A Quote by Uzodinma Iweala

Sometimes writing it is a good way to understand something. — © Uzodinma Iweala
Sometimes writing it is a good way to understand something.
Sometimes I can listen to music - sometimes there's no choice, especially if I'm out writing at a coffee place. But sometimes it's too distracting. If I'm listening to something I really love - I have to stop and give everything over to it. I'm listening to its structures, its melodic lines, the bass. It takes up too much of my head - in a good way.
Sometimes with certain writing, you feel like you've got to be literal, hit it hard on the nose, just to get the point across. Good writing is more subversive I think - or good scenes. They are about one thing on the page but you can make it about something completely different.
Don't be afraid to cry. Everyone needs a good cry sometimes. Sometimes I'll feel it in my throat, like, 'Today I'm going to cry about something stupid,' so just to get it out of the way, I'll watch a sad movie or something, accepting that that's totally fine and feels good.
Writing is my way of trying to understand vast things that probably I'll never truly understand, a way of exploring a Big Question, of wrestling meaning from the chaos of life. Consequently, when I choose to write overtly or even secretly about my real life, it's always something difficult and complicated that I'm longing to make sense of.
Sometimes a poem appeals to me technically, just because of the way a line feels on my lips. Sometimes it is because it says something I have felt, or sometimes something that I suddenly recognise. Other times it can change the way I see something.
My writing process is consecutive, like, 'mad scientist' crazy. It's not totally writing something that rhymes or even writing a rap necessarily. Sometimes it's just writing down stuff that I'm going through.
At first, teaching was more or less a straightforward way of making a living and having access to institutional resources while writing - aka libraries. And that was not inconsiderable. But it didn't in any way touch the writing. Maybe it would push the writing aside sometimes, but mostly it was fine.
I always say writing fiction isn't something you teach. It's something you do, and only experimentation - i.e. doing it, either badly or good sometimes - can help anybody get any better or worse at it.
You want to have the experience. As far as the creative side, the more I do this, the more I know that it's all about the writing. You got on a film sometimes and it's sort of half-written, and they expect and think that the actor's job is to bring the extra part and the good part. It's not. We're good at saying what other people have written, but for the majority of it, that's about it, comedians aside. It's all in the writing. Whether that's dialogue or character, or whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as they've done something special, than you can do something special.
In fact, sometimes traveling the world is a way of not writing a poem, but it's the quality of experience. It's being able to experience something and when you begin to write about it be able to apply the tools that you need for writing.
I would rather not write if I'm depressed, or am going through a breakup, or I've had some disappointment, or I'm having a family issue. You don't want to just put out an open wound. Sometimes that just isn't even really good writing. Good writing should be good writing and storytelling and not just therapy or someone's personal journal.
Something like going to get the newspaper can increase your writing efficiency by taking you away from the material. When I'm doing other things, writing stuff will be swirling around in my head, and sometimes I'll see a new way into the material.
Sometimes the only way I know how to work through something is by writing a poem. And sometimes I get to the end of the poem and look back and go, 'Oh, that's what this is all about,' and sometimes I get to the end of the poem and haven't solved anything, but at least I have a new poem out of it.
I love to write a book out of questions; in fact, I think it's the only way my writing can operate, if there's something I don't understand.
We are different. We are equal in every way but our voices are important to each other and our need to want to listen to each other and try to understand, because sometimes we are so difficult to understand. Men to understand us, and we to understand men. And we don't. We don't connect the way we should.
For me, trying to articulate the world to help people see it in a way they haven't seen it before is hugely important. Sometimes, you have to take something that is completely inexplicable and say, 'Look, here is the beating heart of something you must understand.'
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!