Eneh Akpan Writes

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Do The Thing You Love That Sells!

We often hear people say, ‘Write to Please Yourself!’ (Which is true.) We are told to choose subjects we are deeply passionate about and I’d like to take this a step further in this write up.

Do the thing you love that actually appeals to other people.

How can you tell people are going to buy into your idea? Well, you can’t. That sounds mean, don’t it? But you can rest in the fact you did the right thing.

Study the market!

Of course, we may not always know for sure, in what genre we will make our big hit. And it’s been said, ‘Do not set a deadline for success.’ I agree with that 100%. I guess I’m one of the lucky dudes who found role models who have made it to the top rung of the ladder from the depths of their dungeons and went one step at a time. The beautiful thing about this is I can relate. I can copy their examples.

Break your talent(s) or gift(s) down to the basics:

What’s that you have in your hand;

What uses can you put it to;

Which of these functions lead upward;

Which aspect appeals to your audience;

What will give you the satisfaction of achievement and trigger the cash flow?

‘Successful art or Commercial art is Self-Expression plus Communication.’

- Steven Barnes

You have to save a little love for the guy who needs what you got to give. You must have enough of that kind of respect for your audience so they know you’ve been looking for them like they’ve been waiting for you to come out of incubation.

Think of it. There’s actually people out there waiting for somebody like you to come along with your stuff. Showing you need them as much as they need you can make all the difference between a hit and an all-out flop.

Seasoned artists are true to their hearts while watching out for the hearts of their readers or audience.

Work on what you love and spill your passion over into what the market wants. There’s no greater gig on earth than getting paid for doing something you’re truly in love with.

To be straight up about this, it’s not an easy job. Finding something you’re good at and turning it into what sells are on opposite sides of the coin. Sometimes, you might look to the money instead of the art. But if you keep at it long enough, at some point, you will exhale!

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The World Owes You Nothing

Courtesy: Naja Niketa

Every single day I remind myself that the world owes me nothing. I whack myself upside the head with the essence of that affirmation daily. No man is indebted to me and I think the feeling is genuinely reciprocated. When I run into a fix, I like calling this fact to mind. And I think the guy on the inside is gradually, coming to grasps with this reality.

Life is an adventure, which if mastered, could develop into art. I strive for clarity in the pursuit of my goals and battle to remain persuaded that what I know about myself would still be true whether I believe it or not. I long to separate myself from the beguiling influence of come-easy ideas and hurtle into the willful abandon of creative aloneness.

Still I recognize the fact (I must, you see) that I cannot survive without the rest of humanity.

I am indebted to society to exploit the depths of my individuality; to reach for the utmost I could achieve and to bring that into the development of man. I must come to terms with the reality that to a certain measure, I share similar qualities with the rest of the human family.

I see a need to repaint the big picture. I perceive a call to define my destination and attain a level of awareness of the inner individual. Life can be a work of art, I tell myself. And the more I see the frame of the picture, the more I acquaint myself with the truth that stares me in the face. I see how I fit into the scheme of things and I’m able to separate wit from ability; to understand the debt I owe myself and the blame that is not the world’s.

The faith I possess in my abilities turns my eyes on responsibilities. I can’t refuse my obligations because I recognize I can only thrive and expect the full thrust of fulfillment to do its work when I admit I have nothing to prove to anybody.

Keep your pens bleeding!

Akpan

Sunday, October 21, 2012

What Do Writers Do?

When you pick up your pen to write, what thoughts dance to the edge of your mind? When you sit to think on paper, what ideas drive your muse? What devils you?

In writing, a ransacking of the faculty is set in motion like the turning out of pockets of a school kid would reveal what s/he’s been up to. It’s an adventure into the still small things that run deep. Because a writer is the freak who would not let sleeping dogs lie.

Sometimes, a writer may present answers to nagging issues. But, much of the time, writers raise dusts that are impossible to still. They are literary mischief-makers with a knack for exhuming best forgotten matters. It is the writer’s business to guarantee the dust does not settle on a matter.

Writers seemingly crave for knowledge that’s never theirs to attain. Desecrating history’s sarcophagus like Time’s own tomb raiders yet, trying their very best to be quiet about the whole subject (as if that was possible). As time goes by, they become fairly successful at keeping the peace like woodpeckers in a forest of silence boring deep circlets into the trunk of century old trees. And in a manner similar to these species of avian activities, always taking quick peeks between pecks, glances that were they words could mean, ‘Am I disturbing the peace, now?’ or ‘Am I prodding a raw nerve, yet?’

I don’t need to draw you a picture, do I? Writing is a gift. A blessing as well as a curse. Not if you’re Sylvia Plath who predicted her own demise in her poetry and effectively closed that chapter. Taking her own life.

Writing is also savage pleasure. A trespassing if you like that word better. A mending of broken links and a crossing of boundaries, unlocking of painful memories, stripping it right down to its birth suit and taking heart-wrenching moments to nibble at minutiae.

This obsessive streak has a way of turning on the writer. Stephen King said he wrote his novel, The Shining out of a personal simple phobia that he might harm his own kids. (Owing to his state of mind at that time.) Just because writers ain’t marching up and down blowing their own whistle doesn’t make their job any less quiet than the last minutes of new year’s eve.

The pen is louder than the boom of a nuke on impact. What’s more, the scenes are reenacted through all generations every time a reader cuts into the meat of the words. The power at the fingertips of a writer pushes the lip of eternity. Chew on that for a minute. And you might come to grasps with what could possibly be the greatest power available to wo/men on earth.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Friday, October 19, 2012

Who’s Calling The Shots?

Photo credit: sytereitz.com

We will grapple with opposition as long as there’s a world to occupy. But, tragedy is we often perceive the people (the bringers of bad luck) involved as challenges in themselves. That’s taking it a little too far, don’t you think?

You got it all wrong when you got your rage misplaced. ‘Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.’ (I think Maya Angelou said that.) The struggles you tackle are like chisels for carving masterpieces from artless rock. And the fools who bring ‘em are exactly that.

It’s to your credit to engage your dreams in the midst of raw opposition. There are times, it’s a natural response when you’re under heavy fire, you view your goals lurking on the other side of impossible. These are the moments you need to believe in the worth of your aspirations or you will get distracted. This is the primary objective of a conflict, what it drives for when it sneaks up on you. To steer your focus off your locus.

You ain’t going to remember pursuit of a vision when you’re way in over your head chasing after phantasmas. Turn the spotlight on bitterness for a minute. When bitterness trundles in a room with its crew, joy flies out the window. In the absence of joy and enthusiasm, your mission peels away in narrow strips in the ball of your fist.

Tons of experiences are chucked out when you waste your strength on people. Holding out under pressure opens you up to latent power, potentials buried deep within you. Like fuel to dying embers. It renews your faith in your dream.

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Time wasted can never be regained?’ While you’re busy fighting people, opposition is taking bigger chunks of your time, poisoning your dream. To pay the cost, to be the boss, to be the one calling the shots, you need to stay on the grind.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

3 Tips on Developing a Relevant Writing Style

An understanding of your personality and true worth fuels your deepest capacities. It’s impossible to create knock-out write ups when you have not defined yourself for yourself. This is the concrete stuff you will present in your writing.

Write with every intention to communicate everything you stand for. Your art is the expression of the inner character. Therefore, to improve your flow, define a personal writing style and straddle your craft along that line.

For an artist to thrive in his work, he’s got to know who he is.

Where are you coming from?

What have you been through? Going through right now?

What is your outlook on life?

What is your mind state?

The slums/mansion you grew up in could be a ledge on which you project your trade. Again, it all boils down to your frame of mind. Look really deep within and touch things. Touch the individual waiting to be reaped like the wheat of harvest. This is where your experiences come into the picture. You’re never fully dressed for the job without one.

Define what you stand for. Study your history.

What do you believe about yourself, the world and its future?

What drives you? Motivates you?

Visualize and then congeal the things that describe you in your writing.

Do you stand for justice in the legal system;

Free education for ghetto children;

Better days on the streets;

An end to incessant domestic violence;

Waking the world up to the evil it willfully shuts its eyes to;

The love in a family or in relationships?

It’s time to take a stand so you can make a statement.

A lot of writers have sleepless nights trying to find a subject to write about. You might find your interest pushes you towards reading the papers. Don’t fight it.

In formulating a personal writing style, try to imagine the ideal life you want for yourself and the price you are willing to pay to possess it–What really matters to you?

What would you be doing with your life a few years from now?

How seriously do you want people to take you and the message of your stories?

If you make the decision to place your craft above every other thing, to make writing your medium for communicating to the world, your channel for expressing yourself, for changing lives, then what atcha write and the way atcha write it will come to you as naturally as sleep comes to a man trapped under the spell of Morpheus.

Your experience is the connect between becoming a fulfilled writer and discovery of a unique, personal and relevant writing style. Focus on these things, keep going over them in your mind, let them place you in your niche.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Monday, October 15, 2012

The Importance of Journaling

It would be a long time coming before tablet phones and notebooks take the place of traditional journaling.

Physical notebooks (compared to notebook apps) are practically indispensable. Your journal is where you live, where your writing–the skeletal impressions of a new idea begins to take shape. So, it ought to have a feel of home to your thoughts.

You won’t believe the speed at which thoughts vaporize. It’s only natural to grab for your notebook the moment an idea strikes a chord and jot it down. When you get home, you can go through your notes and see what’s worth developing. Many of your jots would be piecemeal but you’ll be amazed what the few that do work will turn into.

Creative thoughts are expensive and it’s careless to stow them away on the shelf of memory.

Committing thoughts to paper gives you a privilege you otherwise could not afford. The opportunity to view your ideas with your eyes, your physical eyes. Now, you can better work your way into the flow of the words and see where it leads. Your thoughts are way out there in the thick of the forest and tracking them down in your journal brings them home to you.

There’s always a chance to experiment with your ideas and imagination.

Ideas spring up every time seemingly, out of nowhere. Sometimes, it might be about a subject you’ve been meaning to rip apart and here you are in no man’s land with no way to get home (you’re not even certain you’ll remember when you do get home) on time and do your scribbling and you are stormed by a crazy bout of inspiration.

You won’t always have the luxury of paper towels to write on in an emergency and it’s possible to lose a brilliant idea without a notebook at hand.

Journaling is also about piling up intriguing stuff from your trips and saving interesting overheard conversations. It might even be the recording of a brilliant total recall of a past event, which you might improvise on at a later time in personal essays.

Notebooks are the best pals of serious writers. Never leave home without one.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan