Author name: Onyemechi Nwakonam

Thank you and a Happy New year​​
As the end of the year draws so close. I want to thank you for being there all through 2023. For the feedback and the replies. This helped with the assurance that someone out there is reading my emails on writing.
I have all your replies in my favorite folder.
Mistakes were made
It’s a phrase that denies responsibility. Instead I made mistakes as regards writing. Well I wrote some stories. If you look at it you will see it is a form of progress because I have…

It’s the festive season and the time of the year when we start setting resolutions.
Resolutions that for me I have been carrying over from year to year.
Over the course of the year I have learnt some lessons I will share.​
1.Slow progress is better than no progress. With writing and other tasks in life it gets really hard to do the work we imagine at the pace we imagine. The practical progress is slow so we end up doing nothing.
As a student with so many things to work on, writing for fifteen…

I promised. Here’s that promise.
My writing Goals for the year 2024
1.Build a Spoken Word Channel
This will help me master the spoken word art and make me better in performance poetry.
2. Write a Poetry Collection
It will have 40 to 60 poems. The goal is to write poems with the intent or good enough to enter into the collection. Before I publish the book I will send this poems to literary Magazines. Well that part of literary magazines accepting them is not in my control.
3. Write a Short…

Its time for writing goals.
Last week newsletter I promised to share the framework I discovered and how you can use it too.
Scene
I am with ear phones plugged into my phone with no music playing. I am sitting in a class room with no teacher and different students muttering and reading in their different cliques.
Step-by-Step Guide to Using the 12-Week Year for Poetry and Creative Writing
The 12-Week Year (12WY) framework, popularized by Brian P. Moran, can be effectively adapted for poetry…

Happy New Month
Scene
I am on my bed typing on my phone in a dark room with only my phone screen light as the light in the room.
This week I will write an update on what I am doing so far.
It’s the last month of the year 2023.
I am doing two things .
1 .Reflecting on how my writing life has gone so far.
No matter how bad you might think writing was for this year. The fact that you still think of writing is a win. We will start from there.
Let’s learn from our experience.
Else we will repeat…

Originality of your Life Experiences
Update
I am in a restaurant typing this email after a finishing my meal.
With ai and everything out there any body is writing anything but we fail to see that if it is quick doesn’t mean it is good.
What am I left with is our true stories. I stopped journalling for a while and that had been my major way of saving my ideas and experience.
Well it is in two folds.
My Experience
As ordinary as you might think your life is ,something in the form of a story…

Sometimes I feel like I am going to explode from the worlds and stories I have imagined but I am yet to write.
I am sitting on my bed typing on my phone. It occurs to me that the more I read the more I write. Everytime my writing gets boring I need to read a book to light up my imagination.
Quotes
Other than the physical act of putting pen to paper, I can’t think of another more important job duty of the writer than to stare wistfully out a window.”
Terri Guillemets
This is how you do it: sit…

Good evening.
As I write this newsletter I am upstairs in a room made into a library by a church.
I want to take all my excuses and obstacles. Legit reasons why I can’t become the writer I imagined.
What stops me from doing the work I need to be writing.
And demystify them with actionable steps for me to deal with them.
I want you to come along on this ride. What is the “but” stopping you from writing
What is the argument the resistance uses to get you everytime you try to write.
Here’s…

This is for me and a reminder to myself. In the game of creative writing I have started ,failed and stopped writing for a long time. Only to continue again.
In this game there are no losers or winners there are only quitters and players as long as I keep playing I will win.
Writing is hard
While that might be true . It is not as hard as I make it seem. I know everytime I sit to write I am starting from scratch knowing that it might not work.
When I read the book The Alchemist by Paul Celho….

Will you be participating in Nanowrimo?
Nanowrimo might not be for you. Truth is it is not for everyone. You want to participate but not towards a novel after all the support and accountability is out there.
Before I proceed with a couple of housekeeping.
Nanowrimo is a competition held every November. Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month.
The goal is to write at least 50,000 words at the end of the month.
With this word count goal you will have to write an average of 1667…