The story is in you; you are the story; tell it. – Darren Idongesit

We all to often shame aspiring writers in Nigeria and unfortunately I’ve been part of the mob that will never write better but will shame the writers who dare to write with their flaws and grammatical errors.
You are a writer, she is a writer, everyone should be a writer.
Write something in Igbo or Yoruba, pidgin or Fulfude; leave it to the world to get inspired. My favourite writer is Michel de Montaigne and he wrote all too casually about everything and held a healthy disdain for the pretensions of “supposedly” intelligent celebrity writers.
You don’t need to be in the alps resort to write about life as it is, beautiful no matter the predicaments that these things be in print to inspire and throw a different narrative to the public. Writing stories shouldn’t be about the boring lives of the rich and famous; you can eke out a story from anywhere about anything and still awe the world.
Another wonderful writer is Chinua Achebe who told his stories from a history and circumstances he was all too familiar with; his narrative went contrary to the joyous tales of conversions and happiness amongst native populations by European missionaries.

Achebe’s narrative painted the story of the Lion in colours that stand forever in defiance to the popular narrative of how Christianity saved the indigenous people of Africa. Achebe told the story of the hunt from the lion’s perspective and we see immediately how Christianity tore the fabric that held African communities together in peace and love. Christianity tore everything that held us together and the centre came crashing, “things fall apart” and we’ve never picked up the pieces; we’ve never sewn back our destiny even with the inspiration of Achebe’s counter-narrative.
Another writer is Virginia Woolf who wrote “The Death of The Moth” which is about the predicaments of a trapped moth all from the comfort of her study table without having to seek inspiration from elsewhere.
The story is in you; you are the story; tell it.

cc – Darren Idongesit Aquaisua

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