Allure of Paper

When I was younger, I always packed a pen and a notebook or at least, a sheet of foolscap paper (somewhere down the line I switched to A4 papers for the most part, because you could get one of these at the store round the block). Tucked away carefully within the reach of my arms in the back of my pants pocket, I trudged everyplace in the company of my writing tools. Even at that tender age, I’d featured the muse was an interestingly fickle agent of the creative genius. And I set myself up to max his erratic tendencies.

Paper Weaving (Photo credit: FeatheredTar)

Tablet phones and the IPad have warmed themselves to the hearts of millions of writers all around the world. These gadgets have somehow managed to ease off the burden of having to truck with journals thanks to ever-increasing insurgence of writing apps. Amusingly enough, I still find myself enthralled by the sight of a blank page.

I can’t shake the feeling that swallows me up and runs me over when I spot a conventional notebook or a sheet of paper. My fingers become itchy and I grow restless; paper confronts me with a throbbing nostalgia for the good times I’ve had when I was scribbling poetry in entirely remote orbits when I was just a kid trying to perfect my act. I don’t think I’ll ever really get over the allure that paper has on me.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

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Remarkable Adventures

Writing can be a terrific adventure. Moments fueled by unfolding layers of exciting activities. Pages after pages of stolen mysteries whipped up by the sound of paper.

Faced with the possibility of failure a writer feels the eyes of discouragement stalking his will with a white hot glare. I have had moments of doubt myself. Still do, sometimes. I think the one single ingredient that kept me going were Maya Angelou’s words, ‘There ain’t nothing to it, but to do it’. Yes, there’s no other way to keep up but by keeping up. When we finally find the courage to go on, we would have achieved an endless access into the streams of our creativeness.

Our journeys in the world of the imagination can be tinged with a bit of magic. But first, we must find a way around the obstacles and get our creative juices boiling. Finding what works for you, the subject that makes you tick would be one step in the right direction.

Often, we find ourselves picking someone else’s vines, writing stuff that’s totally off limits to us. And many times, the stuffs we write about may not even spark one single flame of interest inside us.

Beating our tracks back to familiar grounds could very well set us off to a good start. I’ve learned how tough it is to be inventive wading through strange waters. When you walk into a topic you have no business in the world messing in, you’re stuck. You just might want to give up on writing entirely, thinking it’s not for you. It takes just that little effort to run into a wall.

When we are unblocked we can have remarkable and diverse adventures - Julia Cameron.

The point is to find a primary genre and put a tag on it. From that instant forward, the block becomes somewhat of a myth. Discovery of a genre we can naturally adapt to unplugs our muse, puts the wind at our backs, and then it slides us into the embrace of remarkable adventures.

Keep the scribbler's pen bleeding!

Akpan

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