₦airaland Forum

Excellent take MyneWhite. Your experience is exhibited in the piece. I can see you like to to create what's at stack by painting a vivid picture using amongst many things, body language and physicalities

For example

, dissolve into nothingness or sink through the floor through the layers of mattress,
, silence began to wind tightly around us,
, her feet tapped out a tattoo on the hardwood floor as her slitted eyes raked hot coals

The physicalities, as I like to call them, are exactly what is missing in my piece. I, on the other side like to delve into the thoughts of the narrator, how he perceives what's going on and how he is random, raw and naive in his thoughts, typical of promiscous men.

Thanks.

This is a small extract of one of the dismissed scripts from our upcoming novel, movie and  coming book  called The LazyBoyz. It's about relationships of Africans living in the diaspora, from a male perspective. This extract is actually not in the actual material, it's just a little promo.




The Lazyboyz Extract
By Terrentius Ashwell


‘Jimmy can I have a word?’ She said restlessly following me into the bedroom.
‘Yeah what about?’
‘This?’
She held out her right  hand high, and between two of  her fingers was a blue durex condom. Not very pleased by her finding, I could tell.

‘Oh,  that?’ I tried to mask my hesitance.

‘Yeah that! What is this condom doing here?’
‘Oh that? Yeah, I er, I got that from the doctor’
What for? We don’t use any in here so what is it doing  in your pocket then?  She raised her left eyebrow in that sort of enquiring stance women make when they try to get information out of their husbands.
I could have told her off for peeping through my pockets, again, but that seemed trivial considering the circumstances. Besides, it could have opened another can of worms, like the lipstick she found on my collar last Friday. I had come with the lamest excuse ever when I said a woman from work had tumbled into me while we were in the elevator and that during her unfortunate misstep, she left  lipstick prints on the inside of my collar, twice. Pathetic.

‘Well, er babes, I got that from the doctor yesterday. You’re the one who was complaining abut the pill so I thought I could do you a favour’ I thought I delivered that one well. She folded her arms in disbelief and that eyebrow was rising  and rising.
‘Oh , really?’ She said. ‘Jimmy you know I had the coil fixed in after we had Katie, so what are you talking about’ She yelled.
‘Shit’ I said to myself. Awkward moment, yes. Was I going to have sex tonight after all this, the answer to that is ‘Does Bin Laden wear a name tag?’ There was a brief moment of silence as I tried to rehearse my reply-definition of futility.  Strange, The only time a man gets penalised by his wife for using a condom. I suppose if another  woman’s vagina is at the end off that pelvic glove, the wife would go off like Krakatoa.She should be relieved I had one of those elastic circles, I know guys who swim unprotected home and away. Needless to say, I kept rooting for a distraction. Where were all the kids, when you need them to budge into the bedroom. Instead they prefer to come in here while I’m trying to poke ol’ Miss Hamas here. Gosh, what a nightmare.

That's not my picture bythe way, it's one of the character's in the comic book me and my partners are working on. It's called The Lazyboys.

I have just thought of this exercise, a bit like a writer's drill, whereby anyone on this blog can write up a paragraph of not more than 100 words and then the other writers can follow up by rewriting the paragraph using their technique. It would be heplful, if they explain their train of thought and imagination.

To kick it off I'm just going to input a small extract of one of the manuscripts on my upcoming comic book.

Abstract
Basically, the extract is about Jimmy being caught out by his wife. It's a bit blurry, but a descent start.


The Lazyboyz Extract
By Terrentius Ashwell


‘Jimmy can I have a word?’ She said restlessly following me into the bedroom.
‘Yeah what about?’
‘This?’
She held out her right  hand high, and between two of  her fingers was a blue durex condom. Not very pleased by her finding, I could tell.

‘Oh,  that?’ I tried to mask my hesitance.

‘Yeah that! What is this condom doing here?’
‘Oh that? Yeah, I er, I got that from the doctor’
What for? We don’t use any in here so what is it doing  in your pocket then?  She raised her left eyebrow in that sort of enquiring stance women make when they try to get information out of their husbands.
I could have told her off for peeping through my pockets, again, but that seemed trivial considering the circumstances. Besides, it could have opened another can of worms, like the lipstick she found on my collar last Friday. I had come with the lamest excuse ever when I said a woman from work had tumbled into me while we were in the elevator and that during her unfortunate misstep, she left  lipstick prints on the inside of my collar, twice. Pathetic.

‘Well, er babes, I got that from the doctor yesterday. You’re the one who was complaining abut the pill so I thought I could do you a favour’ I thought I delivered that one well. She folded her arms in disbelief and that eyebrow was rising  and rising.
‘Oh , really?’ She said. ‘Jimmy you know I had the coil fixed in after we had Katie, so what are you talking about’ She yelled.
‘Shit’ I said to myself. Awkward moment, yes. Was I going to have sex tonight after all this, the answer to that is ‘Does Bin Laden wear a name tag?’ There was a brief moment of silence as I tried to rehearse my reply-definition of futility.  Strange, The only time a man gets penalised by his wife for using a condom. I suppose if another woman’s vagina is at the end off that pelvic glove, the wife would go off like Krakatoa.She should be relieved I had one of those elastic circles, I know guys who swim unprotected home and away. Needless to say, I kept rooting for a distraction. Where were all the kids, when you need them to budge into the bedroom. Instead they prefer to come in here while I’m trying to poke ol’ Miss Hamas here. Gosh, what a nightmare.

Obviously, anyone with a grammar impediment will find it hard to produce a good piece of writing in English. Grammar is very important in the delivery, once you botch one or two elements in a sentence, the whole thing mutates into a dud.  Also, grammar doesn't have to be flashy, I know sometimes it's tempting to strut with the pen but there is always a danger of getting caught out waffling. My philosophy is always, KIB KIS- Keep It Basic Keep it Smart. Now, when I say smart I'm referring to the imagination gist. It has to be excquisite and fresh and on the other side of the gravy train slash cliche'. Don't forget writing is an artform and art is dictated by the artist. I believe there are as many writing tecniques as there are human beings on this earth.we all have different trains of thought. And what grinds my gears is prospective writers who are always mounting praises on celebrated writers. I don't buy into all that. Yes Grisham is a good story teller but it's because he exploits his imagination, he does his own thing, that shouldnt make him a literary android. he is just a true artist who delegates his own moves.  Now, almost every zygote writer who is being taught how to write, is bombarded with Grisham set books or such and such who is a celebrated writer, so much that by the time they finish their 'coaching' most of them try to emulate the celebrity. they can never do 'Grisham' because it's impossible to duplicate a writer's DNA. the sneaky reason why people are given set books is  so that they remain in awe of the writer in question=Writer's royalties which people pay using their brain. so my advice is
1) master the grammar as it is a constant

2) KIB KIS

3) dont give celebrated writers too much credit, it retards your progress as a writer

Like I was saying, good grammar and punctuation are pre-requisites for writing a book in English. of which editing can take care of that , easily. It's just that so many prospective African writers try to immitate all these celebrated English/American writers. Once you are in awe of someone's writing , you are always under their literary spell, and will never think outside of their box.

Writing in English will always be a problem for any African writer.

Since English is not the first language for most if not all of the African writers,  when directly compared with their English/American counterparts,  their material seems substandard and limp.  The only universal pre-requisites of English writing are good grammar and punctuation, the rest of the tools, id est, imagination, metaphors, similes, references,  should come solely from the author. Now a lot of African writers suck up too much to celebrated  writers , Grisham et al, so much that they end up in awe of these people, and try to write like them to no avail. An author’s DNA is his imagination and you can’t reproduce someone else’s train of thought. While grammar and punctuation are English constants in this literary equation, the rest of the factors are variables which a writer can tool around with using their African background. Metaphors, similes, references, riddles and then some- there is plenty  in our African culture and we should take advantage of them.

Au

I always use 1st person narrative whenever I write my stories because it allows me to go deep into the narrator/character's head, how they perceive things- their insecurities, their guilty pleasures, their sorrows, their fears, their relief, the list is endless.  1st person narratives give me the freedom to be raw and unexpected in my delivery, i like to shock, excite and scare not in a fright sort of way but in an 'oh my word, i can't believe he said that' -sque. So my main characters tend to be losers, pedants, idiots, low self esteem.paranoid and a bit neurotic. I like these qualities because every one of us has them albeit in different proportions.

so what do you guys prefer as your narrative style

Also before we put out The Lazyboyz Book, we're gonna put out the The Lazyboyz Comic Book, one of the character pics is on my profile display.

The book behind this is called The Lazyboys, should be out 2010 February. The book is so contemporary and shocking, some people will find it offensive, some will find it extremely hilarious. Im part of a trio of writers called Terrentius Ashwell, and we are working on a lot of scripts for TV sitcoms and one book which is The Lazyboys, all coming out next year. Thanx for the review, by the way. Our blog should be ready in a few days, we'll be putting The Lazyboys promotional scripts and short stories. This one is one of them.

these are rejected scripts/roughdrafts from the book/sitcom, The Lazyboys, I've given them the above title and turned them into a short story of some sort. Hope you guys like it, though it's not edited, Ive just conjoined the scripts into some sort of continous prose.


Part 1

Saturday night, in a pub in Enfield, England, swigging the odd beer down the oesophagus. Sue me for being sociable.

‘So how old do you think she is then?’
‘I don’t know dude, late 20s, early 30s, definitely older than 26’. James scratched the back of his head. I had to ask him because I wasn’t sure of her age. Maybe she had a boyfriend and he’d just nipped to the toilet. But she’d been sat there,  at the bar, on her own, for the past fifteen minutes. Either her boyfriend had mad diarrhoea or constipation, can’t ever rule out constipation,  or she didn’t have a boyfriend at all. Fingers crossed for the later of course.

The subject at the crux of our conversation was this woman who was sat at the bar, which was located behind where me and James were sitting. I had my back on her and James was facing her direction. She had long black hair, possibly a weave from which she kept tracing strands out with her right hand, at the same time exposing her shapely cheek bones,  Her complexion I would say, coffy brown, a bit like Pam Grier in the seventies,  blue jeans and what seemed to be a black top. I couldn’t really cloak it because she had her brown leather handbag cradled on her lap.

‘Her face suggests mid 20s, but her hands, dude, they are flagging thirty-two years of age and rising’ James was still trying to crack her age.
‘What do you mean by that’
‘Come on dude, look at them’

I turned around and briefly zoomed at her hands which were clutching on to her handbag. James hadn't stopped brainstoriming and mocking.
‘I know a woman who has hands like that, checkered skin on the outside and palms so hard you can light a matchstick on them. Dude, that woman, is my mother, and she is bloody 52, go figure’

‘Man, you’re so cynical, who cares about her hands anyway. By the way, there’s nothing good old cocoa butter can’t correct. She looks nice man. She has that classy beauty going on and I like that. I bet she is all brainy.  I want her to be my wife James’

‘Hey, if you want her, go ahead and ask her out then.

‘Well, technically I can’t really ask her OUT, because we’re already OUT, but I get your point anyway’
‘There he goes again, technically bla bla. You know what you are? A geek. That’s what you are, dude. A short, four eyed chubby faced, trousers and shirt wearing geek’

‘No need to be personal James. I’m well aware of my inflated face but you never know, she might actually fancy a pinch on my cheeks in a sort of adorable way people do to cute little babies,  and then I’ll be in business. Who’ll have the last laugh hey’.

  James is an ass sometimes but he’s my mate, and we enjoy the odd banter.  We’ve known each other since university where we shared a flat, the ‘boom boom shake’ we called it. No fumes implied in the name, just the sound of uni girls twats being pounded,  true only in James’s case,  because while he kept himself busy licking off strawberry yoghurt off girls’ writhing naked bodies, I was cracking my cranium with pharmaceutical codes. I still can’t believe he managed to get a first class degree in business studies. I suppose the course is designed for thickos.


‘So who’s caught your eye tonight then’ I sighed.
‘Well me? Na, I’ll pass dude. Got an early tomorrow, anyway’
‘Is that because there is no white women in here’
He started grinning. ‘I thought as much’ I said.
James swore he would never go out with a black woman in England, even though he himself was blacker than Wesley Snipes. Long story, will become clear later.

‘Anyway, I ’ll finish this drink first and then go up to her’
‘Stop stalling dude. Every second counts. Get in there before some idiot stills your idea’

I had a another browse around the pub to see any possible competition. ‘No chance of that man, this place is full of pensioners.’ I uttered with confidence.And then I noticed a tall black guy who was sat, on the double sofas next to the jukebox,  with a white bloke who looked like he had down syndrome. Possibly, a fellow immigrant clocking up the shift hours in the boozer with a client, waiting restlessly to get that timesheet signed. He wouldn’t leave the client to go chat up my woman would he? If he did, I would set social services on his ass,  that should slow him down. But they could take hours to react and by then he would have acquired her phone number and probably a kiss. And if they did fire him, she might find it SWEET that he lost his job for her love and will end up  marrying him and have rampant sex while I keep hiring those adult dvds to curb my loneliness and urges.  Hell, I can’t let that happen, I better go before this chancer peeps me to it.  I quickly got up and tucked in my shirt.

‘Are you going now, thought you wanted to finish your drink’
‘ I can’t let someone else take this chance from me, I’m getting in there right this moment’.
‘Nice one dude, go and rock her world’
If only I knew how to talk to women. I seem to have a creeping sense of dread every time I’m in the presence of a gorgeous female. The ugly ones I could chat away like a politician, but it’s those beautiful ones that made me stutter like a rape victim. James knew I was hopeless. That’s why he was wearing a smug look on his face.  Back at uni he’d slided a few minxes into my room, but I just couldn’t master the artistry of switching a conversation about pop music into sex talk. No wonder I’m still a virgin. Virgin at twenty six.  I should get a medal for that right? Perhaps not in this society where the tabloids put pressure on kiddies to pop their cherries before they even grow a shade of armpit hair. A society that also mocks gents like me who go out on the town wearing a trousers and a shirt. I mean whatever happened to dressing smart like the good old days of pleated baggy trousers and long sleeved shirts. Gosh, my head was all over the place.  James couldn’t stop grinning. I turned once more towards where the woman was sitting and my heart started beating faster than a Mapouka drum.

‘By the way, James, could you lend me one of your pick up lines I can throw in her direction? Something funny and witty. I want her to laugh, hoping in that hysteria she might accidentally kiss me or wrap me in an embrace and then the ice will be broken,  and my ship will sail through so to speak’ I pleaded.

‘Gosh, I thought you’d ask. Alright then’, he said having another swig of his beer, milking the moment of course.  ‘Go and tell her that you want to lick her bucket clean. Women like that’, he uttered flicking his tongue out.
‘Huh, what the hell is that?’ Need I remind you, James, that this is a proper black woman not some white-’
‘Careful dude’ he interrupted me.
Alright man, let me go' This was going to be a challenge, and then some.



‘

Im Terrentius,  1/3 of Terrentius Ashwell, a writing trio coprising of writers from Africa, Canada, and England. We met at university and then boom, the old story. Anyway, the current project we are working on is called The Lazyboys, which is a screenplay  about diasporan relationships, but we're going to put out the book first and we just hope it's gonna cause a shock. A good shock.

Anyway,  I've just been skimming through the website, esp this literary section and I've seen quite a few aspiring writers. Keep up the hardwork. My other advice is that, when it comes to art, you should always have your own style. Never give celebrated writers too much respect because that can make you in awe of their styles and this could create a intellectual bondage which stops you from thinking outside the box.  Whether you're writing a book, poetry, a screenplay or what have you, be confident in your writing skills and avoid cliche's. There is no actual limit to Art except cliche's. That's just how I think.