Back in the day when i was a class four pupil, and even before that, my father would have very strict rules around TV watching. My brothers, sister and I, would not be permitted to watch Tv during the day time, only at night and with parental supervision. That would leave me extremely bored during the day, with long spells of nothing to do. I would always try to pass time doing something, anything but not to avail. At that time my parents were both lecturers at Strathmore University. So, you can imagine how many books and novels we had in the house. There still are as many books in our house. Shelves heavy with the weight of a million and one books of different genres, waiting for an eager reader to pick them up.
It so happened that one fine day, as usual i had absolutely nothing to do, I looked to one of my parents’ shelve to see what I could find to pass time. I was not an avid reader. Looking over the shelf, I espied a thick book titled “Harry Potter” and the half-blood prince. I picked the voluminous book an began reading. There were many difficult incomprehensible words but I found that I generally enjoyed the story. And so, it began. I found myself enjoying the story, and marveling at the superb language that just leapt to the eye. This is how I started reading books, It took me to another world, and made me relax.
Moreover, I enjoyed reading excellent descriptions, upon amazing English. I especially began to love reading books with crazy, perilous adventures and superb mastery of the language. It was intellectually satisfying and actually gave me dozens of creative ideas. Some books made me think critically and overall found books to be quite enjoyable to read. Right about this time, my English teacher began a series of exercises aimed at improving our English. Mr. Gitau started giving us a spelling projects, complicated words i must add.
It was a horrendous exercise then and I hated every moment of it. As the years progressed, I realized, along with my fervent reading, and Mr. Gitau’s definition of words projects, that I began to write amazing compositions and I could spell the most difficult of words. It was then that I began to have an itching desire to write. At class 7 I’d read numerous stories with beautiful creative language; well -thought, humorous stories. Then I met Mr. Adhoch, my class eight English teacher. He was like the icing on the cake. With his unfaltering help I rose to new heights. My spoken and written English improved greatly.
I began forming stories of my own in my mind and a day came when I had to write something down. It began slowly, but it picked up as time progressed. I found myself writing whole chapters a day and I found it equally as stimulating as reading. I have written many manuscripts but only two have been published; the; ‘The Ghastly Makhungu forest’ and *‘The mysterious Mashimbo hills.
The publishing journey has been long. The first publisher I approached, was too busy for a person of Victor’s age, so did not give time to see what he was developing. The second publisher i approached gave a hush review of his first manuscript – that a child of his age (11yrs then), would not have understood. So we shelved it away. The third publisher did work with Victor for a while, but their chemistry did not meet, their styles, so there was no progress after a year!
Then I met Muthoni after I picked her contact from a book launch of a friend which she had published. It would be the beginning of a beautiful journey. We worked well, at our paces. Victor’s first manuscript was like a Tin Tin – he had read all. The scenes and events were changing so quickly. One time they were in Gaza, another in Timbuktu, then in Nairobi. The title? cannot be printed here, his imagination was something else. At some point we were going to publish the three manuscripts we keep referring to as short stories, then he wrote a complete story, Makhungu, from start to end. That became our focus. The book was tiny, though in the African Book Club we had read tiny books authored by Kenyans. – I decided it’s better to do two, and encouraged him to finish a manuscript he had started. That is how Mysterious Mashimbo was born.
Muthoni and CLC team were patient. First she ran a program for them. The iGen program was amazing. Two of my boys attended the program. They were taught many things such as time management, virtues, public speaking, etc. The graduation was a beautiful family event. From this, Victor got the momentum to write, my son Javier is an aspiring artist. There should be another program… for the next levels…
I have enjoyed working with CLC. Together, we have cultivated lots of virtue. I must say CLC is a great editor, they have taken me through various steps, and more to come. My mind is now opening to the writing and publishing world. CLC accepted my son’s raw work when other publishers had turned us away. I thank them greatly, that we are now here…
We thank God!
