Young Writers Meet

Hi There,

I was at the young Writers Meet on Saturday 10th February, which was hosted by Kaduna Start Up Weekend and Yasmin El-Rufai Foundation at the Creativity Court.

I'm going to be writing about three key things i found very educating and I'd like to share them with you. This Post is for writers, aspiring writers and Creatives who use pen and paper to share thoughts, well, they now have devices, pen and paper now sounds archaic 😀.

The first was the Commentary by Hadiza Aliko, from  House of Recovery.
She spoke extensively within a short time about Mental Illness. there were forms of illnesses she mentioned, Violence, Bullying and others and as much as they sound far fetched especially to us here in Africa, she explained, it was in existence, 7 out of every 10 are usually not stable. Now, she calls on writers, poets and creatives to do something about it. Quoting her 'Mental Illness is real, Use your pens to stimulate conversations and bring it out to the open, the mere fact that we conveniently do not talk about it doesn't mean its not there and it will disappear, use your voice as creatives'.
This means Writers in their own way can speak up against social vices with their art.

Next was Usman Shamaki with the Topic, Passion to Profit: Making A Living From Writing.

He began with a question every writer should be able to answer 'Why should you be paid for writing'?


The question also came with answers.

• As a writer you can shed more meaning on a chosen topic
• You can use words in a way that describes the mood of our generations
• You use words to plant ideas in the mind of your readers in such a way they feel, theyve always has those ideas

These few answers i got to put down, but they were a bit more and so he began the talk about how to make a living from your art. I've also written them in numbers to help make reading them easier.

1. Get over your fear of writing
2. You need to love what you do: writing
3. You need to put your name out in order to be heard: Start a blog, create a profile online (Wattpad, Medium), use your social media accounts effectively to create an online presence, he also suggested you focus on people who have a large following and get them to post your articles.
4. You don't need to publish a book to be a writer. you can edit articles, proof read, write articles, edit biographies and autobiographies. 
5. Understand your audience: in as much as you write from your thoughts. he suggests you know who you are writing for.
6. Be Knowledgeable, if you are diverse in information you can reach a wider audience.  
7. Talent is never enough. Never ever believe you are too talented, work on it, attend seminars, conferences, book clubs and book festivals.
8. Discipline is required.
9. Join a community of writers nearest to you or online.
10. Do not underestimate the power of social media, it has worked for businesses. it will work for you when used effectively.
11. There will be difficulties as a writer. Overcome them.
12. Finally, You need to develop a thick skin as a writer. do not easily get discouraged, it is better to be criticized than not at all, because it means someone is paying attention.

We listened to Zahra Umar of Jaruuma Magazine/Divorce Diaries, who also has a segment for women on BBC. Her topic was Telling Stories For Social Good.
One good thing from this speaker was the fact that she spoke a lot about her personal experiences as well as experiences with others, but she gave guidelines for people writing to address social vices for social good which I'd share below.

• When writing for social good, you should have a purpose.
• You need to have a thick skin because there will be lots of criticisms and bitterness from people who sometimes do not understand or delibrately misunderstand your purpose and choose to antagonize you for that.
• As a writer, you need to have a job that sustains you, until your writing skills pay off.
• Learn, Keep at what you do always. Be consistent. You should go out meet people and share thoughts and experience, and also keep an open mind because personal opinions as a writer for social good must be suppressed.
• You have to be careful because you carry trust. people who come to you with their experiences trust you enough to tell you, you shouldn't betray it.
• Your write ups should make people reflect a lot and be moved to either talk about it or do something to address it.
• Your write up should be entertaining as well as passing a message across.
• Be true to yourself, Be yourself and don't doubt yourself
• And finally, Hone your craft.

While listening to the three speakers, i noticed they repeated some things in different ways though: writers should write to pass messages, they should develop thick skins, they should also work on themselves, and these are things we should focus on wholly.

There was a prose and poetry competition and winners and runner ups were called out to perform.

There was also a discussion on blogging, meet and greet and some more. it was enlightening and the energy was infectious, hopefully we will get to attend more of this.

Thanks for reading. please let me know your thoughts in the comments 
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