Now while I may not be in the shortlist for a Pulitzer, a Cane, a Booker, heck a local neighbourhood book club prize…I feel compelled nonetheless to jot down a few pearls of wisdom. My brother reminds me that life expectancy in Kenya being what it is, I may already have peaked in a small way and to an unsuspecting world. I refuse to be bitter, and in solidarity with my ‘rising above’…
1. A spade by any other name is just a spade. Call it a spade and move on.
2. Have someone who calls you on occasion to remind you to tell you to write. I have someone…J
3. Listen to people, let them take you into their confidence; promise not to tell a soul. Then in the middle of a sleepless night, go to a typewriter or notepad and take into yours.
4. If you’re black and you can help it, don’t write about racism, colonialism, neo-colonialism…all the ‘isms’. Don’t dwell. God knows Ngugi wa Thiong’o does enough of that…even gone to daring lengths of making it his niche. Negritude died of natural causes, namely the annoying discovery by free Africans that there were worse things than being black. Being poor for example, ignorant and poor. If you’re young you weren’t enslaved, if you’re old you’ve accepted how the world works. It’s like Ali Mazrui says,’…humanity over Africanity…’. Write about humanity. Fighting for the world is unlike any other war waged. You cannot choose a part of it to fight for. You have to fight for all the world or none of it at all. So write about universal themes like hope, love, the conflicts of the soul, the good fight, sprinkle some blood and grit in it. If you can’t help it, I leave you to your devices but have the good grace to be transcendental.
5. Listen to good music- good music has a very narrow definition thanks to the Justin Biebers of this world. I say jazz and classical and maybe cabaret…and definitely the rain. Anything with duende as Lorca aptly put it. Stupid id unfortunately pernicious. Drink wine, take walks by the sea or live somewhere where you can always hears sounds (not noise), read poetry. C’est-a-dire…feed your soul because your writing feeds off of it.
6. Don’t choose sides. Take stands. Whether for your craft or life in general. Don’t be amoral, ambivalent or dishonest. Care. Christian rhetoric questions often how a believer can love an invisible God before loving their neighbor. Well how can you ask the world to care for your fictional creations when you don’t care for them yourself….
7. In the immortal words of Hank, Charles Bukowski, ‘….if it doesn’t come bursting out of you, in spite of everything. Don’t do it.’ Go into poultry or beekeeping or be a critic. Don’t let me dissuade you…ignore me and run with it.
8. If it goes away, go after it and get it back. Go to India and bathe seven times in the Ganges or come here to Kenya and watch the wildebeests crossing the Mara or run naked dans les rues.
9. Don’t wait for praise. It’s poisonous even harming. When it comes, think of trees. How poets and farmers and lovers think that trees are so beautiful, how ecologists and ministers praise trees but they don’t sway with an extra spring in their bend. If it doesn’t work, think how trees are cut down for such praise to be documented.
10. Write. Don’t stop for air. Don’t stop for red lights
I am thoroughly convinced in this said post. It does help me a lot knowing that you have shared such priceless information.