Dreams, Priorities and Money

Brainstorming on my chalkboard wall

One of the scariest aspects of my decision to focus on fiction for 2015 and to take on less client work is where the money for paying bills is going to come from.

On the surface, I have a good framework set up to achieve this goal - a stable home with enough room for a home office, a freezer full of  a variety of vegetables from my summer garden, an Autumn garden just starting out and Internet access to research and write my stories. I even have a little bit of cash for bills and some luxuries. All I need to do is to knuckle down and write, edit, polish and submit my stories, then rinse and repeat.

Update: There's Even Big Writing News In My Long List Of Past & Upcoming Events

I know I've been rather quiet on the blog but there's been lots of good stuff happening in real life. I'm just going to make a list of them to give you a quick update:

1. Durban was wonderfully relaxing. I left my laptop here at home, so I could spend more time actively engaging with the family and not be tempted to spend too much time online. It was hard... and I did borrow the family computer to check my emails but that's about it.

2. Baby's 13th birthday party rocked. She has made lots of friends in Durban and they all came and they had fun. The party started at 4pm and only ended at 21h30. They felt so grown-up, having a party into the night. But there were lots of adults to watch the kids and they were all very well-behaved ( although they did tease us a bit about pouring vodka or brandy into the fruit punch). I was so proud of them.

3. The trip back to Joburg was exhausting. I thought I was going to be able to just resume my life but I needed a few days of just doing the necessary tasks to keep the business going. Also had a couple of client deadlines, so those had to take priority over blogging here.

4. I'm in the process of signing up with a well-known publisher to take on a big freelance publishing project for them. Basically, my company is going to oversee the writing and publishing of 12 books for them. LOL! That's not a typo - I do mean 12 books. Starting with commissioning the writers, working with illustrators etc. It's a big, big milestone for my company. We sign the contract near the end of this month and then start the work immediately. I'm still trying to work out how the work is going to affect the progrss and scheduling of my self-publishing projects, what capacity I'll gain or lose and whether some projects will have to be pushed back until the commissioned books have been submitted to the publisher. Time lines are also very tight, so I have very little wiggle room. The project takes me in the direction I wanted my career to go for a long time... though I did think it was going to be slow and would have to be one book at a time, not 12 to start with:-). Yeah, I'm very excited.

5. Pam left South Africa on Friday to go visit her family in the US of A. She's coming back at the end of June. I have one or two blog posts from her, and she may send me more.. or not. Anyhoo, don't worry about it if she remains quiet this month. She'll be back.

 

The newly painted kitchen. The contrast
between the old kitchen & new one is huge!

 6. I spent Sunday working with our local renovation group to paint my neighbour Deidre's kitchen. Zahn Hughes ( friend and neighbour), who's home decor and paints effects specialist, has put together a group of local residents to work on each other's homes. Basically, the home-owner buys the material, members show up on the designated day and we will scrape off walls, prime, paint, distress, work on the garden, sand floors, lay tiles and whatever else one needs to improve their home. Membership is open to anyone who lives in our suburb. The only  cost to the home-owner, other than buying material, is to provide munchies for the tea/coffee break and to work at other members' houses when it's their turn.  The next project is renovating Gaynor's office. My kitchen is also in the line-up to be renovated by the group.

Anyhoo, I'm looking forward to the coming week.  It's going to be a very busy week and I also  have  some guest posts that ended up stuck in my drafts rather than getting published in my absence. Big apologies to the guest writers; I'l publish your posts this week.

And a big thank you to Lori Widmer for her guest post on building a better writing business. I hope those of you who do some freelance writing/ want to go fulltime actually bought her book, so you have something solid to guide you.

New Releases Planned For 2011 So Far

It's now official - the big non-fiction book will be launched on the 9 June 2011.I'm still not sure what I can say or cannot say about the contents of the book, so I'll check with my publisher and maybe tell you more then. I'll also  find out if they will set up a pre-ordering facility and maybe some of y'all can buy a copy or two before the launch?

Heh! No presssure on you there! My publisher sounds like he already has an aggressive marketing plan in place, and my marketing role there is small and I think, optional. I still plan to work hard to promote the book, because I think young people visiting South Africa for the first time will need it. But, it sounds like the publisher plans to do more than just include it in their catalogue.

Children's book in the works too

I'm also planning to publish an illustrated children's book, with the launch date set for Thursday 1 September 2011. Basically, the story is about tree planting, which is why I'm choosing Arbour Month to launch  the book.

I've already written and edited the book, and just need to give it to professional editors to work on it and then assign an illustrator. I don't have the resources to pay an illustrator upfront, so I'll mostly look for someone willing to take royalties against sales.

I expect it's going to be a lot of hard work ( and a steep learning curve) to do this title, because it will be the first book I self-publish through my new company Damaria Senne Media (which I've already registered). But it's not my first published children's book, so I will have some credentials to leverage this on.


I also have some works collecting dust in my laptop, which I'm going to go through and evaluate, with the view of submitting them for publication or self-publishing them as epubs.

Huh! We'll see how that works out.

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.

I Have A Horrible Feeling That I'm Boring

Today I was chatting to a friend of mine who's a PR manager for a multinational IT conglomerate, and we were brainstorming about how he could use Twitter more effectively in his business.

We were also talking about mutual acquaintances who are also on Twitter, and the conversations that they are having etc. And it struck me that I'm not listening to many of these conversations. I'm not even following many people on Twitter. And I'm not saying a lot either.

In fact, I'm among the majority of people who register on Twitter and then hardly ever use it.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me clarify that I believe that Twitter is a great social networking tool for the individual, business and to campaign for social change. It works real well for me in the client campaigns, where I have a specific message that I wish to convey and Twitter is linked to the blog and other social media.

I also agree with Deboah Ng that writers should embrace social media as job search tools and have used Facebook and LinkedIn quite effectively. But somehow, when it comes to Damaria Senne being on Twitter, I'm not so effective. Here are the issues I grapple with:

1. Do I have something interesting to say: While I think my life and the projects that I'm involved with are interesting, I'm not quite sure that other people want to know. And what if, God forbid, my tweets go way beyond "not interesting" to "seriously boring?"

2. Microblogging is more intenstive - I like communicating through a blog because I can take time to decide what I want to say, then say it. It's still a conversation, but it is more structured, and I can come back at my leisure. Tweeting is more immediate, requires a quicker response and engagement. And as in real life, sometimes I'm left tongue-tied.

3. My time is limited - Sometimes I look at the Twitter conversations going on and I wonder where the people get the time. It's all I can do to balance my time to write, be a parent, renovate my property, be partner, parent, sister, friend, new aunt... and still have time for myself. And I do realise that we all get the same 24 hours in a day, I have to make time for things that are important.

I welcome suggestions on how I can use Twitter more effectively.

Opportunity to tell one of my stories on TV?

It looks like opportunities are like trouble: when it rains, it pours. So, on Friday afternoon I had an email, and later a call, from an insert director of a TV programme, asking if I'm interested in working on one or two episodes with them using my children's stories.

I couldn't say YES fast enough!

The first season of the series is already being broadcast on a national TV station , so my story would be used for season 2. Sorry, I can't give details about which series, until details are finalised and i'm sure the production company is cool with my blogging about it.

The insert director has already sent a short brief, and I'm supposed to send her the chosen story I want to work with. Ideally, the story should have some strong visual opportunity.

Anyway, wish me luck, so this opportunity goes very smoothly.

Thank God for Exclusive Books/Seattle Coffee Company

I’ve previously mentioned that I love shopping at Exclusive Books? Well, today I decided I HEART them even more.

I knew that some of the bookstores had the Seattle Coffee Company attached to the premises, but I’d never gone into the coffee shop (opportunity never arose, and I don’t drink coffee at all).

Anyway, today I went to Pretoria for a series of meetings, and I needed a base of operations in-between going to people's offices.

The outlet at Brooklyn Mall was fantastic. They kept the tea coming, and the service was excellent.

Best of all, they did have plug points for me to connect my laptop, and offered me wireless for 10 minutes. Apparently the name and password I got entitled me to 10-minute usage everyday.

Next time I’m in a mall needing a base of operations, I will check them out. Pity the Exclusive Books in my suburb doesn’t have the coffee shop.

Old anthology story given new life

Some great news to warm me on this cold winter day: the publishers of an anthology I contributed to in 2007 have contacted me to say they would like to publish a second edition of the book.

Of course I'm saying yes, especially as they sweetened the pot with some kind of payment and immediately emailed me a contract when I gave a verbal agreement.

Details are still sketchy at this stage, but I'll keep you posted as developments unfold. And the book is expected to have a general release in national bookstores, which will be nice.

I love having some kind of body of work, especially when old works are given a new lease of life.

German publisher knocks on my door

On Friday I received a Facebook request from the rep of a German publisher asking me to send him my contact details.

The publisher wanted to publish one of my articles in a textbook under development, and they wanted to send me details.

Within hours, the whole process was ironed out: they’d already worked out how the story would be used and had a draft lay-out of the page.

All they needed was to finalise the legal stuff and find out if I was happy with the way the piece was used.

It was a lovely experience, and improved my mood tremendously (I was very angry because I’d been robbed that morning/previous night).

Birthday celebration

Saturday Baby took a couple of her girlfriends to the movies. They eventually decided on Night at the Museum 2, as none of them had seen it before.

They had a lot of fun – lots of popcorn, slushies, sweets and McFlurry’s. Ja, I wanted to sneak in something nutritious in the mix, but the girls wouldn’t have it. And it was a birthday celebration, so I let it slide.

The girls spent the rest of the afternoon window shopping at the mall (under parental supervision of course). Baby used some of the birthday gift money to buy herself 2 DVDs – Beverly Hills Chihuahua and 5 episodes of the Mew Mew Power cartoon.

One of the mothers sent a big bottle of Givenchy’s YSATIS as a gift. She must have forgotten about Baby’s birthday (and felt guilty about not buying a gift).

I had a lot of fun trying to talk Baby out of it. Eleven-year old girls who still watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Mew Mew Power don’t need YSATIS, do they?

Baby wouldn’t budge: it was her gift, even if it was inappropriate and the fact that I wanted it so much must mean it was a good thing. Eventually, I managed to negotiate some usage priviledges:-)

Marketing is critical to business success

We spent most of Sunday with a good friend of mine and her daughter. My friend is a very versatile, talented artist and has recently finished doing artwork for a big hotel (artwork in my post was in line with interior designer's brief).

Unfortunately, she’s terrible at marketing herself, operating from the premise that all she has to do is produce good art and the work will come in. Hah!

Thankfully, she recognises that business doesn't quite work out that way ( and she has to be to a business person in addition to being an artist). So we spent a lot of time talking about how she can get her name and work out into the market, given the difficulty she has putting herself out to people.

I think it would be really lovely she could find a business development manager/artist’s rep who would take care of getting clients and doing the business management end of things. It would free my friend up to focus on what she does really well.

But I have no idea where she can find one ( not being in the business myself) and suggested she do a lot of internet research. Hmm. We’ll see if something comes out of it.

OneLove Poetry Competition: The call for love poems continues

Over the past month, we received a couple of entries (poems) for the OneLove Poetry Competition. Not as many as we need, or what I hoped for. So we’re going to run the competition again for the next couple of months.

So if you write poetry, please submit your poem to the competition? The theme is love and respect.

You can submit the poems directly on the comments page ( which no one had done:-) or you can email me at admin@onelovesouthernafrica.org ( as some people have done)

Would you resign by SMS?

Having worked as a tech journalist for a number of years, and personally loving technology and how it has improved my life and work, I'm still flabbergasted to learn that a slight acquiantance resigned from her job by SMS.

The resignation was with immediate effect.

As far as I know, there was no bad blood between the employer and employee. There hadn't been a major scene at work that would result in the on-the-spot resignation.

The employee simply landed a better job, and instead of serving the usual notice period, send an SMS to her senior saying she decided to leave immediately.

My mind is still trying to wrap itself around what I would say if I was resigning by SMS. Maybe: "Sorry Jack. Won lotto. Resigning . Immediate effect."

I've had an employer or two who made resignation by SMS an attractive proposition. But I've always thought that action like that would later come back to bite me on the ass.

Would a new employer actually take me on knowing that I have no qualms about leaving my current employer in a lurch? Doesn't such a behaviour show how the new employer will be treated when the next big offer comes along?

Which brings me to my original question: would you resign from a job, assignment or project by SMS? Under what conditions would you do it?

Today Is Writers' Worth Day

Today is Writers' Worth Day and writers all over the world are blogging about the worth of a writer. The issue that is being raised in many ways is: "Writers should be paid a living wage for their work."

That means, writers should ask for what they are worth, and publishers should offer writers what they are worth.

I want to look at the issue from a perspective of someone who earns her living as a writer. I'm a mother with school fees and assorted child-care fees to pay; a home owner with a bond, maintenance and insurance costs. I have to clothe myself and my family and like everyone else, I want to enjoy a good life while building a solid reputation doing a job I'm good at.

Can low-paying assignments, pay-per-view, $1 per articles or horrors, sites that offer me "exposure" actually help me meet these objectives?

I think:

1. If you take a low-ball price, you are putting yourself in a position where you have to work harder to earn a living. Say I want to earn R1500. Now, I could pitch a feature article to any number of local magazines ( which pay an average of R2 per word), write a well-researched 800 word piece, or I could write a couple of el cheapo assignments, write 30 $5 articles for some of the online article mills to make the same amount of money. Now which move is more likely to land me with carpal tunnell syndrome and which one will land me a decent byline in addition to the cash?

2. If you take a low-ball price, you have to work longer hours to meet your target. This is time you could have invested in your career, family, friends or anything else that bring you fulfillment.

3. $1 assignments will not help build your reputation as writer ( and they don't pay bills well either!). Many low-paying assignments are about quantity rather than quality, so working on them does not help you to build a strong reputation as a good writer.

That is, if you even get credit for the work. And if you want to estasblish some sort of online presence, or get into the routine of writing, why not start your own blog?

Your content will still get published, but you still own it and you can pull down the articles, refine them and send them to other publishers any time you like without having to ask someone else.

4. If you take low-paying assignments, you could be paying people to work for them! Sometimes I chuckle when I hear people on forums say that writers in third-world countries can afford to take low-paying assignments because dollars and pounds in those countries go farther.

While it is true that the Rand/Dollar exchange works to our favour, ridicilously low-paying assignments mean that the earnings are eaten up by some of the operations costs.

Internet costs in South Africa are relatively high as compared to other countries. So a large chuck of your money when you work online goes to paying Internet connection costs. Then there are banking charges, which are ridiculously high....

So I want to urge writers to ask for what they're worth. It will give you the space to do your work properly and deliver quality work, so that your career can grow.

My message to publishers and other types of businesses that use writing services is that, you get what you pay for. Quality writers who know their worth will not take low-paying assignments.

They know that time spent looking for a fair client is worth more than an assignment on hand from a low-paying client.

21 Things I’ve learnt since I began working from home

Today's post is a tad long. But a number of friends and business associates have repeatedly asked me what it’s like to work from home and my usual answer has been “it’s great, I love it,” and I do. But it’s not easy, and I want to share some of the lessons I learnt in the four months since I quit my fulltime job as a journalist:

Working space

1. How will your neighbours's daytime activities affect your work - Find out if your neighbours do something that could affect your work in any way. If you live in a flat, it could something as simple as your neighbour across the hall taking care of her sister's kids during the day, which may mean that you will work to the sound a crying baby. I found out once I started working from home that my next door neighbour was working on a welding project. He was very religious about doing it between 09h00 – 16h00, when he knew most people were out at work, which is why I didn’t know about it. I found the noise to be very distracting, especially when I was trying to interview someone.

2. Your own plans could be a distraction – One of the things I liked about working from home is that I would be on hand to project manage the restoration of my house; something I had always wanted to do but didn’t have the time for. And for the most part, it has been a very smooth project. But things got very sticky when the workers started grinding the roof, so they could repaint it. It was noisy, filthy work, and eventually I took myself off to the library to work there until the job was done.

3. Design a work space that suits your work patterns – For a very long time, I had difficulty in settling into the work area I had set up. Somehow, it was not too comfortable, and I was not as productive as I would have liked. I moved things around three times, even tried working in the garden, before I found I found an arrangement that worked best for me.

4. Have the tools you need to do your job – my old PC packed up three times in the four months since I began working from home, and at some stage, software had to be reinstalled. I was in the middle of deadlines, so it was a bit uncomfortable. Thankfully, I also have a laptop and could therefore continue working uninterrupted. Speaking of tools – you get what you pay for. The PC was second-hand/refurbished when I bought it, and it seemed to be a bargain. Now we know it’s not. The laptop, which I thought I’d paid too much for, has never given me a problem.

5. Setting up a home office costs a lot more money than you think–Even if you already have a PC/laptop, you will still find an endless number of things that you need to invest in that were previously your employer’s problem. You will also find that your duties have expanded while you were not looking – I found that in addition to being a writer, I was now my own technician and office manager. I’m still not too thrilled about that.

Looking for work

6. Don’t count on verbal promises from friends and associates to send you work (aka, have plan B and C to source work)– When I first announced that I was leaving my job to work as a freelance writer, a lot of people who are in a position to pass freelance writing work to me enquired about using my services. Some of them even as far as to promise that they would send work my way. For the most part, those turned out to be empty promises. However, people that I know, and who never promised me a thing, have been consistently sending work my way. Some of the work has been incredibly large volumes of work, or very prestigious assignments. So, if you’re thinking of going independent, I’d advice that you take most of the promises made by colleagues and business associates with a pinch of salt, but stay open for the unexpected.

7. Your network of contacts could be your biggest resource – despite what I said above, your network could be your biggest resource in getting started. The people may not be able to give you work directly, but they’ll keep you up to date as to who has work/needs a service provider.

8. Use technology smartly – I used to think Facebook and LinkedIn were a complete waste of time, because most of my network was made up of personal connections who could not contribute to my career growth. However, in the past couple of months, I have consciously worked to connect with business associates, and the result has been good. The conversations are more business orientated and useful; I’ve even found a source or two for a story.

9. Some people will forget you – Some of the people you worked with shared an office with, met regularly for coffee to discuss business, will move on and not keep up the contact as they swore they would when you resigned. But then, you will also make a new life, make new contacts, and when you bump into each other, it will be a wonderful surprise, to be enjoyed for what it is. The circle of life continues...

Business and money

10. Balance big projects with smaller ones –While the big projects bring in big money, they take time to be signed off, more time for you to fulfil and invoice and by the time the payment actually comes through, you could have gone bankrupt or starved to death. So, have a good mix or small and big clients so you have regular small amounts coming in, and big checks coming in every so often.

11. Look for retainer clients – the work is regular, the money is regular, and it gives you some stability. And it also reduces the amount of time you spend looking for business.

12. Set up emergency fund- Always make sure that you have some emergency funds that can tide your through the bad times. You want don’t your financials to get messy simply because one or two clients are late with payments. Because a lot of clients are invariably late with money- you can count on that!

Scheduling your work

13. Find your rhythm – For a very long time, I worked to the same rhythm I did when I was working as a fulltime journalist. Write in the morning to the 11am deadline spend the afternoon doing research and interviews. However, the nature of my new assignments did not allow for this rhythm, and what’s the point of working from home if I still act as if I’m stuck in a newsroom? I tried out many permutations, and eventually found out that I’m most productive when I edit first thing in the morning (5am-8am), then I make calls, deal with emails, research and interview people. I then start drafting new pieces around 10am.

14. Manage your schedule effectively– There have been times when I have taken on more work than I should, because work is money and how dare I say no to work. And there have been times when I let other people’s schedules have too much of an impact on how I work (because they are the client, and what they want they get). The lesson I learnt from that is that, eventually it causes me stress, and I become unproductive, and benefits no one. So I am now determined to be more assertive about my time lines and scheduling. It's better for me, and everyone else in the long run.

15. Busy is not productive – There have been times when I worked hard on projects, and been less productive. I suspect I would have been more productive if I took time out, got some rest and then got back to work refreshed and more energetic. But because I work from home, I am more conscious of the need to be self-directed in my work, and taking a break is not simply taking a break; sometimes it looks and feels like slacking off because you don’t have a boss watching over your shoulder. And then there's the myth that people who live at home live the life of leisure...

Miscellaneous

16. You will make mistakes – God knows what made me think it would be easy, but I made so many mistakes there were times when I wondered if I didn’t make a mistake quitting my job. But the rewards far outweighed the problems, and I just had to get over myself, learn from mistakes and get on with things.

17. You need a support structure –You need to have a strong network of people you can talk to when work gets rough/you’re frustrated about something/you feel lonely. Obviously, you can’t work from home if you don’t thrive in an environment where you work alone. But no matter how much you may like your own company there will be days when you need to hear a friendly voice. Set up that support structure.

18. Changing your environment is good - Go out for coffee/drinks/meetings to meet friends and associates. If you don’t, the house will start shrinking on you, and it will affect your productivity. You can also work outside your home sometimes – go to a library, coffee-shop, or even the home of someone else who works from home, to get a new perspective on things.

19. Dump the clichés – For me, the biggest cliché was that if you work from home, you can work in your PJs. I found I couldn’t - I am most comfortable if I wake up early like all other working people, wash and dress properly for work, never mind that said office is in my house. So for me, no PJs or track suits etc. I dress as I would if I were in a newsroom and coming into contact with other working people.

20. Sometimes the work and family life will collide - And I'm okay with it. The people that I do work with and those that I interview know that I work from home. But sometimes it disconcerting - like the time I was interviewing the regional GM of a well-known multinational company by phone, and Baby ran thru the door from school screeching "I passed Zulu! I got 95%!" The guy was quiet for a moment, and when he resumed talking, he repeated what he'd previously said. Clearly, he heard Baby's screeches and took it in his stride. Me, I typed with one hand while hugging Baby with another.

21. Get help – I recently got myself a career coach, and it's the best move that I made . She’s the objective voice that helps to understand myself more clearly, the encouraging voice that instils confidence in me. She gives me a swift kick in the butt when I need it, and encourages me when I just want to stay in bed and hide. Most importantly, she’s helping me to grow, so I can reach my goals as quickly and efficiently as possible. There is no way I could do this successfully, were it not for her, and the many friends who have supported me through this journey.

Friday was my last day at ITWeb. I will now spend most of my time writing for Intrinsic Media, a small privately owned firm that provides media and communications solutions.

However, as I mentioned previusly, I will still write for ITWeb and welcome an IT related story ideas/pitches.

My plan is to focus on Africa/International ICT stories, with a special focus on telecommunications and business strategy. Not breaking news as such, but stories that provide greater insight into the ICT sector in Africa, the players, the SA firms expanding into Africa and the multinational firms entering the markets.

The weird thing is that now that I finished fulltime work, I am more eager to work. Spent most of Sunday working on a couple of articles and blogging. Yeah, yeah, I know I promised some friends that I was going to take it easy for a while. And I am taking it easy!

Posted Setswana poems

My friend Neo Motshumi has written a collection of Setswana poems and is looking for a publisher.

I have posted four poems from the collection. If you read Setswana, please leave a comment. I'm sure she'd be grateful for some comments/affirmations.

The handover is bittersweet

The handover process is bittersweet. There's a part of me that's raring to get started on my commissioned work.

These include a profile of someone who's work I was aware of, but never had a good enough excuse to interview, and a story for an anthology by an international publisher.

But yesterday there were two major developments in my beat (telecoms). I'm happy with the individual taking over where I'm leaving off. She has already doing an excellent job, and has a good grasp of the issues. Most importantly, she is interested in the issues.

But she was so excited by the developments, I couldn't help but feel a twinge because I'm leaving.

We spent an hour reading a legal document most people would have dismissed as dull, giggling over the implications, and working out who to interview.

Yes I know, both of us are complete nerds getting excited over regulations, but it was wonderful working through the document. It reminded me why I loved writing about the ICT industry in the first place, and why I will continue to do so on a freelance basis.

Some kudos for the blog

This week I received a request from an agency to provide them with traffic stats for my blog, so they could consider advertising on it for one of their client.

For a moment there I felt a warm glow of accomplishment. Unfortunately, I also had to turn them down. I think the content of this blog has improved considerably as I gained confidence in the craft.

But I'm not yet ready to take on advertisers. Obviously there’s a part of me that wishes I could have embraced the offer, especially as I’m just about to leave my fulltime job, and money is money.

Oh well!

Now I have a fair idea of the kind of interest this blog can generate and am motivated to consistently deliver strong content and a strong subscriber base.

Hopefully, by the beginning of next year I will be able to take the blog to a new level and take on advertisers.

Planning to work from home

One of the reasons I blogged sporadically for the past six months is that there were major developments in my writing life and I did not feel comfortable about sharing them yet.

But now it’s official: starting 1 July I will no longer work for ITWeb as a fulltime journalist and plan to work from home as a writer and author.

This does not mean that I’m leaving the ICT industry altogether. In fact, I plan to spend the bulk of my work time writing for companies and publications in that arena. My focus remains telecommunications as a starting point, with a strong interest in mobile telecoms.

I already have ICT-related work lined up, so the security element is taken care of. I also hope to continue writing for ITWeb on a freelance basis.

A couple of PR companies handling multinational IT companies have also expressed interest when they found out that I was leaving my current employer. So all in all, my schedule should remain full right from the beginning.

Books, books, books

I also plan to increase my creative writing output – that is, write and publish more children's books and non-fiction books.

I've sent out a proposal for a non-fiction book to a trusted reader so she can evaluate it before I polish it and start sending it out to potential publishers.

I've also started working on my second book proposal. I expect it will be an ebook, and will be targeted at a specific niche market.

I’m happy with all these developments, and them as my next growth point as a writer. I also look forward to not having to wake up at dawn so I can avoid morning traffic snarls.

I look forward to having the time to exercise, or take the puppies for a walk before I begin my work day. I also look forward to being home when Baby comes in from school.

Sharing some of my Spain experiences

Despite being robbed in Barcelona, my visit to that city to attend the annual Mobile World Congress this February was for the most part very enjoyable.

The conference was very well attended, and I learnt quite a lot about the mobile phone business and how to manage a hectic conference schedule and still enjoy a new city.


I loved Barcelona. The city is beautiful; very friendly for bikers, cyclists and pedestrians out for a walk.

The ordinary citizens were for the most part very kind and helpful, and food at Hotel Catalonia, opposite Fira Barcelona where the conference was held, was worth writing about. But that review will be for another article.

One time I caught a train from Villa Franca Des Penendes, and a busker got on the train and played some rousing music on his accordion.


The train ride from Villa Franca Del Penendes where we stayed to Barcelona takes about 40 minutes.

Most days we travelled by bus shuttle though and the fight through the morning /afternoon traffic took us close to two hours.

Some time in some distant future I would love to return and cycle all over that city in summer. Could be really nice, I think.

Busy, productive week

My friend finally came out of the hospital, and is on the way to recovery. So things are quieter, more stable in both our households.

I also feel like I’ve taken more control of my writing life. For the past week I’ve been attending a writing course at work called Writing on Deadline.

The course, run by Paula Fray and Associates, is usually taken over three full days, but it’s been customized for us to run over six afternoons.

I can’t give out the course details (I‘m sure the training company would have something to say about my giving away their intellectual property?), but I’m finding it very useful.

Among other things, I’m learning to assess the value of each story I’m taking on (is this a unique story I want to tell, does it push me ahead of the pack or just allow me to tick along) and assess my writing processes (how can I ease the pressure of writing to deadline, which are the most problematic steps in my writing process?)

Hopefully, you’ll see the impact of the course in the work I choose to do and the quality of the final product that gets published.

SA faces national power emergency

I've just written a story ( with fellow-journalist Christelle Du Toit) for ITWeb Online which looks at the power crisis SA faces and the impact this will have on economic growth, industrial investment (there is moratorium on new big projects), ICT investment ( a key development driver) and usage by companies and individuals.

The one issue the article doesn't deal with is the impact the power crisis will have on publishing ( both print and online) as that was not within the scope of the story brief.

But as a journalist for an online publication, children's book writer and blogger, I am painfully aware that the impact on these sub-sectors could potentially be damaging.

Would companies be as eager to invest in online media when there is a power crisis as they were when the situation was normal?

Can we, as good corporate citizens even contemplate producing media that require high electricity usage in a time when every voltage counts?

Already, there is a discussion on Biz-Community as to whether electrified billboards should be be shut down. The impact, if companies choose to shut these media down is that less media ( of that nature will be produced, and there will be less work for the people who create them).

I can also see some companies evaluate what activities are essential in order to assist with the power saving initiatives.

As their projected revenues are downscaled, I also see some of them (gasp!) retrenching.

Contract workers, including freelance writers, will also feel the crunch. And so will industries where materials developers or any kind are considered to be doing non-core work.

And as a parent, I can also see myself scaling down on buying new books for Baby as personal finances become tighter.

Shutting all mines

This morning's announcement by Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin that SA will shut down ALL the mines for two weeks ( max. 6 weeks) left me shell-shocked.

I think this, in addition to the power cuts will have a devastating effect on SA's economic growth ( despite what they said in the media statement).

Within a month, we've gone from an economic powerhouse where work opportunities were growing and a good writer could count on landing a number of good writing projects to a completely new world where, Moody's reports "Investors in full flight" - Weekly SA economic commentary*

At community level, I am concerned about what impact the temporary closing of mines will have friends and relatives at home in Phokeng, where many of SA's platinum mines are based. The town's economy is highly dependent on the mines.

10 Things To Do Before You Die

I just put up a post on Mobile Life announcing MTN Banking’s “10 Things To Do Before You Die” promotion.

Participants stand to win R50 000 that will enable them to do their chosen activity. The promotion lists some fun, interesting, meaningful and even life-changing things to choose from.

- Discover the world
- Start a charity fund
- Climb Kilimanjaro
- Drive a porche 911
- Be a highroller in las vegas
- Learn to fly an aeroplane
- Be a rock star
- Start your own business
- Get plastic surgery
- Break a world record
Read here to find out how to enter the competition as well as the terms and conditions.

The competition got me thinking though. I guess one of the things I wanted before I die was become a published author and I did make it happen.

Within that scope though, I still have 5 THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE. Here are three of them:

1. Publish a series of children’s books.
2. Get said series, or another series, made into TV series.
3. Write and publish the novel that I still think I have it in me.
4. Publish one of my novels through one of the New York A-list publishing houses.
5. Go on a book tour ( yes I know it's work, but I've read so much about it I want to experience it too.)

What are the things you want to do before you die? ( related to your writing career.)

A publisher came knocking.....Finally!!

Yesterday I was approached by a publisher to write a book. I can’t say much about the project, as the contract has not been signed yet.

But we emailed back and forth throughout the day and spoke on the phone. We established the work fits in well with my skills set, work experience and interests. She also sent the material that forms the basis of the book. She says we’ll know by the end of the week whether we are a go, at which stage she'd send a contract,I assume.

That’s what I call starting the year with a bang!

Now all I need to do is to improve on my project management and time management skills, so I can fulfill all my creative objectives on schedule:-)

This is a big step forward in my career, exactly the direction I want to take, but I don't want to short-change my journalism writing, which I also enjoy very much.

I also don’t want to work myself to the bone. As I said this earlier this year, this time I’ll try to work smarter, not harder. And I’ll make try not to juggle too many balls.