An idea. A house. It’s like building a house. Sometimes you have the entire vision of what kind of house you want as far as interior design or what the window paneling will be like or whether you’ll go with wood or tiles for the floors. Regarding the material itself, whether you’ll use mud bricks or clay blocks or whether the roof will have tiles or iron sheets. The process, however, often takes an entirely different course from what you originally imagined. Well, eventually you will get to your vision if you are persistent and don’t choose to compromise on your preferences. Other times you might change your mind and follow the growth of your home, go with the flow and appreciate the beauty of your vision come to life.
Writing for me is like building a house, the ideas and themes for what I want to write about are the foundation while the scattered bits and pieces of the idea are the cement that holds the bricks together. I always ponder on what I want to communicate and how I want my readers to feel. What is this special thing that I want to share with them? This is the basis on which I start any piece. From there on, it’s about putting the bricks together to raise the structure. That’s where the wording takes center stage, the laying on of these little bricks bound by the cement of meaning towards a story or any piece of writing.
The idea doesn’t simply fall into my lap, it’s drawn from inspiration. Inspiration in itself is taken from the experiences we go through. The world is a rich array of material, from the snippets of conversations people share or the experiences we go through or those around us have, all subconsciously affect our pattern of life. That is what often than not gets translated into my writing. I find that in my writing I draw a lot from that which isaround me, my senses strive to pick up scents, emotions, and attitudes of characters I have one way or another encountered. There is a piece of an actual person somewhere in every character I create. I can never forget my favorite books or works of art; those in which I saw a sense of myself in the characters, that I could relate with them or a painting that evoked deep-seated emotion, my senses understanding it even before I did. They resonated with me on a wavelength that only my inner self could recognize. Everybody has that, sometimes you catch a whiff of it in a song playing on the radio that for some reason brings tears to your eyes or you meet someone that reminds you of someone else, and you want to talk to them or get to know them. We all have a sense of connecting and nothing brings joy to a writer as knowing that someone out there understood what they were trying to say.
The decision to put your work out there. It’s often been said that writers use their work to promote themes or ideas they may have or support. That is to say, if I am interested in government and politics, I’ll write something that comments on the political state of the country or something to do with espionage and conspiracies. But it would be unfair to reduce writing to simply promoting one’s propaganda. Rather it’s the ability to tap into your mind and let it burst forth with wonder to create something beyond that which we see every day and allowing your reader to delve into a world much unlike their own or heck may be very much like their own. One of the things I struggle with is the decision to share my thoughts with the world, whether what I want to talk about is worth anyone’s time. Usually, I start by asking myself why it is that I want to write about that particular topic? The reasons can be as trifle as it being something funny, or an issue I cannot remain silent about. If its fiction, then to create an alternative to that which is the reality, which can cause you the nervousness of worrying whether the reader will understand or be too critical of it.
Either way, you must decide to write. That is the first step, having the courage to ink your thoughts on paper and create a constellation that is your piece. If you are a believer, then you might argue that human beings’ creativity is proof that we are of God’s DNA. The Bible tells us that we are created in the likeness of a being that created the earth within 7 days all from nothingness. Can we then not argue that creativity flows through our veins, a gift bestowed on us by the creator Himself. Perhaps that is why we create fascinating things be it technology, art or music, its inherent.
Courage must then be taken to allow your creativity to take form and be shared with the world. The reception to it is never the same, marred by opinions and naysayers, enthusiasts and pessimists but as you stick to your chosen craft you develop a tribe, those who vibrate to your wavelength. Those who help you grow and better your skill, who see something in you that you don’t see in yourself and who genuinely enjoy what you put out avidly following you, encouraging you on when everyone else says you can’t.
Once you have the courage, you must start to write ─building the house as I’ve called it. Sometimes as you build your dream house, you will hit a snag, where you thought you’d use 7 bags of cement you find that you’ve used 15 and you can’t seem to properly account for the other 8. It might feel like you can’t do it anymore, this sanctuary that you saw yourself building, on the horizon looking over a beautiful sunset is taking up too much of you; your time, your resources all your energies and you just can’t push any further. You have no idea where the next bag of cement isgoing to come from so you just put your hands up in surrender. In this case, shut down your laptop and accept that you have no life left to give your piece of writing. You don’t think you have the words left to push a story, what is the point of the story anyway? Why did you want to write this story? What are you trying to say? Will your editor even accept this thing that you have begotten? Or will this child of your labor be rejected, sent away as if born out of wedlock? When I am hit by this so-called ‘writers block,’ I have come to realize that it helps to take a step back and allow myself to recollect my energies; like a retreat, to allow my brain to just inhale and exhale, take a step back from the work I want to create, like really step away so that I can return after a few days and see it with fresh eyes, rejuvenated and ready to soldier on. There is no real-time limit to this phase of the process. Writers have been known to leave a piece of work for several years and return to it only to rewrite it when they are different people and their style has grown or changed, completely. Evolution would have occurred and a story that had been a three-bedroomed house turns out to be a storied house with a pool.
There is always room for growth in a story, a story you thought was supposed to go one way ends up another and that is the beauty of art; the fluidity of it. If you are a flexible person you find that sometimes your story can get away from you, taking a life of its own but that isn’t true is it? You are the author so anything your characters go through is orchestrated by you, the truth is you simply allowed the vast store of imagination firepower to get away from you and now you have so much to tell and not enough paper. This is more difficult than it sounds, controlling your story and only giving the reader what you think is relevant. The author knows all but that is no guarantee that the reader should know all as well, you can’t show your every play. So, you continue with your building, sealing up gaping cracks and finishing the plastering on your home.
Now you’ve written your story and it is perfect! Nothing beats that initial high after you successfully complete your first piece. You feel like “Musisi” the local god of thunder among the Baganda. You feel the tremors of your footprint on the literary world vibrating throughout the galaxies. That initial high convinces you that this truly is the work of a God. You are nothing short of genius but sadly this is only the first part. Now, you are faced with the technicalities of your writing, the grammatical relevance of each statement and the nitty-gritty of the presence or absence of a comma. Most writers turn to an editor to help them with this part. It helps to have a fresh pair of eyes look at your work with objectiveness. After all, you can find no fault with your baby at this point, your creation is simply perfect. But then an editor will see your work for what it truly is and put your baby to the test, can your house of wonder withstand the test of heavy rain and hailstorms or the paint cracking heat of January? That is after all how your readers will perceive your work and sometimes a completely different meaning will be taken from that which you thought was obvious. So, you return to the drawing board, ready to rewrite your baby. Sometimes you may find this is when your true writing begins and you start to paint your house, picking out your theme colors and special details for your home.
There is a second type of high though, this one is more like the ebbing of a water’s edge against feet, gentle yet warming, the high from when you have truly and fully completed your work. Your baby is ready to be presented to the world and you are ready to share this bit of yourself whatever the response will be. It is your gift to them, your testament that you are of the Creator. It is my dream home and I have to turn the architectural design into tangible bricks. It is my work of art; every brushstroke every smirch. It is my original song; every poetic line every bridge. It is the child of my womb. It is daunting, exhilarating and more than I imagined it would be. It is more than simply telling a story or putting thoughts to paper, it is an art form to be done well otherwise, no one would care for great writers. People care for them because of how their literature made them feel.
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