My Book Writing Journey
The saying, it takes a village to raise a child—a proverb that depicts that an entire community of people, and in this case, resources—sums up my book writing journey. As of the last day of April 2025, the book has been edited, ready for the printing and publishing phase.
Yaaay! Celebrating the small milestones!
The following people and resources have been fundamental in being critical of my ideas, in ensuring that I wrote until I felt the content was exactly as I envisioned it to be. I am so grateful because comparing the first draft from the final manuscript has been consistent progress of the work that has greatly improved.
While I included their names in the acknowledgement section of the book, I will briefly state their roles, and how important the roles were to unlock ideas, detail descriptions, develop character, and remember the mood and the ambience of events, to be able to translate into words.
1. Book Coach: My book coach helped me navigate what was important from the get-go. While a lot of my initial writing was from journaling, not all was in the journal made it in the book. It was difficult to part with what I had written but if it wasn’t in the scope, it was out! She also offered accountability and support.
In addition, she helped with revisions and part editing of the most challenging chapters. My absolute favorite is her promptness to respond to my emails. Towards the end of the writing, I especially needed this to counter the non-responsive emails and of course, the rejections that are inevitable in the book making process.
2. First readers: I had a total of seven first readers. First readers help provide feedback and critic your writing to better develop the characters, the descriptions and how other languages (Kikuyu, Swahili, Sheng, Luganda) fit in the manuscript, in readable English. It was from first readers that I was able to clearly distinguish how the British English and American English fundamentally differ. It was challenging at times trying to write with so many languages and variations, plus diverse cultures, in my head. I hope I did the writing justice and will soon be evident when the book is out.
3. Editor: First rule of thumb is that the editor offers suggestions that you can either accept or reject. Trying to convince the editor to counter their suggestion either for or against your perspective is counterproductive. Knowing what you want the reader to understand, especially from a geographical perspective and verbiage was a hard one for me. For example, in Kenya, when my siblings and I visited my grandmother, we would go to the river and fetch water.
An African (not all) would instantly understand and resonate with the verbiage fetching as connotation of retrieving water from a source and bringing it back home for storage or for use. On the contrary, fetching for an American, quickly resonates with the dog running after the ball or a stick that the owner has thrown and bringing it back to the owner. In a nutshell, the editor stated:
“You know how to tell a story and convey wisdom in a lasting way.”
4. Family members and friends: From countless interviews, suggestions and a lot of questions, I was able to capture some memories that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Watching a lot of family videos, even converting VHS to DVD, was such a big help. Shout out especially to my parents, siblings, aunty, uncle, cousins and to my husband!
5. Documentaries, books, websites and movies: All these resources helped me understand the historical concepts that were key in telling my story. History gave a clear picture of what worked in the past and how it has evolved over time, so we understand how it came to work the way it is currently. This was a bitter pill to swallow especially the research on colonization, slavery and female circumcision.
When it got overwhelming, I read fun or practical books that acted as “distraction” to build momentum to soldier on. I especially love books for dummies- I was amazed that Christian Prayer for Dummies is an existing book!
6. Food and Music: This was fun and exciting! I reconnected with eating Weetabix, the taste and the consistency reminded me of my childhood, elementary/primary school years and I was able to recall events and write them down. Music worked like magic! For example, to remember Jumuiya—small Christian community—event as a child, the Swahili song, Zaeni Matunda Mema—Go forth reap good fruit —was very vivid. The song Unbwogabble—unbeatable— that was played during the Kenyan political campaigns in 2002 when President elect Mwai Kibaki won, brought forth the euphoric and triumphant feeling that I expressed on the page. Shania Twain’s song, From This Moment On, as the song I walked down the aisle to on my wedding day was so refreshing and exciting!
Finally,
7. People of the internet/social media: On 28 Sept 2023, I posted that I was writing a book. I received overwhelming support and encouragement, others asking to post the link to buy the book while I was still writing. At that point, I was seventy percent done and oh my, have I learned that thirty percent takes time! I am grateful that if you are reading this, you are a part of this journey, and it has been an eye-opening, soul-searching and therapeutic experience.
