The Writing Choice
by Tinashe Mushakavanhu
I come from a low-income background; the first member of my family to go to university and engage in creative writing as a professional career and embrace the wider culture of the arts. It has been hard. Reading for an English literature degree at 17, I was meant to cleave to the English language as an Uncle Tom would, gulp as much received opinion as possible without question and above all maintain the already existing orthodox thinking.
After realizing that I was in the process of being aped into a creature I didn’t understand, I decided to create my own world and my own brand of literature in my very own terms as a means of controlling and defining the environment that surrounds me. Ever since, I have been a serious fornicator with words as a writer, a poet, an academic and a reader.
But I always want to think that the way I grew up led to my choice of becoming a writer. Writing was not a career that I chose consciously but it chose me. In Zimbabwe, and probably elsewhere in Africa, individuals who choose the writing option are suspiciously regarded. Society diagnoses them somewhat as mad, crazy, senseless. But once fate destines one to walk in a particular career path one cannot refuse. I did not refuse.
Most of my life is lived in my head. One habit I enjoy doing a lot is talking to myself. Day dreaming. Sometimes, I want to believe that the loneliness, being on my own has turned me inside out and the reading has helped along.
Obviously, with time, I cannot remember the first book I read, but I have always been an avid reader all my life. At 12, I could sing The Canterbury Tales or The Norton Poetry Anthology. Though I am not claiming any genius, I had a special way with words. But of-course, I didn’t realize then that I was a victim of the power of the word in another way too, that I was going to be a writer. Reading was the only die-hard habit in my life.
As a young boy, I wanted to pursue a prestigious career in dentistry or medicine. I have a soft spot for people. But once I discovered that I lacked scientific intuition, I diversified my options to law, then accounts and God knows what. Writing surprised me, for all I know. Once I started, I felt comfortable with the whole creative process. It has not been a hard decision to make. I was changing the course of my life for good. I realized that you need to allow yourself to pursue that dream and take risks.
I think why I have grown as a writer is something out of my loneliness. Though I am still young and unmarried, and developing as a writer, I find the despair of loneliness inspiring. I find, I am at my most creative when I am reflecting, brooding over a potential lover, sitting at the back of the house, alone or walking in a busy street drunk with my own thoughts.
Writing is simply a slaying open of what is bothering me, a diagnosis of what’s not with me. Writing has been and will always be a cathartic process for me, to relieve myself the tensions and pressures of the life that I live.
Most the stuff I write stems somewhat from my own experiences or the experiences of those around me. In order to express deep feelings, I believe one must have lived the experience or must personally have known someone who has lived a particular experience.
Many hardships and thousands words later, my dream has come true. I am a living dream, I am a writer. The journey to fulfilling my dream has however been painful and stretching with frustrations. I am not ashamed though to publicly claim my role as a writer for today and the future. All writing maps the course of our lives!