How to Write: Tips from SA Partridge

In the second installment of READ SA's "How To Write" series, check out these tips by SA Patridge.

Sally-Ann Partridge is the author of The Goblet Club, which won the MER Youth Prize in 2008, and Fuse. Her third novel is forthcoming from Human & Rousseau, an imprint of the NB group.

SA Patridge's tips.

Interviewed For A National Magazine

You might have noticed that I changed the blog template again. Yes I know I only recently changed it, but I was getting tired of it and it's hard to be inspired when you feel like your work environment is dull. Do you like it?

So yesterday I was interviewed for an article for O Magazine. It sorta boggles my mind to be on the receiving end of interview questions, and also having someone actually ask me what I think about stuff with the view of telling the general public. I’ve been interviewed before, but it has never been for a national consumer magazine and most of my previous interviews were on behalf of a client.

This time it was about a project I’m involved in, but the focus was more who I am, what I do and what I think about a specific issue, rather than the nitty-gritty of the project. I hear there’s even going to be a photo shoot for the group of us who were interviewed.

I’m excited about it, but when I told my friend Christelle, who is a TV news journalist, about it, her first question was, “what are you going to wear?” It almost killed my buzz, because I’m not sure I have something NICE enough. Will let you know which issue of the magazine once I know.

Series Launches

The tenth season of Soul City, the popular TV drama series, starts on the 22 March and will broadcast weekly on SABC1 at 20h30, and I'm going to be doing their Facebook and Twitter interactons. I felt chuffed when the series brand manager asked me to do it as part of their PR plan. Not sure yet what the gig entails, and the work does dovetail with my Phuza Wise assignment ( the underlying theme of this season of Soul City is violence caused by alcohol abuse,) so I have lots of details to still iron out. I'm going to create the Facebook and Twitter accounts soon, and then start posting actor profiles, photos and series episode break-downs.

Anyhoo, inspired by the Guardian’s recent article bringing together “how to write” tips from prominent authors, ReadSA and BOOK SA have introduced a similar series a bit closer to home. To kickstart the series, we have published tips from Andrew Brown, the author of Coldsleep Lullaby, which won the Sunday Times Fiction Prize, and Street Blues, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. His most recent novel is Refuge. Tamara and Po, I hope this series really helps you in own your creative writing projects.

On the home-front, it seems I'm finally going to start shopping for medical aid for Edward and Hayley, my mixed breed chow dogs. And even saying it out loud, I feel ridiculous. I mean, the majority of South Africans can't even afford medical aid, and I'm talking about getting it for my dogs? But, I don't have a choice - I really can't afford to own pets unless I have it. This fact was emphasises this past week, when Edward was sick. He was off his food, some of his fur seemed to be drying up and falling off and he wasn't even interested in moving. And the vet bill was much higher than what I would have paid my own GP for a consultation.

Immersed In The Writing Process

Ja, I know I've been quiet the past couple of days. I haven't had much balance in my life for most of February. Spent most of my time either writing or reading, with very small amounts of time given over to sleeping. As a result, I'm exhausted and could do with a whole week's worth of uninterrupted sleep. The good news is that I now have about 35 short new articles; enough copy to automate publishing on the OneLove web site for the whole of March, freeing me to put more of my time and energy on the alchol campaign web site. The campaign is called Phuza Wise, and aims to reduce violence perpetrated as a result of drinking. I know some people multi-task very well, but I do better on new big projects when my mind is not being pulled in different directions, so I needed to clear part of my writing schedule to make room in my head to concentrate on something else.

The un-named story is also going very well. Words are still gushing out of me ( another reason I'm not sleeping well), but the story is now starting to take shape and I'm gaining confidence in myself and in the story. It's going to be a romantic fantasy novel. Huh! Who knew I actually had that kind of story inside of me!

My Name Has Commercial Value?

Someone has taken over the domain name damariasenne.com. It was my own fault. I forgot to renew my registration of the domain name and some enterprising soul decided to take it over. So, please note that I have nothing to do with the www.damariasenne.com site or the content published there. Come to think of it, I suspect the person who registered the domain has nothing to do with the content either, cause it reads like generic stuff that's been spun to beat copyscape or something.

I guess I am flattered that someone actually thinks that my name has commercial value. Maybe I'm doing something right in terms of developing my name as a brand? But I'm also angry for the same reason. Why not develop your own reputationand stop trying to cash in on other people's?

Anyhoo, today's post is catalogue of stuff happening/ that I'm doing. I tried to organise it in list format for easy reading:

Work

• The client reports and proposal are still in progress. Gah! That's all I can say. If anyone has tips on how to make report writing interesting, please share?
  
• Placed 3 articles at Ezine Articles to promote client sites and they were accepted within 12 hours and went live. They're going to be published on the main page within 48 hours (as of yesterday).I hope that brings in some decent traffic to client sites. Will continue to upload more articles on the portal - maybe every other day if I can maintain the momentum.
  
• Finished client newsletter and I'm really feeling proud of the work we did. It took longer than I thought, but the client was very cooperative and the full product turned out to be good work. It's something I wouldn't mind showcasing to attract future work. Though I daresay, this type of work needs the close collaboration between client and writer, or the product will not be as high quality as this. Will post link to the newsletter once it's published. Newsletter is going to be quarterly.
  

Creative stuff

• Added 10 more pages to the story gushing out of me that remains namesless ( and by now stands at about 80 A4 pages). I wish I knew what I was doing, because this is so not a story I ever thought I would tell. No, it's not a personal story or anything. Let's just say I'm very shy, though I cover it well when I meet new people (why do you think I've yet to make it get-togethers you've invited me to?), and so straightlaced they probably have my name next to the definition of prude in the dictionary.... and I think I'm going to need a pen name for this story and the subsequent ones that could come out of this world.
  
• Found out a friend of mine just finished a novel, got it edited and she's ready to query publishers. I'm so jealous! I sent her details of an agent that has an open submission call, even though I was greener than the plants in my garden.
• Am applying to attend the Maskew Miller Writer's Workshop. The workshops are taking place in Polokwane, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. The Joburg one is taking place on the 24 February. MML has this to say about the workshop:
  
  

  To help aspirant writers with the submission of their youth novel, Maskew Miller Longman will be hosting writer’s workshops across various provinces in South Africa. Rachelle Greeff, well-known author of various short story anthologies, novels and children's stories will facilitate the workshops and provide guidance and useful tips on how to write interesting and engaging novels for South Africa’s youth. Read more
  

A Day Of Reports

Spent most of Monday implementing copy edits from a client. For me, that is hard work, because you have to pay close attention to every sentence and every word. But the work looks good, much improved, so I'm cool.

Spending most of today doing my least favourite tasks - reports and proposals. Bleh! I know the work has to come from somewhere, milestones need to be set before starting new projects and clients need to know whether you're accomplishing goals set, but reports are definitely not my medium!

Guest Post For Small Business Owners

I have a guest post on TAVASA, where I give 3 Reasons You Should Promote Your Business Around Public Holidays. Check it out.

And please leave a comment: suggest more reasons why small business owners should use public holidays as opportunities to promote their businesses , or if you disagree with me, explain why.

And thanks Gaynor and Ali, for hosting me. Much appreciated.





Spent part of the weekend with friends. I used to be real close with two of the friends I spent the weekend with. Over the past 20 years, we have shared at least 4 separate residences, starting with a small house we shared while attending university. Then, with marriages and/children and demanding careers ( and maybe even diverging interests) we seemed to drift apart. My time with them this weekend reminded me why we became friends in the first place. And I was very relieved that there were no silences and awakward moments to fill with chatter. Five hours after what was supposed to be have been a lunch appointment, we were standing outside the restaurant, arguing about some minor life point like we used to.


















I think I've become addicted to gardening. Also spent the weekend puttering , cleaning some of the beds, rearranging some pots and basically relaxing and enjoying the space. I'm preparing portions of the garden for Autumn/winter planting, because I want to make sure that the garden remains interesting even in winter.

Photo Blog Challenge: Blue

Laura at female2female had a photo blog challenge this week, and theme was blue. So I took a photo of some flowers in my garden.


Friday is my favourite day of the week. Not in the sense that the weekend is about to begin and I don't have to work but because on Fridays, a lot of people start preparing for the weekend. So it's usually a quiet day and I can do a lot of writing uninterrupted. And I can keep writing for as long as I'm inspired because mostly, I can sleep in on Saturdays if I want to. So for me, Friday is a very liberating day, creatively speaking.

And now, let me share with you some suggested words of love, which you can share with your loved one of Valentine's Day. To listen to these words of love, call 083 900 0032.

No, that's not my mobile number:-)

When Writers Become Experts

My post today is a bit rambling, so I hope you'll be more patient with me.
Yesterday the partner of a man I'm friends with showed up at my house to tell me that my friend is cheating on her and to ask for my advice. We've been very friendly over the years, though I'm not as close to her as I am with her partner. Which is why she came to see me: she wanted my advice on what to do under the circumstances. She also thought I would have influence on her partner. My gut response was to brush her off. But I didn't. We talked for a long time ( and some of it must have made sense because she told me she felt better afterwards). But I should point out that I fed her chocolate chip cookies and a soda, so maybe it was the choccie that elevated her mood?

Anyway, the reason I wanted to brush her off is that, firsly, I don't like getting involved in my friends' relationship issues, whether male or female. And when it comes to male friends, sometimes it gets messy when the relationship ends. Especially if he is being a jerk and the woman expects me to take her side because I'm a woman too. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't brush her off. You see, she's seven months pregnant with their first child, and as far as I knew, my friend was as proud as a rooster that they were expecting. And I guess I haven't been looking at them closely enough, because last I checked, he was very much in love. So my big question to the woman was, what happened? Where did all the love and caring and tenderness go? Because as far as I know, my friend is still the good man I know him to be, and what you're talking about doesn't sound like him.

Secondly, ( and I think the most important reason) I wanted to brush her off is that I'm not a counsellor. Sure, I write about love, sex and relationships for the OneLove campaign. But I have at least 15 books from the campaign partners to use as reference guides. I have access to their psychologists and panel of experts when readers ask sticky questions. And it made it easy that my offline friend would see me as someone who is knowledgeable about dealing with relationship issues in a real-practical way. I'm not being chicken here, but as a writer, I can express the thoughts, knowledge and wisdom others. I learn from it; can even sound halfway knowledgeable about it. But I still feel that, that does not necessaily make me an expert who'll have a primary impact in your life.

Let me put it this way: for over 3 years around 2000/2004, I wrote about the South African Income Tax Act and its provisions for the non-profit sector. I was communications manager for the Charities Aid Foundation Southern Africa and the Non Profit Partnership, who were lobbying government to change the law, so I not only undertood the provisions and what they meant, I also had a clear idea of what provisions should be made/changed to have a better impact on the NGO sector. From that job, I went on to write about South Africa's Electronic Communications Act. And yes, I studied the Act itself, as approved by parliament, and the regulations that support it. I know how the Act and the regulations affect the local telecommunications industry: which provisions are rock solid, which ones miss the mark, which ones mean well but are not easily enforcable and the stuff that sounds great in legalese but actually creates a legal mess good lawyers can always loophole through.

Anyhoo, I think all this knowledge and insight does not make me a competent legal adviser for a telecommunications company. And the same princple applies to the sex, relationship issues I write about. Somehow, when it comes to tax and legal consultants we tend to show more discretion than when we want relationship advice. God help us, sometimes when it comes to love and sex, everyone is an expert! And it shouldn't be like that.

What do you think?

Earth Babies and Food

I have a guest article on Earth Babies blog entitled "Sex After Childbirth." Please check it out when you have a minute, and leave your comments and tips. Thank you Barb and Sally, for hosting me. Much appreciated.















Last night I had my biggest harvest from my garden to date, and based on the quantities I should be able to keep myself well supplied with vegetables for the next two months at least. Which is nice, because I had that basic goal in mind when I first started the garden. As you can see, there's a lot of variety here. I also have beetroot,green and red peppers, spinach, herbs etc. I have about 12 of these pumpkins in varius stages of growth. They're huge, so I cut this one up and gave some of it to a neighbour, with some spinach and cucumbers.















And for many of you who think I know what I'm doing, yes, I grew up in a village, so everyone was always growing their own food (regardless of whether they could afford to buy or not) and I took it all in by osmosis. But no one actually sat me down to say, this is how you do it. And I didn't use any insecticides; wouldn't know ones to use if you sprayed me on my face with it. My gardening philosophy is usually, " let's see what I can't kill." And suprisingly, there's lots of plants that can survive my tender care.

I am fortunate that I have a yard living right in the middle of the city, but I'm also learning that some of the plants don't need so much space. I actually wasted a lot of space allowing the pumkins to run through the floor, rather than making them go up. I could have planted many more crops that way, I learnt.

Anyhoo, had a fair writing day yesterday. Need to pump up my processes and produce more content, because my deadlines are looming. And if you have a minute or so, please take this poll and tell mI we if taking an HIV test with your partner is a romantic gesture/can be made into a romantic gesture. I would really appreciate your input.
Have a good day!

Getting Ready For A Writing Marathon

You know what I have loved most about the Zuma love-child debacle? The media is now using the phrase concurrent partners in conversations. When I first started to develop copy for the OneLove web site, I hadn’t even considered that someone you’re having an affair with could be called a multiple concurrent partner. The term is logical, when you think about it, but we usually used other phrases. And when your web content has to be search optimised a big concern is whether anyone (except the activists) would actually use the phrase or search for that term. President Zuma, bless his heart, is unwittingly making multiple concurrent partners an everyday phrase.

Had a long client briefing yesterday and am now going to begin work on a web site that goes live some time in March. The site is for a campaign against violence that’s driven by alcohol abuse and will be linked to two new seasons of ongoing TV drama series.

I can also see the content of this new web site linking beautifully with the OneLove and Kwanda web sites. Don’t you just love it when a puzzle comes together almost seamlessly?Sorry I can’t give more details until the media briefing when the new seasons of the series go on air. But I’ve known the project was in the pipeline for a long time and I’ve been looking forward to it. It’s something I can sink my teeth into, like the OneLove project, because the campaign will continue after the TV series, giving me an opportunity to get a bit creative with content.

I’m a bit bummed though that work on one web site that I thought I’d have finished developing by now has not even begun yet. I’m mostly doing the work on a volunteer basis, and I have a web developer and designer lined up (and raring to go) but the client is delaying things picking on small details. With my luck, this client will get sorted out just when my copy deadlines for the alcohol site start looming, complicating my life. Ho hum!

A Very Creative Weekend

Phew! My fingers are sore and the week is just beginning. There's a story that's been bugging me for months. The characters stayed in my head when I was doing client work, when I was working in the garden or even taking a walk. Everywhere I went the characters followed, wanting me to pay attention to their antics.
Problem was, the story didn't seem to be very viable (too different from what I usually write, not sure what it was exactly, if there is a market for it). Basically, working on it was too much risk in terms of time invested for something I don't know I could write well or sell. So it rattled around in my head, sometimes even blocking me from thinking about other fiction possibilities.
Until this weekend, when I locked down the house, took a notebook and pen and started writing. I didn't censor what I wrote, I just started from what seemed like a beginning and kept going. Sometimes I'd have to go back to change something, mostly add a lot more detail, but I put it all down on paper. In the 48 hours that was the weekend, I only went out once to the market to buy dog food.
60 A4 pages later, I have the very rough bones of God knows what. A novella? A novel? A short story? Whatever it is, it's now on pieces of paper on my desk. And I will have to give a lot of thought and attention to the world I'm creating, rework the story many times, rewrite portions where I got stuck with the details, give some definition to many of the supporting characters, expand on themes etc. Then I will have to edit, rewrite, bring some art and craft into the storytelling. But for now, I all I can do is be happy I finally have some relief. There is peace in my head! And I can finally get on with other projects "uninterrupted."

Also spent time doing some online research. Found a nifty book carousel at web site called LibraryThing. Essentially the carousel allows you to load your books, with short descriptions, ISBN details, reviews etc, and you can then pick up the code of these books to display on your web site. The book covers rotate on a small section of the allocated page, and readers can then click on a book cover that interests them to get more details. I've been looking for something like this for months and plan to use the widget for the books published by the OneLove campaign members and will let you know if it works. You can also use the widget to display books from your own library or those you wrote, depending on whether you're a reader and/writer. Amazon has a similar widget, but that only works for you if the books you want to display are for sale through Amazon. By the way, you can download the ebooks that I plan to make available through the widget here. You can also give the ebooks away through your web site if you want. Also note that members of LibraryThing, some of whom are authors and publishers, offer advance books for free to readers for review. So if you have a reading habit you can't afford, check the site out and find out if you can get some free books.

Elements Of A Blog That Could Earn You Money

During a forum discussion today, Corinna Turner (Simply Green) mentioned how difficult it is for writers to make blogging a paying proposition. My email response got a bit long, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make my reply to her into today's blog post.

I think part of the challenge of making blogging a paying proposition is that we need to keep it professional and interesting. The blog also needs to have a narrow focus so that visitors are quite clear about what they'll get and what they can it for. BTW, my blog Storypot is not a good example of that kind of narrow focus, where my client site OneLove is.

Anyhoo, in order to make a blog more comercialised, you need:

1. A subject that people really want to know about, but that you're also passionate about. In my case, NOT writing, because while a lot of people say they want to be writers, few actually take steps to do it. And there is already very fierce competition from more established, more vocal writers. I guess what i mean is, find something beyond your immediate passion to something that would really sell. In my case, I think that would be kitchen gardening. I love it, lots of people do it, many more want to get into it, and there aren't many amateurs out on the blogosphere talking about it. Professionals, yes. But amateurs who understand that your basic aim is just to not kill the green stuff? Not so many.

2. Write good quality material that allows readers to walk away with something new and useful.
Again, if you just write about what you do ( which is my style on Storypot), your blog as a resource may be too obscure. Ja, sure be personal. But there should be a moral to the story.

3. Publish regularly
You want your blog to be a habitual place here your target audience congregates. If you don't blog regularly, then you'll lose some of your readers. Assuming you ever manage to get anyone to come regularly.

4. What's your drawcard?
Say I run a gardening blog, and week I have some sort of give-away. Maybe a gardening ebook, a packet of seeds, a collourful watering can some other day etc. Basically, my readers know that my site offers potential to impact on them directly. They're more likely to come often than if I keep blabbing on about my garden everyday. I've also seen a number of writing blogs offer job leads for writers. If you want to make a living as a writer, then you check in with them to see if they interesting job leads for you.

5. Build traffic
In a sense,that's mostly what your potential clients want to know: how many people visit your site daily, weekly, monthly?? Who are those people? Is your target audience within a demographic that's likely to want to buy their products? No matter how good quality your content is, if the right people don't come in droves advertisers won't be interested.

6. Reviews and endorsements
Now suppose I have 5000 amateur gardeners all across South Africa subscribed to read my blog about kitchening gardening on a regular basis. I could legitimately test out some gardening equipment/seeds/products etc and then review them on my site. The trick would be to be careful about what I actively endorse, because while money is nice, it's important to retain the trust and faith your subscribers have on you. Selling out for a quick buck is a mistake you may never be able to repeat, because your readers will move on to someone else quicker than you can blink. That said, you could get a few freebies from your related industry, which is an in-kind type of earning.

P.S. While I refer to the potential of a gardening blog on this post, I have no plans to start one:-)
P.P.S. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that I left out of this post, that could help make a blog more attractive to advertisers. Leave a comment to share with us, thanks.

1000 members! Yay!

The Read SA Facebook group now has 1000 members. That's right ladies and gentlemen. ONE THOUSAND MEMBERS! In 4 months! So, many thanks to all of you who joined, posted links on your Facebook pages and profiles, Twitted etc. You know we couldn't have done this without you.

Spent most of the day doing edits on a client project. The great news is that the publication reads and looks great now, and I can see its full potential being realised. And all this happened because I slogged through lots of suggestions, lots of pen marks all over what should have been my wonderfully brilliant second draft. OK, don't laugh. I know and you know that the first draft always looks good at first glance, and you send it to the client and it comes back with pen marks and you think WTF? Didn't I just polish this copy? Then you get over yourself, consider each point that is being made and whether it improves the overall project, and you mae decisions, big and small. Of course, all this depends on your client actually knowing what they are doing, or you end up with The Most Expensive Publication Ever Made.

Spent the rest of the day writing guest posts for my promotion drive.

Question: Do you think that guest posts still have the potential to drive traffic to your blog, or are they now so passe it's not funny?

The Most Expensive Poster I Ever Saw

So this morning I went to see my graphic designer about a project we're working on, and he was in the middle of fine-tuning a poster for another client. I loved the design - the colours really worked ver well, and the image, which looks sorta abstract made me want to get closer to figure out what it was about. Unfortunately, the text sucked.
OK. Let me be fair and constructive: the text did not read smoothly, the content was definitely not original and it certainly failed to make the company stand out among competitors.

Basically, the text said that Company X helps its clients meet their goals by providing them efficient, cost-effective Y service. And I swear, I replaced the name of the company ( 2 letters) and my service (one lettter) and the poster could have been talking about me! I replaced it with the graphic designer's name and the same thing happened. The words in those poster apply to everyone who provides a service - their competitors, clients, next door neighbours...In short, that poster was saying NOTHING that could sell anyone's service.
Being the excitable creature I am, of course I insisted my graphic designer see if he could talk to the client; explain the problem to them. The copy was written by a staff member, not a professional copywriter, so I thought surely the person would appreciate some professional input.
"No," he said. "I don't care that the text doesn't work."
"It's not like I'm trying to get work from them! I just think that,-"I said.
"No."
"But-"
"I. Don't. Care." he said firmly.

Before you start thinking the guy is not professional, his work is immaculate. And usually, he cares about his business and client needs. But he started working on the project at the beginning of November last year, and he hasn't been able to finish because the client keeps changing his mind about the text.
He also says that the company has a lot of internal politics going on. So of course they're all developing the poster by committee. And whoever wins this little skirmish gets the poster of their dreams:-). Never mind that the design will cost them more, because my friend charges a per hour rate.
Most importantly, the poster will never sell anything to anyone. A blank A3 paper would definitely be worth more it would if the poster was printed on it. At least the blank paper still has potential to be used for something useful!
Anyhoo, I was still arguing the case after our meeting, and Mr Graphic Designer just kept saying: 'I don't care!"
Huh!

My Ideal Client/Service Provider Relationship

Had a big editorial client meeting today. Got lots of corrections and additions for a publication I'm doing for them. This is my most favourite client, mostly because the people are so pleasant to work with. They ask politely for things to get done, they give me enough time to do it, and when we do have glitches, as invariably happens with large-scale projects, the issue is not who is to blame, but what needs to get done to fix the problem. To me that is the yardstick for an ideal client/service provider relationship.

In my whole career,I've probably worked with clients who offered me more money, saw themselves as being at the top of their industry. Maybe even the projects were/could have been more exciting. But in the absence of respect for me as a service provider, I've found it's actually better for me to walk away. Cheaper, cos I don't waste time managing situations that didn't have to occur in the first place. Less stressful for me ( which in turns means I'm more productive and eager to work on the project). And we correct glitches quickly which saves everyone time and money.

After the meeting, I went to the barber to get my hair cut. It's been more than a month since my last cut, so I had quite a lot of hair to get rid of. I feel bad for my barber - you might remember he charges R10 a cut? Surely his service is worth more? I also go back because of his excellent customer service, and to me he seems more like a hair artist rather than someone with a machine razing hair away. In any case, I couldn't help but think of many writers and small business owners of my acquiantance, who charge almost nothing for their service, and are afraid to raise rates because the customers might go somewhere else. In the case of my barber, who's coming from a low base, I'd probably continue to go to him even if raised his rates 100%. So, how much can you increase your rates and still keep your clients?

Anyhoo, I've decided to start bringing order to my veg garden, which has grown huge over the past couple of months. Initially, I just removed the lawn, treated the soil and then planted. Just wanted to see if stuff would grow there, after years of having lawn. As you know by now, yes, it did grow. but it was all over the place, with no particular design to make the garden pretty and accessible, even while it's useful. So yesterday I drew pathways through the garden, sourced some sand, bricks and gravel, and added some structure. There's still three other patches ( bigger than that one) that still have to be redesigned. But I like the way it has all turned out. You like?

Monday update

Had a great weekend with friends. Also watched a couple of DVDs: The City of Ember, Star Trek and XXX. I liked the City of Ember quite a lot, and posted the DVD to Baby after I watched it. ( It is a kiddie movie!). I was also happy to find out that the film is based in the first in a series of books by Jeanne DuPrau. I'm sure Baby will enjoy the books.

Also worked in my garden. My cucumber crop is huge, and much more than I would ever want to eat. So I gave away a lot of it to friends and neighbours. Yum!

Anyhoo, today was kinda slow but productive. A big discussion that I found interesting today was on Jacob Zuma's new love child ( baby is 4-months old now) and the question of whether Zuma's sexual conduct undermines HIV prevention campaigns in this country. I mean, if the man made a woman he's not married to pregnant, clearly he's not using protection ( condoms) outside his marital circle. Which means that in theory, he could infection his wives with HIV. Scary thought that....

Also checking traffic reports for sites, as it's month end. It's that time of the month when I have to do client reports. Joy:-(

And lastly, please nominate the phenomenal woman over at Female2female.
"We are looking for a Phenomenal Women. We all have women in our lives who have achieved something phenomenal or have impacted our lives in a phenomenal way – our aim is to honour those women," says Laura.