Why I Want to Keep Writing

Beyond this new craze for writing and the audacious blogging challenge is a never-say-die attitude I have adopted towards writing. I have started and abandoned blogs as fast as Steven Gerrard got his last red card against Manchester United.

As a matter of fact, more heads are going to roll.

A brief history
It started from making marked advancements in note taking by way of improvisation and speedy transcription of dictations in high school. I was at least among the set of students that were always on course with the teachers in spite of their frustrating speed. It hadn’t become compulsive, but when it came to using a paper and pen, it was always a good feeling.

I started learning how to sketch from my distant Uncle who was a good sculptor. He taught me about human body dimensions. Immediately, I filled every piece of paper with sketches. I sketched in class, in church, at home, on the dinning table – everywhere, anywhere.

Then I suddenly stopped. My hand started itching for an alternative full time habit.

The habit resurrected in the form of writing random words on any paper I had permission to write on (this still happens). Some random word pops in my head and I write it down. More words flow until the paper is full of  words scattered all over, mostly disjointed.

This same habit continued till the end of University. It had developed into a method of studying, with which I did full synopses of courses repeatedly until I was able to squeeze them into a 2A note. A course mate once called my summary notes, “The Scroll”. Then came poetry and rap (still looking for the famous lyrics note).

Writing for me was simply the need to capture thoughts in words, mind maps and sketches and not the creative articulation of thought into text. What looked to others like a strategy was mere nature. A book wasn’t read until it was milked dry of its salient points.

At this point I had concluded that this phenomenon was weird. A safe form of Hypergraphia.

The only thing that stopped me from blogging as far back as 2006-2008 was that I didn’t have access to the internet. I had read a lot using my Opera Mini enabled phone about sales pages, internet marketing, informational products and PUA.

Back to the Future
Personally writing has really helped me in many ways. It has helped me to write better work emails. I remember I was told to tone down on the complexity of my emails. On another account, I was told by my former MD that I would be a good PR manager/image maker for him, if he goes into politics.

At this time I was just writing journals to myself. In looking for a better way to save my personal journals for easier access, I found Evernote.

My software test cases got better after I was taught by a developer-cum-project manager from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), my company’s client. This was followed by a commendation from the top brass of IT department in the NSE on the quality of my test cases and user manual. So good, I was called to teach a department on how to write test cases and train them on how to use the web application we built for them. I was still an intern.

It is unfortunate that many people do not bother about writing in this part of the world. Writing has proven to be a skill useful n today’s world – a skill useful in changing society.

Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Andressen, Ben Horowitz, James Altucher, Seth Godin. These men write.  Writing has helped companies like Buffer, KISSMetrics, Zapier and HubSpot blow their revenue beyond expectations.

I want to greatly improve my writing. Be more like a writing machine. It is not a bad idea if I get a gig to write and get paid, increase the visibility of my expertise on the internet – thereby boosting my career, or even run a profitable blog that solves a problem in the society.

In all of this, writing can do more for us – personally, at our jobs, for our businesses.

Tags: reflections, Writing

One response to “Why I Want to Keep Writing”

1. wow! You’ve got it bad!
   Read more to write better. I enjoy your writings!

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   Reply

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