Lessons to Learn From An Inconsistent Writer

This is NOT a motivational piece.

I call myself a writer, yet, I am consistently short of words.

Imagine having 43 drafts on your Medium page, and I call myself a writer. Imagine not being able to write articles like this one since last year, and I call myself a writer. Imagine not being able to make informative write ups on social media and still, I call myself a writer.

You may have 2 questions in mind – why do I call myself a writer and what made me stop writing?

I prefer to answer the latter first.

I stopped writing because I felt I wasn’t good enough to write. I used to work at a digital publication which promoted intellectual literary pieces ranging from politics and history to technology and health.

When I saw the level of intellect displayed in the essays, I decided to learn how to write like the authors. I started reading Nigerian political novels written by the likes of Max Silloun, Jim Ovia and many more.

But to my surprise, I found them depressingly boring. I don’t know if it was the delivery of the information or the fact that it was politics, but I just couldn’t read it for long. The same thing happened when I tried to read gender, history and technology books. It didn’t stick for me.

Sometimes, after reading these books, I’d then go ahead to write like the authors. But after typing away for an hour or so, I would always end up deleting everything. It’s as though nothing ever sat right with me. I felt I was either writing the wrong things, or writing the right things for the wrong reasons.

Now, to answer the first of the two questions asked earlier – why do I call myself a writer?

It’s that simple. I call myself a writer because I love to write. It’s the one job that I am always drawn to, no matter what.

Some would say I shouldn’t call myself a writer, because writers write without excuses. I find this school of thought to be true, but in some ways, flawed.

We are imperfect human beings and because of our imperfections, our actions can’t always be perfect as well. We would make our mistakes, have our disappointments and go through our trials, but what makes us perfect is pushing through the barriers of our limitations, despite it all.

For many of us, this could mean a lot of things, but for me, it just means that I will continue to try (notice that I didn’t say promise) to be more consistent with writing. Even if it means making out more time or reassuring myself of my abilities every now and then.

I was about to end this, but I just realized that you may have one more question. What is the lesson(s) that this article promises to give?

It is this. You don’t need to tell a big story before you become a perfect writer. You don’t need to be the most gifted or intellectual. You just need some story to tell, even if it’s your own, and along the line, you might just find the perfection you seek for greater stories.