Business Of Love, By Pamela Moeng

I found out over the weekend that my friend Pamela Moeng's romance novel,  Business Of Love, recently came out through Nollybooks.  I love Pam and after more than 22 years of close friendship, she's like a sister to me.

So I was miffed that she didn't tell me earlier that Business of Love is out, so I could blow her vuvuzela ( Thank you Po, for that lovely phrase!).

I wanted to bash her on the head and ask her..."I read the synopsis, the first 3 chapters, chatted to you about it when it was finished and you were going through edits... so why in heaven's name didn't you tell me when it was an actual novel that people pay money to read?" But I also know my friend, and like many writers, she tends to be shy about self-promotion.

The good news though, is that she acknowledged during our talk that she needs to put herself out there as a writer and is going to launch her writing blog soon.



I'm looking forward to it, because compared to Pam, I'm a neophyte when it comes to the writing craft. Pam has written/contributed to educational materials and books published by big local publishing houses, worked in the industry as an editor and publisher and in government communications, contributed to a poetry anthology or two, and is now hitting her stride with her novels (She has a second novel she's shopping around and another brewing in her head). So, we're all going to learn lots from her through her blog, yes?

Anyhoo, let me tell you what Business Of Love is about:

Naledi Moagi was really excited to land a job at one of the top marketing consultancies in the country. The downside was that it also happened to be where her very first childhood crush worked.

But good-looking and arrogant Tumi Moeketsi is not jusy any old colleague, he is the grandson of the founder of the company. After years abroad, he's back to help his grandfather run the family business.

Tumi and Naledit are soon thrown together to work on an important pitch but Tumi doesn't hide his disdain for what he sees as another gold-digger out to mine the family's wealth.

Will he be proved right? Or will Naledi convince him otherwise? Either way the growing attraction between the two is set to complicate their working relationship.
 
Buy the book
 
The novel was distributed through the book club of True Love, the national consumer magazine. If you want to order, the ISBN of the book is 978-0-9869726-1-4. The reference for the book club is 26492. The contact number is 021 521 8383 to order or sms 'Romance' to 34525, or email romancebooks@truelove.co.za
 
And for the writers among us?
 
Nollybooks is looking for more writers, more romance novels to publish. Here are their submission guidelines.

Why Content Matters In An Online Business

Check out  Rebecca's post, which talks about why content matters in an online business. Rebecca also kindly highlighted my comment, where I add to the discussion.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I Was Item 4 In A Friend's To Do List

Happy Friday. Friend of mine from out of town showed up last night; said she didn't like how I sounded when we chatted. And since she was already visiting her own family for an intervention, she decided to add me to her list of things "to do."

Her message? "Get off your duff, find another doctor because clearly the one you've got is not doing you a whole lot of good.  And for F&^%$#'s sake, do something to manage your stress levels!"

We had lots to talk about, and she left at 5.00 this morning to drive back to her hometown so she's at work by 8am. I tried to get some rest afterwards, and was up at 8am.

Another friend recommended a doctor not too far from where I live. Actually,  he swears by him; says the doctor treats his own family. Secondary recommendation also pointed to the doctor. So I went. And I liked him. He asks a lot of questions; checks everything, even things you didn't realise could be a factor. Gave me an injection and within an hour, I felt better, but without the "stoned" haze. Also gave me happy pills to help me sleep better. He says stress is certainly a factor in my ups and downs...

He wants to see me on Monday again to see if the treatment he gave me is improving the situation and to do more tests. We're also talking about a gastroscopy. Joburg Gen would probably be able to see me in 3 months to do it, he says, and a private specialist can do it this month. For a very high sum, of course!

After The Crash

Yesterday I managed to redo the content I was working on when the laptop crashed ( never did find it from scavenging on my hard drive).

Then modem got in on the act and neither my laptop or my PC could read its presence. A friend of mine says it's a sign I need another laptop. I bought a PC late last year, and was not ready to make another equipment investment. But no one is asking me what I want:-)

And of course the aggravation made my ulcer flare up, so that too became an issue! But today is a brand new day, and it promises to roll  along smoothly enough. I'm back at the client site.

The only bright spark so far today was a request for a quotation from a government institution. It's not a big project, but it's work that would be regular and would keep me out of trouble.

sometimes government takes so long to come back to you after you've registered as a service provider, that you start wondering if even their computers forgot you exist.Thankfully, it seems I am still remembered.

Anyhoo, have a good day.

How To Ruin A Really Good Day

The day was flowing nicely and smoothly, and I was starting to make headway in the content I was writing that day. Then around 15h30, my laptop crashed and the whole date/time system changed to 10 January 2006. No worries, I thought, reinitialising the machine etc.

Except, about five hours of work that I'd one on the day was missing. I used every search option on Windows and Word. No joy!

A big fat THANK YOU to Tavasa forum member Nelmarie Pohlmann, who sent me a programme called File scavenger, and then spent hours helping me look for my documents. Your instructions were very clear and easy to follow and I expect, they will be useful in the future. Pity the results were disappointing, in this case.

Writing From Scratch Vs Secondhand Content

Today I learnt two things about my writing processes:

1. It's easier to write a piece from scratch rather than rewriting someone else's content.  For me, starting from scratch means  I need only follow my train of thought over the content, rather than trying to also understand someone else's logic and writing style.

2. Word from better when I talk to people about their issue/content/organisation/product, rather than just getting related documents from them and sourcing the facts out of them. When I talk to the people, they not only give me the facts ( which you can get frm the documents) but what they see as important and how they interact with it. This people factor helps the content come alive when I write.

Congratulations To Some Writing Friends

Congratulations to Po, who has a short story in the latest issue of Wordsetc. I'm very proud of you Po. That's why I'm blowing your vuvuzela :-)

Another blogging friend who's done well is Tiah. She had a story accepted for an anthology. Well, this may not be a first time acceptance for you, but it's still fantabulous, no?

Still working at a client's site, so I need to go now. Have a good day y'all.

Onsite gig

Spending  the day working at a client site, uploading bandwidth-hungry media onto the new web site I'm developing for them.  I periodically enjoy working outside the house: it allows me to have more human interaction, so I don't get cabin fever. And working like this will allow me to get the job done faster, as I'll have my client's staff on hand to instantly answer queries.

Also going to spend part of the day editing case study for a client. So, no time to do a long blog post.

Have a good week!

926 Posts Later

I was in the back-end of my blog to publish today's post, when I  realised that since the launch of this blog in January 2006, I've written and published 926 posts. That's not a lot posts, when compared to some. But wow! I had that much to say?

Have a good  weekend. And please join our discussion about whether alleged rapists should get bail. Tamara and Po raise very clear points that the issue is not an easy one, and I'd like to know what the rest of you think.

Writing Day Take 2

I plan to dedicate today to the writing process too. The content is starting to take shape and I finalised one main page and 8 sub-pages for a web site yesterday. I want to accomplish as much, maybe more, today.

On Shukumisa I'm asking if alleged rapists should get bail. A reader sent a heated email saying they shouldn't. She says they could rape the victim, and also intimidate her and made her generally uncomfortable. This is made when the rapist is family (and they all live in the same home) or someone in the community.

What do you think?

Spending A Day Immersed In Basics

For me, the basics of my business is writing, rewriting and editing. And that's what I'm doing today. I'm running behind on a writing project and I really need to step up a little bit.

Part of it is that I've wasted a lot of time second-guessing myself; wondering if the facts I chose to highlight in the copy are the ones that showcase the organisation as its best, writing and rewriting and then starting from the beginning again. And yes, client provided guidance, so it should be clear. But sometimes the writing process gets muddy.

Grrrrrrr! I do this to myself sometimes. You'd think I'd learn to manage this trait in myself better, and actually be proactive about that. But I almost always fall into the same trap. And when you write for clients, you actually don't have the luxury of second-guessing yourself like that.

In other news, if you have a minute, please take the poll on the Shukumisa web site called "What would you do if you saw someone being lured into a potentially violent situation?"


Also please leave a comment.

Work Hard, Work Smart Or Both?

Is it working smart or being a clockwatcher?

I was chatting to a friend of mine who's trying to launch her own business. She starts work around 9.30 or so in the morning, and shuts down promptly between 16h00  and 17h00.

So I asked her how she ever gets everything done in such a short time, especially as, in my view, a new business needs lots of work and time.

And she told me that she does achieve the objectives that she sets for herself for the day, in the time she allocates for work. And she flatly refuses to work longer hours, she said, because it will just stress her.

I'm still dealing with the consequences of stress in my work life: developing an ulcer, sometimes being too tired to even be interested in work. And there's no doubt in my mind that I need to get better organised : write more in less time, spend less time at the computer, do critical tasks first so the sky does not fall if work overflows to another day, allocate more leisure time, be more physically active, eat better... okay... that's a long wish list.  But ja, I do need to slow down while accomplishing more.

But, I also continue to believe that hard work is needed to launch and grow a small business. And I still believe that working for yourself sometimes means giving up some personal time to accomplish certain goals.

Am I perhaps too entrenched in the "hard work" mindset and should heed my friend's point ( that is should be done during working hours and if it isn't, it can wait for tomorrow). Or is my friend's view of "working smart" just a good excuse for not putting in more effort than mimum in a task?

I'm Presenting At The Feminist Technology Exchange, Johannesburg

So. I've been invited to facilitate a workshop session at the Feminist Technology Exchange hosted by WomensNet on the 7-9 March in Johannesburg. My session is on technology planning for feminist organisations.

Essentially, partcipants will bring over their communications strategies and we'll go through them to see what technologies they're using, how effective they are, and then we'll discuss what else they can do to take advantage of new media to improve commmunication with their stakeholders. I find the prospect of taking part in this workshop exciting and look forward to it quite a bit.

Organisations that deal with women's issues can contact WomensNet to find out more details about the event.

WomensNet is an NGO which uses information communicaation technologies (ICTs) to create a society where women and girls are agents of social change. It's also one of the partners in the Shukumisa campaign.

A Painting A Day

Had dinner with my friend Alison McKay and we spent some time playing on her new blog, changing the template,adding pages and some nifty blog features.

Alison is an artist and she has started a painting series she calls 365 South Africa. Basically, she plans to do a painting a day from the 1st January 2011 to the 31st December 2011. This means at the end of the year, she will have painted 365 paintings. She already has pictures from the month of January and 9 from February done.

The paintings are all about current affairs, with each picture capturing the essence of one of the major news stories in South Africa that day.  For example, her canvas for the 9 February depicts  the Italtile plane crash, where nine people crashed and died at sea.


The painting done for the 7th about the 200 crocodiles that were found at a farm on Friday. Alison uses  acrylic paints on 200mm x 200mm x 35mm canvas, with her style being mostly urban. She's now shopping for a gallery that will show her series once it's completed ( hopefully by February next year).

I also think the artwork, with a running commentary of the current affairs news items and Ali's experiences in trying keep a fulltime job, raise a 13-year old girl and paint a picture a day would make a very interesting book and am encouraging a pitch to potential publishers.

Check out the site I'm still working on with Ali at http://365southafrica.blogspot.com/

What would you do if you saw someone being lured into a potentially violent situation?

This poll was inspired by this article.

Introducing Jenny

The great news is that the artist I've been in talks with about doing illustrations for my children's book that's coming out in September has, in principle, agreed to do the job. We still have to sort out the storyboard samples and contract issues, but things are moving along.

Her name is Jenny. As you can see from her company web site, she's a very talented lady. And if you also need her services for one of your projects, please do feel free to contact her directly.

How to Sort Through the Noise in Freelance Writing Advice

I was going to post something that I hoped would be helpful to writers among my readers, who want to make freelance writing their career.

Then I saw Jennifer Mattern's article "How to Sort Through the Noise in Freelance Writing Advice" and I realised someone else has already said it better, and raised issues I hadn't thought of discussing either.

I hope you find this article as helpful as I did.

Who Am I, What Am I?

Lucky for you, I'm not asking the existential question. I'm just trying to find a word or two that would best describe who I am in relation to the work I do.
For years I was happy with the single word: writer.
"But you're more than that!You're a business owner," the women on my online business forum said.
"And saying you're a writer doesn't even begin to cover the web content work, the mnedia liaison, the social activism that you do," my friend Richard said.
"Don't you want to known as CEO of your own company?"  Leon asked.
Pfffft! CEO? Me and my laptop? I've privately laughed at people who have impressive titles, but actually run a one or two-man operation. Don't you need to have staff to qualify to be the boss?
So time went by, and eventually I registered a close corporation. And suddenly, the business is no longer just about me and my laptop.
And someone interviewed me this morning ( for an article) and when I was done, my thoughts were, who do we credit this comment to? What do you think of Damaria Senne, MD of Damaria Senne Media? Has a repetative ring to it, doesn't it :-) 

Writing Requires Strong Planning

Going to do some major planning for a writing project today:

1. Type up notes from last meeting with client
2. Use the notes to update deadlines on the project's implementation plan
3. Send updated brief to designer
4. Send lotsa letters to people reminding them that I'd asked for content
5. Play with new camera - make sure I don't cut off board members' heads when I photograph them on Wednesday
6. Continue reading organisational reports - I got 6 from the client
7. Draft web site home page

Hopefully, by the end of the day, I'll have a better plan on communicating about the client's organisation and programmes.

Sometimes Personal Contact Is Best

I had a good in-person meeting with a  client I haven't seen in a couple of months. I continued to do work for her organisation and communicate by email during this period, but we didn't see each other.

And when we did, it was beautiful. I met many of her new staff members ( and now know who to bug for more story ideas), and our meeting actually felt like a brainstorming session, because the more she spoke, the more she sparked my own creativity.

Her passion came through our chat, and that told me more about what is important to her than any old email could. So, yeah, I still like working virtually and not getting stuck in the meeting after meeting treadmill. But in person meetings are also essential in a virtual worker/client relationship.

Photographing The New South Africa

There's an article on The New Stateman called "Photographing the new South Africa," which touches on Johannesburg, and specifically, my part of town.

It's interesting, in that it tells a whole lot of suburban history I didn't know about. It also mentions my suburb directly, though not accurately or in a complimentary manner. But what I found very interesting is that the visual representation was of old, decrepit buildings. That is not a representation of my suburb or even of the new South Africa.

It's irritating when a journalist picks portions of a story that fits his story agenda and leaves out some of the facts that could balance them out. I'm not saying those buildings don't exist, but they are certainly not all there is to the area he's depicting! Actually, they don't even make up 20% of the area. Gah!

Read the piece yourself and tell me what you think.

Please Donate Books

Rape Crisis in Cape Town has a book drive to fill up their library. If you would like to donate any books, contact nikki@rapecrisis.org.za

Chat to Nikki about the best possible options to get the books to her. I'm sure you can either drop the books off, if you're based in Cape Town, or mail them, if you're national or international.

The writing day is going well enough, so I'm keeping this short and going back to the page.

Oh My! What Have I Done?

Writing the children's book was difficult, but it was a normal part of my creative process. And the story was screaming to get out. So I kinda had to do it.

I'm now in talks with a potential illustrator. She's very good, I think. The question is whether she likes my story enough to invest her talent in it. I hope so. But getting through that will be OK.

And I think in general, the actual production process ( turning the text and illustrations into a book) will go well enough. I'm used to managing the production process of a wide variety of materials, so it will be cool.

So why is my heading screeching at you? Why am I hyperventilating?

Because yesterday I emailed a friend of mine asking for ideas to get the children's book as widely marketed and distributed as possible. And she sent me a ton of ideas - and all of them were very good. The problem is that the list highlighted the huge amount of work I need to do before the book launches, and after the book launches. As a soon-to-be self-published author, I'm coming to the realisation that marketing is the harder ( and thankless) part of the job.

And the reality is that, if the book is not marketed well right from the beginning, it doesn't matter how well the text and illustrations tell the story. Few people will hear about the book and before you know it, my siblings will be using the copies I forced them to buy as placemats on their children's breakfast tables.