Get your club out!

 “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club,” said Jack London, an American short-story writer and novelist of the early 1900s. There I was,  a few hours ago waiting for the needed inspiration to somehow dawn on me and help me come up with an article that could end world hunger, create better housing in slum areas or something life changing. Inspiration wasn’t forthcoming, so I switched to the “club approach” which also didn’t work very well.

I’m not sure what exactly won the war over my writing, if at all there was a winning. Writing is a wearisome task. Writers are always faced with the challenge of writing new material. As if that’s not hard enough, they may have to write about mundane topics like relationships or Barrack Obama and end up racking their brains for days (or even months) searching for something that has never been said about these topics before. Then there’s the writer’s worst nemesis, according to me, Writer’s Block.

After reading some of the articles in our local dailies and magazines, it seems to me that the youth (who largely constitute these writers) are being faced by lack of inspiration for writing. I can’t remember when I last came across a piece of writing that, and I lack the words to say exactly what I mean here, to say the least blew my mind. Consequently, I feel there’s a large number of youth out there, including yours truly, who are being faced by lack of writing inspiration, which I mostly refer to as Writer’s Block.

Writer’s block is like a recurring disease that you never get completely cured of. This article may for the most part be a result of this ‘disease’. For me it counts as a contemporary social issue, seeing that it affects many youthful writers of my day. So address it I shall. Writer's Block is actually more serious than you may think and has been found to be closely related to depression and anxiety, according to neurologist and author of The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and The Creative Brain, Alice Weaver Flaherty.

There are chronic cases of Writer’s Block, considering the case of Henry Roth, another American novelist and short story writer, who suffered from it for sixty years. It was caused by unwillingness to solve past problems and depression. What I’m trying to say here in so many words is that if you find you are suffering from what you will probably think is a case of chronic Writer’s Block (till you read the story of Henry Roth), you should evaluate yourself. There may be underlying issues that may be troubling you inwardly and causing you to lack inspiration for writing and well, other things in life.

Away from chronic cases of Writer’s Block, here are four simple causes of it given by writing-world.com. Writers are sometimes not ready to write. You may not know what you want to write about at times, which means you are not ready to write yet. Writers are sometimes also afraid to write as a result of various factors including comparing themselves with other great writers. Thirdly, writers often try to compose in their heads and fail to go through the stages of effective writing that are prewriting, planning, composing, editing, and proof reading. Lastly, writers sometimes start in the wrong place. You don’t always have to struggle with the first sentence. You can start elsewhere and work on your first sentence when you have the rest of your work. This doesn’t necessarily mean that starting with the first sentence is wrong.

All is however not lost. You probably expected this last paragraph to give you some workable solutions, to your “chronic problem”, and so I shall not go against writing norms. Writer’s Block does have a cure. Cures, to be more accurate. Some will leave you shaking your head at their absurdness. You may be well aware of others, like taking a break from your computer or writing station to get your thoughts in order, or going for a walk. There’s one suggested by Merlin Mann on his blog 43folders.com which I found quite hilarious- explain to a stuffed animal or cardboard cut out what you’re really trying to say. There’s also the very commonly used free writing approach, where you sit down and write anything that comes to mind. It would not be possible for me to exhaust the numerous remedies available. You should nonetheless know that Writer’s Block happens to the best of us, and should thus not beat yourself up over it. Inspiration is, after all, what you should be going after with a club, at least according to Jack London.

Note:
This was part of my final project from my Magazine and Feature Writing class. I decided to post it here because:
1. Writer's Block is not cool. It took me roughly three hours to write this, after racking my brains for a looong time...then at the 11.5th hour, I saw a bright white light...that turned out to be a passing car...then after a while, I decided to write about Writer's Block.
2. I want to look like I'm doing something with my blog.
3. Lists are cool :D...I'm not really making any point here.

Note (2): It was in 2008 when Obamamania was all the rage, hence the reference.

A quick, simple meal for the busy campus student, the guy who just moved out, and the girl who…uh...has better stuff to do? :|

My alarm usually went off at 7.30 a.m. but there were a lot of times that I remember making great use of the snooze button, and waking up at 8.30; never mind that I had an 8.45 class. I would run around trying to get ready, miss breakfast and sit in 3 hour classes with my stomach noisily grumbling about all the meals it had been denied in its lifetime.
Before I knew it, it was 4 p.m. and a coke was the only thing I had to 'eat' the whole day. That was life for me when I moved to the self-catering hostels of our campus and realized that cooking for myself and juggling my busy schedule would be quite a challenge. I had to learn the art of cooking simple but yummy meals. The 'smokie stew' was something of a delicacy for the residents of the self-catering hostels. It wasn't really a stew, but the name stuck anyway.
It is quite easy to make and will come in handy many times. All you need is pasta (spaghetti, macaroni or whichever type you prefer), two smokies, an onion, two cloves of garlic (optional), two green peppers (pilipili hoho) two tomatoes, and whatever kind of seasoning you like whether it's black pepper or tumeric or rosemary, the choice is yours. Seasoning is also optional though.
Usually I placed my sufuria on the gas cooker, poured a little cooking oil then turned the music on while I waited for it to heat up. At this point I had chopped up the onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes and smokies into little pieces and placed the pasta in boiling water in a separate sufuria.
Bobbing my head to the blaring music from my phone, I fried the onions, garlic, and green peppers for five minutes before adding the tomatoes, and the smokies three or so minutes later. Every time I added a new ingredient, I would mix it up with the rest. Salt and seasoning followed and I let the smokies cook for three to four minutes.
I would then drain water from the now cooked pasta then pour into the smokie mixture. After this, all that is required is mixing everything up with the pasta and letting it cook for two to three minutes and voila, you have a very tasty meal in less than twenty minutes.
I would always have this exquisite meal with spinach. You may make a face and turn up your nose but green vegetables are very essential in your diet. Also, your mom will be impressed that you're eating your greens. Spinach is very tasty when well cooked. I would buy it already washed and cut up (remember we're trying to save time). Fry onions for two minutes and add the spinach and a little salt. Mix them up and cook for five to six minutes and you have a little more health and colour in your meal.
To make the meal tastier, you could grate cheese on it, add some ketchup, or add fresh avocado to it. The cooking experience can be made more interesting by dancing, and singing along to your favourite music with the wooden spoon as your 'mic'.

Note:

1.    Any other type of processed meat (brawn, sausage etc) can be used in place of the smokie.

2.    This meal serves one. You can increase the proportions as you see fit if you're cooking for more people.

3.    My  book 'Quick, simple meals for the busy campus student, the guy who just moved out, and the girl who…uh...has better stuff to do?' is in selected stores. Hurry, while stocks last. Comes with free DVD, music CD of fun songs to listen to while cooking, and a free wooden spoon. I will be having a book signing….Ok none of that stuff is true. I wish! : D

The shamed blogger

I am hiding my face in shame as I type this. I suppose I wasn't up to the demands of blogging. I have no good reason to excuse the lack of posts for…by Jove!! Has it been a month already? Sigh, moving along swiftly…I really have been thinking of what it is I should be blogging about and I have decided on the following…No, I shouldn't tell you. What will keep you coming if you know what to expect? The thrill is in the unpredictability of the whole affair. What will she blog about next? That should be the question.

New kid on the blog woes

Once you earn the term 'blogger', it's like your online status is somewhat elevated and you join some sort of exclusive group on the World Wide Web. I am still waddling in the invisible divide that separates bloggers from frequent consumers of social media –Facebook massive (pardon me for the shady reference :) and the elitist Twiterratti.

Everyday since I decided to wow the world with my writing abilities (or lack of) on a web log or blog if you like, I wake up everyday thinking about this blog. I worry that I am not as interesting, engaging, compelling or thought provoking as the next blog. I wonder how Kenyan girl next door is doing and if she had similar issues?..ah but I digress...I worry about my consistency. I worry that I may have overhyped my blogging capability (or lack of).

I think of ways I could make my life more interesting just so I can write about it. I think of jumping off a bridge and surviving just so I can blog about it from my hospital bed. Ok, not really. I'm kidding. I have never been suicidal. Even for a blog. But nonetheless, I think of what seems to be my mundane existence and I feel the need for few lifestyle changes, again, just for the sake of blogging. That's how seriously I take my responsibility as a blogger. I have seriously considered bird watching, driving (I kind of suck at this so I could definitely have things to blog about if I drove…in town), stamp collecting (do people still do this?) and...uh…well, nothing else.

It seems that I am not about to walk with my nose in the air anytime soon as a result of the snooty nature that I intend to acquire once I find real things to blog about. Anyhow, I have bigger things to worry about than being snooty at the moment.

Soon to do list:

1. Minimize blogging about blogging.

2. Find other things to blog about and consider use of visual aids in the blog.

3. Convince people that I can be more interesting than this if they gave me more time. A little money would also go a long way.

The creation of future blogger extraordinaire

The day, time and date were marked as earlier stated. October 5^th, 2010, sometime between 12.00 and 12.30 a.m. That was the historical moment that I had created.

After typing up my first blog post, I came up with a name after several failed attempts, read 'name not available.' Here were my first two options;

1. reDflections- played around with the name reflections and my name, rather nickname, Ed. Turns out someone else had thought about it before I did.
2. Kenyanne- came from trying to feminize the word Kenyan to refer to a Kenyan female, hence Kenyanne. Again, I wasn't the only one with this bright idea.

Don't you just hate it when you find out that someone came up with an idea like yours way before you did? Especially after taking a while to come up with the idea and considering your idea cool. I came up with 'unsaidbutwritten' on a whim and I'm surprised that no one had thought of it before. Seriously, it does not sound that original to me. It will do for now. I might have to take a 'how cool is my blog name?' poll soon. If the results are negative, please bear with the name change.

Next, came the 'choose a template' template option. Sometimes, I don't like it when people give me options. I take ages to make a decision and even when I do, I keep thinking I should have gone with that other one or that other-other one. I think I may be pathologically indecisive if there's anything like that.

I chose the 'watermark' template by Josh Peterson, who seemed to have come up with a good number of the templates. I wonder if that's what he does for a living. Maybe he….it will be good for us if I state at this point of our blogger-bloggee relationship that I digress a lot. 

That was all in regards to creation of this blog. So far I've blogged about blogging. I'm still unsure about what I'll blog about. Is it selfish to blog about myself? I mean my thoughts? Isn't that the essence of blogging? I'm not sure. There are endless possibilities. I could blog about blogging, staplers, the human condition, printing paper…ok now I'm just mentioning stuff that's around me. I think I'll just blog about what's unsaid but is written as my title suggests. The endless possibilities should fit somewhere in these parameters.

Blog entry one: A moment in history

This is my first blog post ever. I am a newbie in the blogging world. Well, I read and have read other people's blog posts before and have wanted to start one of my own for ages but somehow I have never gotten around to doing it. I have blamed it on several reasons:

1. I don't know what to blog about. We have heard time and time again that there is nothing new on this earth and honestly I'm not sure I have anything new to offer you dear reader (who at this point is probably a friend I forced to check my blog out).
2. I need better and constant Internet access.
3. Who will read my blog? I, like all humans and also according to Abraham Maslow, need to know that I am needed. OK, that's not really what I mean. Let me put this way. I need to be relevant, I need people to identify with what I blog about, and I need people to find me interesting. I wonder if this is too much to ask.
4. I am inconsistent. I never follow stuff up. I need reminders, accountability partners, and maybe even a life coach (I'm not sure what exactly these people do but I think they can help me to remember stuff I need to and do it) to poke me into doing things that I'm supposed to do.
5. I have constant Writer's Block. Jack London, an American short story writer once said that "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." I say use a knife, a hand grenade, nuclear weapons, and other more violent means. But then, if inspiration was a person or thing, wouldn't you end up destroying him, her or it? Maybe Jack London hadn't thought this whole 'club approach' through. Anyway, I digress, the point was that I have many, many blank moments in my life, both physically (I'm not sure this is the right word to use here) when I lack or run out of things to say to people and in situations where I'm required to speak; and writtingly (forgive my use of little known words drawn from the Edopedia :) when I'm required to write and I have nothing to write about or lack words to appropriately express what I'd like to write about.

I guess I have just had a 'Eureka moment' and decided that excuses and reasons not to do something you want to do will always be there but that I shouldn't let this hinder me from doing what I want. All of a sudden, the reasons I had for not starting a blog kind of fizzled away. Well, most of them anyway.

I'm still not sure what this blog will be about but I'll keep writing what comes to mind that I'd like to share. Also, after doing a little research while looking for a name, I have realized that I cannot use the name 'Kenyan girl next door' which would have been perfect. So perfect. Turns out there's another Kenyan girl next door. I hope I find a cool name. I'm still not over the 'Kenyan girl next door' issue.

I now have constant (not really better) Internet access from xxx (I do not offer free advertising).

I will make some of my friends read this blog and link it to my Twitter and Facebook accounts to tell more people about it. I should be content to have even five constant readers. I think this should take care of issue number three.

I will note down everything that comes to mind that I'd like to blog about, so I don't forget when it comes to doing the actual writing and also to help generate more self content (because that's what most of this will be) which should mostly help with the Writer's Block.

 I don't know how often I should be blogging. Weekly? I guess. I will make goals, get an accountability buddy or a life coach or both to help me with inconsistency.

That's about it for my first blog post. I'm thinking maybe I should mark today's date for when I'm blogger extraordinaire.