₦airaland Forum

Hello friends, there's another thing bothering me and I hope to find d answers to d questions I've been asking myself about it. Many a time when I pick up an American bestselling novel to read I always come across different praises for d author by various national newspapers and magazines; The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Magazine, Toronto Sun, Many more. They praise their authors so much that one won't escape from buying d books. Why are our own local newspaper and magazine companies not doing that? And, is it d job of a writer to forward his work to them for d praises or it's d job of d publishing company. Lastly, does every possible praise come with a price?

@ medosky, lucky you. Gettin published is outrightly easy for rich dudes like u, but wat about d financially handicapped 1s? Wat's gonna b their fate?

The excerpt from my 'HOUSEHOLD' series. I need your criticisms and critiques. Mind you, guys. It's yet to be edited,

When Richard went to bed that night he punched the pillow angrily several times. He could not sleep, kept tossing and turning from left to right on his mattress. The thought could not leave him, the thought that had been haunting his dreams every time he slept––his father an armed robber and a rapist. Richard felt rage within him. Evidently, he had always been in an unhappy mood, but the revelation about his father left him sadder than he had ever been. He could feel the blood of his own father flowing in his veins; the blood of a killer. Richard tried to forget about his predicament for the moment and thought about something else––he thought about Abigail. How lucky a girl she is. A girl who had never known sadness all her life. Richard could picture her smiling face, she was fond of smiling at whatever she says or hears. It was a kind of dimple feminine smile that added more beauty to her youthful face. She smiled with her whole face; her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes––especially her eyes. An old ugly man like Donald getting married to this knock-out looking, smart, funny lady about thirty years younger. Richard could not figure out what she saw in him, because Donald was as annoying and cruel and ugly as he was old. Richard remembered an old proverb: love is evil; you could fall in love with the billy goat.
He checked the alarm clock by his bed: 10.45 pm. He rolled on his side and shut his eyes, praying that there should be no nightmare this time. In about ten minutes, he was already slipping into that deep, dark abyss when he heard a faint sound on his door. He was not sure at first so he ignored it. Another knock. He got up quickly, switched on the light, put on his trousers and a shirt without buttoning up, and opened the door. He found Abigail standing on the threshold with tears on her face.
“Abigail!” he said, a bit louder than he had intended.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh, do please come in.”
She walked slowly inside and sat on a chair. She folded her hands on her laps, and they rested like a Mona Lisa’s.
“What happened?’ Richard asked, “Why are you crying?”
“It’s Don, he slapped me.” She said from a sob.
“Slapped you? What has gotten over him? How dare he slap a woman?”
Abigail said, “Richard, please watch what you say about him. Don’t get yourself entangled in Don’s web than you are.”
“I’m sorry, let me rephrase––kudos to him. He has all the right to slap you because he’s your husband, and he can slap a woman like you till his palm ache. What a gentleman he is.”
Abigail stared at him blankly for about half a minute before bursting again into tears, crying softly and heaving her shoulders like a child. Like most men, Richard was helpless in front of a crying lady.
“Abigail, come on, turn of the waterworks––I’m sorry. I understand the love you have for him, but that doesn’t mean he should maltreat you. I just believe that a man who beats his wife is nothing but a rat with syphilis.” Richard tried to comfort her but she continued crying. He didn’t know what else to say, he drew out a white handkerchief from his trousers pocket and offered it to her. She took it and thanked him, wiping her tears with it.
“I’m not crying because he slapped me. No, not because of that.” She said at last.
“But why must he go so far? What really happened?”
“Can we forget about that for now?” she continued, “Donald has always been like that since I know him. Sometimes, he would be in a very good mood and won’t really mind anything you say to him. But most of the time he’s always cruel and easily angered. I don’t blame him much; I think he was born like that; wicked, arrogant, fierce and deadly.”
“He’s such a wicked man?”
“You haven’t seen any of his wickedness. Don is a viper.”
“And you got married to a viper?”
“Why, because of his money?”
“Do you think I care about his money?”
“Then why did you marry him?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me.”
Abigail sighed, “Can I have a glass of water, please? I’m thirsty.”
“Sure––why not?”
Richard rose and produced a glass of water she demanded. Abigail drank the water thirstily.
“I lost my mother when I was about two years old, she died in a vehicle accident and my father had been taking care of me ever since; spending almost everything he earned to send me to school. Four years ago, when I was in my final year in the higher institution my father became ill with the problem of the lungs. He found breathing very hard. I think they call it emphysema or so.”
“Wait,” Richard interrupted, “Was he a smoker?”
“Why asking? Are you a doctor?”
“Continue.”
“We spent all the money we had but the bill was too high. His condition was getting worse each day. He was barely conscious after just two weeks. I was afraid, I ran to the doctor begging him to save my father but he only told me to go and find some money for his treatment if I wanted my father to live. That was the time I met Donald. He had come to see the doctor for his medical check-up; Don doesn’t joke with his health. Since the three years I’ve known him there was not a day he had ever fallen ill.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I thought Donald felt sorry for me when he saw me begging the doctor. After the doctor had filled him in about my predicament he gave me his business card and asked me to check him at his office on the third day. I was very happy, thinking I have found a saviour. But on the other hand, I was afraid my father might not survive the days before I meet Donald so I kept praying fervently to God to preserve his life.
“I went to the address written on the card and I was lucky to meet him there. He called me into his office where he told me that he would pay for my father’s treatment bill. I was very glad and I rained all the prayers I could remember on him. Then he gave me a condition, he said I’ll have to do something for him first. What he demanded surprised me.”
“He wanted to sleep with you before saving your father?” asked Richard.
“Well, that is the commonest thing most promiscuous rich men always wanted, isn’t it? But Richard went farther than that.”
“What did he ask you?”
“To marry him. He said I must marry him if I wanted to save my dying father.”
“But that’s preposterous.”
“Initially, I thought he was joking but I became scared when I saw the seriousness on his face.” She sighed again and continued, “I told him marriage is more than that; it’s the union between two people who loved each other deeply. He said he didn’t care about that; I must marry him he said. I answered him that I can never marry him because I don’t love him but he only smiled and said I have the choice to walk away and let my father die––but the conscience that I killed my own father when I had the chance to save him will haunt me for the rest of my life. He also said the doctor had told him that my father had only two weeks left to live if he was not treated fast.
“I was confused and scared. The thought of getting married to that monster nauseated me, yet, my dad was the only family I had. I went out of Donald’s office in anger and returned after two days agreeing to marry him. I was hoping that after my father’s treatment and he’s alright I would refuse to marry him. My dear father would not even allow the wedding to take place.
“But Donald was cleverer than I thought of him. He said the wedding first, my father’s treatment after. I had no choice but to agree. He took me to a court where we were legally joined; no well-wisher, only the two of us. Immediately afterwards, he paid for my father’s treatment. But my father eventually died. No post-mortem examination was carried out and there was no autopsy report about his death. Donald purchased a piece of land in a local cemetery where my father was buried; not even a tombstone was erected on his grave.” Another trickle of tears began to run down her cheeks. She wiped them with the hanky.
Richard shook his head slowly and pathetically, “I’m sorry. Didn’t you think that your husband had a hand in your father’s death?”
“I know Donald killed my father, with the help of his Doctor Frankenstein. Don is a psychopath; he has no regard for other people’s lives.”
Richard became uneasy; the prospect of working under a boss who kills people as though they were cockroaches was not one that filled him with glee.
“I once had a boy-friend before getting married to Donald, but he was a fool; he didn’t know that nobody messes with Donald.”
“What happened?”
“It was already about two weeks of living with Donald, still mourning my father’s death, when Tolu, my boy-friend, came into this compound shouting that Donald had robbed him of his girl-friend. I knew Donald was very annoyed, he felt like killing him on the spot, but he didn’t show his annoyance. He apologized to Tolu and gave him a surprising large sum of money. Because of his greed, he collected the money and walked away peacefully but he came back a week later to demand for more.”
“I’m sorry you had Oliver Twist as a lover. He should know that blackmailers rarely give up after one payoff.”
“He started getting more voracious until he was found floating on the lagoon.”
“Another of your husband’s handiwork, no doubt.”
“Of course.”
“Then why are you still with that monster? Why can’t you just leave him? You have nothing to lose after all.”
“I can never escape Donald if he’s still alive. I wanted to leave him when I realized that Donald was behind my father’s demise but I couldn’t. He caught me packing my belongings in the middle of the night, he was looking like a devil, I’ve never been so scared in my life, I thought he was going to kill me then. He locked the door behind us and faced me; he told me that he knew I never liked him and he didn’t care, he said I was very lucky that I hadn’t left because if I had, I wouldn’t have survived five days on the face of the earth. I know he was not joking.”
“Maybe he did all those for love. We all can do some crazy things because of love.”
Abigail was wide-eyed, “Oh my God! You are comparing Donald with love? You’re insane; you know that, don’t you? Donald doesn’t have any idea about love. The word ‘Love’ is the strangest thing to him; he can’t just bring himself to love because he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Okay, why did he marry you?”
“He wanted to be honoured as a married man. He doesn’t have what it takes to keep a wife either so he had to use force.”
Richard leaned forward, “What do you mean?”
“He has a limp manhood, I thank God for that. According to what I heard or read, I can’t remember; it happened about six years ago when he was ill with fever and was admitted to the hospital, the nurse who attended to him gave him an injection meant for another patient. The injection incapacitated him sexually. He had been as sexless as a neutered cat since then. I owe that nurse a big thank you, may her soul rest in peace. I can’t just imagine Don climbing over me and humping the sanity out of me.”
“The nurse is dead?”
Abigail looked at Richard with more astonishment. “Do you really think Don would pardon a person who did that kind of thing to him? The patient who was to be given the injection was a woman who came for her menopause treatment. The nurse made a mistake due to a simple mix-up, but Don made her pay for that mistake with her life.”
“Do you know if Donald once had a wife before you?”
Abigail took a moment before replying, “I learnt from somebody-in-the-know that Don once had a wife who died after fifteen years of their marriage. About eleven months after their wedding the poor woman had been raped by a psychopath. A burglar broke into their home, bound Don and forced him to watch the rape. Mrs. Martins could not fulfill her marital obligations from that night on.
“Don’s wife, Rita Martins was already rich before she was born. Her father, Honourable Benson, was a strikingly rich multi-millionaire. He had bought five million units of shares for her when she was nothing but a two-month old pregnancy. Honourable Benson was one of those who got their fortunes from embezzling the country’s budget allocations. By the time Rita Benson was twenty years old; her net worth could not be valued without the use of a calculator. She married Don at twenty-three, and six months after her wedding her parents were killed in a plane crash. As the only heir to the deceased, Rita Benson took over her parents’ properties. Btu somehow, Donald managed to make her sign him as the only beneficiary to the properties incase of her own demise. She died fifteen years later of cancer, I don’t know if that is true.”
“I smell a rat there.”
“Me, too. Mrs. Benson became pregnant a few months after her rape.”
“She carried the child of the rapist?”
“She believed her pregnancy was Don’s, but Don believed otherwise. When the child was born, Don never showed him any care; he kept abusing the child; savagely beating him and calling him a bastard. The boy died at the age of seventeen.”
“Donald killed him, too?”
“Hard to say. According to the little information I was able to gather; the boy was killed by armed robbers during a shoot-out with the police in 2002. The death of the boy was a great relief to Donald.”
Abigail’s eyes suddenly caught the alarm clock by Richard’s bed. “Oh my God!” she lamented, “It’s already midnight. I have to be going now, it has been a relief talking to you––see you in the morning.”
Richard held her firmly by the arm as she rose up to go, “Wait,” he said, “I won’t want you to start crying again after you leave here, okay?”
She smiled broadly, “No, I won’t. You’ve cheered me up. Good night, sleep tight; don’t let the fleas bite, and sweet dreams.”
Richard still held her firmly by the hand. Then he did what he had wanted to do, and had determined not to do. He bent Abigail’s head and kissed her mouth. For a moment, she did not resist him. Then he had it––Richard did not see the slap coming, her hand seemed to come from nowhere. It hit his cheek connected with his ear with a loud clap. She was a good hitter; this was one of her best efforts. It hurt Richard like hell; the inside of his ear exploded with momentary pain, then went numb and became very warm. A high whistling sound began to whine I his head, but the shock was even worse than the pain. What was a gentleman to do?
Richard stared at her in surprise as though what he had just done was the sanest thing ever. He was too startled by the sudden attack to make any reasonable cause of his act. He bowed politely before her and said:
“I deserved that, I’m sorry.”
Abigail ran out of the room without saying a thing.
He leaned against his door with his back as the realization of the danger he had put himself began to occur to him slowly; he had kissed another man’s wife. He knew kissing her was wrong but he could not stop himself. Abigail was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, but Richard had met more beautiful women than Abigail, yet Richard found her irresistible when they were both in the room. If she had not stopped me, would I have gone far? He shook the stupid thought out of his head.
Donald forcefully married Abigail but he had never taken her to bed, because he can’t. it means that for the past three years, Abigail had not––
Richard locked his door, switched off the light and landed heavily on his bed. Donald. How many people had died from that monster’s hand? Six maybe––or more. He’s just as dangerous as a bomb-wrapped terrorist. Richard was about falling into a shallow slumber when a sudden thought brought a cold sweat to his face.
If Donald had killed his first wife, would he not try to kill the second?

November 1984.
It had been declared earlier in the day that there was not going to be any rain throughout that Saturday. But it was raining fit to drown a duck in the night of that same Saturday; it appeared as if someone had just turned a tap on over the city. A very dark and stormy night it was; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was assisted by a violent gust of wind which swept up the street and rattling along the housetops. The rain was forming tears as it streaked the louvers of the houses around. That night’s rainfall was one of those which defy weather forecasts––making forecasters look like lying idiots to the world. The street was deserted, except for Jamal who was standing alone in the veranda of an uncompleted building, and he was holding a pistol.
A boat made from a sheet of newspaper floated down a gutter swollen with the rain. The boat bubbled, listed, righted itself again, dived bravely through treacherous whirlpools, and continued on its course towards the intersection of the street and another. Jamal looked at the paper boat as it swam away, a boy of maybe six years old might have dropped it in the gutter from three streets away. He could remember when he was a kid––he would run cheerfully alongside the paper boat enjoying himself as the rain would tap the hood of his own clothes, he would listen to the music the rain made on the roofs of houses––a comfortable, almost cozy sound.
He waited about thirty minutes for the rain to stop but it was not even slackening, and amidst the noise the rain was making was a faint distant sound of frogs announcing their territory. Jamal was running out of patience so he got out of the veranda into the rain, he was soaked within a few seconds of stepping into the heavy downpour––and he liked it. He walked slowly down the street in the rain, thinking about what had brought him there. Jamal had seen a woman about two weeks earlier, and he had been infatuated by her appearance. She was coming out from the meat market when he caught sight of her; she had had that kind of beauty that could make the holiest man on earth commit a little sin. She was wearing a crispy white blouse that was tucked in a hip-fitted black skirt. A pair of black suede shoes adorned her beautifully straight legs. She walked in a manner that was full of confidence, and there was this attractive chemistry from her that drew Jamal up to her. At first, she had allowed Jamal to rant and chant, and when he appeared to have spoken all the words he could think of, the lady had smiled erotically and flashed him her ring finger, revealing to him that she was married before she walked away. Jamal had been taken aback; he involuntarily stopped and watched as the woman walked away. Jamal being a man, who never gave up on things easily until he got what he wanted, followed the woman. As he tailed the lady, he felt there was a kind of fun in following people who never knew they were being followed. The woman reached her car and drove off, Jamal waved down the next taxi and followed. A couple of kilometers later, the woman stopped her car in front of a big gate; she got of the car and went to open the gate. Jamal told the cab driver to stop his car a few yards behind the lady’s. The woman got in he vehicle and drove inside the compound. The sound of the heavy gate could be heard as she locked it from within. Jamal waited five minutes before he got off the taxi and paid the driver who drove away. He now knew where his next would-be victim lived.
Jamal was a thirty-two year old good looking man, but he was just an angelic face masking the demon––he was a rapist. With his good looks, Jamal could take any woman of his choice to bed as easy as he could create a tune out of whistling. He had tasted women of almost all genres; tall, short, slim, fat, obese. But Jamal was never satisfied with them, taking a willing woman to bed was not what he really craved––he wanted an unwilling woman. His first act of rape was with a schoolgirl of thirteen years. He had cunningly made the girl follow him into his room before he forcefully penetrated her, and he had felt a sense of accomplishment he had never felt before. Thereafter, he performed with a twelve year old, eleven, ten––and nine, where each time, he would wickedly tear off their hymens with his barrel-like organ. Then again, he was tired of kids, he desired an adult. He had taken a prostitute home one night and told her plainly that he was going to have her without paying. The prostitute had jumped off the bed as if jolted by an electric shock. For three minutes she moped at him, had she the strength for a fight she would have fought him. But lacking that she rained courses on him before picking up her bag and aiming for the door. Jamal had suddenly drawn her back, gave her a vicious blow on the face and pushed her roughly on the bed before he entered her. The prostitute had screamed, scratched, tossed and turned but Jamal subdued her easily. The cries of his victims; their struggles, innocence, pains––was what turned Jamal on.
For two weeks, Jamal shadowed the young woman, he watched everywhere she went; where she did her hair, the time she went out, and when she returned. He was patiently waiting for the moment to attack her. There were many couples of times when Jamal could attack the woman but he didn’t do it. The woman was always alone in the house most of the time, and he could have easily followed her inside and rape her, but Jamal did not.
Tonight was his right moment.
He walked in the rain towards the gate of the building and pushed it; the gate did not bulge––it was locked. Jamal expected to find tens of thousands of jagged pieces of glass to have been cemented on the top of the fence to rip off the hand of anyone who tries to scale it. But there was nothing like that, the fence was just a climbable one. He went round the fence to the back, he climbed it and jumped in the compound––it must have been about eleven or some minutes past. The rain continued beating on him fiercely, coming down like sheets of silver knives, the dark sky filled with darker masses of swirling black cloud. He walked to the front door of the house and turned the handle. The occupants were not as stupid as going to bed without their front door unlocked. Jamal dipped his hand in his pocket and brought out a safety pin which he twisted into a certain shape before inserting it in the keyhole. Picking locks is not as easy as it appears to be in the movies. Neither is seducing a lady or beating up five men or women or anything. It took him twenty minutes to get the door unlocked; he opened the door quietly and stepped in the room. Without much ado, Jamal went straight towards the bedroom door––this was unlocked. He withdrew the pistol he had tucked in his back pocket and stepped in. he found the couple sleeping under a large blanket; they had fallen asleep like spoons in a drawer. He took a stood beside the bed and sat down, watching as the husband snore. He hated snoring people––the sound disgusts him, it angered him. He went over the husband and gave him a hard punch on the stomach, the man reared up into a sitting position with eyes wide open, and before he could make a sound Jamal sent him a backhanded blow on the throat which sent him lying back on the bed. Jamal closed his left hand over the man’s mouth and pinned the muzzle of the pistol on his forehead. With one look, Jamal could see fear in the man’s eyes; the wife was still sleeping soundlessly, ignorant of anything happening beside her. The attacker looked around the room and saw an arm-chair at one corner. Then he faced the husband.
“Shh!” he hushed.
The man nodded.
Jamal withdrew his hand from the man’s mouth and jerked his head towards the chair, “You see that chair over there?” though he was whispering, every word sounded like it was being scraped across a metal file as it left his throat.
The man nodded again.
“Very good,” said Jamal, “Now, you’ll get up slowly from this bed and take a pew over there. Kapish?”
The man obeyed him as one obeys a dangerous madman. He slowly got up from the bed to sit in the chair.
Jamal opened the door of the wall robe in the room and selected five ties which he knotted together; he went to the husband and tied him in the chair with it. He took another tie and used that to gag him. He stripped himself naked before the man and selected a pair of pajamas belonging to the gagged man. They fitted him like they were his. Jamal looked in the man’s eyes and saw one question written on them––Who’s this man?
“Do you know why I’m here?”
The man shook his head.
Jamal smiled, “You should have guessed.” He went over the man and whispered in his ear, “I’m here because I have your wife to rape, and you are going to watch it.”
The man’s scared face instantly metamorphosed into that of rage. He struggled to get himself off the bondage but he couldn’t. The rapist was a professional in the art of tying and knotting; it was impossible for the husband to get off that chair. Jamal saw the husband’s anger and felt a brief pleasure from that. He enjoyed seeing the veins stand out from the man’s forehead. It was like pouring a drop of liquor on a scorpion.
Jamal went to the sleeping lady and tapped her on the shoulder. The wife opened her eyes slowly.
“Wake up, darling,” he said, smiling at her. “This is Showtime.”
The husband was already sweating profusely and he never stopped struggling to get off the chair, but the rope was not loosening.
The lady abruptly sat up on the bed.
“Who are you?” she demanded, “What do you want?” she became afraid when she saw her own husband.
“What I want, pretty lady, is very simple. Just pull off your nightdress and lie back on the bed. I’ll do the rest.”
She began weeping as the implication of what she was told to do occur to her. “Please leave us alone. You can take anything you want, just leave us alone. I beg you.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jamal breathed, feigning emotion. “I should really leave you guys alone but I can’t. I’m obsessed with you, cute lady.”
Jamal noticed that the woman did not even recognize him. She had forgotten the face of the man who had approached her with sweet words.
Jamal turned to the husband, “I envy you, mister. I can’t imagine how you managed to marry this sexy lady. Did you charm her? I can not just understand. Seriously, it piques my curiosity because this lady is far better off than you in more ways than one.”
“Please leave us alone.” She continued begging him.
“You’re starting to annoy me, young lady. Can’t you just keep your mouth shut?”
“Please…” her voice trailed off.
Jamal rolled his face into a vicious and cruel expression, “This is getting us nowhere.” He muttered. He went to the husband and aimed his gun at his temple; he turned to the woman and said:
“Mrs––it’s either you obey me or I blow your husband’s brain out. This shouldn’t have to be bloody. Just do what I tell you and everything will be okay.”
The woman’s face carried a mask of terror, “Oh, please don’t hurt him, I’ll do anything you say.”
“I’m amazed,” Jamal uttered, “You really love this man, don’t you? Now, get off that bed and stand on your feet.”
The lady obeyed.
“Take off your nightdress.”
She hesitated a mo before she untied her night dress and let it slip to the floor from her shoulders.
Jamal smiled and whispered to the husband, “Isn’t this cute? She’s even got her bra and panties on. Oh God, she’s driving me crazy. God bless the woman who birthed your wife.”
The woman continued weeping sadly, she cast her face downward. She could not look at their attacker’s face and she was too ashamed to dare look in her husband’s eyes.
“Stop crying like a baby; get naked and lie on the bed.”
The woman appeared not to hear Jamal. He became slightly angry and struck the husband a double blow on the cheek. Blood spurted out of the man’s mouth from between the gag. She immediately got rid of the under wears. Jamal came at her and pushed her roughly on the large bed.
The husband watched in horror as the stranger victimized his wife, his ears were filled with the screams of his spouse. He struggled with all his strength to get off the chair and could not. He anger mounted to his face as he watched the intercourse; his body swelled as if he were about to burst. The rapist’s eyes were shut in ecstasy as he humped and pounded his victim. He was sweating profusely by the time he was through.
Jamal looked at the husband and smiled in a wicked fashion, his smile carried a contented expression––like a man who had just won the championship belt in a boxing contest.
“Oh, she’s one hell of a screw,” he said, fanning himself with his hands. “She has all my seed in her.”
Jamal cleaned himself and put on a pair of clean shirt and trousers belonging to the husband. He said to the husband, “Thanks for the hospitality––and for watching. I really did enjoy myself. Goodnight.” He walked out of the room whistling a merry tune.
As Jamal climbed the fence out of the compound, he pictured how the husband had looked. When he was done with the wife, Jamal had seen the husband look at her without getting his eyes off her. Jamal knew the look very well––it was the look of pure unquenched hatred. He knew they would never have a happy home again.

You're right, Dee. Maybe most authors here have too watery plots and their stories are never viewed by more than a couple of hundred readers. I guess that is why most Nigerian novels are not really appreciated. You sometimes feel like beating the holy crap out of some authors because of what they've written.

Don't blame me much, even some expectations can be as annoying as a stone in a shoe.

When it comes to fantasy try Miss Shumway Waves a Wand by Chase and get ur ribs cracked.

But self-publishing is quite costly. And marketing the work may not actually sell as expected. When I delved into writing my story, I never imagined it is going to demand so much tasks after so much stress I have initially gone through. Maybe I should lock my manuscript somewhere and throw away the keys. I can resume to my previous thoughts of travelling to Niger Delta to kidnap a Chinese for ransom, or break govt fuel pipes so as to get money from black markets, though my ex-girlfriend had had that awesome common sense to talk me out of carrying out the plans in the first place. She said she doesn't want me becoming a resident of a federal prison or a pile of charred unidentified remains. But I don't have much choice now, do I? I can send an excerpt of my story to you if you're really interested knowing what I even wrote.

I've read the most amazin detective book ever, Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Getting published is not so easy in this country, especially for upcoming writers. Why can't one make real money from his first novel? Last year, I completed the first volume of my 'HOUSEHOLD' series which I strongly believe is going to fetch real money for me and the publisher. I know the sweat, pain, time and fortune I sacrificed to write this first volume, so I'm not ready to pay a dime to any lousy publisher before I can get it published. I have read my articles about the challenges new writers face; we all struggle to keep our individual heads above water in the pathetic literary cesspool we swim. These challenges, I know are parts of the personal dragons I've been slaying, even when the dragons seemed to be winning tremendously. I'm a patient writer; I know my books will be published tomorrow, or next year, or next ten years. I will be patiently waiting and trying.

But that's giving me serious concern, I want my book to be published in the best professional way, I don't want it to come out in cheap flaps and textures. I was even thinking of the possibility of having its hardcovers too, well, maybe I should rule that out of my mind.

I have The Firm and The Pelican Brief lying in my shelf for about a year now and I've been ignoring them. They have never appealed 2 me for once. I don't really know y most ppl worship Grisham's books like idols. I was so disappointed after reading The Partner and The Summons. Sheldon is actually not my favourite, but I've always enjoyed his books, though he really fumbled at the conclusion of Master Of The Game.

Nice 2 hear about Africans doing great.

What's the nationality of the writer?

Hello, fellow NLs, I'm wondering if some upcoming writers like myself are being bothered about how our novels in Nigeria are packaged. Most of them are printed and packaged like textbooks, considering the staple pins many publishing companies use in joining the pages of a novel together. There is also a wide difference in the quality of our papers and the overs.', some novels printed here are no different from a couple of A4s folded into halves and joined with pins or even ropes (check the widely read Purple Hibiscus for instance, anyway, that is a literature text for secondary schools kids). The front and back covers of most books published here are not so original. Pick one novel from an American bestseller and one of our own novels, I bet it with you that you're going to see the inconspicuous difference I'm talking about. Why is this so, please?

I've just finished The Godfather by Mario Puzo, so I'm on The Last Don, by same author.