A Conundrum

Feeling more like myself everyday. It helps that I've shifted some of the work to someone else, lightening my load, and can now focus on things I want to do and/can do well.

We also have guests for the weekend: a good friend who lives in Bloem is visiting for the weekend and is quite determined to help me have fun. And one of Baby's friends, whose family commutes between South Africa and Mozambique is also in town, which means a sleepover tonight and lots of girly giggles in the house.

Work status

In terms of work, things are getting very interesting on the OneLove regional campaign. Pakachere, a Malawian NGO involved in the campaign, is launching a new radio drama series on the 9th October.

And while the drama broadcasts in a number of radio stations in Malawi ( and thus has no relevance for my South African readers), I'm going to do a lot of online promo for that series in the coming weeks.

So if you know of Malawian web sites and bloggers whose themes are love, marriage, relationships, cheating, intergenerational relationships and office romance, drop me a line? I'd really appreciate it.

Kwanda is also chugging along very nicely. Getting lots of comments and questions from viewers, and the number of Facebook fans is also growing nicely. I still welcome reviews of the show, by the way.

Creative writing conundrum

Got a writer's brief for a novel series this morning from a publisher (by way of a friend). A big part of me wants to jump up and down in glee.

But I don't even know if I should attempt to write for them, because I'm so tired and I still need to do a lot of thinking about how to juggle the copywriting/web development work and the creative writing opportunities coming my way. The bottomline is that I am a novice novelist, so I have to do a huge amount of work before the publisher and I reach a contract stage. And it's hard for me to invest a lot of time and resources in something that has no contract, and may not yield desired results ( if I suck as a novelist:-).

I know books are where I want my future to go but how do I navigate my way there? Thinking of doing Nanowri as a way to force me to finish the draft of the one novel that could meet the editorial guidelines. But considering how tired I've been lately, and how behind I have been with my current work, I'm not sure it would be wise to attempt it.

Read South Africa

And to distract myself from work/life balance issues, I created a blog and Facebook page for Read South Africa. Here is some info about ReadSA:

The pursuit of information, the desire to "broaden ones horizons" has unfortunately and tragically remained a "Western" and "elitist" construct.

We as the writers of our time would like to move beyond these artificial barriers and create literary awareness and a passion for reading among the majority of South Africans.

We want to use our profession to reach the oft ignored South African classroom, the beleaguered minds of young and old alike.

We want to offer other paths that could be followed to somehow stem the tide of violent rhetoric that has permeated and diminished the lives of South Africans, where ignorance plays a major role in perpetuating this violence, where it becomes cyclical and passed on from generation to generation.

I'm sure you're wondering why doing those sites was different from actual work? Well, firstly, the organisers had no expectations, as it was a favour. So no pressure.

And secondly it was the little that I could do to support something that fits within my belief system. And could benefit me directly as a writer.

So if you're a writer, or an aspirant one, check them out and join the cause. And feel free to offer your views on the Facebook page. Contact Zukiswa Wanner if there is anything you can do to assist. ReadSA belongs to everyone.