On doing the write thing

There’s a Social Media Summit taking place in Kampala next month; the people behind it asked me to write something on why I blog. Also, there’s been an ongoing challenge this week, the UG bloggers challenge, to write something every day for 7 days. This is me hitting two roaches with one stone. Why I write….

I fell in love with words when I was in diapers-my mum testifies to how my first word was ambiguous. Mama and papa came later. My growth in expression hit a stalemate when I discovered “feed me”. That’s all I said for a while. That’s till one day, there I was, crying my voice hoarse because a piece of cassava I was eating had fallen and the 3-seconds to pick it up had elapsed. In my misery, I crawled upon a pencil and a paper.

Ok, for real, I enjoyed reading quite early. Peter and Jane, Mills and Boon {in Primary school, only one book, truth}, Hardy Boys, Animorphs.

To try and craft my own stories, I took to writing just as early. I did it through school and in S.6 vacation, in response to something I’d read, I tried to write something every day. At the time, I shared the stories with a buddy of mine. He offered as much criticism as one can give to a former rugby player. You know how rugby players, what with visible veins on their foreheads, aren’t an easy bunch to criticize.

Buoyed by that (positive) feedback and this attractive lady who was doing it, I started blogging. The things we do for beautiful ladies. (Can I get an “I know bro, I know!”?)

That was 8 years ago. Back then, we met every month for a Bloggers Happy Hour (BHH). We were an alive, engaged, fun community. Some of my closest buddies today are from those gifted people because you know, if I stick around them long enough, it’ll rub off. S.t.i.l.l….w.a.i.t.i.n.g…..

With 4 of these buddies, we started a humor and satire website, urbanlegendkampala.com. It’s a fun place. Through it, I was approached by The Sunday Monitor which, 3 years on, I still write for.

I feel my voice has grown steadier over the years. More discipline has also kicked in along the way. Today, I blog mainly for two reasons.

1. As a writer, I have things to say about the things going on around us. Corruption, service delivery, governance, dust, potholes, attitudes, silver linings, hope.
2. I’m a developer. Writing code does present challenges every day; many times, overcoming some of these issues isn’t well documented. I share what I believe are well-documented solutions, hopefully to help someone get over similar hurdles faster. I also share a few things on programming in general-where to start, how to grow, etc as I learn some of this stuff myself