HOW YOU KNOW WRITING IS YOUR DESTINY

For starters, Destiny might not be the right word the way I used it in the title of this entry, but I left it there for lack of a better alternative. For the records, I don't mean the kind of destiny which denotes a superior being assigning a life obligation or task to you before you were born. No. So for the sake of this article, we will define destiny as something that would be really cool to do and won't be a waste of your time and you won't regret it even in a thousand years.

Whew, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get down to the talk. So writing, right? Often times people are confused about this writing business when they picture themselves in it. Some like the idea of being an author but can't seem to get around it while some don't even want to touch it with a long pole but from every indication, they are carrying a great writer inside them. These points I've discussed below are indications that there's a writer in you and if you don't listen to what it's telling you and do it, you might live the rest of your old age wondering what if.

You love reading. I'm starting with the point I suspect you will disagree with the most. Just hear me out. I strongly believe the first enticement life hands you when it's calling you to a trade is an affinity to consume it. At the same time, you can't be creator of any form of art you don't appreciate. I believe when one is a heavy consumer of any form of art, then they owe it to nature to contribute to it too. This is especially true for art forms that are individually created like music, painting, writing, etc. It's not about the quality of your contribution, you don't even have to create it for commercial purposes, but if you love listening to music so much, one day, try writing and composing a song then sing it in the shower or on your way from work on hectic days. Same for books. If you love reading books, I think you should try writing one and if you still don't feel like publishing it, fine, keep it in your cloud storage, one day your great granddaughter will stumble upon it and you can never tell what would become of it after then.

You see a story in every little event around you. Yeah. Your neighbour is having a loud argument with his guest and you can hear some of the things they are saying. Then your mind goes to work making up all sort of scenarios. In a few minutes you have a bunch of explosive characters navigating a spicy plot with a half baked climax you're obsessed with perfecting. Please just start writing already.

There's one particular story in your head crying to be released. As you're gathering stories from every little observation, you are bound to catch one that refused to be ignored or forgotten the way you keep doing to the others. This one story keeps lingering in your head, coming back in different versions. This one is the one you will grow old wishing you told.

You find yourself critiquing every book you read. This one is in an advance level to-be writer bug. You can't read a novel in peace like the rest of bookworms. You keep catching yourself over analyzing the plot, the sentence structure style of the author is under your critical judgment. You're wondering why the author says obliterate when annihilate is the right word. This has clearly gone beyond reader enthusiasm, you're now on industry colleague level with the writer, write your own book and save the earth, please.

Fancy hanging out with other authors. For some others, it's about the social enticement. There's a level of fandom that makes you want to chill with the author of a book you enjoyed. Perhaps to pick their brains of a certain plot direction or the way they ended the path of a character. But there's also always wanting to socialize with anyone with a book title to their name. In my books, this is a clear indication that you belong to their trade. Write a book and it becomes easier to Bam Bam and chill with the names on the covers.

Maybe you're a writer and there were other signs you had that convinced you to do it, please share in the comments or you're not yet writing but you're getting some signs nudging you to start writing, I'm also eager to hear it in the comments.