2013: On One Canvas

Come April, I’d have been writing for the internet for five years. December would mark my fifth year running this blog you’re reading. I’ve had times I wanted to cut and run but I’m still here, though. And after all has been said and done that’s what really counts for anything.

At the beginning of 2013, I typed my three primary goals for that year on a sticky note pad and pasted it on the desktop of my computer where it would be readily available for daily review. Writing 30 poems in 30 days—NaPoWriMo—the first of the trio was simple enough; it was my pet genre. The second one up was a challenge I invented way back 2012—IntShoWriMo—to keep my story writing tools oiled and sharpened. I’d done a lot by way of raising awareness on social media but that didn’t make writing 30 short stories in 30 days a walkover. Although come the month of June, I churned out a word count of over 49,000 words.

I’ve had NaNoWriMo in my sights the past three years. It appears 2013 was my year. Cause by the time November blew out the back door, I had a 52,000 word manuscript smack down on my desk. Ain’t that a treat? 2013 apparently, was cut out to be a year to remember.

For 2014, these three are still my primary objectives for the year plus I gatto get my rough drafts polished up and sent out for publication.

Well folks, that’s 2013 on one canvas. And there’s the canvas at the top of this post. It’s a succinct interpretation of my luxuriant writing the past year in a frame.

Have a happy New Year and an intellectually productive 2014!

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

A Character is NOT a Rose

Bram Stoker's (1847-1912) Notes on the personal for his novel Dracula. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Roses will always smell sweet. I can't say the same about characters who seem to be strung up on hubris by default.

In fiction, the names given to characters are almost as important as the theme of the story. That fact is beyond dispute. You have to make character names as memorable as character traits.

A vampire that stalks the night who goes by the name Dracula would strike terror into the hearts of folks long before his true form is revealed. Consider Lord Voldermort in the Harry Porter series. And the fact that the villain's name was altered after he turned and became a twisted sorcerer.

In real life, in fiction even in scripture, names have featured elaborately in programming the mindset of its bearer as well as those of the people around them. Readers would root for heroes with memorable and likable names. But there are rare moments when an heroic feat hauls an otherwise ordinary name into a threshold of heroism.

                It's art and in this realm, rules are flimsy things.

As precaution, make an habit of giving your protagonists admirable names and then tag your villains and anti-heroes with horror-inducing names unless you  know, to do otherwise, would sell your story faster.

A rose by any other name will smell sweet but a character on the same basis will definitely suck. That's food for thought.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

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Wooing the Muse

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Have you ever been caught in that fogged up state of mind where you feel an intense need to scribble except within you, right in there, your mind is a full-page blank? Can you feature yourself wedged between such a crazy writing fix where the hunger is not, by any accounts, fed by a necessity like trying to meet a deadline or capping off a project—an appetite for words flanked by dryness beyond compare? I mean, I feel the need right there. I want so much to write but what I have is vacancy—a void that sucks away at the phrases just when one wriggles free of the bottomless pit and swims to the surface of my mind.

Try not to mix this up with writer’s block. This vagueness has nothing in common with that ever so infamous writers’ nightmare because it doesn’t hold sway for an extensive period of time, unless you let it, of course. It’s like feeling the wake of a storm within and being rid of the skill to translate it into words and you still can’t get over the initial itch.

So what do you do? I don’t know about you but what I do is write. What I do write is a bigger piece of cake. But I try. And there’s the point. I write. I may have to scrawl dry, unrelated phrases on paper for a while, struggling to make that connect with the inner mystery. It might take only a minute or it might run into hours, but eventually, I win the muse over by my resolve to write. It’s like the muse is swayed by my seriousness and he says, “There’s my lead.” And he steps in.

A unique quality of transformation attends the entrance of the muse and it puts the shine in my writing. And I sense that my muse has been waiting for me to go out on a limb; holding off until he proves my passion for writing is genuine. It’s good judgment to not wait for the flow but to let our actions unplug the flow.

Make your pen bleed.

Akpan

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Go! Go! Go For It!

2010.

It was a very good year. These 365’s been twelve months of prolific adventures for me.

I got in touch with lots of exciting stuff in my search for ideas for blog posts. I think I owe it all to my muse for recognizing the knock of opportunity, or I might quite possibly have run out of gas.

Making a comeback to blogging was like witnessing my own rebirth. Last year, 2009, I could afford to blog a little over four posts before I spluttered to a halt. This year offered prospects on a platter of gold yet, I wasn’t living up to it. It was not until the turn of October, September slash October actually, that I would give blogging another shot.

Faced with an intimidating feat of creating 50 poems to immortalize my country’s 50^th Independence Anniversary − to be up front with you about this, I almost caved in and got rid of the jibe – now opportunity wasn’t knocking on my door, it winged it all off the hinges. The initial plan was to post a poem a day, sort of like what I did with the twelve days of Christmas poetry sequence. A countdown to the D day. That wasn’t going to happen though, cause I blew the whole thing out the front door from the outset. I got myself buried under a heap of officious chores the first week I was to set it in motion and had to consider the possibility of doing my usual thing − wait until Independence Day (that’s October 1 in Nigeria) and post just one poem in honor of a great nation.

Something way down the basement of my mind wasn’t willing to go with the usual thing and just plunge into the flow. I mean, like you only get one chance at celebrating a Golden Anniversary, right? There are other interesting elements in Nigerian history that strengthened my resolve, the simple fact that for 50 some odd years, a nation of millions – of different tribes, dialects (over 300 of those), and peculiarities – has hanged on as one nation is a theme busting with enough proton particles to initiate a poetic odyssey.

So, I plugged into the charge. Every day, on my way home from work, riding the bus, I would pull out my journal and write. I thrust myself right back into my journal once I got home, writing into the still of night, many times falling asleep at my writing desk. The next day, on my way to work, I would write again. I went on and on until I hit the fiftieth verse. You ask, how did you feel after you blogged the poems? Like a Patriot. Yeah, I felt like I was part of something great and unique. Like I earned a deserved spot among the Heroes past who put this great nation on the world map!

Poetry has helped me out of unpleasant situations and it did one more time. I set out with a plan of posting two blogs a week which would place me at roughly twenty four articles by the end of December. I think I outdid myself with over forty of those. And if I have to count each poem in the Mission Impossible (the 50 poems I wrote for my country’s Independence Anniversary) sequence as individual posts, I would have hit the 100 mark. I’m not arrogant, just proud of what I achieved.

About 2011 and New Year Resolutions, I think I’ll cut myself some slack next year, cut back on the articles. I need more time to focus on my short stories plus I got an eye on NanoWrimo coming way up November. I got a lot of digging for information to do, so much research work.

I’m looking at thirty 2,000 word short stories by the end of 2011. That’s going to demand strict concentration but I think I’m up to it. The goals are meant to keep me on my toes, remind me of who I am. If I never achieve all I set out to accomplish, I would only be a few inches off the bull’s eye. And that’s alright by me.

For me, 2011 is abbreviated in two words – short stories.

Here’s mine. Where’s yours?

Have a Happy and Monstrously prolific 2011!

Let your pen keep bleeding!

Eneh