



John Le Carré also got his own rejection letters but he never allowed that to hit him that was why his third book The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which became an international best seller when published.



And Louisa May Alcott was told this: “Stick To Teaching.” Louisa May Alcott rejected this dismissive response to Little Women. It would be published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, and remains a classic nearly 150 years later.



Stephen King was told this: “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.” Despite this feedback, Stephen King eventually published The Running Man under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.





Don’t quit as a writer, there are many people out there waiting to read you. There are many stories you still need to write because if you don’t write it, no one else will. Remain who you are: A Writer!



©John Chizoba Vincent

This is how you smell in the afternoon


Like the scent of my lover's ghost,
A girl's hair fell out from her head yesterday
God could not pick it until she got swallowed.
This is me donating a bandage to poetry
To ease pains from those people insane,
This is me donating blood to linage dirge,
To commemorate the agony of your dance.
Mother said the only great place to dance is between the legs of fighters in the battlefield.


I will bury you in the glistening edge of my pen
For the sake of words and hyping of blood.
I know the scent of my lover's body in the morning when red roses withstand legs
waiting to get murdered in the afternoon.
Let me put you through this call & hear god
Tell you this is how you smell in the afternoon
Like African poverty and their sinful desires
Like African corruption and their election.


This is how you smell in the afternoon before
The kiss from the sun unmasked your feelings,
Like the pages of Nigerian jolted sorrows.
Soonest, salty sultan embraces will have
Your welcome in the palm of morning moon.
I won't shine some light to your thoughts,
But I will make the windful words to quench
the tales in your beaming lustful eel eyes
And the galaxies of stars shall gather to say amen to this rhetorical questions in your mouth.


This is me harvesting words like baits,
I know your smell when you want to hurt me
I know your smell just like Nigerian politicians.
I know your odour when you are obsessed with
The only prophecy in my head to the world.
Store your saliva in my prayerful pocket
I'll sill silly girl into the dumb dungeon
Hunting the same smell that got burnt raising your kind; this is how you smell in the afternoon


©John Chizoba Vincent
# The_Boy_Hero.

MissWrite:
Exposed to what? Everyone is exposed to something, even if it is the four walls of your own bedroom. The four walls of your own bedroom can still inspire you to write something authentic - about boredom, or fear, or imprisonment - the point is that it is important to pay attention to what you see (inside or outside) and to tell it in your own voice.

Eventually, a good writer has to be authentic. But many writers would tell you that they copied someone else for a while before they discovered themselves. Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance) copied Hemingway. John Milton said that copying many writers is research. You can emulate your favourite writer, but understand that it's only a springboard - the first step of a process. Because you must be prepared to transcend that voice and grow into your own.

Thank you for this.

Shelumiel:
Nigerian authors are not exposed, hence they copy and mimic those who are exposed .

Not all. Not all authors are not exposed.

WRITERS: STOP COPYING CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE'S WRITING STYLE!

One of the major problems or issues that some contemporary Nigerian writers have today is that they want to write and sound like Chimamanda Adichie, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Habila Helon and Many others to be accepted by the society. They want to echo from the voices of these people rather than their own voices and this, is killing creativity in them and sagging voices are knitting together to birth shallow fictions and non fiction everyday. This makes them the other copy of themselves rather than the person they are meant to be. They don't know they can create their own voices and feelings, characters and give them lives just like the way they want it. But the truth remains that you can do better than these people. You can create your own voice louder and more entertaining and thrilling than theirs. Stop copying their writing style, you may never get to understand how good and powerful your words are until you start using them.

Moreover, you can write better than these people! You can create more engaging characters from your synthesis. Art is freedom and freedom is art and, this freedom is lost when you give yourself the doubts of yourself. Art is engaging yourself into yourself inwardly through the passion resonating to life. You can develop yourself in a style that will beat off their legacy. You must not sound jlike or write like Chimamanda Adichie to be a great writer. Stop writing like Chimamanda Adichie or Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka with the hope to be accepted by publishers, be you! That is the first law of creativity! Write like you and don't try to be like them. Chimamanda groomed herself to be who she is today, she has been in closed doors for a very long time ago carving and uniting her words together to make sense just like you've read them. she has embarked on rough and tough journey researching on how to be better than her former self. Hence, taking a competing step over the use of her prowess and wit makes her who she is. You can't be her and she can't be you but you can study her works to be a better writer. Understand what dexterity and bravery is, adroitness and brevity among all is very key.

A writer is not just someone who writes. In his head, are words all day long. The conflicting ones and the peaceful ones; the good, the bad and the ugly!. He holds battle within, battles between his characters, battles between tenses intended, battles between his wit and prowess; wearing the mind of his readers and his. He strikes a balance between his thoughts and imaginations. He sees the world not as a place made up of things but of words about those things. He knows more meaning is contained in a phrase like "Poisons enemies” than a paragraph-long attempt at comparing emotional pain to a stab wound. That is who you are to defend as yourself, as a writer.

A writer will divine a metaphor from a pattern on a dress, a lurking demonstration, or a gesture, and eyes movement because sunsets have been done before. A writer understands the capacity for words to embolden, to eviscerate, to cut a man in half and arrange him again and embrace his wetness and calmness. That is the person you should train your self to be, that is one you should know better than. Chimamanda may be better in her own way but that does not mean that her style will also favour you as a writer. Your own awaesomeness is your ability to discover what works for you. A writer’s words have texture and an aesthetic – they mean one thing on paper and another in your mouth when you chew them and vomit them back like a cud. A writer knows the word “perfume” has a scent, and “savory,” a flavor. He also knows that the technical way for making you taste his words is synesthesia, but he’d rather show you through his lines than tell you how it is through his words.

A writer’s mind is sticky, cavernous. It is a locus of constant invention and generation, but also of deconstruction and warfare and sword towards it behold. Its very synapses fire bullets between semicolons and periods and comas housing the fancy of muse and, that is why you must be afraid sometimes and the other time, braver dealing with what is at stake. Chimamanda knows about this and you don't know about it. In the infancy of the day, or as it’s expelling its final breath towards East, an errant phrase will show up there unannounced and become lodged in some furrow that deepen your imagination. It will keep the writer up at night, until he’s built a temple or a cave or a palace to house you, or at the very least, a sand castle, around it.

Someone who writes writes as himself or herself but not from the dying echoes of another writer. Be you not her!

A writer believes in truth but understands the utility of a lie. Someone who writes will think about a lie in terms of its anatomy: he’ll see it as something with dead legs, flayed on a cold steel table, reeking of that stuff we use now instead of formaldehyde, because formaldehyde will kill you, too. But a writer believes in a lie’s biology and knows it is still alive, animated by some preternatural aspiration, an amorphous mass of amorphous cells, dividing and multiplying and taking on some new architecture every time you look at it. A writer knows a lie doesn’t want to die but to live again through your mind and spirit. Try to be you and not them. Art is freedom. There are many African tales waiting for you to tell them.

©John Chizoba Vincent
#The_Boy_Hero

kollinz1234:
I have a traditional novel I want to publish by December l, been working on that piece of work for over six 6 years now. I think I need a publisher that usually rejects work to publish that book that will put me on the right track. If u have any around Lagos and plateau state pls assist

Let's chat on facebook or whatsapp. John chizoba Vincent is the name on facebook

HarkymTheOracle:
Read it all.. Wow.. Wise words there.. Writers should take note.

Thank you so much brother.

kollinz1234:
pls maybe am just ignorant but do publishers still reject work? I have friends who just write anything and take it to publishers and their work has never been rejected

Publishers do reject works. It is often these days than before. This book by Tomi Adeyemi children of blood and bones was rejected also before her agent took her to this publisher that published and signed a movie contract with her.

kollinz1234:
just a question pls. U spoke about looking for an agent, what exactly will be the role of that agent, is it to market you or to edit ur work. Pls ur answer will be highly appreciated

The agent helps you to source for publishers or a publishing house that will accept your work.

WRITING IS NOT FOR LITTLE CHILDREN

Each time I try to do it right, I fail myself. I've tried all I could but I keep getting it wrong. The other day, someone's comment on my wall made me want to give up writing but I told myself I would write again and again and again but I keep failng and failing until I remembered what a prominent writer I met sometimes ago to help me in the course of my journey in writing told me. He said to me then:

"John Chizoba Vincent, Writing is not for little children".

I ran into myself and ran out again then, my heart reminded me of the beginning of Chinua Achebe's review on Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half Of A yellow Sun:

"... we do not associate wisdom with beginners..."

Writing is actually not for little children who wants to take it to kill up time. You have to break yourself into pieces of ashes. You have to wear many shoes which are not yours. Some mad man's shoes, a lawyer's shoes, a trader's shoes, a crazy man's shoes and a Prophet's shoes and still come back to wear your own shoes or check if they are still your size. You have to create a character that you hate and those that you love, you have to wear Mama Ekene's bra or show her how to wear her bra and still wear Daddy Ifeoma's boxers and still be alright. You have to become Mama Ayo's tailor to swiftly measure her and tell her the colour of clothe material that would be better on her as a fair woman. You have to know the size of trouser that Papa Ayo used to wear. Yes, you have to be everywhere in your writing. You have to bury yourself into yourself through the celestial reign of who you are. You have to break yourself, run out of you and come back seeking for where you have missed it. You have to wear this sorrow and hang your clothes on the head of critics both constructive criticism and insane ones. You have to rub yourself off some night of sleep trying to create a character, trying to destroy a character without pitying him, trying to make your character feel alright without harming yourself or the other character, then, later you delete the character you've created because you don't really like the way he talks or rather you don't like the way he walks or his career or the way you created him or her. You will have to protect each and every one of your characters; the foolish ones, the crafty ones, the dumb ones, the smartest ones; you have to give them a reasonable life that would make them different from the others.

Sometimes writers block comes around, sometimes it leaves you blank and makes your head empty. You will look like an artiste who forgot his Lines in a recording studio. You must have a purpose of what you are writing about. You dreamt of how the world wiould stand still reading your write up or your poems, or your article or your novel but one critique from one man got you worn out. He told you to go and keep your pen that you are not fit. He told you that you have written nothing, you looked at his comments and felt like strangling him but you can't . You know what you've written are worth billions but you took it to the publishing house and they rejected it. You returned home weeping, remembering how many nights you kept awake trying to complete the story. You remembered how many candles you burnt writing on papers. You remembered how much fuel you burnt typing on your laptop. You hit your chest and said you won't write again because of your rejected manuscripts but tomorrow you see your self typing again. Your muse advised you to write again but you tried again and it was rejected for the second time, you packed up and promised yourself never to write again. See, rejection is normal to all writers. Writing is not for little children without the knowledge of how to control their emotions and feelings.

I’m putting this out as an advice and also as a kind of guide to others who are thinking of coming into this profession to just while away their time, writing is engaging, it is funny sometimes, and the other time; fun and the other time, annoying, it is not meant for little children. Don't be in a competition with anyone, I’m saying this because many are actually in competition with other writers. . As much as you would have loved to tell the story of your life many people won't like it just because they don't like you. I’ve realized that writing is not an easy task, writing is a hard work and pushing your work is harder than the writing sometimes. Yes, many would reject you just because they don't like your story or the character you created. You've to learn to push forward from every rejection. Everything is a process. Writing is more like a communion between you and nature and some other universal factors. Your writings will fly when the universe say they are ready to get to another level of appreciation and apparently splashes of praises will come to you just like Tomi Adeyemi is enjoying herself now. Just like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is enjoying her fame now. Ask them the reason why they didn't quit before, write and ask them how many publication houses they were chased out from. You will be surprise to hear their own side of the story before they made it as famous writers. Be more interested in creating art that will last a life time battling with others in the nearest future. Don't settle for the less. Don't settle for shallow writing. Don't just write because your friends are writing, write purposefully. Writing is not for little children, you'll get frustrated remember, your fingers will hurt from typing; your stomach will get you angry and the search for a conducive environment is another nightmare in the business of writing.

Most people regarded as writers may just be attention seekers, who just want their voices to be heard among others. To write and make a living out of it, which is the joy that comes with every profession is really hard in Nigeria and other part of the world. You have to look for agent, the Agent has to believe in you, stand by you to the end. You need to discover your purpose for writing. You need to know where you stand as a writer and write purposefully. So don’t bring your expectations to me, hold it and try not to choke with it and don’t compare yourself with others out there. Consider creating your own style if you really want to write. Consider some deadly critics who don't like your face Critiquing your work. Consider all but never you loose yourself for anything. Don't follow everyone putting their gold in a crowded room to be recognized.

©John Chizoba Vincent
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