Discover yourself
It is necessary to point out that all writers are not the
same because their experiences and background are different. People will act
from the background of who they are and the grace of God in their life. No one
is inferior to the other, so no one should struggle to give what he does not
have. It is not wrong to improve on your potentials or, as the bible puts it,
desire more spiritual gifts. But it is important to first understand what we
are, who we are and the potentials that we have.
I am an inspirational writer and many of my followers marvel
at the fact that I can speak for hours without taking a glance at a note book.
Yet, that does not make me better than some very great servants of God who must
have their messages written down and mount the pulpit with a note.
Inspirational writer
– this kind of writer relies on spiritual inspiration to write. We find this
class among Christian ministers; once the inspiration comes he can write a
whole volume in an hour that ordinarily cannot be done in a week. Like I said
earlier, I fall into this category.
The challenge with this kind is that your mind can play on
you and you won’t know when the inspiration comes, or the inspiration comes
while in a place where you cannot start writing. A lot of materials are often lost
because if you don’t discipline yourself by carrying paper and pen around you
may never be able to write a book. In some cases, something upsets you while
writing, the result is that you lose concentration (my disease).
To be candid one cannot achieve full potentials if he relies
on inspiration. You have to learn to take charge of your mind and compel your
body to obey you and write something down
Intellectual Writer
This kind writes from his senses based on what he knows,
studies he has had and what he believes. His writings may be a product of several
books he has read or something he has heard or practiced severally and
concluded on its success. Novelists, playwrights and poets fall into this
category.
Anybody can fit into this class, that is if he is ready to
read book, attend conferences and seminars and most important dare to write
something down. Even a dullard call develop into this class if he remains in
the company of authors while they discuss their works.
Research Writer
This kind resorts to researching already written materials;
they may copy them and quote sources. Academic books and legal documents fall
into this category, especially lecturers.
With the advent of internet functioning in this class is very easy. The
one challenge here is that laziness plays a lot of role because somebody who is
too lazy to use his mind will just copy things and paste them as he got them.
This is not research but intellectual robbery. There is nothing wrong with you
reading other people’s materials, getting some information from them. But there
is everything wrong with your not interpreting what you gathered in your own
words, which is piracy.
Journalists, historians, archeologists among many others can
function here. I once asked a university lecturer, “Have you written a book?”
I was shocked by his response, “What for? Everything is on
the internet. I just ask the students to download materials online”.
Unfortunately, this is the attitude of most lecturers. They
fail to understand that those things on the internet are other people’s labor.
They don’t know that they are robbers of intellectual properties. In another
case, I tried to encourage the Head of Department of a particular school to
gather teaching notes of all the lecturers in his department so we can publish
them as books. This is because there was no textbook for that subject in all of
the country and they were buying a textbook from Nigeria. Years have come and
gone but nothing has been done.
If not for money, why not write to leave a
legacy?
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