Writers Write

Congratulations to my friend and sister P, who just landed a contract to write a romance novel. I am so proud of you! And I know you will succeed at this venture as well as you have done other writing projects.

Had another interview in Pretoria on Wednesday, with 4 people across two government departments in addition to my normal web site content development and update work.

The trip was a nightmare: we came across three separate car accidents on the way, and one accident coming back. You can imagine the impact it had on traffic.

And of course I got lost in Pretoria. I can get around Joburg just fine, but drop me off in Pretoria and suddenly my sense of direction is completely gone. Too many one-way streets! Grrrrr!

Anyhoo, I was so annoyed I began to wonder if the assignment was worth the aggravation in terms of time and effort invested.

But the feature article is on a subject I like and am familiar with, so it’s all good. I also reminded myself that I am fortunate to work from home, dealing with traffic issues occasionally when the timing of meetings does not allow me to travel during light hours.

It could have been worse -there are people who make the commute back and forth between the two cities everyday.

Spent today writing like a mad person. I loved the Public Service Announcement that was developed by OneLove Kwasila (the OneLove campaign in Zambia), so I uploaded that and did a short piece about the launch of the campaign, which took place on the 16 June.

Drafted a couple of letters to OneLove campaign partners, suggesting ways they can use the web site as a resource for their own programmes.

Also did a couple of static pages for the blog I’m currently developing and a letter promoting a mainframe software development master class that is taking place on the 25 June. And the day is only half-way through.

Working through failure and annoyances

I guess my words have come back to bite me: yesterday I was chatting with Baby about career choices, and for now she’s considering being a fashion designer.

“What if I fail?” she asked me.
And I told her to prepare for failure, because at some stage in our lives, failure is inevitable. An important element in order to succeed is to be persistent until you get it right, I said. And to work as hard as it takes to get the job done.

I feel that when you do something that is important to you, that you feel passionate about, it helps on days when life’s little aggravations get to you, or when you have to face momentary failure. It gives you the motivation to try again.

I don’t think she was impressed with my philosophical view on the world of work. Part of her wanted me to say, “of course you won’t fail!” But I didn’t want to lie to her.

P.S. The insert director from the TV series liked the story I selected. So things are still moving along in that quarter.