Books, articles, blogs, essays; handwritten, on paper, typed. They all have one thing in common, the push. There's a push, a drive, a reason to write in every writer and aspiring writer. I got my push when I was about 10 years old dealing with issues ranging from anxiety to loneliness. I was a naïve kid with no idea on what the emotions were or how they affected me each day. I saw myself losing friends within weeks of making them, zoning out anywhere I was, feeling jolts of fear walking around the school. It was a boarding school, so I thought I just missed my parents and whenever I got used to staying away from them, I'd get over my "sadness." That was what I'd always called what I felt.
I had and still have a love of books. I loved reading books after books. I'd go through 5 to 6 books a week burying my sadness in the ability to transport myself into the books. I'd completely become the female main characters and live their lives and events in my head. It was something I always looked forward to after my classes.
A point came and there was no book in the medium-sized library I hadn't read. I had to find new outlets. I tried singing, dancing. I even started acting out the scenes from the books I'd read when I was bored. Nothing worked for me and I became even sadder with the lack of books to read and friends to have fun with. I was labelled rude and weird by my peers for my anti-social ways. It was really tough on me. I'd try to make friends, make them (or so I'd think), then get made fun of by those same friends.
One day I'd been doodling in my book when I noticed a beautiful hand-designed book. Its front covers had the title Lucy. It was designed with flowers, vines and nature drawings. I remember being too drawn to the cover to not open the book. Turns out it was a book a mate of mine was working on. We weren't allowed to have phones at school, so she'd opted for writing with a pen. She had very good penmanship, that wasn't a problem. I read the book and page after page, I lost myself in the words. I became my own Lucy. I faced all her adventures in my head. I felt her pain, rejoiced in her joy. Lucy became me and I thought to myself, if my mate can write this, then so can I. I can lose myself in the flow of characters and self-made events. I can make people lose themselves in my books. I can write what I want to see be written. My push had come, the force behind my strive to become a writer.
I started out with my books for jottings. I wrote of a girl on a journey to find her mother. I hadn't realized then how close it had been to my pain for the loss of my mother a few years back. I didn't have the training, the knowledge or the professionalism real authors with published books had but I had my drive and I used it to write. I had people booking to read every chapter I came up with regardless of my poor sentence construction. It made me happy to know I could pour my heart into my books. I could mold my expectations and goals into achievement for my characters.
I'd spend all my time writing in my book. I'd get new scenarios and ideas for each scene I wrote. I noticed that we were quite a good number of people interested in writing and I'd always read books from other writers in my school to get better at sentence construction. I forgot my pain. With the use of my new outlet I battled my low mental health. I pushed myself to be happy.
I studied hard on the use of certain words and parts of speech. I even had a problem with punctuation but that didn't deter me. I read books by best selling actors and concentrated on their use of words or phrases. Their ability to connect sentences wistfully. Their skills in creating a spark in readers. I put my efforts into becoming more than just a writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I wanted to see my readers become the characters of my books. I'd ask some of them how they felt about my characters and I can't express the joy I'd feel and still feel whenever they had real anger or joy over some of the characters or scenes. I loved seeing the connection between my readers and my book.
There's a push in every writer, a will to write, a joy derived from writing. Some people think they lose the touch after a while but the push never leaves. You could lose your touch in the ability to string sentences craftily after not writing for years but it always comes back with a little practice. There's a fire in every writer, one that burns brightest at the thought of a book idea or the process of bringing that idea to life.
The push is a very important part of writing, almost as important as the writer. It never leaves.
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Favour is a passionate writer. She writes both fiction and non-fiction and absolutely loves it. She hopes to become a bestselling author one day.