Here are four simple habits of good writers

Longhorn Kenya managing director Musyoki Muli (right) exchanges documents with Tanzanian author and chief executive of Apex Publishers Saleh Shamsudin on October 9, 2014 at Laico Regency, Nairobi. Mr Muli and Austin Bukenya concur that Rocha Chimera is an exemplary author. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • Even before we can decide whether you are a bad, middling or outstanding writer, the simple fact is that we have to first see your writing.
  • Moreover, writing is an exercise or activity, like running a marathon. You do not just jump up one fine day and go running the Boston Marathon, let alone win it, even if you are a Kenyan. You need regular practice and exercise.
  • This brings me to the second good habit of serious writers. They share with one another.
  • As we said about writing in general, you can and should always strive to raise your level of language proficiency, and especially vocabulary.

I am always intrigued by the twists of coincidence. I was just settling down to reading Rocha Chimera’s Siri Sirini (Secret Within the Secret) when I saw Muli Musyoki’s article in the Nation, about authors and publishers.

The obvious connection is that Professor Chimera and Musyoki Muli are both close associates of mine, my acquaintance with both dating back to our academic days at Kenyatta University in the 1980s.

Mr Muli, the managing director of Longhorn Kenya, impressively transformed from being my student at both undergraduate and graduate levels to being my colleague, and now one of my publishers.

The really intriguing part of Muli’s article for me was his mention of Siri Sirini, the unique three-volume suit of Kiswahili novels, as one model of a positive relationship between a publisher and his author, the author in this case being Rocha Chimera.

EXEMPLARY AUTHOR
Professor Chimera was a younger colleague of mine at Kenyatta for a few years, before he travelled abroad for further studies.

But our paths kept intersecting, including a couple of times in Kigali, Rwanda, and a truly emotional reunion recently at the Pwani University in Kilifi, where I gladly received from him my autographed copies of his book.

Musyoki Muli and I concur that Rocha Chimera is an exemplary author.

So, I will not hesitate to hold him up as a model for the many aspiring writers, especially those who have asked me for advice on how to become a good writer.

So, let’s mull today over those qualities, or habits, that all serious writers seem to share. We will from time to time refer to Ndugu Chimera and his work to illustrate our observations.

A WRITER WRITES
Successful writers write. Oh, so obvious and yet so difficult a habit to observe! I keep repeating my teacher David Cook’s assertion that a writer is a person who writes.

Even before we can decide whether you are a bad, middling or outstanding writer, the simple fact is that we have to first see your writing.

The world is full of would-be writers whose writing we will never see.

We have all met them, those wonderful story-tellers, especially in watering-places and nyama choma joints, who keep promising to write down their story “some day”.

The trouble with some day is that it never comes.

If you want to be a writer, pick up that pen and paper and put down your story, your idea or your comment now.

REGULAR PRACTICE
This is even easier in the dotcom era, when your text is only a digital tap away, whether on you iPad, laptop or smartphone keyboard.

No one ever became a writer by simply thinking of writing, or “intending” to write.

Moreover, writing is an exercise or activity, like running a marathon. You do not just jump up one fine day and go running the Boston Marathon, let alone win it, even if you are a Kenyan. You need regular practice and exercise.

You are not likely to write a masterpiece the first time you put pen to paper. Nor is your first piece of writing likely to be considered for publication.

Do not rush to blame the publishers.

WRITERS SHARE
Even with the best of authors, hardly a third of what they write is ever published in their lifetimes.

Most of the writing we do is mere practice and ten-finger exercises. But whatever we write, whether published or destined for the wastepaper basket, helps to improve our writing competence.

In other words, the more we write the better we are likely to get at it. And believe you me, there always is room for improvement. No serious writer has ever imagined that they had attained perfection.

This brings me to the second good habit of serious writers. They share with one another.

I mentioned earlier my receiving copies of Chimera’s novels from him.

This is the best side of writers’ characters. They love sharing what they write, whether before or after publication, with their fellow writers.

A WRITER'S HUMILITY
This is not just good-naturedness. It is simple common sense. The writing process is never complete until and unless you share it with others and get a feedback from them. And the writers know that the best people to give you a genuine and sincere feedback are fellow writers.

Indeed, many writers love writing together, cooperating and collaborating.

Thus it was that Rocha Chimera won the prestigious international Noma prize for Ufundishaji wa Fasihi: Mbinu na Nadharia, a text he co-authored with our colleague, Professor Kimani Njogu.

The sharing and collaborating, however, demands another habit: humility.

If you are going to share your writing, especially with other writers, preferably more experienced ones, you should be prepared to accept open and frank opinions. Do not expect flattery and niceties, if you mean business.

RAISE YOUR VOCABULARY
Just imagine, why should Rocha Chimera, a native speaker of Kiswahili, expect me, a “Mganda wa Migombani”, to give a useful opinion about his obviously major achievement and opus magnum?

Yet here he was, inviting me to take and read, and say what I think! Need I say more?

Finally, good writers love words. We are, quite simply and plainly, fascinated and intoxicated with words.

Every devoted writer’s best reading book should be the dictionary.

As we said about writing in general, you can and should always strive to raise your level of language proficiency, and especially vocabulary.

Ndugu Chimera is well-known in the Kiswahili community as an eminent wordsmith.

Indeed, it’s to him that we owe the coining of such terms as “tarakirishi”, for computer, in current parlance.

ALWAYS READ
I didn’t single out reading, the insatiable, voracious consumption of everything in print, as a good habit of writers because it is so obvious.

If you do not read, you can never become an effective writer. Read in order to write.

Thank you all for reading me these many weekends.

I wish you all the choicest blessings and lots of success in 2015.

Maybe you could make serious reading, and even writing, one of your New Year resolutions!