From Grange Hill to Georgia

When I started writing, it was a hobby.

It was therapy.

I feel misunderstood.

I was teased and sometimes treated badly by people because where I am from, if you are smart, then you are seen as a threat.

It means you have ‘something’ that can take you out of the ghetto.

Out of jealousy, people automatically don’t like you because you show up their inadequacies.

We call it “badmind” in my culture.

It’s a treacherous culture because the very thing someone hates you for, is the very thing they want for themselves.

But writing saved me.

I put all my thoughts and rantings on paper.

I almost gave up because I wasn’t making any money.

I walked the streets of Westmoreland selling my books.

People took it from me, flipped it over and gave it back to me.

Sometimes I could hear them laughing in my mind.

Back then I had a brother printer, a long arm stapler and there was a printery beside me.

Swaby’s printery and Mrs Swaby and her sister would allow me to use their guillotine to cut my books.

There was a guy who did most of the manual jobs there, Kevin, yes, Kevin and Kerryann helped me a lot in my start up.

They were my first outsource printers.

Then I stopped printing and sought employment in corporate Jamaica. I did short stints with Sandals and working at a Call Center, back then I think it was NARS or something like that over by the Cazomour Freezone in Montego Bay.

I took out a computer at Courts Jamaica Limited on hire purchase.

I always believed that we could make money online.

I tried again.

I started blogging with Triond and had some viral articles that even ended up on BET.com for my views on black men.

I have had back to back number one or top selling ebooks on kindle for the Caribbean and Latin American category.

Now from Grange Hill to Georgia is basically the story to trial and errors.

Just last year I decided that I was going to print books for others and for myself.

Not working out well because one.

I don’t have the time to do it.

Two I’ve blown up in my other business.

I ended up focusing more on the business center and contracts than on my personal gigs.

I only have one regret.

It’s that I didn’t foresee my current business module getting this big.

If I had, I would not have gone into printing.

But I have not given up on the printing.

I have paused that venture to focus on building this ever expanding empire.

I think you have to keep your eyes on your goals.

Don’t get distracted.

By people.

By failures.

By disappointments.

By life overall, as a single parent. I have to be super focus with small children.

I have never understood why professional women put off having children or don’t have children. Until I have to juggle mother hood and a career and it’s harder when you don’t have help.

Kudos to the women out there doing their thing.

I empathize with you.

From Grange Hill to Georgia is your story.

It’s my story.

It’s a rhetoric of phoenix like proportions.

My advice is, keep going, no matter what.

What happens,

What you hear,

What they say?

What didn’t work?

Their expectations,

Disappointments,

Heartache,

Poverty,

Infamy,

Threats,

Childhood trauma,

Psychological warfare.

Don’t give you. No matter what.

Only you can do it. Only you can stop you.

You are the only one with the way, you are the only one standing in your way.