I write because I can. I don’t have a particularly profound reason — I kinda just do and, as it turns out, I’m not half-bad. My earliest memory of writing extended prose, or anything substantial, was in Year 11 (SS1/2). English Literature class. My teacher whom shall not be named but is, nonetheless, forgiven once thought I plagiarised my work!
I think it was then I started to think to myself – I might actually be decent at this writing thing.
Now, I don’t think it was that good— I just think she underestimated my capabilities given that I’d moved from Africa (Lagos, to be precise). I mean I’d been in the UK since Year 9 (JS3), but I digress. Simply put, she was just a hater. GCSE mocks came round and I had to do a creative piece on smoking — I aced it! (maybe she was in an ecstatic mood, maybe she was trying to make up for the previous accusation, we will never really know). I think it was then I started to think to myself— I might actually be decent at this writing thing.
I hate being cliché.
Once, I was catching up with an aunt – and she mentioned that I’d been writing and making up stories from a really young age! Somewhere between there and Year 11 – life happened. I kinda like that I had forgotten that, because it saves me from being the ‘I’ve been writing ever since I was 2’ cliché. I hate being cliché. Previously, I had tried so hard to keep a secret diary but I kept misplacing the code sheet or forgetting the code (my calling was clearly not hieroglyphs but everyone was doing it – peer pressure ey?). Sometimes, I wonder what life would be like it if I kept writing from the age of 2.
“They don’t think it be like it is, but it do.”
— Oscar Gamble
I guess the moral of this story is just because something is cliché doesn’t make it any less true or bad. Cliche is just that — cliche.
