You Can’t Write What You Don’t Feel…
There was a time I wrote an entire article that looked perfect. The sentences were polished, the paragraphs were neat, even the grammar flawless. But when I read it again, it felt soulless.
That day I realized something nobody tells young writers enough: you can’t write what you don’t feel.
Every piece of writing worth remembering — from Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ to Olamide’s ‘Voice of the Street’ comes from a place of truth.
It is a the sort of raw honesty that sits in your chest and refuses to be ignored. When you read Achebe describe Okonkwo’s pride, you feel it. When you hear Davido sing “Abi it get when I talk say I be Pastor,” you feel the utter sincerity and vulnerability. That is emotional honesty, and it is the real heartbeat of writing.
Many young writers think the secret is vocabulary. They think if they can use “existential,” “juxtaposition,” or “ephemeral,” they have made it.
Emotions, however, does not care about big words. A simple “I miss you” written from the heart will always sound louder than a “my emotional state is destabilized by your absence.”
Sometimes the best writing happens when you stop pretending to be wise, and just be real. When you write about pain, let it hurt on the page. When you write about joy, let your words dance. When you are confused, don’t rush to sound certain. People do not read you because you’re perfect; they read you because you’re human.
Think about it; the poems that broke the internet, the captions that made you pause, the stories that made you whisper “same here” — all of them came from someone who decided not to fake it.
Even Jesus wept before performing a miracle. Even David sang his way through heartbreak before writing psalms. So who are we to write like robots and expect our readers to feel something?
Know this today; great writing does not come from knowing more — it comes from sincerity and relatability.
And if your heart is not in it, your readers will always know.
