Writing is a lifestyle

pixabay photo

By

John Chizoba Vincent

“We write to taste life twice, in a moment and in retrospect” – Anais Nin

A lifestyle is the typical way of life of an individual, group, or culture. Wikipedia states that lifestyle is the interests, opinions, behaviour, and behavioural orientations of an individual, group or culture.

The ability for you to create things that never existed is the same as you being a god. You give life to non-existing things. You make them live. Although, sometimes you are not being paid for these things, the passion leads you, the drive makes you want to write more and more without stopping even if your hands ache. People critique you negatively; make a mockery of what you have written but you keep keeping on because you have made it part of you, a blossoming lifestyle. You don’t really mind what they are talking about; you only want to pass on a vital message through this lifestyle called writing.

You the creator, you make non-living things live, you the maker; you establish things from its fragments and give them hope. You never knew the power you had within you. I don’t think you know yourself. You never knew you had the ability to give and take life, you never knew you could kill and make live. You don’t know your worth in the world and that is why you allow them to kick you here and there. You never knew what tomorrow had in store for you, no, you pocket your lifestyle because of what they said before, and you made them think you are a nemesis to the world. Have you forgotten you have a lifestyle to protect? In this pleasurable world, do you know you were made to change certain things; to change the world and give opportunities to those that deserve it?

Have you looked at yourself in the mirror and told yourself sweet words as a writer that tell the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end? Do you know that this lifestyle chose you, you didn’t choose it? Did you know that many that critique you want to be like you? Why do you fear? You were afraid yesterday, you were conquered yesterday, you were abused yesterday; but you never gave up because you created this lifestyle to be a writer. Because you created another you from the previous ones they used to see.

Why are you shattered? You were cheated, you were battered, but you never gave in to them yesterday. Why are you frustrated? You were rejected on several occasions but you keep keeping on with this lifestyle you carved for yourself. How is it  this muse never gets dry? Does it mean its sources are endless? Yes, they are endless because writing is an endless lifestyle that lives after you have gone into the abyss. Because you have to write the books that need to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for adults, then you write it for children. I never knew you to be this weak, yes, I know writers are stronger than the foundation of this world. Be strong there!

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then life will be as careless as it is written. Ernest Hemingway once wrote that all good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer. And Albert Camus wrote that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

As a writer with a lifestyle and purpose, the more you leave out, the more you highlight what you leave in. And never judge, but you should try to understand.

“Great writers are indecent people they live unfairly saving the best part for people. Good human beings of the world so that bastards like me can keep creating art, become immortal if you read this after I am dead it means I made it” – Charles Bukowski

“Good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies” – Ray Bradbury

It’s never been a better time to be a writer or aspire to become one in a country like ours but those of us that have this lifestyle of writing chosen by us will keep pushing. If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. Create your space, a lifestyle that has never been created. Be deadly to find the right place to do that, either writing something worth reading or do something worth writing; that is the lifestyle.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader“ – Robert Frost

“Read, read, and read. Read everything— trash, classic, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it is not, throw it out of the window“ – William Falkner

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. You can shake off everything as you write, your pains, sorrow, agony, loss of loved ones, abuse; and disappointment and then, your courage and wit are reborn. Yes, that is what the lifestyle entails. Don’t get discouraged about how you live this lifestyle as they wag their mouth. Don’t look at the dumb side of it but instead the positive aspect of you living as an immortal after death welcomed you home. It may be scary how people see you. They might frighten the whole of you out from your body but every lifestyle has those that speak against it. If there is a real trust, water won’t cook fish, not at all.

Live your life to its fullness and write those things that need to be written for those that will come after us in cravenness and curiosity. Writing is a lifestyle and not a game of trial.

John Chizoba Vincent

John Chizoba Vincent is a cinematographer, filmmaker, music video director, poet and a writer. A graduate of mass communication, he believes in life and the substances that life is made of. He has three books published to his credit which includes Hard Times, Good Mama, Letter from Home. For boys of tomorrow is his first offering to poetry. He lives in Lagos.