₦airaland Forum

ENROLL IN A WRITING SCHOOL.
I THINK THERE ARE A WHOLE LOT OF THEM TO CHOSE FROM ONLINE.
OR YOU CAN GET A DEGREE IN CREATIVE WRITING OR ENGLISH OR ANY SIMILAR COURSE.

BEST OF LUCKS.

I WAS WONDERING IF ANYHTING CAN MAKE THE PUBLISHERS TO BEGIN PRODUCTION AGAIN.
I MEAN GETTING NEWAUTHORS ON THE LIST.
I JUSTR WISH THEY CAN COME BACK TO BUSINESS.

Yes oh. It goes both ways.
kudos bro.

Honestly I seriously need to know when and where Associaion of Nigerian authors Abuja branch meet and the programmes they have for the year.
Anyone with clue as to how?

I will like to know if we have writers and artists year book in Nigeria.
Plase anyone with vital infor just drop ye.
Thank you.

these days the sun seems not to shine anymore.

enroll into a writing school period.

Amen ma bother

Thought I clearly stated what I wanted. U could have gone elsewhere to advertise Mike.
Just want to hear from the masters, why is writing so out of it in this country?

Why?
I have never come across short story contest for Nigerian writers.


The Nigerian authors association website is almost not existing.

I wish old and established writers can organise stuffs to motivate up coming writers just as they are doing in the music industry.


On a personal note now, I seriously need info on public readings and book shows that will happen in and around Abuja.

Happened in Bolingo Hotels, Abuja.

nobody ready my typeof books here.
currently i am glued to Robin cook and Patricia Cornwell.

I love science/medical fictions a whole lot.
few days ago, i got myself a dosen of their books and i am glued to them though i am strugling to extricate myself so i can finish my own stuff on Heamophila.

It is completely a work of fiction.
I will be happy if you are entertained by it, also I will appreciate it if you will critic it.
It goes both ways.
That is why we are in Nairaland anyway.
Thanks.

okay lets get the 411. i declare my interest.

let us know the genre of your magazine please

has anye sent a story to glauco already?
just being curious.

My cousin came to town and asked me to meet her at her hotel room. After few minutes of catching up on gossips, we went to the hotel dining hall to eat dinner. It was supposed to be a buffet but most of the bowels were empty. “Well, my cousin said. We are not going to going to get 50% worth of our money. Are we”?

“I am bereft of words”. A man behind me said and I turned to look at him and met his angry face staring back at me.

“It is not deliberate Ma’am; we are going to replenish what has been eaten please. An attendant told us”.
“That is okay. I guess we should just wait then”. I said.

We sat down to wait but after ten minutes, we were still waiting so I suggested we eat whatever is available and go. We went round from one end of the long table to the other, with little success; until we found what can go as dinner and we sat down to eat. My cousin was eating coconut rice and I asked her why she was not eating vegetable salad too and why she does not have a bowl of fresh fruit salad like me.

“Where are they domiciled”? She asked me.

Domi, what? Food don’t domicile, it is kept. Check over there. I pointed to the place. She walked over to that place and came back with some nameless fried stuff in a saucer. The fried stuff caught my attention. “What is that in that saucer? I asked her

“Chin-chin”. She said. “There are chocolates over there too”.

I almost ran off to get the chocolates. I took four of them. “I will put them in the fridge when we go back to the room”.

“Mmm, I think I will get mine too. I might even take all. Imagine a chilled chocolate melting in your mouth mmm”.

And true to her words she took all. Back in the room, I put the chocolates in the fridge and moments letter while we were chatting, I remembered the chocolates and I got them out from the fridge to munch but loo it was butter. Some kind of some size butter wrapped in fancy foils like chocolates.

You want some chocolate? I asked my cousin

Mmh.

Here. I threw one to her. She unwrapped one slowly and trust it into her mouth without looking. Then puuh, she scattered it all over the bed. We burst into laughter simultaneously.

We laughed at ourselves. We wanted to get back at the hotel management for presenting little food for dinner and ended up with the wrong stuff.

SOME DAYS ARE LIKE THAT

You know some days, the sun just refuses to shine or did it try shining but the day refused the break? Some days appear so bleak you think your neck is going to break from worrying and your heart will definitely crash just as a system does. I guess the maker made it so.
Some days too, the sun will definitely want to rise in the east and set in the west but hell no, the day will say. You aren’t getting that chance today. So what happens, the sun struggles to shine but darkness would not leave even when its time is due. Close to the noon of such days, you observe a glimpse of day break but the day never breaks on such days so you feel the bleakness of such days on your skin and breathe its heaviness. Did its maker make it so?

Perhaps it isn`t so. But how do you explain a day that start so beautifully and ends so annoyingly bad that you begin to wish the day hadn’t come in the first place. A day that you even act the weather forecaster. You tell your self and all who care to listen that the day was definitely going to be great but what happens when dusk comes? Did the maker make it so too?

Then I will go ahead to talk about a mixed day. Might set out as a bad one, gets really nice, goes bad, nice, bad , nice until you become confused and can not say for sure how the day was spent.

On a very good day (have seen a couple of them) the day is so sweet you lack words to describe it. On such days you just smile from molar to molar and wish such scenes never come to an end. I love such days and I guess everybody does too. But are such days always here with us?

The money was two thousand naira; a one thousand naira note and five notes of two hundred naira notes. I fixed my gaze at the money in my hand and wondered how all the money I had for the month got to this little amount on my hand now.
Abuja is a beautiful modern city but living in Abuja has got its own down sides-expenses. In order to beat the frenzy spending attitude of the city dwellers, I decided long ago to cut down on irrelevant show offs that leaves a hole in the pocket.
Showing off is in our African blood and sincerely, it is hard to tame. The showing off gene in my African blood reared its ugly head again during the past week when Joy came from Lagos for her quarterly update training as an Information Technology expert. Throughout the weeklong event, she stayed in my apartment and when weekend came, it was time to paint the town red.
With Emeka as our driver and guild, we sort out known and hidden joints. It was either pepper soup in this place, nkwobi at the other joint, snail special at another, roasted fish in another, dancing and drinking at the club.
When Joy left with the red eye Virgin Nigerian flight back to Lagos today, I heaved a sigh of relief. I was relieved not because Joy my NYSC flat mate was a bother, but because I would never have kept up with the spending spree.
In just a week, I have sent a whooping twenty-eight thousand Naira down the drain. Throughout her stay, I stopped cooking dinner. It was painful because cooking is one of my hobbies. But then why should I continue to cook when my friend will not eat it. Each night, she always returns with some colleagues who always insist we hang out so they can see Abuja at night. ‘Hanging out’ always starts with a visit to a restaurant and for two days when I did not join them to eat, I was odd and I felt stupid in the mist of IT experts so I joined them and abandoned my hobby. Luckily, I always pay for my own meal only but it was boring a hole.
But the frenzy of the weekend was the culprit that bore the huge hole in my purse. It all started with Emeka. He wanted to take the girls out on the Friday night to ‘spoil us a little’. I knew he wanted to show us that he has got cash when he took us to that very expensive restaurant that served us meals I hardly enjoyed. He paid the bill-thirteen thousand seven hundred naira cash for some nauseating nonsense that i couldn’t eat.
It was all a show and I understood the game.
Next, we went to the most popular park for the famous pepper snail special. It was served in a wooden plate. This time, I truly enjoyed my meal and with several glasses of wine. When the bill came, I snatched it. I wanted to show off too that i am an Abuja big girl. The bill was eleven thousand naira. I paid. On my bed that night, I consoled myself that we had enjoyed the snail and the wine and it was better than Emekas’ wasted thirteen thousand seven hundred naira.
Saturday afternoon, it was Joys turn to show off and my girl picked the bill of seventeen thousand naira for a good and heavy lunch at a restaurant owned by a man from her village that had returned from USA. She even left a generous tip for the waiter.
For my undoing, I suggested we go see a movie at Nu Metro and everyone agreed. Since I knew the average price, i quickly did a mental calculation of how much it will cost me. By my calculation, I expected the bill to be less than five thousand naira. But the story changed when we got there and i was informed it was three thousand for each person. “This is because it is a weekend and the seats are almost all booked” the lady at the desk said. I paid Nine Thousand Naira for us.
The evening and night was mostly taken care of by my two friends. I knew the rules of the game and the reason for all the show offs. We all wanted to prove something and my African ego would not let me sit back and watch my friends show off alone. I am a big girl too, an Abuja big girl and I wanted Joy to take that to Lagos and spread the good news.
She is gone now and Emeka and I will have to reverse back to our normal way of life. Reversing back for me is not going to be fun because my purse is bleeding seriously.
After getting my work cloths ready for the coming week, I sat down to reminiscence and to think of the week ahead. Now the down side of my showing off gene is here and I have to face it. Pay day will definitely be on the twenty-sixth day of this month. How do I survive the ten days ahead on two miserable thousand naira in a city like Abuja were no one watches another’s back.
I did not get to stock my fridge for the coming week because we were not eating at home. There would not have been time to do that anyway, we were busy gallivanting and showing off.
BY
ONYINYECHI NWADINMA