DNA

1 Most Important Writing Principle Ever

“The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produce...

7 Idea Sources For When Inspiration Runs Out

From the writing perspective: Read a lot. That builds the story imagination. I guess when this is applied to other disciplines, e.g. ...

A Brief Chronology of our Marketing Efforts for Hear Me Move

JUNE 2013 – DECEMBER 2014 JUNE 2013 Fidel — ·      At this stage, the money hadn’t yet come in. We were waiting for the IDC to get bac...

Anatomy of the Premise Line

Picture this: You’re pitching your story to a producer or a network executive. You’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of month...

Bad Wiring

Our souls are like a house whose wiring is messed up. So appliances burn and fuses blow up and things short circuit all the time. God is ...

Brutal Legacy by Tracy Going - Book Review

I normally read books quite quickly, but this one took me a long while to get through. I had to take frequent breaks, because Iswung bet...

Closing down the schools

by Giovanni Papini (1881-1956) 1st June 1914 Beware of large building where hundreds of men gather or are therein locked up. Prisons, C...

Decision Making and Prudence

Do you find yourself stuck whenever the moment to take an important decision arrives? We are constantly faced with decision making moment...

Desolate Wasteland

Consolations come and go, and so do desolations. They are like successive tides in the ocean. It’s like consolations build convictions ...

Don't Be Whoever You Want To Be

Rather than being whoever you want to be, be whoever God wants you to be. That latter is far superior.

Envy

The next time you find yourself envying someone who seems more successful than you are, consider this. When people worship you, and elev...

Exercising 36 Days Straight

Some time ago, I read a book about the craft of writing. But it was less to do with the actual mechanics of writing and more with the li...

Faith Is A Diamond

Faith is like a tiny diamond. Only in heaven will it be set in the endless circling band of eternity. But here on earth, it is a loose st...

Freedom, Cars and Motorways

Obviously, my daughters and sons, there are certain limits to our behaviour, because we are children of God; while at the same time we fe...

Getting My Attention Back

GETTING MY ATTENTION BACK by Fred Nam (1258 words) There I was. All alone in my room. Finally. After hours and hours of trying to get ...

Girl? What girl?

What change is to time, abundance is to space. And since God is in the now, He's more likely to be found in the abundance of space around...

God created you for heaven, and He created heaven for you. He wants you in heaven more than you yourself do, believe it or not.

God created you for heaven, and He created heaven for you. He wants you in heaven more than you yourself do, believe it or not. References

God writes with His eyes closed

When I look at nature, I realize that God writes with His eyes closed and His hands tied behind His back. And He's just a little crazy al...

How To Avoid Analysis Paralysis When Writing

Do you sometimes find yourself, overwhelmed with all the tools and approaches that can be used when coming up, or brainstorming or writin...

Humility Hurts

The more serious a physical therapy illness is, the more painful the treatment it involves. When we have the indigestion, the small disco...

I Need To Spend More Time In Nature

I need to spend way more time sitting looking at nature. Looking at God showing off His skill as the writer-of-being.

If we pray for more faith, hope and love

If we pray for more faith, hope and love, everything else: hunger, disease, war, suffering - yes, and even death itself; all find their p...

Is Harry Potter Evil?

Question: Is Harry Potter evil? Objection 1: It would seem that Harry Potter is evil. This is because the books portray several depicti...

Lwanda Magere by Okoiti Omtatah - Book Review

"When death sings a mans praises,
 Nothing can stop him from dancing." The line is from the stageplay "Lwanda Magere" by Okoiti Omtata...

No Match For It Is To Be Found

This poem was inspired by Liv Taylor's portrayal of Arwen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson. No match for it is to b...

On NFTs

Where NFTs are concerned, I’ve become rather cautious. Let me explain. I feel that people who are either not artists or who have allowed...

On Overthinking

The next time someone tells me that I am overthinking things - usually in response to my views on Google's bid for global information dom...

On Risking It All On God

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. HENRY...

Worry & Discouragement

"The biggest enemies of creativity are worry and discouragement." To combat worry:  Avoid thinking of the future and remain in the pres...

Our Souls Are Like Shoes

Two flatmates and good friends both landed job interviews at the same firm in the middle of the city they lived in. They decided to share...

Pain is God's Megaphone

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, He speaks to us in our conscience and he shouts to us in our pain." C.S. Lewis References

Pick it up and read!

This is the verse that St. Augustine read when he heard a voice telling him to pick up the Bible and read, thus triggering his definitive...

Ride the Feeling

I Didn’t Learn Much In High School  The only book I kept from my years in high school was my notebook from a subject called Ethics. It w...

Save The Cat Beatsheet

Picture this: you’re hard at work outlining your feature film script or series pilot. You have probably figured out the beginning and hav...

Short film script lwanda magere

FADE UP: A yellowing, worn 16th century map of East Africa, supported by a foreboding score and sounds of spears, shields and brawn in b...

Silence - A Poem

Peacefulness, A sea of calmness Washing waves of placid beauty, Of silence, Over a mind, In need of cleansing. A beauty Beyond words, Is...

Spiritual Guidance And The Referee

Many people say priests cannot advise about married life because they've never been married. For a referee to officiate s game effectivel...

Step Into The Real

One of the greatest abilities one can develop in life is learning how to embrace, accept and appreciate reality. Then one discovers what ...

Strategies and Stories

Are you still unsure what shape a strategy should take? Are you not clear about what to put in or take out? People say that your goals sh...

The Black Hole and the Comet

Deep in space, a little star revolved around a bigger star. Both dazzled the other stars as they stayed not too close but not too far awa...

The Children of God

Once a new church was being built. One of its great features was to be a stained glass window. The committee in charge searched for a sub...

The Dung Beetle and the Wildebeest

A dung beetle came across an old, hoary wildebeest, weeping and wailing all by itself in the savannah one day.  “Why are you weeping?”  ...

The Fallen Cypress

A tall, stately cypress tree had lived for many years, but was very unhappy with its life. It felt that death was near, and it looked for...

The Girl Who Refused To Undress

In a little village in the middle of the savannah, there lived a young girl who was fearful and shy. She had a few good friends, and she ...

The Heart to Heart Conversation

Now that I am in my thirties, the number of former schoolmates who are getting divorced has taken a sharp uptick. Every single story of h...

The Key

He waited. He could hear the laboured breathing, punctuated by the occasional deep sigh, coming from the other side of the door. Not lon...

The Lost Keys

 There was once a mother who blamed her two little girls for everything that went wrong around the house. Whenever something got broken, ...

The Not Doing List

HOW SETTING BOUNDARIES SETS YOU FREE by Fred Nam (900 words) Steve Jobs was well known for his decisiveness.  When he got his second s...

The Palm Tree and the Oak

A tall, elegant palm tree turned to the gnarled, twisted oak growing beside it in a mangrove swamp.  "Look at you…you are old, twisted a...

The Perfectionism Trap

Hello. These are notes I took at THE workshop on perfectionism which happened yesterday, 16 February 2019.  THE PERFECTIONISM TRIP If...

The Premise Line

Picture this: You’re pitching your story to a producer or a network executive. You’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of month...

The Problem With Books On The Craft Of Writing

They analyze the product, not the process. Writing is about a process. The reason it's hard to analyze the process is because the mind i...

The Redwood and the Lumberjack

 In the middle of a large forest, a proud redwood towered to the skies and looked down on all the other trees. No one had ever been able ...

The River and the Banks

One day, a river said to its banks, "I am powerful and swift. I want to do great things, but you are holding me back. You are old. You ne...

The Sailor and the Storm

A lone sailor found himself caught in a terrible storm. He called out to his gods for help. After several more days of storm tossed seas,...

The Two Process Themes

It's like there are two themes in a story. The springboard theme. This gets you going at the beginning. The deep dive theme. This is...

The Worst Writing Advice Ever

Grow a thick skin! This is the worst writing advice ever, and is a strong contender for the worst life advice ever also. Why? Because ...

Three Brainstorming Techniques To Smash Through Creative Blocks

Are you overwhelmed by all the tools and approaches that can be used when brainstorming and structuring stories? The Hero’s Journey, Save...

Throwback - Writing Hear Me Move

I want to do a throwback to my experience writing the screenplay for the dance film “Hear Me Move.” I finished the first draft in July 2...

Whither Education by Silvano Borruso

RECOVERING EDUCATION Taken at face value, the title of this essay means that education has been lost. The loss is by no means obvious. I...

Who cares?

Self 1: Who cares? Self 2: God cares. Self 1: But I don't see Him. Self 2: I don't see my heart either.

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

By Fulton Sheen "Look into your own heart. I've looked into mine. I've had a great deal of suffering in the eighty-three years of my lif...

Why God Hides Himself

There was once a handsome young billionaire who was seeking a wife. The problem was that all the women who pursued him wanted him for his...

Why I Write

I write because God writes, and I play because God plays.

Why Older People Are Holier

The mind and body are a lot like a machine. At first, the machine runs pretty okay and doesn't have any breakdowns. But with time, the pa...

Why is it that married men always have this exhausted look in their eyes

Why is it that married men always have this exhausted look in their eyes? I have seen this happening to many of my friends. Before they ...

Writing journal june 2018

I tried to keep a writing journal of sorts as I was writing the very first draft of Man of Stone and Shadow in June - July 2018. Tuesday...

You Probably Eat More Than You Need

According to a report that the World Health Organization published some years ago, South Africa leads the ranking in the most obese count...