The Writing Room

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

Do you have a self-publishing plan? You have published your very first book. You're ecstatic. You begin to daydream.  You see the rave reviews that have been published about your work.  You see yourself selling hundreds or thousands or millions of your books.  You see your work on the various bestsellers' lists.  You see yourself making your mark as renowned authors. This is scenario 1 and it is a nice one. This may be the potential reality for you. But,  y ou must not lose sight of other possible scenarios. Scenario 2. You have modest sales, and you don’t make the bestsellers' lists, at least not immediately or maybe never. Scenario 3. You will have few takers for your work, at least in the first few months or even years of publishing your first book, to your grave disappointment. To maximise sales of your book, you must...

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

Many of you have made New Year’s resolutions. You hope that they will provide a roadmap to help you achieve the goals that you have set for yourself for each year. Realistic goals, you think. And by all accounts, they are. But at the end of each year when you reach for your checklist of goals that you’d aimed to achieve, you realised that you’d fallen short. You did not achieve any, or only a few of the goals that you’d set yourself to achieve. Probably goals related to your personal well-being : You did not lose the weight you wanted to lose. You did not give up a habit that you wanted to give up. You did not get out of a toxic relationship. You did not forgive those persons who’d “sinned” against you… Probably goals related to a change of career or expanding your career options: You did not apply for any jobs although you actively hate the one that you have and the people with whom you work. You did not audit any courses to upgrade your skills although you know where to find these...

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

  I am not a fan of talk shows, so I don’t purposely watch them or listen to them. But, occasionally I catch snippets of the conversations. Recently, I overheard a conversation between a mother and the host of a talk show. The mother said that when her child was in primary school, he was obsessed with drawing. He once drew a picture of a celebrity whom he had never met and the resemblance was uncanny. However, when it was time for him to do the primary school exit test she badgered him to study and forget about drawing. She told him that there was no future in drawing (or something like that) and that he should focus on his lessons at school, which apparently could take him places where drawing couldn’t. He studied, went on to high school and probably beyond, (I missed that bit) and has never touched a pencil again. This child clearly had talent which could have been nurtured. His mother gave him one choice. He had to walk the academic path. She now regrets her actions. At the t...

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

MY OWN BIG WOMAN is a novel set in Jamaica. It is about the decline of a woman's relationship with her sister and their struggle to exist in the same space. Take a listen.

How to be a prolific writer is the quandary that many writers need to work through. In this post, you should get some ideas how to do that. It’s been many minutes since I’ve shared with you, but I hope that during my absence you’ve been writing and writing and writing some more, because writing prompts surround you. You just need to allow your mind and your fingers to create images in words based on those prompts. If you are writing prose, follow the advice of Samuel Taylor Coolidge , “[Put] words in their best order” and if you’re writing poetry: [Put] the best words in the best order.” With a bit of research about writing, reading lots of different types of books by different writers and by practising writing, you will figure out the “best order” to place your words. If you are a budding poet, do your research to decide how to find the “best words” and how to put them in the “best order”. I stumbled across an article by writer, Rachel Toor , titled The Habits of Highly Productive...