This is part 2 of a mini series on getting myself back to the Write Life, originally posted on Books Live. Read Part I HERE.
This second post was originally going to be light-hearted. How, after six years of public education, we’ve taken a different direction. How, when life is too busy, it might be time to stop screaming at the universe and attending pointless meetings and consider, instead, a radical change. That the results of this risk, so far, have been brilliant and play a huge part in finding the Write Life.
That was what I was going to write about.
But this morning, as I took the children to the new educational arrangement, we got to talking. The conversation began over a wildlife program we’d watched last night, which led to a discussion over why I am incredibly reluctant to watch TV. That when I do, it is programs like Myth Busters or Muppet Show reruns. I explained that I read and see a lot of things, especially on social media, and much of it is incredibly sad. That it reaches a point where I’ve had enough. Watching it on TV is too much. So they asked if I’d seen anything on the internet had upset me recently. I said yes. That in addition to a bunch of heart-breaking news stories, there is a photograph I saw while loading up twitter that I cannot un-see. I didn’t tell them what I saw, but I did tell them it had to do with the xenophobic attacks occurring across South Africa.
This led to discussing xenophobia. They asked a lot of questions, good questions, and I tried to be answer as honestly as I could in an age appropriate manner. But some of the questions are the same questions I am seeing across the internet and, while there are a lot of theories, the truth seems to be that nobody knows. I told them that, too. Because I think it is important for adults to tell children that sometimes, even the big people, don’t know the answer. Then one of my children asked if I was going to be safe. Would people come after me since, unlike my children and husband, I am not South African.
They are the first people in my daily life to question if I am safe. For reasons I cannot explain, the anger does not seem to be directed towards white women living in South Africa holding American and British passports. To a child, this makes no sense. If people are upset with foreigners and doing bad things to foreigners what difference would it make that my mom is white and has US and UK passports? Foreign is foreign and we need to go hide mommy, now. I calmed them down. But no, it doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Just like Apartheid, which we’ve spoken a lot about, didn’t make sense. Hate never makes sense.
This is not the first time I’ve encountered the foreigner but not. During the various hoops I jumped in the United Kingdom to get my residency and, eventually, my citizenship (all vastly easier than trying to get any visa or residency in South Africa, by the way) people would routinely go, ‘But that is ridiculous. They shouldn’t make you do that. These rules are for those people…’ and then they’d normally stop talking, splutter, in the realisation of what they almost said.
Those people…Whoever those people are, depends on the country you live in, but every country has them. These mythical people that are causing all the problems, taking all the jobs, using up all the welfare, not participating in daily life. Those people. It becomes so ingrained that during my UK citizenship ceremony I, and the rest of those people, had to suffer through a pedantic lecture about getting involved in our new country, volunteering, taking part in local activities. Which is ridiculous. The UK, like most countries, has rules about granting citizenship. One of them is that you have to live in the UK for many years before you are eligible to apply for citizenship. During those eight years of living in the UK before being granted citizenship, I’d been working, volunteering and doing exactly what the lecture encouraged me to do. But if you’d been in the audience that day, you’d be forgiven if you’d thought we’d all walked off the boat a mere ten minutes ago.
But none of what I experienced in the UK comes close to what I have gone through and witnessed at the whims of the South African Home Affairs. I considered putting it in this post, but it turned into a 2,000 word rant and the fingers were still going. Another day, perhaps.
Instead, I’ll return to my children’s education. Originally the plan was to remove only one child from the local government primary. Then three things happened in as many weeks, two of which were illegal, all of them not good. I only found out about the first illegal action when I discovered the second. I only discovered the second because, unlike the first, the child could no longer hide the pain, hurting so much the child did not want to sit in the car. I demanded an explanation.
I was furious, as any parent would be. But what cut deepest was that the illegal actions had happened, not unseen in some dark storage closest, but on a playing field in front of fellow students, staff and parents. This was not a matter of one adult making a wrong decision. It was that nobody intervened. Not one person took the adult aside and said, ‘We don’t do this.’ People pretended not to see, looked away or decided it wasn’t their problem.
They just stood by and let it happen.
Join me this Sunday, 1 March, at 9am (RSA time) for another Sunday Morning Pajama Flash festival at GBAS*. This week I will be chatting to Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, author of the highly acclaimed, Folio Prize nominated novel, Dust.
*If anyone would like to join GBAS - Facebook's Good Book Appreciation Society, please inbox me via Facebook and I will send you an invite.
Where do we find your book?
So glad you asked.
Amazon.com paper - Amazon.com Kindle - Amazon.co.uk Paper - Amazon.co.uk Kindle
And...
African Books Collective ships around the globe
Or...
People in RSA may prefer: Loot - Exclus1ves - Takealot paper - Kobo
And outside of RSA...
Pretoria News ran a review of This Day, earlier in the week. Nerine Dorman, the reviewer, has helpfully reposted the article on her blog.
She says:
This Day is a bittersweet moment in time that Tiah Beautement has captured beautifully. Although the story is slow-moving, it is beautifully rendered and, like water, is reflective and steeped in emotion.
You can read the full review HERE.
Online links to buy This Day in South Africa: Loot - Exclus1ves - Kalahari
Online Links to buy This Day globally: Amazon - Amazon.co.uk - African Books Collective (ships around the world)
Ebook and Kindle coming soon.
Originally posted on Books Live
How do you write a book?
A question I encounter frequently, and am rubbish at answering. My eloquent reply is often a variation of: ‘Ah, well ya know. Um. One word after another, I guess.’
The truth is vastly more complicated. Starting with the fact that This Day only came to be due to a team of people, some of whom are rather like fairy godmothers. The rest are very nice souls.
1. Have a writer BFF. Kind of like a fairy godmother.
This person found me over the internet when I was a sleep deprived mother of a six month old and she was a sleep deprived mother of a three month old.
This is the person who will read anything you write no matter how terrible. The person who keeps you going even when you have doctors saying: “If your physio can’t find a way to stop your wrist separating from your arm I will have to bolt it. I don’t want to do that.”(Which makes two of us.)
This is also the person who tells you, ‘Put the matches down!’after you read a book that you decide is exactly like your ms; so, of course, you must quit. The writing BFF will ask you about the book, listen sympathetically and not tease. But eventually she will say, ‘Okay, so I see the similarities…this book has people in it and your book has people in it. Even so, I think your people are different enough from her people that you can carry on.’
Ahem.
2. Get a physio who refuses to listen to doom and gloom.
The woman never gives up.
Rather hard to lose all hope when you’ve got somebody willing to endlessly research with the battle cry, ‘There must be a better way, so you can live your life.’
3. Have a supportive partner. Or in my case, Husband.
This person might not read much of your work. This person might also be rather British about affection and have the, perhaps, misplaced confidence in you that even if both your arms were to fall off you’d somehow figure out a way around that. Nonetheless, when your physio declares your current office set up a health hazard, the man builds you an office according to her instructions. He will also buy new office equipment after your physio declares your mouse and laptop to be health hazards.* This is despite the fact that your income from what you do in the office with the expensive equipment will never actually equal the cost of building said office or buying said equipment.
4. Have wonderful person give you a job, even if it sometimes costs you money. (Like a fairy godmother with a really big whistle and even bigger to-do list.)
You write a book by believing you can get from the beginning to the end. Sometimes that means having somebody prove to you that you are still useful. In my case, it was Rachel Zadok. She, who kept insisting that I really was the person to help her co-run Short Story Day Africa despite the fact that I was not in a good place emotionally or physically. I told her no. Told her exactly why this was for her own good. She refused to listen. The woman is fearless.
Turns out she is right. I am perfectly capable of getting the job done so long as I’m given the freedom of doing so in my own way. (Rachel has a high tolerance for quirky.)
5. Have a supportive employee, even if she earns more than you’ll ever make in royalties.
We met at Wimpy, where all good relationships begin. Why she continues to work for me, is her business. But her loyalty is not something I take lightly. Because this body cannot run an entire household, write and do SSDA. The whole ‘having it all’ is a lie. Partners can, of course, do their share. But rather hard for partner to do his share, work insane hours and do your share. Outsourcing. A privilege, yes. Grateful for the privilege, all the same.
6. Have a lovey person refuse to look at your work.
I wrote to a rather well known editor. Tried to hire her (money!) to edit the ms. My goal was to self publish a few copies. My reasons being, so that when my children were older and I was a useless mess (the projected prognoses for me wasn’t very pretty at that point) I could give it to them and say, ‘This is what your mother accomplished before things truly went to pot.’
The person will tell you that this is completely unnecessary. That what you need is a reader. That a reader will tell you if your story is for private-family-consumption or is something that should be prepared for submission. All of this will cost less than hiring an editor to do the same.
7. Find a reader.
Which might be difficult, since many readers in the South African writing community don’t want to read the work of people they know. This is because not everyone receives constructive criticism gracefully. This sort of reaction can put a strain on a beautiful friendship. Thanks to SSDA, I know a lot of people. Eventually, in desperation, I verbally twisted Rachel Zadok’s arm. She agreed to read it and submit a reader report.
8. Find a reader part II.
Make sure your reader believes in her own opinion and judgement, wholeheartedly.
Rachel produced a very well balanced report – which both praised while giving very valuable and honest constructive criticism. However, even after I had taken her advice and fixed the problems she’d outlined, I still wasn’t going to submit the manuscript.
Yes, as embarrassing as it is to admit, This Day is only getting published because Rachel told publishers about it. I was thinking. There is a distinct possibility that if Rachel hadn’t got fed up with me, I might still be thinking.
I was going through a rather rough time. Don’t judge.
9. Find a publisher.
If you are a bit neurotic, might be good to find one that tolerates all your quirks. ‘It’ll be fine,’ Colleen says to me, over and over again.
10. Find an editor.
That will work with you. That doesn’t flinch when told of your learning glitch. That doesn’t care that you must have your stuff edited NOW because you can’t deal with this and SSDA at the same time because your body is a jalopy.
11. Find more fairy godmothers, or at least a few supportive souls (or many).
I’d love to tell you how to do that. Except I don’t know. Sometimes the universe gives you a break. Luck. But I’m grateful to them all. (Might want to let them know that, too. So you don’t look like an ungrateful snob.)
That’s all I’ve got. I’m celebrating This Day with friends and family at Open Book with Zukiswa Wanner: 18th of September, 16:00-17:00, Venue:Fugard Annexe 2 Genre::Launch Duration::60 minutes Price::R40. I’d be honored if any of you out there could join.
* Yes folks, when Thando wrote in Unimportance, ‘I could not have foreseen that the advent of the laptop would present such serious threats to my health,’ he wasn’t merely be humorous. Laptops are terrible for your posture. Although, admittedly, useful when on the go.
The 2014 Open Book Festival Programme is out! Click HERE to read the full report and link to download the schedule. However, to make it easy on relatives, friends and fellow bookworms the following are mine:
This Day: Tiah Beautement launches her novel in the company of Zukiswa Wanner.
When: 18th (Thursday) 16:00-17:00
Venue:Fugard Annexe 2
Genre::Launch
Duration::60 minutes
Price::R40
Reading out Loud (because reading to ourselves might be boring): Kader Abdolah, Rabih Alameddine, Tiah Beautement, Philip Hensher and Fiona Leonard read from their work.
When: 19th (Friday) 16:00 -17:00
Venue:Fugard Annexe 1
Genre::Reading
Duration::60 minutes
Price::R40
Writer, book lover, walks dog, swims, dabbles in martial arts, routinely attacked by chickens and children.
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