Writing 101: Leave your writing (mark) on the wall!

Hi Everyone,

Ok, most of you know me, some of you probably don’t. But it’s never too late to make acquaintances. That said, I have been thinking about doing this for a while now, but have never actually had the time. Guess what? It’s summer, I’m done with college, and I’m willing to do this with whoever is interested. By “this” I mean writing workshops. Yes, writing workshops. A number of people on facebook and off, have mentioned to me that they are interested in writing, but are not really sure about how to go about it. I believe that like everything else, writing can be a fulfilling experience…if you make it your own.

Sure, there are general standards that are recommended like good grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure etc, but at the end of the day, you own your style of writing. That said, if anyone is interested in these writing workshops, just leave a comment below this note or send me an email at jabdulai@gmail.com, with your main email address and we can get to work.

How would this work? Thank God for the virtual world lol. Basically, in the upcoming weeks I’ll try to give some general pointers on how to write, dispel some misconceptions concerning writing (eg. using difficult words makes u a better writer), and share my writing experience. Then once you guys have the basics, you can give writing a go– whatever form you wanna pursue: article writing, poetry, free writing etc. I’ll do my best to look over what you do, edit it, give you CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, and we can do a couple more of those until you feel substantially comfortable with your writing. After that, if there is any particular area of writing you’re interested in, I can help you out (if I already have some knowledge of it) or we can experience it together (if I’ve never encountered it before).

This is gonna be a start up project, so depending on the kind of response I get, we could do this in many ways. Feel free to forward this on to people who might be interested, and if you wanna know the kind of writing I do, check out my other notes, or my blog: http://mysterieuxe.blogspot.com . I hope many of you join me on what I hope will be a great learning experience for all of us :)

Best,
Jemila

Jemila Abdulai

Jemila Abdulai is the creative director, editor and founder of the award-winning website Circumspecte.com. A media and international development professional and economist by training, she combines her business, communications and project management expertise with her strong passion for Africa. Besides writing and reading, she enjoys travel, global cuisine, movies, and good design.