Staring at the preamble of a paper, another ‘critical overview’ that has seduced a headache from me, I think to myself ‘have I lost my mojo?’
Alone, it is not a jarring thought. I have thought that a few times too many over the course of my writing career. But fast on the heels of months of dryness, it is alarming. And rightly so. What writer would be comfortable having more spells of writer’s blocks than they have spells of actual writing? It begins to feel more like a personal issue than a necessary rite of passage in the world of writing.
I could blame it on the arrogant malaria that knocked me down a notch and that I am only recovering from, but I’ve had a full day of sleeping and eating and sleeping again and I believe I am as clearheaded now as I would ever be. So, maybe malaria doesn’t just suck you dry (not your belly fat, mind you), exacerbate cough and catarrh and sore throat and leave you feeling like you’ve been dragged through gravel, but it also robs you of your newly acquired motivation and inspiration for the written word.
Or at least, the journalistic kind. The kind you get only after poring over articles and journals in all their ‘critical overview’ glory. For those kinds of writing, I honestly have no strength.
Telling you how I feel on Tuesdays and hitting publish with a picture of me, now, that I could do. But somehow I suspect all I’ll write when I give myself the freedom to do so would be lamentations of lost ‘mojos’ and I cannot stand reading dreary things for too long, talk less writing them.
For this reason, I’ll introduce reviews. Since the writing has eluded me, I have been doing a lot of reading, and what better way to get out of writing well-researched blog posts about African fiction than writing opinion pieces about books read for leisure?
If my tone is somewhat pretentious, it is because I am currently reading Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savanna, and I have begun to think like its characters. For better or worse, this will wear off once I drop the book, and with it, the cloak of affectation.
I presume, if I looked closely enough, I could find some humour or a strong case for mirroring in reader-writers, but I think now is a good time for a nap—this sluggish period between evening and night where you’d wake from a nap confused as all hell. Besides, I’m not entirely over the damages of malaria and cold and a nap might do me some good—maybe make me regret publishing this or even give me a solid excuse for future enquiries (It was the delirium of illness).
Maybe it’s the topic, though, and I’ll find that I can write just fine when I choose a different topic and subject myself to a different journal and its critical overview. Or when I sleep and wake up in a gay mood.
Anyway, I’m hoping this selective block clears away soon or I might have to actually do something! Like force myself to work through the discomfort. Cue my shudders.
