Writing is a Journey.( My Abuja Writer's Forum Creative Writing Workshop Experience)

'Writing is a journey.' This is the first profound statement we saw at the workshop. It was printed in bold black ink and placed above the wall at the registration day.

First we started our journey at the bus stop of sixth senses in writing. We had interesting exercises and we went down the road to the elements of craft bus stop we met the Homo-fictus character and we learnt that a plot develops from your characters.

We visited each of the major elements of plot and carried out exercises and along the way we learnt the importance of keeping a writing journal and becoming disciplined writers. We have arrived at our bus stop ‘’the advance class.’’

The advance class bus stop is everything I hoped it will be. I met a new writer Alifaat Rifaat in her short story ‘’the distance of a minaret.’’

The story brought home the fact that we live in a patriarchal society. It also brought to the fore front the word a feminist. I learnt that if a woman writes from a woman’s point of view she is a feminist.

It was interesting talking to people who love the art of writing, sharing ideas and seeing in to the minds of people because we express our ideas.

I also learnt that the way we perceive stories is subjective. Each time you read a story your life experiences affect what you see in the story.

Our advance class helped us to face our writing process. We learnt to identify the challenges we face in our writing, to avoid falling in love with our characters .A good example is when the author of Harry potter decided she wanted to get Harry and Ginny together instead of Harry and Hermione.

 We arrive at interrogating your stories. This should be carried out after at least your third draft. El Nathan John wrote five drafts of his ''Bayan layin'' and it was shortlisted for the Caine African Prize. The '' Bayan layin'' story inspired his novel Born on a Tuesday.

 There are a series of questions you have to ask yourself after your third draft.

The first is what type of story is it?

The second question is your title the right title? For the remaining 28 questions you can wait until you get to the advance class or if you attend our critique sessions.

Then we stopped at narration as a description and we met T.S Elliot objective correlative and of course psychology.

I will stop here but I gained a lot from attending the creative writing workshop. I still have two lectures to go but I am a member of Abuja writer forum so after my workshop I still have the critique session on Sunday from 4pm to 7pm to look forward to. The May writing workshop is around the corner so I am inviting you to go on a writing journey with Abuja writer’s forum. I am not claiming that you will win the Nobel Prize for literature after the workshop but you will learn your strength and weakness as a writer.