Advanced Rooster

The secret to being a great writer (I learned just the other day) is being constantly on the lookout for things to distract you. All great writers have been distracted by one thing or another. William Shakespeare was distracted by the absence of enough vocabulary, so he made up plenty of words. At the last count, Shakespeare had invented 1,700 words, which, believe it or not, were subsequently added to the English language. Shakespeare can be solely blamed for creating mediocre writers whose idea of good writing is using words no one has ever heard of. 

As a writer, being distracted by the need to create words is a massive waste of time. The Englishmen have since decided that there are already enough words in the English language. Besides, there are high chances that you are not a native speaker, and Englishmen do not take it kindly that you know their mother tongue better than they do. That’s why they force you to sit English proficiency tests when thousands of them cannot even distinguish there and there. Or your and you’re. 

Granted, you need simpler distractions. For instance, you could abuse drugs within your wage bracket. I must insist that these drugs should be legal or that you know how not to get caught. I have been arrested so many times because of this. If I weren’t so keen on doing things that do not involve writing, I wouldn’t have had a wonderfully rich experience of sharing a cell with criminals. I had always dismissed that single bucket that rules one of the four walls in a jail cell. It is disgusting. 

You could choose to travel. You could choose to gossip provided you are at peace with being the subject of gossip once you leave your gossip conglomerate. You could think about spending time thinking about starting a cult or a church. I have thought about starting a church, and I suggest you try too. It is not enriching but you will think about things that make people readily give their money to pastors. However, I will advise you not to go to church. The things that happen in the church are not as interesting as the things that people do before going to church to repent. As an aspiring writer, you do not need the latter. 

The thing about being a writer is that staring at a blank page trying to abduct words and force them to form an interesting story is a painstaking endeavor. That’s why very few people write, and even fewer are great writers. The rest who do not qualify as great writers end up being journalists. 

I have a new distraction. Well, this piece was all about this new distraction of mine. I am surprised that I could string this number of words when all I wanted to write about was that I joined Reddit the other day. I chose a name that I thought was funny. Advanced Rooster with four-digit numbers starting with six. If the numbers suffixed on my new avatar name represent the number of advanced roosters in the entire world, then there are more than six thousand of us. And that is not too comforting. 

THE END