Category: Uncategorized - Mala Naidoo’s Book World

Discerning Choices

Is there ever too much in a writing life?

A full-time writer lives and breathes, creating fresh stories, poetry, and essays. Nothing is ever too much for the creative.

When starting out as a writer, passion draws one to all things writing, from social media, literary associations, events both live and online and a plethora of books on how to write and publish. FOMO consumes the early years, but on the flip side, it can erode creative time.

Over time, whittle down to those activities that create the time and space for the creative process together with growing an author brand and business. There is much to gain from trying different groups and associations to test what fits your values and the type of writer you hope to be.

Be unique, select memberships wisely

Don’t strive to be someone else. Readers appreciate authenticity.

While exploring the creative cyber space, books, groups, and associations, you realise, over time, what adds value to your work.

It is vital to look for integrity when seeking to find where you belong as an artist in what can be an overwhelming space if trying to fit in with more than you can humanly manage.

Passion and FOMO drive the need to be a part of all and more

Give priority to the innate reason for choosing a creative life. This will guide your understanding of where to invest your time and growth. Running your own creative business is a mammoth task before investment in virtual assistants.

In the initial stages of a creative life, creatives might manage a day job and fit in a creative life after hours, besides managing rest and domesticity.

To ensure you give adequate creative time to your work, divvy up time to at least two associations that echo your values. An authentic organisation such as ALLi guarantees professional development, keeps you informed of current writing and publishing trends. Podcasts and FB live monthly advice sharing, and a Self-PubCon offer advice not to be missed. A directory of vetted services available to ALLi members is where you will find cover designers, editors, and many other services you require as a creative in publishing.

Depending on where you live in the world, you might hook up with a local association and join a Facebook Group or two for the quality of the experience. It is easy to slip down the rabbit-hole chasing after what appears bigger and better. Over time, this will steal valuable time from your ultimate purpose: to write and write more.

Sharing across author platforms is a great way to promote your work to different readers while helping promote the work of writers you enjoy and admire to your supporters. This garners support from grateful creatives who return the respect by promoting your work.

The creative space is generous and supportive. Find your authentic niche and belong to grow your creative works.

Please share the platforms you enjoy in the comment box below to help fellow aspiring writers make discerning creative choices.

Happy Writing, Happy Learning!

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Creative Inspiration: Tiger Courage

Narrow down goals set for 2022 as we enter the Lunar New Year in the Year of the Tiger – courage, strength and wisdom offer the possibility to soar in new creative dimensions.

Creativity, like the birth of every new year goes on in whatever shape, form, time of week, or day it chooses to make its presence felt. A fresh look at how to reinvent creativity is alive with the advent of the Lunar New Year.

the noble and fearless creative

Competing with oneself is healthy competition in achieving one’s heart’s desires for a better version of last year’s self when the tiger’s strength and courage are called upon.

To endeavour (NB: a lifelong endeavour) to master the craft of writing is to read and learn from the writers/artists one admires as mentors, and whose works are enjoyed. Choose from a range of mentors to extend the reach by being open to the recommendations on the craft of creating. Read every book humanely possible to grow the craft in many and diverse ways.

To say a writer should write in one style or genre is limiting the capacity a writer possesses for experimentation, and possible success that comes with attempting a new way.

sitting in a long-term comfort zone is tedious, safe – this is not in the spirit of the brilliantly courageous tiger.

Challenging the self is a wise way to curate the best creative version of oneself.

dare to be different

No one way is ever the only way or best way – the best stems from daring to be authentic, to enrich how the creative works to harness new inventive powers buried within.

Here’s to courage and strength in the dawn of the Lunar New Year!

the dawn of the second month creeps in — January pants

in unfinished business carried over

days pass like the speed of light

chasing the tail of many months

as responsibilities mount

like the leaves of autumn winds

but imagination breathes new life

in spring dreams of possibilities

arriving on the gilded wings of time

twelve months to reinvent

turn the page on the book of life

the wind whispers then roars

‘we’ll get there — together’

Have a very happy, and adventurous Lunar New Year!

Good health!

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Creativity and Grief

Creativity feeds off emotions both positive and negative. Words give vent to the language of the heart.

Grief after the passing of a deeply loved one, sucks the wind from the sails of creativity, for a while… Fighting it is futile, emotions are in a tangle when death is unexpectedly sudden.

Fit one day, gone the next. The mind is thrown into chaos as exhaustion sets in, slowing down the clock to a sonorous ticking of every minute, every hour.

Be gentle with yourself when grief blocks the creative edge.

Isolation and solitude are necessary to process the deeply felt loss. Within there is the need to comfort the nearest and dearest around one going through the same process.

But in those still, grieving, reflective moments, hours, days, and many weeks, creativity takes on a new face — creative expression on loss and grief. Picking up a pen and journal offers the promise of comfort when there is no inclination to turn on the laptop. Poetry emerges in the healing as words tumble out in emotional self-expression, mourning the deep-seated loss.

Words comfort and clear the brambles of the heart.

Seeking solace in meditation while grieving might, at times, seem impossible when the conscious mind buckles, contorts in pain. The way out is through writing, giving vent to grief and anger and all the unanswered whys…

Memory beckons, draws one in to seek solace in understanding the heart’s tears.

Soon, day by day, time allows the soul to accept, to find a new way, to adapt, to be, by letting go of the familiar patterns of one’s life. As humans we are adaptable to change, if one allows the mind to remain healthy by turning to warm memories, and articulating emotions — pain eases, and limits sinking into the dark depths of despair.

Grief is the single most difficult challenge of life (as I see it) in coming to terms with the gentle, deep cadence of a voice one will never hear again, a face never seen again in the flesh – the Guiding Light of one’s angst no longer there to soothe troubles or share joy.

Time is a long-standing ally to a grieving soul.

Acceptance is not an easy path to tread when the void is palpable…huge… but healing will come with time as memories resurface in those moments when a birthday card or photograph falls out a book, or pops up on a phone or Facebook Memories to remind one of the love shared. Loss is never overcome, but heart-warming moments return when least expected in unexpected places, to catch a breath in quiet recall to ignite a smile.

Creativity hooks emotions — grief the impasse as the eye turns inward to gather new creative pace and space.

If you have lost a loved one, take heart, your muse never flees in the hours of need, but draws renewed vigour from your newest angel, ready to guide your creative light.

a month too soon

let him rise in peace

as he lived his life

sharing love and joy with those

who honoured his stature

a compassionate giving soul

taken gently in the early morn

rising swiftly into the arms of Divine Grace

(RIP Beloved Father of Mine)

I hope you find comfort and reassurance that grief borne needs time, so be gentle with your creative self by keeping the mind healthy to protect your heart for the wondrous, comforting glow of memory and renewed imagination…

Stay safe.

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On Writing a Trilogy

Writing a trilogy is not how I began writing, Souls of Her Daughters. The ending brought on an extension to the lives of Grace and Patience, and as the muse requested two more tales were born ending in the grand finale of, What Change May Come. The second book, Chosen Lives, picks up from Patience’s mission shrouded in mystery, and suspense when the aircraft she travels in disappears, followed by time tense revelations and heart-stopping fulfilling thriller magic!

enthrals with mystery and suspense ~ engaging and addictive ~ exhilarating… oozes with deep passion ~

~ Goodreads

The present trilogy in the making was planned. Book 1 of The Bardo Trilogy, Aurora Days, was released in April 2020 and Book 2 is scheduled for an October/November release. Book 3 will follow in the first quarter of 2021. And poetry beckons, egging me on with each publication. Hence Viola is also a closet poet! Stories crafted will always borrow some aspects from the writer’s world.

entrances and entertains… epic tale of courage, love and peril ~ Goodreads

Lessons learned in writing a trilogy are keeping a tight track on characters, places, time, and events. While for the most part, I am a panster, I do plan on Scrivener and shift and rearrange as each idea emerges. The glory of Scrivener is a necessary asset in a writer’s toolkit!

Sometimes the protagonist’s trajectory takes on a different path than originally envisioned. This is the power of independent creative choices — a freedom to chop or sustain at will.

Creative freedom is the stuff dreams are made of!

The Bardo Trilogy revolves around a family mystery in the life of PI Viola Bardo, schoolteacher extraordinaire with music in her heart and justice in her soul. Family relationships are a keen part of both my trilogies as are hidden secrets that connect to my thriller edge.

Changing locations is a wonderful way to revisit places I’ve been to in grounding the story.

While all this is in the making, a new venture beckons as an epic once-off or standalone novel on a family saga. The title came to mind first and pieces are emerging on that idea. Currently, I run two journals, something I have not done with my backlist publications. It has been largely one book at a time.

I am allowing the creative spirit to bite whichever way it wants so while the second book in The Bardo Trilogy is given priority, I am jotting down ideas as they appear on a new vision. I have taken on board Elizabeth Gilbert’s advice in ‘Big Magic’ — if you don’t pick up the stories coming to you, someone else will.

The muse will nudge the writer with her private messages when a story must be told.

The new venture beckoning will shift and change with time and no deadline is on the horizon for that yet. But it will be created as it comes.

I don’t intend on leaving Viola Bardo in the wings because she has many more revelations for the reader.

Keeping track of all that the divine muse dispenses is the best way forward.

May the Muse be With you!

Happy Writing! Happy Reading!

What’s your favourite trilogy read?

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Creative Space

Psychological boundaries are either self-constructed or built by others. Whoever is doing the construction of the wall is of no relevance — both will hinder creative energy.

We need people around us as creatives just not their negative energies that overwhelm and stifle.

Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creation and change ~ Brene Brown.

Creatives are sensitive souls, dreamers in tune with what the naked eye might not see. This opens the mind and soul to all aspects of the universe and in so doing leaves the creative vulnerable.

Choose your associations. This is crucial to creative energy. People who understand the creative, appreciate the need for space to commune with the muse, nature and the imagination.

Positive vibrations come from such associations that sustain and enhance a creative life. People who understand solitude and the creative need to slip off the radar for a brief period are associates to nurture and stay connected to.

In seeking creative space distancing the self from negativity is crucial to avoiding that which mars the creative process

What to watch…

those who tell you what you should be creating
those that question what you write or why you write
those who are not writers but freely offer writing advice
those who imagine a character or situation reflects their lives. It’s good if they do — that’s being a good writer to be able to craft lives/stories that people feel connected to — the ultimate writing goal is to reach the reader.
those who scour your books and comment that your book is a reflection of your own life by ignoring that you’re writing fiction and have not got down to writing a memoir yet.

Creative energy is more critical than learning ~ Albert Einstein

Who should we hang onto?

those who can’t wait to read your next book
those who let you know what they loved about your writing and let you know what thoughts your book has left them with
those who allow you to be you — gentle, idiosyncratic or wild.
those who spread the word about your books

Choose your friends and associates with care — those who appreciate the creative in you, and if it’s a small number — that’s all you need for abundant positivity to flow

Choosing your tribe is vital to preserving creative flow and production.

Engage in activities that enhance the creative within. Turn to meditation, singing, writing or reading poetry, reading the books you have on the nightstand calling out to you, read something different, a different genre. Take a walk on the beach or in a park or forest — do whatever makes your heart sing!

We undertake certain spiritual exercises to achieve alignment with the creative universe ~ Julia Cameron

Be your wildest or quietest authentic self and gravitate to those people who appreciate you for whoever you are, wherever you are in your creative life.

~Dare to be different~

Share your thoughts on your quest for creative space.

Happy Writing. Happy Creating. Happy Connecting!

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Historical Memories Recalled

Historical fiction entertains and feeds memory. I remember teaching, Jackie French’s Hitler’s Daughter, and noted students’ curiosity on whether Hitler did indeed have a daughter. Research flourished and wonderful creative writing emerged.

Some of my favourite historical reads are, Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities with London and Paris during the French Revolution, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, a tale of the American South during the Civil War, Salman Rushdie’s, Midnight Children, a story of children born at the time of India’s independence from Britain.
The lists are endless and as diverse as the world we inhabit.
Currently, I’m reading Orna Ross’, Her Secret Rose (The Yeats-Gonne Trilogy 1) cited as a ‘delicate balance of fact and fiction…’ (bookbag UK)

Writing drawn from history emerges as an unconscious process in some of my books. The experience of apartheid atrocities comes through in Across Time and Space and Vindication Across Time and underpins leaving South Africa in Souls of Her Daughters. History might be more explicit in some and more subtle in others but it emerges from the deep well of the subconscious – the unforgotten seat of memory.
‘…sit down at a typewriter and bleed,’ as Ernest Hemingway aptly stated is where authentic stories emanate from – that space of creative intensity.

Today marks a significant day in South Africa’s history, country of my birth. June 16, 1976, was the Soweto Uprising that changed the socio-political landscape. It was a day when police fired at peaceful demonstrating students – the images of this brutality surged international revulsion. From this dark history, the most soulful artists emerged, creating music and poetry that stirs the soul to this day. The seat of struggle and suffering creates indelible timeless stories.

As a fiction writer and teacher, histories of the world find their way into some of my stories. The responsibility rests with the writer to present the accuracy of the histories chosen, not in a textbook rendition, but through selective and extensive research to create believable nuances of character, place and situations for palpable connections to the past.

The joy in reading historical fiction is in being transported to a time and place as an observer of significant moments, or better still, experiencing an era through brilliant writing.

What’s your favourite historical fiction?

Happy Reading, Happy Writing!

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Fiction: Women and Culture

Every writer has a unique voice drawn from culture and values. Even when one opts to write a ‘different’ tale with ‘different’ people, the authentic self seeps into some aspects of the writing process.

Having been raised in South Africa my psyche is wired to the spirit of the people. I remember older women as the stalwarts in the home – stalwarts with hearts of sheer gold. Writing this infuses me with warmth and tenderness. This is the reason for the crafting of Mama Elsie, in Souls of Her Daughters, Mama Thembu in Vindication Across Time and Grace’s mother Varuna whom Patience lovingly refers to as ‘Mama Varuna.’ Each of these women epitomises the significance of a mother in the home which accords them profound respect for the hardships they endure in a country that negates their existence.

The character Marcia Ntuli has the strength of character that her mother, an activist for women’s rights, exudes. Yet in seeking a new life, in a new country, she is subjected to professional racism until she is forced to give up her passion with a rapidly declining sense of self-worth. It’s only when Michael Morrissey, a human rights lawyer helps her through her dark days of self-doubt is she able to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. It is not the act of racism that is showcased but rather the resilience of the women and men who help victims find their way through inhuman situations.

In offering a lesson on how to uplift the human condition, it is men like Michael, Andrei, Brad, Keefe, Petros and Andrew who cherish the broken souls of my African women characters. A multicultural cast adds colour to the worlds of these women as the way of the world – as it should be.

I learned to appreciate this after having lived in segregation under apartheid. My premise will always remain that in our angst and joy we are one under the sky of humanity. Idealistic, perhaps, but hope has to be pursued to make a difference in how people perceive and engage with each other.

In The Rain – A Collection of Short Stories Thuli in the title story is a young, strong village woman who will do anything to keep her family together.

The song she sings to her children, a lullaby, Thula Thula Baba as she waits for the storm to end, is one I remember hearing from the cradle. It moves me to this day in its sweet, yet haunting sounds and meaning.

I give you Thula Thula Baba– a lullaby sung by mothers to calm their fretful babies while their husbands went into the cities to find work.

What Change May Come presents the coping strategies of sisters Grace and Patience in their struggle with irreversible change. Here the notion of perfection is challenged when one woman has motivations that clash with Patience’s perception of what it means to be human.

If stories open vistas of understanding and bring a lesson while entertaining – that is the footprint needed for a better today and even better tomorrow.

Go in peace.

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Food and Fiction

A good story, like good food, is an unforgettable experience.

In the creation of fictional worlds, the protagonist comes to life through his or her foibles, eccentricities, habits, relationships, hobbies, voice, mannerisms etc. While sensory details include the sounds, we hear and the images we see, through the words on the page, the degustation in a fictional novel brings the reader to the table, heightening the sensual effect in a shared meal with characters.

In my debut novel, Across Time and Space, the aging Ben loves kippers and poached eggs for breakfast. In the sequel, Vindication Across Time, while breakfast is important, especially when Ben and Meryl overhear a conversation in a tiny restaurant, on the dark history of the mysterious Professor Andrei Malakov – it’s the journey through South Africa’s gustatory delights that bring drooling joy as barbecued corn on the cob – braaied mielies, to locals, on the breathtaking beaches of the Cape, chilli pineapple in, Sweet, salty, hot and pungent collided, tantalising Michael’s tastebuds. And then who can forget the delectable Kaapse snoek! In contrast, back in Florence, Meryl consumes endless cups of coffee as the trial drains her emotional and physical strength. Her favourite chicken pasta and prawn linguini meals are left untouched as her mind swims with horrific thoughts on where her life was heading.

In the trilogy, Souls of Her Daughters, Chosen Lives, and the third book, out this April, What Change May Come, Thai Delight, a fictional place, is Patience’s favourite restaurant, but both sisters, Grace and Patience find great joy and comfort in cooking and eating their mother’s signature chicken curry – their memory of her is alive in love and food. Grilled salmon, thoughtfully prepared for an elderly neighbour is pushed aside as she perspires through, and relishes Grace’s fish curry, saying, You have your mother’s touch with the delicate spicing, what a scrumptious meal... There are wonderful Mediterranean breakfasts, turmeric lattes and cardamom chai for a full international array of gustatory heaven!

I need chillies to warm my soul’ ~ Patience says in Souls of Her Daughters

From the spicy to the crisp – ham and cheese croissants, in the April release of What Change May Come, complements the racy change and quick food that others bring to Grace and Patience.

Food and fiction are a formidable combination, setting the mood of the moment, letting the reader into a part of the character’s life that we all enjoy – eating as a necessity, or social activity, regardless of what we eat, or where we eat it.

Food will always feature in my fictional tales as comfort food, memory food, and soulful food.

Cheers to more, tasty, thrilling tales!

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