What Great Fiction Writers and Good Gossips have in Common

I have often pondered this
What is it that great fiction writers and gossips
Have in common?

Answer:
Both can make up tales

But while the former have produced
Great people in every epoch
Shakespeare, Goethe, Dickens
Our own dear Soyinka, Osofisan, Achebe
So many of them from different periods
Producing immense literature of worth

The latter has created crises in every era
Producing no notable work
Nor persona
They remain irreverently unknown
Inventing and dispensing spurious stories
About people they envy

The interesting part is where both differ
Where the gossip keeps busy with tales of others
Using the crudest of person to person communication
Wasting human hours in telling tales to irrelevant folks
And talking him/herself into penury

The writer sits in his/her room
Puts the inventions on paper
Reaches more people than s/he will ever meet
Allowing his/her creation into palaces and royal courtyards
And in turn makes not only fortune but fame

Are you a gossip or a great storyteller?
The raconteurs of our glorious past
Were highly sought after
For the manner in which the tell even familiar stories
But gossips are avoided by people who have purpose
Because where a storyteller builds lives
Gossips destroy lives with foul tongues

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