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IntShoWriMo 2015 Winners Golden Badge
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The guy in charge of the store where I buy my diaries asked me the second time I walked in there to grab a few more copies (less than a week to the previous date) why I still bother. One of these A4 plus sized jobs ought to take a year’s jotting of all my college classes combined, he pointed out, while the rest of my collection are probably gathering dust on my bookshelf.
“How did you figure I used them to jot down college notes,” I asked.
Thomas, that isn’t his real name but it should do for this write-up said, “What else would you use them for, you can only have so many things worth recording in one lifetime?”
“I write.”
He looked me, his eyes full of questions. “You’re not reselling them, are you? Cause if you are you’d be running at a loss since you’re buying at retail cost.”
“I ain’t reselling. Besides, if I was I’d buy wholesale.”
“Then why on God’s earth would you need so many giant-sized diaries. What do you write to demand so much blank space?” Curiosity and a trace of what passed for perplexity tinged his words.
“Stuff,” I said. “I write stuff.” A mischievous grin played on the edge of my lips.
“Then what do you do with your spare time. Ha! Ha! What spare time?” Then Thomas took the time to drill me on how too much writing or even reading can place the mind on the sharp edge of insanity and eventually, make it yield its control toggles to it.
“At some point in life, everyone exhibits some form of insanity,” I said. “What you relinquish your sanity to is the payoff.” My memory of what happened next’s a little rusty but I think Thomas cracked up and I collected my stuff which, weighed a ton and made my exit.
Five years, five diaries and over five hundred thousand words later and I believe I’ve justified my insanity. Those diaries have been the archives for all my IntShoWriMo stories. And as I write this (though it’s not been easy getting my work online cause I have two left hands when it comes to typing), my total word count for an overall four years of bending my imagination to invent 30 short stories in 30 days hovers just above 200,000 words (two hundred thousand words).
I’m thinking of sending Thomas a copy of the collection when I finally gather some of these tales into book form. You know, as proof there’s a method to this madness.
Thanks to Stephen King (the King of Horror). I read so much of his stuff that ideas grew out of me.
Most thanks to you whether you joined in or not for taking the time to watch me and cheer me through this fire.
June 2016 is another date. Hope you’ll hang in there.
Keep your pens bleeding.
Eneh Akpan,
July.1st.2015
