I cannot today argue when told that most arcade owners in this city here indeed rose from very dirty rags to where they are today. I will just accept. I always said the result would be greatness. Others near me just wanted to create half-baked work, publish books so that they could litter them in the streets of Kampala to earn a living. My dream was not this.
You were told to try this paper. You are at the beginning of the biggest journey on earth. You wanted me really. I am here. You are going walk along with me. I am ready to show you something that selfish writers always hide from struggling writers. I, every year, laugh at people who predict my falling.
I am very firm on ground and will write and write sense again and again, for years. They will reward me when they want. If they think others are better than us, let them look the other side. I once wrote and remained unrecognized. I can still do.
This journey that you have started walking is one of the most inhospitable journeys and among the most tiring ones. Time is going to come. You will become very quiet and reserved. If you are a young man, your nobodiness and stinking poverty are going to make you unable to date a girl.
In the beginning, the only money I could get was for buying books, and travelling from one remote area to another. The shirts I had were less than three. I wore black trousers.
You also saw that they were cheap. People laughed. They are going to laugh at you too. The girls I got and dated during those days eventually got tired of me and they dumped me. Such experiences hurt me before I got used to them but then, when I saw in front and discovered that my money was in front there, I moved on whenever my heart was broken by the nice looking girls that I whole-heatedly loved.
In the beginning huge obstacles are going to be met. You will not die. You will walk miles ahead after. There is more failure there still. You will not be the first person to go through what you will tomorrow see.
When I was beginning, I wrote for nights and days without finishing even the least important essay or putting sense in what I wanted to write. Today, as people panic, asking themselves when they will create or shape there articles, me I am always seen smiling, travelling or meeting friends. We put in all, and our whole life, in what we were doing in the beginning.
You are sweating and bleeding today. Keep going. There are no short cuts I can recommend for you to use today. I read very many books in the beginning. Some were extremely big books, with hugely difficult words. I stayed awake for years trying to find sense and truth in what I today tell people.
I told you already. I read that big oxford dictionary you see in your shelf there, from cover to cover, more than five times. I was very poor and could not afford to buy my own books. I almost rewrote some books with hard covers using my hands.
I was about to rewrite the whole oxford dictionary. I had borrowed it and the owner wanted it back. I needed a dictionary when reading and writing. I had no money to buy my own. The immediate solution I saw was to write that dictionary again using my hands. I am almost succeeded. There is no short cut.
You are going to hunger for more knowledge until this world sees madness you. People are going to see you carrying books wherever you will be. If they don’t see madness and stupidity in you, they will laugh at you. All obstacles, and betrayals from close friends, will just force you refuse to give up. I became a real writer when I was still very penniless.
To most people, money is the only sign of success in this world. You must know when you have become a very able writer. Don’t wait for money to come, to declare yourself a good writer.
What you create during the fruitless years is what will bring you the money that money worshippers call success. Your clothes are what they are today and people are laughing but continue doing what you saw in the dream.
If you want to write like me and you are today nothing and poor or unwanted, don’t worry. Go ahead and tell people that they can grow rich. Tell people with confidence that they can be great.
The things you want are not where you are today standing, and complaining. These things are very far, in front. No lazy writer, who idles and gossips, can see those things. Money and ability to write are two very different things. Ability begets money. You must know.
Concentrate on writing. Money is there watching. It will follow you, to pour itself in your pockets when the time is appropriate. Stop talking. Write.
