Refresher courses

Ovie Redondo was in the board of many companies, and member of many organizations. Most of them state base, some village base. He was one of those creatures that are neither here nor there as far as education is concern.

He was short, rotund, hair that are receding both from middle and front, he weighs about 70kg. He is currently the director of ever lotus bottled water.

He had his office in the same compound with the factory, his office occupied about two 6 by 11 rooms, the office was decorated according the instruction he found in a magazine, with mahogany furnitures. What he does in that big office, no one has ever asked or cares to know.

He believes that a man that does things when his age mates were doing them, and if he happened to be doing it well and achieving things without breaking so much sweat, must be blessed by God. As far as he is concerned, blessing was ability to come out of confusion and only the blessed were granted such ability. He refused to be intimidated by the so called educated class, he continued to argue that if those over hyped class were all that educated, how come they are not where he was financially.

Last week, he was surprised to read in the papers that 80 percent of the national assembly don’t know what a nautical mile means and 90 percent of those in maritime committee of the assembly don’t know what nautical mile means. He contemplated going into politics but decided against that.

He concluded that anyone that lies down with dogs were bound to get rabies. He could not understand those law makers claiming that they don’t have time for themselves, what are they doing with their time?, He concluded that they must be those types that were always busy, doing nothing. One was referring to solstice as eclipse in front of the camera a month ago.

He took stock of the past and present politicians and novelist in the country and realized that even though the politicians has more money and influence that moment they were in office, author's legacy and name last far more than the politicians. He decided that he must leave legacy in form of novel behind before leaving this earth. “What will I write about?” He asked himself. It took him almost a week to decide on what to write on, even at that, he was still not certain. He suddenly found out that all the topics he relatively had knowledge of were local issues, he searched his memory for any international event he has knowledge of, and found none. It is usually here and there knowledge, he became surprised, wondering if anything was wrong with his assessment of things and people. How can he leave legacy with a novel that he is not sure will sell up to twenty copies. 

Even though he was not after money through the novel he was planning to write, he tends to make name, inevitably, both go hand in hand. He decided to read wide, and enter fully into the writing world to know all they knew and what is required of him as a writer. He did English Literature during his Junior Secondary School years, he was not sure if he still remembered anything taught then, he wants to start refresher courses from scratch. He went to the writing school in his city and was asked to register for three months course since he claimed to be after refresher courses.

“So, you has all the basic knowledge of writing as you said?”

“Some”

“Some? Which and which, and which source do you acquire them from?”

“Oh, I picked them here and there years back”,

“have you written any book before?”

“No, I’m just starting”.

“Oh, you have started already?, on what are you writing?”

“No, I am setting the stage first”

“Oh, here, we will give you all you need to know and on how to utilize them for your maximum benefits”.

"Thanks"

“So, how many hours were you planning to invest each day to your writing”

"About one and half hours"

“Shea, it is enough time, with that, you will finish your work in a month”.

“In a month?”

“Sure, just follow our guideline, you will be able to write about fifty thousand words in a month”

“Can anyone do that?”

“Sure, it is done all the time, that is reason most people can write up to three hundred books in their career”.

Redondo was mulling this information over in his mind, his enthusiasm rising and fresh zeal seizing hold of him, he was jecked back to reality by the instructor’s voice.

“Ah, you said something?”

‘Yea, I was saying that our packages for the three months will cost 120,000 naira, visual aids not included”.

“120,000!, is it not too expensive?”

“Other schools charge 400,000 without any tangible take away for the students”.

“I only need refresher courses”.

“That was reason it was so, had it been you registered for comprehensive course, it would have been 500,000 for 10 months”.

“These authors I read their books, do they pay this huge?, How do they recoup the money?”

“I wouldn’t know who you read their works, but who is who in this sector has all these knowledge in them. It is one way route, no short cuts”.

After more indirect bargaining, Mr. Redondo was prevailed upon, he paid for the course and was ready to go.

For the next three months, it became clearer and clearer to the instructors that Mr. Redondo needed comprehensive course but he insisted on three months course. While on the course, he immersed himself totally on his spare time on sourcing the net and gathering informations for his book. When at the end of the course, he decided to dedicate his time fully on developing informations already in his possessions, he found out that the output of his bottled water company had dwindled, he contemplated whether to handover the running of the firm to his dupty director, his wife advised against that. He was forcing himself to maintain his equilibrium, trying to find middle ground among his company, his book and family life.

He was wondering if other writer go through the same stress he was passing through, maybe, there was something those people knew that he don’t know. He went through the first five pages of his draft, he was surprised to find about fifty percent mistake in them and all the mistakes were exactly what he was advised to guard against during the course. He started questioning his own ability and stability. Six months later, December 15, he was seriously struggling to meet deadline he set for himself to meet 50 thousand words mark by December 31st. At times, he will unconsciously became a panser, most of the time, he will stick to his outline. He was so stressed out that his wife who had been angrily with him for months for neglecting his duty both at the factory and home decided that her husband is not the enemy but the book.

So, she decided to tackle the enemy that is threatening to disorganize her family.

For the remaining sixteen days, she was contributing ideas and encouragement and suggested that the husband isolate himself from 26th December the Boxing Day, and boxed the book to submission. Visitor’s room was set aside by the wife for the purpose and Mr. Redondo who had swallowed his pride months back accepted the suggestion without hassles.

On 31st December, time 9:15pm, Mr. Redondo who had been inside his visitor’s room since morning took his hands off the keyboard. Words: 54,128,

Staggered out of his visitor’s room to his parlour, smiling to himself in maniacal manner, murmuring “some people, some people, some people”.

His wife who had been observing him from the stairs came down silently, entered into the visitor’s room and went through all he wrote, after reading last four pages, she smiled to herself for she noticed easily that in the contest, the words won. She came out, wished her husband happy and prosperous new year in advance. Thanked God of words for remolding her husband into new and better creature.