Nabongo Mumia VII
Lister
Since 2016 I have been penning a novel. I had wanted to write a story taking place in pre-colonial Africa for a long time. The whole idea of a virgin continent, untainted by the influence of Western Civilization felt realy romantic to me and for some time I actually wished that I was born in that time.
Now I imagine going back in time; becoming an African king and using my knowledge on the modern world to develop my kingdom through doing stuff like introducing a writing system and having royal scribes teach it to initiated boys and girls so that people could be literate and would see no need in converting to Islam or Christianity in order to be able to read and write, maintaining an efficient bueracracy, making a sort of 'parliament' consisting of elders from all parts of the kingdom, reforming the military and interacting with Whites and Arabs in a pragmatic fashion.
Back to my story, I basically had the idea of creating a fictional kingdom in 19th century East Africa which would be based off of real societies that existed at that time, and also edit out some aspects that I disliked(such as FGM) and add some that were not present(chiefs that would collect taxes in the form of grain for feeding the military). I promptly started writing, but two years later I had only written about 40 pages.
This is largely due to me rarely writing and constantly backediting and trying to improve the little that I had managed to write. Plus I was completely clueless about what I was doing. Looking back, I was a very shitty writer at the start but by now I'd say I'm somewhat decent. I began with a really ambitious project, looking back I think it would have been better to have written a 40-page shildren's storybook, by now ingepigwa chapa and I would have some clout to my name.I could have made some easy royalties.
I also regret choosing first person narration for my story, since my story is from the perspective of two different people I have to keep switching between the two of them, a third-person narrator would have worked more naturally. I also didn't really know what I wanted my story to be about, I just woke up one day and decided that I wanted to turn the loose idea in my mind about a pre-colonial African society into a fully-fledged 200 or 300 page epic.
I wrote a lot in the first few weeks, after that I lost steam and I ended up writing only a paragraph or two every other week. Due to my lack of planning on what my story would entail and how it would be structured, I developed the habit of backediting and because of that my work inched forward slower than a snail crawling across cabro. I envied how other authors could describe events with such great detail, so I would go back and try to make previous chapters more descriptive.
Finally around late 2018 I decided to reboot my work and start writing again from the start. The ultimate backedit. Through my experience typing out this tale from since 2016, I understand my book an awful lot so I know how the first 120 pages or so will play out. The rest shall come to me as my story unfolds. However; this year I haven't managed to get much done, because I have my first main character figured out, but I didn't know what to do with the other character who also narrates the story from his point of view.
Until the night before last night, when I have an epiphany. I knew that I had to rework that character into a particular thing. I don't even know where the inspiration came from. But now I want to write his parts more than ever. I feel excited about his side of the story for the first time. It reminded me of the Anarchs, beings from one of my favourite novels, The Krilov Continuum by J. M. H. Lovegrove who inspire engineers and scientists to create things that will be ultimately destructive to humanity. It was like I had received inspiration from a similar source.
Anyway, I'm still extremely comitted to seeing this story through, and I hope that now my story will finnaly take off. I really want to share my story with the world, I want to create something that will be enjoyed by someone somwhere as much as I enjoyed The Krilov Continuum. Anyway, thanks for reading my longest post yet on Kenyanlist, I hope you'll also read my novel when I manage to get it out there!
Postscript: Feel free to share any experiences you've had if you've ever taken up the daunting task of transferring a story from your mind on to paper. Remember that each one of us has an epic story in them, why take it to the grave when you can share it with the world?
Now I imagine going back in time; becoming an African king and using my knowledge on the modern world to develop my kingdom through doing stuff like introducing a writing system and having royal scribes teach it to initiated boys and girls so that people could be literate and would see no need in converting to Islam or Christianity in order to be able to read and write, maintaining an efficient bueracracy, making a sort of 'parliament' consisting of elders from all parts of the kingdom, reforming the military and interacting with Whites and Arabs in a pragmatic fashion.
Back to my story, I basically had the idea of creating a fictional kingdom in 19th century East Africa which would be based off of real societies that existed at that time, and also edit out some aspects that I disliked(such as FGM) and add some that were not present(chiefs that would collect taxes in the form of grain for feeding the military). I promptly started writing, but two years later I had only written about 40 pages.
This is largely due to me rarely writing and constantly backediting and trying to improve the little that I had managed to write. Plus I was completely clueless about what I was doing. Looking back, I was a very shitty writer at the start but by now I'd say I'm somewhat decent. I began with a really ambitious project, looking back I think it would have been better to have written a 40-page shildren's storybook, by now ingepigwa chapa and I would have some clout to my name.I could have made some easy royalties.
I also regret choosing first person narration for my story, since my story is from the perspective of two different people I have to keep switching between the two of them, a third-person narrator would have worked more naturally. I also didn't really know what I wanted my story to be about, I just woke up one day and decided that I wanted to turn the loose idea in my mind about a pre-colonial African society into a fully-fledged 200 or 300 page epic.
I wrote a lot in the first few weeks, after that I lost steam and I ended up writing only a paragraph or two every other week. Due to my lack of planning on what my story would entail and how it would be structured, I developed the habit of backediting and because of that my work inched forward slower than a snail crawling across cabro. I envied how other authors could describe events with such great detail, so I would go back and try to make previous chapters more descriptive.
Finally around late 2018 I decided to reboot my work and start writing again from the start. The ultimate backedit. Through my experience typing out this tale from since 2016, I understand my book an awful lot so I know how the first 120 pages or so will play out. The rest shall come to me as my story unfolds. However; this year I haven't managed to get much done, because I have my first main character figured out, but I didn't know what to do with the other character who also narrates the story from his point of view.
Until the night before last night, when I have an epiphany. I knew that I had to rework that character into a particular thing. I don't even know where the inspiration came from. But now I want to write his parts more than ever. I feel excited about his side of the story for the first time. It reminded me of the Anarchs, beings from one of my favourite novels, The Krilov Continuum by J. M. H. Lovegrove who inspire engineers and scientists to create things that will be ultimately destructive to humanity. It was like I had received inspiration from a similar source.
Anyway, I'm still extremely comitted to seeing this story through, and I hope that now my story will finnaly take off. I really want to share my story with the world, I want to create something that will be enjoyed by someone somwhere as much as I enjoyed The Krilov Continuum. Anyway, thanks for reading my longest post yet on Kenyanlist, I hope you'll also read my novel when I manage to get it out there!
Postscript: Feel free to share any experiences you've had if you've ever taken up the daunting task of transferring a story from your mind on to paper. Remember that each one of us has an epic story in them, why take it to the grave when you can share it with the world?
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