Independent Publishing and the Nigerian Writer.

Hello, good morning or good afternoon or goodnight. Welcome! Remember how I said, over a year ago, that I was, at that moment, working on my debut novel? Well, yes! I still am and right now, there are a few things I can tell your about it.

Who will publish the book?
Well, I've tried to find good trads, and trads means 'traditional publishers' but I've failed. There were a few who were willing though, but these few just weren't good enough. I'd rather do self publishing than use a trad who's.publishing principles I disagree completely with. So my book, DEAR ELLA, will be self published.

When Will It Be Out? 
Earlier this year, I was confident that the book would come out before this year, 2014 runs out, right now, I am not sure. It could still make December 2014, but that is quite unlikely. I think it may be early 2015, but who knows? So fingers crossed for that.

What's The Book About?
Everyone I've told about this book, save for one or two, have asked this question. I will not say what exactly it's about here, but I'd say a few things.
i. There's a good guy who happens to be a medical doctor, and happens to be in dire need of money because his wife has been abducted and he needs to pay the ransom.
ii. There's a bad guy who just wants to be happy like everyone else. He happens to be the richest bastard in town, and he also happens to be friends with the doctor. He also happens to know that the child his wife is about to deliver will be born with a terminal condition. He happens to not want to raise this child.
iii. There's another man who happens to be poor who's wife also happens to be in labour at that same time.
Enough said. A lot happens on Fiction Street. Keep your fingers crossed.

Does/Can Self Publishing Work in Nigeria?
Of course it can, Nigeria is just like any other country but with Boko-haram and a lot of thieves that wear suits and Agbadas and drive Citroens. Self publishing can work here just as it can work anywhere else. One just needs to be hardworking and try to market properly so that the book will be everywhere the trads are and so that it becomes the readers responsibility to make a choice. Frankly, a Nigerian reader doesn't give a care who publishes a book or who has reviewed it or stuff like that, he just wants to read a good book. And that's the main reason self publishing can work and work well. A well self published book can stand on the same shelf as a trad and look more inviting. The problem is that a lot of Nigerian and even world writers who self publish do it because they are in a hurry to let their cat (book) out of the bag and so they end up doing a disgraceful job of it and the book ends up lacking quality, in and out. The covers are crap, the stories are crap. There are typos on every page and all those kinds of ridiculousness.

So there you have it. Fingers crossed.
Till next time,, Keep dreaming!!

Residues of Kubwa Camp — Six

It's been over three months since I left camp and while I say all the time how fantastic an experience it was, I am not sure if giving the opportunity, I would choose to go through it again.
I've learnt, over the years, that there are mostly two kinds of experiences: Happy and Sad. The Happy experiences can be further divided into two: 1. Enjoyed during, Enjoyed after and 2. Endured during, Enjoyed after. Camp, for me, fell under the category where you Endure during and Enjoy after, mostly because I understood how enjoyable the whole ridiculousness of the place was only after I left there. And I think it works the same way for most people. We can only speak of the Orientation Camp's awesomeness after we get out of there. Trust me, nobody says 'This is the funnest place I've been in my entire life' while still in camp, after camp however, story changes. 
Today, I intend to discuss a little further about why I think the NYSC is still essential. This past week, for reasons unknown, a lot of people on Twitter and Facebook and even in real life (colleagues) went on and on and on about NYSC's uselessness. Here, I wrote about it's usefulness but I only wrote of it's immense unification purposes, nothing else and so now I feel it's incomplete.
There are millions of people that become graduates in Nigeria every year. The number is scary. One of the NYSC's purpose is providing a source of living, even just for one year, for these graduates. The monthly allowances paid into their accounts go a very long way. I cannot even imagine what their lives will be like without it, especially considering that without the scheme they'd probably be languishing in educated idleness anyway because it is more difficult to get a job in present Nigeria than for an elephant to walk through the eye of a needle. Yes they are going to be paid for just the one year, but that one year is enough for anyone to get a plan and know what happens next.
Another importance of the NYSC is that most graduates are posted to schools for their primary assignments, these are Nigerian schools and we know what Nigerian schools are like. There, teachers are not teachers, they are just people that read and give notes from textbooks or the internet to students who possibly know more than them. There is no longer a minimum requirement for teachers, in fact, I went to a school sometime ago where I met a teacher who couldn't even construct a simple sentence. It is that bad and a little worse. And we wonder why our students can no longer pass their Cert Exams. Sending graduates to teach in such schools greatly improve the prospects of these students. Yes there are also a few graduates that have difficulties in constructing simple sentences but these are the unserious ones and it's likely that even if they're posted to schools, they'd never show up there. 
Another advantage of the Youth Service Scheme is the work experience. Every employer in this century wants to hire an employee with experience, no matter how little and many times, no matter how insignificant. This year gives young people with aspirations of becoming employed by these employers the much needed experience, no matter how insignificant.
Finally, freedom. Now, for me, I see the concept of freedom like putting cheese inside a transparent glass container and allowing a rat try to collect it. It will try desperately no matter how many times it bangs it's head against the glass, it will try to collect the cheese. Freedom, in the real sense of the word, is a height that is never achievable, it's that thing that we look forward to so much, but it never comes. That said, there are several variations to pure freedom and one of those variations is offered to young people during their youth service. Young people experience this variation of freedom and see what life is and what it can be without the monitoring and even prying eyes of their parents. They make their own mistakes and learn to learn from it. This is why I don't understand people who opt to serve in their states of origin.

There are many, many more advantages to the Youth Service Scheme, but I'm too tired to continue, perhaps I'd talk about this again. Thanks for reading.

Till next time,, Keep dreaming!! 
      

Photograph

She was so full of life. Her hands were stretched apart as if she was about to takeoff, as if she was a plane, a plane that you know would never crash no matter what kind of storm came against it. Her smile was magnificent, buoyant; more of a laugh paused at the middle, at the stage of laughter where it is impossible to just abruptly stop, than a smile. Her bare feet pressed against the sharp, brown sand of a beach, making its imprint, the sand, slightly swallowing her toenails. Her dark skin, so consistent, so beautiful, her haunting eyes, brown, like no other you have ever seen, its sheen, a well of hope.

He sat on a plastic chair and rested his arms on a squeaky plastic table, one leg shorter than the remaining three, in front of him. His left hand held the photograph of her – the one where she was so full of life. The room was almost completely dark except that there was a candle stick on top of an empty can of skimmed milk which sat on the table, its wax gushing away wastefully, forming moulds of white semi-solid rocks. He was holding in tears, trying to be a man, he was trying to convince himself that he did not love her enough to cry over her – he did.

They had met at a mutual friend’s birthday party and they had both been unlucky (or lucky) enough to show up at the exact time fixed for the party, meaning they were the first to get to the venue, not even the celebrant had shown up. They sat down opposite each other and stole glances, since he was shy, or introverted, as he would rather be referred; he prayed that she would break the ice. She did. She was not like him; she was neither shy nor introverted. The first thing she said however was unintelligible, jargon. At that point, the only thing he could think to say was, ‘yes. You are right.’
She smiled, ‘what?’
‘What did you say?’ He asked.
‘I was in my head.’
‘Oh okay. How does your head feel this evening?’ He asked.
She smiled and shook her head.
‘My name is Abdul. Hi.’ He said and stretched his palm.
‘Hello. I am Mirabel.’ She took his hand. Her palms were small and soft but still had a way of completely clutching his.

They did not stay for the party; they went to have lunch and from there took a long walk, taking in each other’s company and wondering how they had never met even though they had so much in common. He fell in love with her company first, then her.

The candlestick was dying away, the wax was still gushing out wastefully without a care, could it not see that he needed help? That he was broken? Breaking?
He found out that she was doing drugs one night, they had dinner planned and she did not show up, it was very unlike her. He started getting worried after, at his fifth attempt; she still did not pick up her phone and his call. He went to her place. Her door was locked from the inside, the lights were on and the fan was rolling and there was loud metal music playing in the background. Someone was inside.
He forced the door open, pried it with his shoulder – all the energy he could muster, inside the room, he found her. She was lying down on the green and yellow nylon carpet next to her bed. His first thought was that she fell into a deep sleep, a strange sleep, one where she could not move five centimeters left to her bed. Inching closer to her however, he found that she was not asleep; she was fully awake but stoned. Her eyes were wide open and glassy; there were heavy black bags of sleeplessness and inebriation just underneath them. Her face was heavy, stiff, and unmovable; he had never seen her like that. He was afraid. She smiled a smile that, as far as he was concerned, was more of a call for help. She wanted to stretch her hands towards him but she hardly had enough strength to keep breathing. That night marked the beginning of the end of their relationship.

‘Why drugs?’ He asked her photograph in the company of the dying candlestick. As if the photograph could answer such a question, as if the photograph was not just a useless piece of polaroid paper that exuberated in its immense fakery. She was a great sport when she was clean. She was a lady so full of life; she wanted to, she needed to give some of it out to the world. His eyes were fixed on her face, her smile that was the most contagious he had ever known. Where was this version of Mirabel? He thought to himself. Maybe she only existed in photographs; a mechanism that so easily aided pretence, it was scary. One’s life could be up in smokes but a photograph could capture that one having the time of his life; could there be a bigger hoax? He thought.

They broke up last night; she got knocked up on some crazy syrup and came around to his place. She said that their relationship had been a bad idea from the beginning. That she was a wild child and he was an angel. She used words like ‘eternally incompatible’ and ‘unfortunately unworkable’ to describe their relationship, she went on and on and when she was done, she left without letting him say a single word. She strode away and left a sour taste in his mouth and tears in his eyes.
The candlestick finally died leaving heaps of wax on the milk tin, but that was not all that died, he was sure, a part of him died, too, that part that fell in love with Mirabel.

Of Skin Bleaching and Bleached Minds

First and foremost, I find the ridiculousness of wanting to look white insulting, for obvious reasons. I'm black. What it means is, the person that bleaches her skin unfortunately, (ignorantly may be a better word, or stupidly, perhaps) believes her original skin is inferior, lower, nether to the white skin. Naturally, this should annoy anyone who is black and satisfied with his/her blackness, like me, but my anger and annoyance is at best inconsequential, s/he who wants to bleach, will bleach no matter what I think.

Sorry I started this post angrily. Hi. Today, I will talk a bit on skin bleaching, or as it is now more popularly regarded, Skin Lightening, perhaps it has this new name because the old one (bleaching) is quite harsh? But bleaching is bleaching, it doesn't matter what you call it. It is bleaching. You are bleaching.
It is the process of applying chemicals to the skin to lessen the concentration of melanin and so make the skin look like Hugh Grant's, these chemicals are mostly in form of creams and they have been proven time and time again to be very harmful in the long run. The popularity of these skin bleaching creams have steadily increased over the past few years, especially in Nigeria. In fact, researches show that 77% of Nigerian women use one variety of bleaching cream or another. This poses some serious questions, like: why?
It's important, most of the time, to understand the psychology of some of these things. Why would anyone want to be lighter than they came? What satisfaction does anyone derive from using chemicals on their skins? Chemicals that are going to harm them eventually? Does skin bleaching honestly improve a person's look? Honestly? I am not even in the mood to consider the religious and moral perspectives. 

We live in a society that is quite literally on it's head, the abnormal has become normal, vice versa. That's why societal expectations and peer pressure may one way or another be linked to skin bleaching, especially with the younger girls and, of course, the older ones that have vehemently refused to grow up. I understand the plight of young girls, I really do, especially teenage girls. I understand how, for example, on Facebook, you get likes proportionate to how much of your cleavage you expose. I understand how, in class, friends go on and on about crazy things like rainbow coloured pantyhose and violet fingernails and lavender toenails and all what naught. I understand how easily peer pressure can affect girls. It is a struggle to keep afloat. What I do not and cannot understand is how a person can argue that skin bleaching is fashionable. No. It is not. Jimmy Choo shoes are fashionable, Chanel bags are fashionable, Gucci shades are fashionable, blood red lipsticks are fashionable, bleaching your skin isn't.

I read somewhere that women feel more sexually attractive if their skin is lighter. I honestly do not think a man who prefers bleached women exist. And right now you're saying men can't tell the difference between a naturally light girl and an artificially light one. Wrong again. Most men know these things, most men can spot an artificial woman from a mile away. I have extra pair of eyes made of glass, just in case.
The thing is Attractiveness has nothing to do with color and everything to do with taste, if a man likes white women, he likes white women, not black ones trying desperately/futilely to be white.

The only thing skin bleaching does to a person is it exposes the person's incredibly low self esteem. Show me a person who bleaches their skin and I would show you the extreme insecurity, the self hate and loath, the misery in that person. Ultimately then, this has more to do with the mind. When the mind becomes adulterated with thoughts of inadequacy, the brain comes to it's rescue with flimsy ideas to help in compensating. You find, in that case, that people who do this to their skin are those trying to compensate for something, those who do not feel like they are good enough to live in their own bodies, those with bleached minds. 

Effects of overuse of skin bleaching creams may include skin cancer. So I'd stop it, if I were you. But I'm not you now, am I?       

Till next time,, Keep dreaming!!

Residues of Kubwa Camp — Five: What You Really Need In Camp

This is going to be short because there is only one thing you REALLY need at the orientation camp. Your mind. Everything else you've read or heard everywhere else is unimportant, trivial.
You need to take yourself to camp. What I mean by taking yourself to camp is, You need to prepare yourself, your mind for the WORST. I really wish I was joking but I'm not. Prepare your mind to stand for eighteen hours at one stretch. Prepare your mind to get drenched in heavy, ridiculous bouts of downpour. Prepare your mind to get battered with a vengeance by the sun. Prepare to get a headache. Prepare to get a fever. Prepare to catch a cold. But then, prepare yourself for the ride. Prepare to enjoy every moment. Prepare to laugh, because you'd be laughing at the strangeness and general craziness of the whole thing, from start to finish. Prepare to meet all kinds of people: strange people, stupid people, serious people, crazy people, funny people, stingy people that will not help you to save their own lives..Lol!
Prepare to wake up at four in the morning, or if you're like me and would rather take a bath without the staring eyes of the general public, prepare to wake up at three in the morning for those twenty one days. It will not be that bad. Plus, you'd get to sleep forever when you're dead. Prepare, if you do not have so much money, to eat food rations that are just enough to keep you alive and going. Prepare to be insulted by potbellied military men. Prepare to be yelled at, screamed at for walking instead of running at 4.30 in the morning and then at every other time you can think of: you run to the parade ground, you run to the lecture halls, you run to platoon meetings, you run to your hostels, you run to take your meals, you run to take a piss, you run. You're Forrest Gump for those twenty one days in camp. Prepare for the useless parades where you get to understand that one can get tired of standing, Prepare for the stupid lectures where people talk for so long but end up saying absolutely nothing, there, you'll understand that one can get tired of sitting.
Prepare your mind, it's all in the mind. Good luck!
 

Residues of Kubwa Camp — Four: Reye

She had on red lipsticks over her already red lips; her gait, seamless, angelic maybe – steel legs of flesh. She wore tiny socks that stopped just above her ankles over which her white sneakers were still unblemished with red coloured dirt even at five in the evening. Usually, at five, white sneakers were no longer as white as they were in the morning due to the usual hustle, bustle and ridiculousness of the NYSC orientation camp.

Her complexion was dark, coffee dark, coffee with a tinge of skimmed milk. Her dark skin complexion was unique; it was the kind of dark skin complexion that made light people jealous of dark people.
‘My name is Reyé.’ She was saying, responding to your question.
You were hardly listening though. It was impossible to listen because your legs had started trembling under your knees. They had become wobbly, like noodles, noodles soaked in hot water.

You had seen her once before, you had had a blissful conversation. Well, you were having a blissful conversation until the men wearing camouflage shirts and black, baggy trousers tucked into black, extra-large, ugly boots came to disrupt things with their whistles and faded gold beagles. ‘Let’s go,let’s go. Move to the parade ground, Right now.’ They had shouted, their voices as loud as their beagles, louder maybe, and as thick as the bark of an orange tree. You often wondered how they never lost their voices in the twenty one days of camping. You lost yours twice and you hardly ever shouted, except when you were arguing with some of your forty something roommates about whose school was better or about what kind of music made more sense or about the current administrations efficiency or lack of it.

Everyone started running at the command of the men in uniform, ‘If you are walking, you are wrong.’ They had roared, almost in unison, almost as if they had practiced how to make everyone else’s life miserable. She ran, too, she ran very fast and before you knew it, she was far away from you. She had looked back and you had caught a glimpse of her but she hadn’t of you. That was the last you saw of her. Until now.

You tried to talk your legs into steadiness. ‘Don’t be stupid. Behave. For God’s sake, behave.’ You said to your legs under your breath, as if your legs had ears and would behave once you tell it to.
She was wearing glasses, Reyé. The last time you saw her, she had contact lenses on her haunting eyes.
You mumbled something in the lines of ‘What made you ditch your contacts for glasses?
'Someone got excited and hit my left eye while I was wearing them?’ She said.
Your legs were still wobbly, your arms had joined in, they seemed not to fit any longer by your side, and so you were moving them about like the confused leader of an orchestra. ‘Excited?’ you managed to say.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘On the parade ground, during the early morning prayers.'
'Oh. That’s cold.'
'It is. But I don’t like these glasses. I prefer yours.'
'I don’t like it either, dear.’ You said and she laughed, you laughed, too. That was when you stopped speaking, involuntarily, of course. So you stood there, next to her, like a statue with moving hands and wobbly legs.

They were boys playing soccer on the field, one platoon against another; you stopped following those games after your platoon was defeated very early on.
She was still standing next to you, pretending to enjoy the football match, as if it was the most captivating thing she had ever seen, pretending that she did not notice how strange you were acting, drawing eccentric circles around your body with your hands, your hands that vehemently refused to stay put by your sides. You had lots more to say to her just that your mouth was no longer interested in speaking and so before the football match ended and one team defeated the other on penalties, she said, 'Alright. I will go now.'
And you mumbled incoherently and watched her walk away. Your words came back after she had left but you had nothing to say to yourself so you kept on watching twenty two sets of boys on the field who you cared nothing about, kick about one round leather.