Introduction:1 Welcome to ASK THE BOSS, our socioemotional hangout. Today, no long preamble because the question I elect to field is such long thing. The entry is made by Engr Usoro Peters, founding Director-General of The 20 QUESTIONS Community, one of my mentoring platforms. I love Engr Usoro Peters: for his ability -in the last two decades with me- to rise again no matter the fall!
2.0 Which explains why this is a special, special, special edition for me. I love the sender. I love his walk with me, with all the twists and turns. I love the fact that he’s still here, in spite of and despite.
3.0 So, you don’t get jealous, let’s settle down quickly quickly to the business of the day. Are you ready? Sure? Boom: THE BOSS, ‘how do you write these things?
4.0 ‘Like, it’s what everybody is facing, planning and even churning out. Can all you write be your personal experience or thoughts? Or has one person from each state or local government area shared their experience or plan, post covid-19 with you? The Boss, this is really serious o.
5.0 ‘I sincerely want to know. Do you write immediately you wake up or late before you sleep? Or, do you pray, and God sends those stuff down while you pen them down? “Ke akpanikor” (truth to tell) Sir, I’ve read almost all of your pieces but the one on covid-19 aftermath is too real to be read like others.
6.0 ‘The Boss, away from other things I benefit from you, can I be tutored on writing? Is there any recommendations you will give to me? I want to write just like you: writing people’s mind. Finally, as you have taught us to say: many thanks, Sir!’
7.0 MY TAKE: Wow! Just wow! Da 01, many thanks for all the sweet nothings embedded in the battery you need answered. I hope you are ready for my answer(s).
5.0 But, seriously, dear Engr, your questions are like those of a child: so honest, so real, so inquisitive. They speak to your inner man: sincere, surefooted, intentional. I would have treated them as an anonymous something: except that you came out to claim authorship. So, now that delivery has happened in the marketplace: let’s play!
6.0 All glory to God, I write these things by writing them; from experience, from imagination; inspired! I watch sans watching. I listen sans listening. I see/hear sans seeing/hearing.
7.0 I sense/smell something sans sensing/smelling it. I touch people and issues and events only to help society. Not once have I done falsehood/propaganda. Not once SHALL I ever do!
8.0 I write all the time, whenever the inspiration comes -like now- from The Big Man who sits high up there; mostly when I am under tremendous pressure -which, well, is 25 hours everyday! I write mostly when I am sad -like now. People say I always have people around me, which -well- is a big fat lie: 18 to 20 hours each day, I am alone; on my own -like now. Lost in that world -like now, my mind is fertilest: I write like crazy! (I wanted to add -like now, but I reckon that would smack of immodesty)
9.0 Like now! Hic, hic, hic! One other secret, humour is my thing: I laugh at everybody; myself, my wife, my daughters, my parent, my friend, my leader(s), my enemies, those who think they are doing me; everybody. I laugh at everything: my failings, my tears, my lack, my anger, my disappointments, my heart, my … oh, my; sai!
10.0 That’s why nothing anyone says or writes gets to me. Before you said or wrote that about my writing or me, I already did it to me and mocked me enough for it. That grants the kind of immunity no drug or alcohol or herb can. I am permanently high on self confidence.
11.0 Apart from knowledge which you acquire from reading, watching, listening, and in the street, nothing accentuates writingability like self confidence. And it must flow from inside not extraneously. See, if position or money gives you confidence to write some things, then -sorry- you have no self confidence. What you have is material confidence -but, for how long?
12.0 Neither things you write nor you as a writer would last long, like that. In time, people would pick holes in philosophies you espoused. Even you would ‘change mouth’ when the money or position vamooses as it almost always certainly does. My thing is: remain truthful in your writings!
13.0 If you must lie, for whatever reason, then STOP that particular writing. Go to sleep or feign it. You don’t have to write on everything! Your name is not writealways, or is it?
14.0 In addition, never lie for anyone or write to impress anyone and even if, never against another person. You never know which way the wind would blow in future. Let your children and children’s children not read you in years to come and thenceforth change their surname! Write with honour and dignity and with sympathy and empathy and with love; that is, learn how to say some things sans saying them.
15.0 Notice I didn’t mention anything about truth. Be careful with that. Write only truth that binds, that builds, that heals, that helps, that resolves. Stop telling me that truth is truth!
16.0 Yes, all truths are true but I can tell you for free that some truths are truer than others. Yes, just as all animals are equal, some are more equal. What is truth today may be an abominable lie down the road. Be a human being when you write, and never judge -for obvious reasons.
17.0 Furthermore, be deliberate with timing. Don’t allow your emotions push you during your planting season (gestation period) into writing and publishing something you should have kept until after harvest. For instance, about your boss, your benefactor, you need not more than commonsense to hold back things you are itching to write about if they would endanger your garri. It is foolish, empty, useless pride and tactlessness to do otherwise!
18.0 As for being tutored to write, it doesn’t have to be formal. That is, it must not be in an organised or structured way only. You can learn as you learned all the other things. Just be determined, as I know you to be.
19.0 Keep an open mind. Create your own style. Get a trustworthy sounding board or two (you know, someone you can share your manuscript with especially whenever in doubt). When you write, take ownership and responsibility per time.
20.0 Finally, my dear Engr. Usoro Peters, because you are and always have been a good person and a beautiful budding brand, keep being you. Let your writings at all times convey and reflect that intrinsic goodness that has defined your life hitherto. And, believe forever that, whether they like it or yes, you SHALL reap from your goodness.
God bless Uruan and Etinan Local Government Areas of Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria!
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