It’s raining outside as I write this. I am on my third cup of tea silently hoping that the sun would come out to play so I can go to town. I postponed a meeting because it’s cold and wet and those two freak me out…well, mostly because I am:
tempted to stay in bed reading a book and drinking coffee
definitely tempted to wear pajamas everywhere I go.
On writing:
I’ve got two big writing projects that have been on my mind.
Writing a short story for an upcoming anthology set here in Kenya.
I haven’t picked up on where I left with both projects because I seem to have got great books to read off NetGalley and of course write reviews after devouring them. I am looking more into character portraits and how I bring my characters to life because there is a certain authenticity to a character who when read feels like they are actually talking to you in real life. I have been able to draw this out through dialogues but when it comes to having a character in a setting or getting them to settle in a descriptive environment my words fail me.
I am also working on sentence variation.
I’ve often loved short sentences, but written long ones instead, never pausing to let the reader catch a breath!
On reading:
I bought two ebooks yesterday that I can’t wait to start reading. It might take me a while to complete my #tbrlist but I’m definitely going to read these!
I came across a notebook I’d used in 2015 and inside there were all these notes, scribbles, ideas and things that made their way into some of the content I wrote then. I also came across this page where I’d titled “some epic quotes on writing,” so here they are:
Writing turns you into somebody who’s always wrong. The illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on.- Phillip Roth, American Pastoral
Writing is liberation.- Sainte Beuve
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends and finally you do it for money. Moliere
A writer is an ink-spiller. Ink is a form of water. Israel Kosky, 1945
Have a lovely weekend.
TMI
Currently listening to: Baptized by Daughtry
Looking forward to: an afternoon nap
So glad I got to: finish braiding my hair
Can’t wait to: visit a tailor and get a dress made out of the fabric bought yesterday 🙂
I hope: I can start taking sugar again, but my sore throat is getting better and I am sounding much better than I feel.
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn– is what popped into my head after I finished typing that title up there. Oh, what I’d give to see Scarlett O’Hara’s face when Rhett told her those eight words! They held such promise!
I should be writing the next part of Ushanga, but even getting a word out seems like torture. I won’t push my luck, no, I’ll let the gods of literature and minions of writing do their thing. I’m worn out. I took on so much this past week and today I was caught between finishing Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes and writing a report on the 2016 East African Community Child Rights Policy. I chose the former in between breaks.
Just when I thought that my day would get better, I received a reminder that there’s a strategic plan that I had written and shared with a few colleagues that needed reviewing. I sent out texts to everyone of them calling for a meeting. Three out of the seven responded. I am waiting to hear from the remaining four and it is killing me!
So, I went to the kitchen and made a cup of black tea. I took two mandazis and sat before the computer ready to type at least a sentence into Ushanga, but when I opened the document, nothing…not even the urge to repeatedly type “ushanga” just to get this moving.
I played one round of Solitaire and couldn’t even stack up one pile of cards, so I exited that and reached out for my phone. Before I could even type the pin to unlock the screen, I remembered that I’d just bought 4 black dresses at the market today and went to take them down from the hanging line. As I was making my way back to the house, my younger sister asks, “what are we cooking for supper?”
I want to say “fried chicken and vegetable rice” but do not because as sure as the sun rises, we both know there ain’t no chicken in the fridge. I tell her ugali, sukumawiki and we can fry some eggs. She looks at me the way she always does; half smiling, half frowning and then says “sawa,” and walks to the sitting room to watch Double Kara- some Philippine soap opera that I can’t stand, and now that I’ve rambled my words off here, I’d better go back and try to keep working on Ushanga.
NetGalley has been good to me. I was hesitant when I first received the recommendation from Goodreads to sign up and get to read books in exchange for a review. I thought, “why ask for books just to review them?”
Then the gods of literature struck and I was working in Kisumu and couldn’t find alternative sources of buying books. I was in a literal dry spell and my mind was asking to be nourished by something, so I signed up and since then I’ve read 47 books off NetGalley. I’ve come to know of authors whom I’ll always keep an eye out for like Clar Ni Chonghaile, Timothy Ogene, and now Akwaeke Emezi.
So, my NG experience aside, let me tell you about Akwaeke’s book called Freshwater!
This book held me captive till the very end.
The story follows Ada, a child who upon birth is believed to possess two spirits inside her. As she grows, she’s both sweet and volatile, something that is not known to everyone for her spirits take charge each seeking to meet their own selfish needs.
The author molds a story that is both candid and incomplete for she uses mysticism to weave an understanding of mental illness. You feel as though you are the spirits inside Ada, and you are also an outsider observing Ada which made this book irresistible.
When Ada struggles to come to terms with what’s happening inside her mind, they remind her that she is them and they are her. Sectioning the Ada gave her isolated pockets of memory, each containing a different version of her. There were versions to whom bad things had happened and, therefore, there were versions of her to whom these things had not happened. This terrified her, because if there were so many of her,then which one was she?
I love how the voice of each of the gods within Ada was firm. There was a certain dominance and certainty to them that made me await the awakening of Ada. I was reading this and when I got to Chapter Twenty, all I could keep saying was “come on Ada, get up Ada!”
It is at exactly that moment that I read this When you break something, you must study the pattern of the shattering before you can piece it back together. So it was with the Ada. She was a question wrapped up in breath: How do you survive when they place a god inside your body?
There is a phrase in the book that goes First feed your gods which I found to be remarkable simple but the weight of it stayed with me. If there’s anything that I learned from this book is that people are as unique as they come and no matter how many voices speak up or demand attention in your head, in that shattering moment, you are still the one who counts. Finding out how to make it count is what matters.
I should add…”and other questions I’ve been asking myself lately.”
It’s forty six minutes past eight and we’ve just had supper. I prepared spaghetti and I am now looking forward to having a cup of black tea before I sleep. Have you noticed that I tend to specify the time I write these posts? Like here, here and here?
Okay, well, maybe not so much but I seem to be drawn to time and this is partly due to the fact that my writing hours have changed. It is also largely due to the fact that I underestimated my writing and ability to set a scene that’s closer to home.
Have you ever sat down with friends or family and right when you are having a laugh at something funny one person just asks you some deep stuff?
Hear me out world, it’s been years since my aunts got on my case about getting married. I do get the occasional product launch at functions and church. “Meet my daughter, she’s a great Counselor and did I tell you that she’s a Writer? Yes, we lost Margaret Ogolla, Azenath Odaga and Grace Ogot, but God’s always gracious, we believe He’ll bless the work of her hands.”
“Yes, how’s our son doing? I hope he is well. Tell him to come visit me or call me.”
So, there I was seated on the floor with my back leaning against the front door. It was four in the evening. The muezzin had just summoned Allah’s faithful servants to the Mosque near our home, so that “Allah hu Wakbar” was my cue to get black tea and mandazi. I was getting ready to feast when my friend calls and starts by saying “we need to meet up like now!”
I told her, “it’s four and NASA were to make a statement so there’s no way I am making my way to your place because that means going past Kondele where we both know GSU trucks are parked by the road.”
“It’s quite safe, you should come,” she responded.
“No thanks. I love you but I am in no position to run for my life when I haven’t committed a crime, so tell me, what’s up?”
“You know how things have been with that guy I told you about? Well, let’s just say that I am over it, because I got this great job and it means I’ll be moving to Naks and sitaki drama! It’s just, how do you know you are headed in the right direction?”
I did what I always do when I find myself cornered to provide a solution or to justify someone’s actions. I asked her, “tell me what happened?”
She hang up ten minutes later after our chat and by then my tea had gone cold. I looked out just in time to see a police patrol truck drive past our house. Her question still rang in my mind as I went to heat up my tea, “how do you know you are headed in the right direction?”
In what aspect? Is it life as a whole, a project, a goal? What exactly are we talking about here? I struggled with this and though I’ve often mentioned that I tend to worry, I also do overthink and it wears me down. It wears me down even though I know what it’s doing to me. So, how do I know where I am headed to and if it’s the right way? If it’s a location I use Google Maps or ask for directions until I get there.
If it’s about a goal, I take my time and reflect on what I’ve done and weight the pros and cons to ascertain whether I’ve made progress or not. So, it’s got to be progress. The results tell me if I am headed in the right direction.
I was so pleased with this kind of understanding until something dawned on me, “what if you can’t see results yet you’ve been working hard?” Now, I have to think about that, but here’s the thing how do you tell that you are headed in the right direction? What works for you in relation to this?
My writing space has always been neat. It’s got a keyboard, stick notes, highlighters, writing pads, blue and black ink pens and never without pencils and erasers.
I have written some of the stories I never thought would find their way into print.
Here, on this table in my mom’s room, surrounded by heaps of books on African literature is where I first came up with Ulioko. He’s the only character who resonates with most of the people who have read the Currents Series. With utterances like:
“You cannot dip raw cassava in hot water and remove it expecting to eat it.”
“Even the baboons do not like to stare at their children’s buttocks.”
I have drafted some of the stories that are neatly tucked away in my journals, gifts that some day, someone will treasure knowing that I wrote something every day.
My writing space has always been neat because I like my things in order. I like an essence of space and when everything is piled up, my mind wanders like a child digging through a chest of family secrets.
I thought that every word I wrote would be as crisp as my writing space, but this picture serves to show that inspiration does not trickle down a straight path.
It’s 10:36A.M. as I start writing this. If you are in Kenya, chances are you are seated at home alone, or maybe with friends, or family simply watching a movie because the news on TV is either depressing or never-changing. You are not on Facebook because since August 8th, you’ve come to tap the unfollow and block icons on your smartphone so much so that you don’t even know what your threshold for isht is.
It is refreshing that Kenyans love to be the bearer of news. First, most of our politicians took up the roles criminals and comedians. We thrive on just how foolish they can get, and especially when they deny uttering statements in public even as they are watching a clip of it. Now, we all have smartphones and bundles! Lawd, what would we be without bundles and powerbanks! Wi-Fi ni ya watu wa Nairobi…some other cities are yet to have that stuff in their homes, oh mercy! I know not the future of journalism, but hey…if in one minute you can get ten million different updates on the same story, well… I digress.
So, this morning I was woken up by two texts. See, here’s the thing world, I am a morning person. Yes, I wake up at 2am and write till 4am then pray to the gods of slumber to allow me to enter their world until 6:30am where I exit their world for that of another dawn. So, receiving a text at half past four in the morning is like being summoned to the world of daybreak, and that my friends, is like trying to get a cat to have a bath!
Google Images
I reach for my phone and then I see “would you please tell me if I am doing the right thing?” Of course, I’d read the second text first. So, I sat up and went to my messages and the first text was “hey, can I ask you something? How do u knw uv lk made the right dsn? I mean, how do u knw that sm1 the 1 4 u?”
I thought, “not with that kind of communication!” and sent her a text message “call me and tell me what’s up.” She called and somewhere between conversation I dozed off. I know I did because as I was going through my phone at seven in the morning, there were three missed calls from her and eight text messages. I could try and tell you what they were about, but given that she’s not the kind to use words while texting, we’d both be at a loss. My fingers for doing the typing and you for struggling to read what you’d consider a drunkard’s slur.
I’ve always known a couple of phrases to be conversation starters for people at a crossroads. When someone says “can I ask you something?”, “can we talk?”, “are you busy?”, “can you do me a favour?”, “listen…”, “I have this friend,” then know that it’s not going to be a declaration but rather a call for your full attention, because there’s a dilemma that needs a solution.
I happened to fall asleep in the middle of the discussion of one. It’s pretty obvious that I had to call and make amends, but it also reminded me of something I have been taking for granted for the past one month. My instinct.
I’ve been struggling with writing Ushanga and all the while there’s been the feeling of giving my characters room to grow and breathe life into the story. In a way, I am working on that, but I love control and no, I am not Mr. Grey who exercises control in all things…I am learning to let go and sometimes working with an outline can really stifle your writing.
Mark Twain once said that, “There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.” I wonder what made him utter those words, to whom and to what end.
It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday here in Kisumu. I got out of bed at nine this morning because like the past five days, my sleep patterns have been affecting my writing so much so that it seems like whatever I write every day at 2 A.M., does not add to the book I’ve been working on. I wonder, what would you do with content that’s irrelevant to your purpose? If we were having this conversation three years ago, I would have deleted them. I have since come to appreciate my scraps of writing by neatly filing them in a blue box file under my bed. They gather dust every week.
I took time to run a few errands for my mom and this saw me walk into Choppies ( formerly known as Ukwala, Format and so on) to get a copy of today’s newspaper, 2 litres of Fanta Passion (because I’m all about Fanta) and 500ml of Vanilla Ice-Cream.
remember this post?
So, there I am making my way around the supermarket and this girl walks up to me and smiles. She’s in those ombre braids, since I can’t explain that stuff, let me look up an image on Google and share it…just give me a second, okay, wait…something like this:
She begins “Hey, how are you? It’s great to finally meet you.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you too, are we friends on facebook?”
“No, we are not, but I liked your page and I always read your blog? You’re so funny, like how do you do it? Do you just sit and start typing and then click send? I’ve always wanted to have a blog of my own but you know lectures and campo and stuff. So, what are you working on?”
“I’m mostly working on myself. I am taking time to get the next book going so keep up with me on the blog and I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
“It’s Ushanga right? I love the picture of the maasai bracelet! Wait, why did you like choose that for a cover? I also noticed your covers look more simple like hazina a lot going on. I love that. I also loved your other books like ile ya Leila and Max, tell me was that about you? Kwanza 21 days! Wait, was Zora also you, because those books were too real to be just stories, hebu tell me!”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know if I am right or wrong, but I have a feeling that Leila was you, but Zora was partly you. Listen, I got my friends to read them and we’ve been talking about you ever since, they won’t believe that I met you. Look, is it okay if we took a selfie? I promise I will only send it to my friends on whatsapp.”
We moved to the next aisle because there was no way I was going to take a selfie near the pampers aisle, who knows, the picture might find its way to one of my aunt’s streams and then I’d be getting calls like “to nyakwara biro chieng’ mane? To dhok?”
We took a selfie and she gave a quick hug and disappeared as fast as she’d appeared. I know she’ll get to read this and think, “why did you have to post this?” Truth is, meeting you lovely reader was something I prayed to the gods of literature would never happen, and as usual, the gods laughed and made it happen.
I walked back to the freezers and added another tab of Vanilla ice-cream because now I had a reason to get concerned about my writing and that meant dealing with what I’ve been avoiding for the past two weeks.
Have you ever had tea in a cone?
I did, two hours ago, but the tea had to be cold so as not to melt the cone…now I’m nursing a toothache!
nilichoandika 