Growing…

To live is to grow, when we stop growing, we stop living.

Some one once asked what inspires me to write, and I told this amiable fellow, ‘life inspires me to write and when I write, I grow, I keep learning everyday!’

Life is full of mysteries and wonder, that is why writers would always have inspirations to write. I read everyday and I write everyday! Our lives would be mundane if it’s static. When asked as an old man why he still practiced six to eight hours a day, one of the world’s best violinists replied, ‘Because I think I’m getting better!’ And I think that’s the attitude we need to cultivate, the desire to be the best in whatever we do.

When I read some of my earlier works, I laugh, because I saw through my mistakes, and I quickly improve on it. I am not the same writer I was yesterday, because today, I learnt how to write better. Life is progressive, death is static. If we don’t want to learn, what the hell are we living for then?

Growing takes time… we spend our whole life growing.

When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an old man, an admirer asked him how he was able to write so beautifully. Pointing to a nearby apple tree, he replied, ‘that tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms. The tree grows a very little new wood every year, and out of that new wood those blossoms come. So I try to grow a little each year.’

What a decent man! I want to be more like Longfellow, grow like a tree, throughout my lifetime.

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend, and as we head into a new week, I hope you will have the courage and patience to learn new things, to grow like an oak and impact your world!

If any of you, my friends, recently bought one of my books, do leave a review at Amazon, or if you haven’t, do support a writer who loves the written word and click on my sidebar. ‘Tales Of Five Lies’ is less is than a dollar or a pound, ‘The Feet Of Darkness,’ is also available worldwide, online and in bookshops… My upcoming supernatural thriller, ‘Cydonia Rise of the fallen,’ will be released before Christmas.

It’s a pleasure being your friend and I value every one of you dearly. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a beautiful week!

Much love, always!

🙂

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jun4

‘What in heaven’s name are you screaming about?’

My dad asked harshly, his eyes going a shade darker, turning blue, then white and finally yellow.

Is my father an enemy? I thought sadly as my insides itched with desperation. I’m consumed with grief, and my days were at an end. I called to Hades but he refused my plea for death.

‘Can’t help you young lady, I am under strict instruction to let you be,’ he said with a certain amount of pity. First time I’d seen him shown any feelings for me. You see, I had to work with him, since I’ve realised how important, he was to my job.

I bet you don’t know what I’m rambling about but I guess you’ll have to wait a while for Seyi Sandra to tell my story, but I do need help, I don’t want to stay hidden forever…

Seyi Sandra is playing with my fate, say, can you help?

**************************************************

Hey dear friends, how are you? I’m terribly busy and out of the blues, I remembered ‘TIME’ the story I whipped up ages ago about a nineteen year old girl fighting against an invisible enemy. Now, I’m at a cross road, I’ve got the gut feeling to self-publish ‘TIME’ as a short story but ArrowGate (my publisher) is interested in publishing it as a full length novel, (I’m gonna write it first, I’ve written a couple of thousand words now) and not a short story. I have another novel coming out in a couple of months. What should I do?

Here’s a recap of the first draft of the story here: https://seyisandradavid.org/2012/11/21/time/

By the way, I own the rights to that IMAGE and I did the cover myself while playing around with Photoshop.

What think ye?

Much love, always!

Your friend,

Seyi Sandra David. 🙂

Are Writers Seers Or Plain Old Liars?

May30

It’s strange really, but I do tend to write stories that has a poignantly close resemblance to reality. When I wrote ‘The Feet Of Darkness,’ I wasn’t setting out to save the world but just believed that love can truly work its magic on a vengeful heart. But how some events has played recently, got me thinking – some people would not respond, even if you heap a universe load of love on them.

Someone once called me a liar, in his words,

‘Writers believed they have a complete knowledge of the human psyche, how people behave, what they might do, how they might react, but writers are plain old liars.’

I asked him to expatiate but he scoffed and left me staring hard at his retreating back. I didn’t know what to make of his assertion and I didn’t bother to try. Two days later, I was having my lunch break when my friend wobbled to my side and snatched my sandwich, I was furious.

‘Hey,’ I yelled, ‘bring that back!’

Nope,’ he refused, daring me to charge after him, after weighing my options, I declined and watched open-mouthed as he gobbled it down, belched, and patted his stomach, then left.

When I got home, I wrote a very good story, based on my experience, I didn’t tell my friend that he was the source of my inspiration but his behaviour helped my creative quest. I simply conjure up a character that bore a close resemblance to him. Now, did I lie? No! Spice it up a bit? Oh, I sure did.

My upcoming novel, Cydonia, Rise Of The Fallen was written about four years ago. I just dumped it in my library when I couldn’t get a publisher. That’s all ancient history now, but the events in that book was played out in the Vatican a few months ago. And believe me, I was shocked. When People read ‘Cydonia,’ I’m sure there would be lots of comments about the story line and plot.

In my opinion, I don’t think writers are liars, we just write from deep within, our writings may be significant, or not, but we can’t seem to do any thing else. It’s my pleasure writing this post.

Thanks for reading.

Much love, always!

🙂 🙂

The Life Of A Writer!

Feb25

My first novel, ‘The Impossible President,’ was published by Regency publisher in Nigeria, I invited the wife of the former Vice President then, Mrs Titi Atiku, and some governors’ wives and they came. It was a very big book launch and I made some cool money, sales was good, I sold out of my first print run! However, that was in Nigeria. When I decided to finally call the UK home, I got pregnant with my second child… she gently slipped into the world with no fuss, she is a quiet pleasant girl.

My daughter gave no fuss which gave me ample time to hone my craft, so I began work on the ‘The Feet Of Darkness’ and got in contact with Author House to see what they’ll do to help. I had a nasty experience with them! I wasn’t the only author, I think there were others like me who were fleeced off their hard-earned cash and hung to dry. Author House agreed to publish the novel and despite the fact that it was a first draft, unedited, they rushed me to complete it, they promised it would be edited! It was part of my publishing package. I did and sent it off and when the novel came out, I wasn’t happy with the result and I blamed myself for my gullibility. Things moved on rapidly and I licked my wounds to concentrate on something else but the novel stayed on my mind.

Two years later, I finished work on another novel, ‘Cydonia, Rise Of the Fallen’ (Arrow Gate would release it by summer) but ‘The Feet Of Darkness,’ sat comfortably on my shelf! Finally, I decided to re-edit and sent it off to various publishers before Arrow Gate snapped it up.

Good news? Yes, you can imagine my dismay when Amazon now placed it beside the kindle edition and the problem is, I don’t like the first edition, if I had my way I would remove it from amazon, I tried to but Author House claimed they can’t help me. To make things worse, I don’t get a dime when they sell the first edition of the paperback, the money probably goes to Author House (I’d cancelled my contract with Author House by the way)

This was the cover of the first edition, though it looked okay but mistakes abound in it! Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest, I can’t wait for the new paperback edition…

Much love friends!

🙂

Faith Of The Writer And Other Stories.

Nov19

Faith Happens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing is serious business (or any other career for that matter) you write because you believed you have something unique to share to the world and it’s a very risky business indeed to labour, work tirelessly with little breaks churning out your literary best and not have faith in yourself.

Blogging is the same but slightly different. You can blog with only your close friends or family members as your audience and you might not give a hoot about having few or no followers perusing your page. Why? Because you’ve got nothing to lose.

But If writing is your business, your life and everything you live for then you are in big trouble if you don’t have faith, in yourself and in your prospective readers.

What do I mean by faith? It means to have confidence in your ability to carry your readers along, to write what they want to read and believe me that is hard work. Faith and vision are two separate things, your vision is your idea of what you perceived is right, it’s like a revelation, while faith is the confidence you have to even believe in your idea in the first place but the most important thing is to believe in yourself and mark my words, you will always find people who believe in your work too!

*******

Now, why not forget what I have just said about writing and just pick faith. Do you have faith in yourself and people around you? Or are you the kind of person who doesn’t trust easily?

I was that kind of person before (not anymore!) My motto was ”guilty until proven innocent” I guess because I have been repeatedly lied to by people I really trust (especially female friends) and I just don’t believe a word people tell me anymore.

But as time goes on, I kind of had a change of heart. I don’t deal with the situation at hand, I deal with the person. I don’t need to have faith in someone before I love them, I just do! Regardless of what they might say or do, it doesn’t really matter. What is really important is, I don’t give myself headaches whether my friend is lying or telling the truth.

Succinctly put, my new motto is, ”Innocent until proven guilty”

What about you? What is your motto? Do you trust easily?, Do you have faith in yourself and people around you?

Share your thoughts and stories with me…