I’m an author by accident, but the experience is invaluable

Growing up, I had never imagined that I would one day write material that people would read. I had also never imagined, even when studying for my doctorate degree, that I would one day be a teacher.

As a young boy, I liked reading comics, and I never missed my copy of Rainbow and Big Ben of London. I was into reading these two so much that pilferage was not a big deal: I always found ways to convince my father into parting with some 70 cents.

In secondary school, I loved the Juha Kalulu series so much that if I missed one, I could easily get a headache. I also loved reading James Hardley Chase and Sidney Sheldon very much, though they were outlawed in my school (I hope my head teacher then, Mr Kinyua, is not reading this as I still owe him some strokes of the cane that I was meant to receive after my Form Four exams).

I was very good in English, so much that older boys would employ my services to write letters to their girlfriends (I did not have a girlfriend as I was only 13, and the shortest boy on my school).

I also remember writing an essay, after which our teacher of English, Madam Obara, castigated other boys over their poor command of the language, insisting that the only boy with a bright future in English was Yours Truly.

Then came the ‘Whispers’ column, which made me think seriously about scribes such as Wahome Mutahi with his typewriter. I loved this humour column so much that I contracted someone to send me the newspaper cuttings while I was out of the country studying.

A MASTER'S DEGREE NOT ENOUGH

After my masters degree in economics at the age of 22, my father thought that I was still too young to be employed. So he prodded me to do my doctorate. I agreed.

There was another reason why I agreed but I will not discuss it; suffice it to say that studying gave me some refuge that I badly needed then. It was after forwarding my dissertation for defence that I started reading books again. The defence panellists took about four months.

During this time I would go to the library and literally read anything that was written in English. I almost became a reading addict.

I also read my thesis several times in preparation for the defence, and this is when I realised that I could become an author. The thesis was 365 pages, and the fellow students marvelled at my work. This tempted me to brag that I was now a confirmed scholar, and that in future they would be reading my books.

After completing my doctorate in labour economics, I came back to Kenya and “tarmacked” for about six months. This was not a good experience, considering the expectations of a young 28-year-old doctoral graduate.

I finally got a job with Kenya Railways in the corporate planning department. Here, I was involved with writing reports, making writing a continuous process in my life.

While at Kenya Railways, I was introduced to part-time teaching and I started writing notes for teaching. The notes were later converted into a spiral bound document. This gave me the idea of writing books.

FULL-TIME TEACHING

After I was retrenched from Kenya Railways, I went into full-time teaching. My first masters class at Kisii University gave me the jitters. I had to prepare notes like a person going for an exam. It was an MBA human resource class so I collected all the materials on HR and put the collection into a book, fulfilling my dream.

I sent the material to several publishers in the UK and they were accepted by two publishers, but I settled on Fast Print Publishers. This was to be my first published book, which I launched on December 6, 2012.

Prior to this, I had written a question-and-answer book in economics. This gave me the morale and the motivation to write more and I found myself writing a question-and-answer Labour Economics book. Last year, I was given an MBA class (Advanced Research Methods) at Mount Kenya University and I thought of writing some good material to help me teach.

I was given another assignment to come up with a research module for masters students at their virtual campus. This sealed the writing of the research methods book.

All my unpublished manuscripts are in the UK being edited and proofread.

I am preparing to retire from active writing and I'm currently compiling wise sayings that can be used by parents and passed on to their grandchildren.

I consider this accomplishment an accident, driven by fate since writing came when I was already in my 40s.

Writing comes with its own problem, including domestic friction as most of it is done at night and in the wee hours when most people need to sleep. My movement in the house has been vexing, but since the people in my house also read, we have agreed that the writing has to continue and the complaints about my nocturnal movement have to stop.

The next launch will be done for three books at the same time. I don’t know how it will be viewed but that is what I intend to do.

Dr Oresi is a university lecturer. The books he has written include Labour Economics and Human Resource Management.