As a writer one of the greatest questions you’ll ever have to answer is, “Who are you writing about?” This is one of the things I battled with when writing “Things I Want To Say To You Before Eternity Comes.” Because of the themes of the pieces within, I feared someone or people would send messages asking, “Is this about me?” While I usually do not care if people ascribe the details in my work to themselves, I found myself trying to be politically correct when coming up with ideas to write on. Immortalizing someone with your words is a big deal, I did not want anyone to pick a message that did not belong to them as theirs.
I have completed this book (stories) since the first week in February and I keep asking if anyone would get offended by the things I have to say. But what makes creativity bloom is a copious amount of vulnerability and most times your personal life bleeds into these stories to make them beautiful. My pain becomes your joy and we are all happy at the end of the day. It’s interesting how readers try to find hints about your life between the kerning of the letters you write.
While I agree that I draw from within to put upon, I try to remove my reality from fiction, which can be a problem cause why are you writing about heartbreak when you are in a beautiful relationship? Sometimes experiences keep bleeding inspiration, and you must write until the well is empty. How many pieces would you write until there is nothing left to say? How long would that one person be your muse? When does it end? I can’t say. But when I started writing publicly, I wrote about death a lot, because my mind kept running to my father; I couldn’t remember what he sounded like.
Writers are liars, and you will do well to take their work in fragments cause you’ll have a thousand words, and what might belong to you would be a sentence or a word.
For “Things I want to say to you before eternity comes,” I leaned into everything. Love, heartbreak, rejection, hate, anger, and patriotism (in a sense) hence the name. I’m here trying to preempt apologies and explanations but where else do creatives draw from if not from the well of experiences they’ve been bestowed; here is the dedication for the book:
“To every heartbreak, tear-jerking moment, and disappointment. To every time I’ve fallen in and out of love. To everyone who has been the object of my affection, and the reason I feel a fool, my well would be shallow without the experiences you offered.
I’m a walking canvas of all the things you painted.
So, this one is for you, you and you.
Bauche Achem Adonai.”
Still wondering how the reception would be, but also excited about the possibilities. You can preorder a copy today here (it’s a physical book) https://paystack.com/buy/things-i-want-to-say-to-you-before-eternoty-comes-mqpcac
Preorder ends 31/03/2025