Writers should stop whining and do the write thing

As we argue and bash each other, the rest of the world is publishing more and better. How about getting down to work?

Two weeks ago, I read Abenea Ndago’s article, How Money Loving Kenyan Publishers Can Salvage Literature, and two things caught my eye: money loving and salvage literature.

Yet as I concluded reading the piece, I could not help but feel a bit disappointed. With his big basket of blame from whence he drew and apportioned culpability, Ndago had neither shown how avaricious publishers are nor advocated ways through which we could rescue literature.

Ndago based his argument on the title and hearsay, I am afraid.

His demagoguery was well calculated; shooting and soothing at the same time. At one time he was Dick the butcher in Shakespeare’s Henry VI — to begin with, let’s kill all the lawyers (publishers), he shouted.

At another time, he was Jerome K Jerome’s narrator in Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) — offering himself as the full package — what the publisher needs, just like Jerome’s narrator who thought he had all diseases — expect one.

Though, the lack of a single disease irked him just like the lack of control of writers and publishers does Ndago. As Tony Mochama puts it, ‘one just chuckles’.

NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE BASE

I am not, and will not even pretend to be, a spokesperson for publishers. At the same time, I acknowledge occasional publishing bad acts.

Yet I am forced to comment on these dispiriting comments or else budding writers will inherit his fears as well as his prejudices.

Certainly, it is wrong to project publishers as a lot that shuffles manuscripts back and forth in a systematic attempt to ruin writers.

Comparing publishers to, or thinking that they are lower than seedy fellows would have been laughable had it not been tending towards tragic.

Mr Ndago, who ostensibly is a writer, opined that publishers are money minded. Is this true? Not really, most are just honest entrepreneurs — some with a thirst to grow our national knowledge base.

Publishing firms to a big extent work on behalf of writers, like Mr Ndago, who earn royalties at the end of the year!

I wonder if Mr Ndago would rather publishing firms were not-for-profit organisations.

When did making profit become a sin that it cheapens an organisation and sinks it lower than “our groundnut sellers and kiosk owners?” How can publishing firms ensure sustainability without making profits?

Profits aside, quality never escapes the publisher’s mind.

DROPS BLAME

Mr Ndago alleges that the publishers’ only professionalism is littering books with typological errors.

One would think there is always an editor waiting to embark on this ungodly act!

Mr Ndago is suggesting that publishers/editors deliberately introduce typos in books. Seriously? How far is that from the truth? Any editor would love a script that is error-free and publishers, and as such editors, play an important role in ensuring quality in book production.

Without a doubt, there are a few times when the quality of books is affected by either oversight or technological challenges but be that as it may, publishers are never hell-bent to producing rickety books.

As he drops blame at the doorsteps of publishing firms, Mr Ndago absolves his “sterilised intellectual palms” from the same, when it is suggested that universities share blame in producing half-baked editors.

Before his blame-ink could dry, professor Egara Kabaji was writing that a report tabled before the Inter University Council of East Africa (IUCEA) in Bujumbura, showed that only 49 per cent of Kenyan graduates are competent to undertake responsibilities for which they trained.

Professor Bethuel Ogot, in his keynote speech at the UNESCO round table, pointed out that “... some (Kenyan students) cannot communicate effectively in any language, including mother tongue.”

This demonstrates that there is enough blame to go around and that solely blaming the publisher for the rot will not root out the problem.

Inasmuch as the publisher may conduct thorough interviews, the old problem is bound to rear its ugly head. I have to point out too that some writers are major shareholders in typographical errors. Indeed, this is what, partly, causes delays in publishing. If writers spend more time working and thinking through their writing then the publisher will take less time with the manuscripts.

When Jane Austen had First Impressions rejected, she took 15 years working on it and renamed it Pride and Prejudice and now look at its readership.

Any publisher likes a well written, well thought out, thought provoking story. If it meets the requirements, it goes to press as soon as possible.

If a writer wants his or her manuscript to be recommended for publication as soon as it hits the editor’s desk, then he or she must stay ahead of the pack in terms of style and quality.

Undeniably, there is raw talent among our nascent writers and yet I am not about to buy them flowers as many have to improve.

Quite a number of them are always in a hurry.

They write and immediately take the manuscripts to publishers.

Very few take time to go through their work, criticise themselves, or have others criticise them, make corrections and finally present their work for consideration.

Some consider comments from their friends on Facebook as green light for great writing and they get very surprised when their works are rejected. Yet their manuscripts are full of mistakes which they expect editors to sort out, or else what will be the editor’s work?

Consider a situation where a writer intrudes on his or her characters or simply confuse them by intermittently exposing them to foreign mannerisms that were hitherto unknown to the same characters.

Others kill promising characters and sporadically sprout surprise aliens as new characters!

Sometimes I go through such a script and ask a writer, what is this for?

Quite a few say I meant this or that.

I usually point out that they will not be on bookshelves or readers’ desks to explain what they meant.

In conclusion, therefore, I would like to suggest that we stop carping and get down to work.

Our nascent writers should stop resting on their laurels, get off their comfortable stools and take the cows to the grazing fields or else we shall have no milk in the gourds.

It will be unfortunate if we confirmed Taban lo Liyong’s fears that ours is indeed a literary desert.