I haven’t written anything in a while, but I’ve been itching to.
My ideas range from a follow-up novel (my debut project is in development) to a completely new one (the title and themes of which are already percolating in my head), to little one-liner thoughts and the like.
And very often, around dusk, I tell myself that I’m gonna write, that I should write, because I itch constantly to do so and it will be good training for when I actually have to write to earn a living.
And very often, around dusk, I’ll somehow talk myself out of or distract myself from it, because to write is to be vulnerable. It is to face emptiness and labour to fill it. It is to stand your ground when the pointer flickers. It is to wonder whether what I am putting down with such fervour and abandon will ever amount to anything- whether it will ever elicit a smile, or bring about a teardrop, inspire a soul, or start a reading club.
Or a revolution.
My father is an electrician, an entrepreneurial one at that. He makes both profit and impact. There’s an immediate material consequence to what he does and there’s financial remuneration for what he does. This is work in any and all senses conceivable. There’s exertion and thinking and making calls and sending follow-up documents.
My vocation tends, at least for long stretches at a time, to be far more abstract than this. There’s writing and writing and writing. And research and wondering and finding the perfect café and worrying about significance. And writing and writing and writing. And reading and reading. And writing.
Then, thank God, perhaps some recognition and remuneration. And then your novel is made into a movie, and both book and movie feed off each other, and before you know it, you’re a millionaire writer who speaks at seminars- seminars whose topics you don’t quite understand- simply because you’re the writer that sells, the writer that knows.
Or not.
To write is all these things but it is above all an act, a verb. Whether I do it or not hinges on a single, barely noticeable decision, and what follows is the makings of a novel or essay or the residue of what was an ‘it-sure-would-be-good-to-write’ moment.
I haven’t written anything in a while- but, wait; I just did.
And maybe after reading this you’ll honour that itch to write too.
Zama Moyo lives in Johannesburg. He completed his honours in international relations at Wits University. While busy with his honours, Zama was selected as an intern at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He completed his MA in ideology and discourse analysis at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. Zama has always loved words and penned a number of reflective essays on his personal blog Thought Box. He has also written on a broad range of issues related to current affairs. In 2013 he was selected as a finalist in the Global Human Rights Essay Contest which focused on ‘Human Rights Cities’. He is currently working on his doctoral thesis – On the intersection of ethics and public policy – at the University of Pretoria.
