Regarding My First Love
I love words. They are some of the most powerful things on earth. They can break a heart, put hope into a heart, mend a broken heart, or give a heart new life, all depending on the way they are used. I’m ecstatic about being a writer. It means that GOD has given me the gift of placing words the right way. I can create a world that no one knew existed just by the way I arrange my words.
This is all still a dream that I’m praying and working very hard to see come into fruition, but the progress that I see lets me know that one day this will all be real. I remember being eleven years old and sitting at my grandparents’ house with nothing to do (my grandmother was always afraid that something was going to happen to us if we went outside) and picking up a composition notebook. I thought to myself, “Since my world is so boring, I’m going to create a world where everything goes the way that I want.” It started off with people that I’d seen, things that I’d heard, boys saying things to girls that [at the time] I’d like to hear them say to me. It developed into an entire book. Soon I had thirteen notebooks filled with stories. It was that summer that I found what I wanted to do with my life.
Of course, I’m not the accomplished author I said I was going to be by the time I turned 21. In fact, I’ll be 27 on the 6th of September and have yet to publish a novel, let alone win my Pulitzer Prize. But when you’re 11 years old, 21 seems like the age where you’ll have it all. There have been a lot of diversions steering me away from the path. For example, something that people would view as a mistake – having children at an early age – cost me my scholarship to Howard University. Instead of going to school for journalism and taking my time doing what I want to do, I’m going to school for nursing in order to do what I have to do. Don’t get me wrong. I want to be a nurse. I love helping people and helping to save lives, but there isn’t a single minute of the day when I’m not thinking about writing. My notebook is glued to my hip. The minute I’m inspired I have to get it on paper. And that is how I know my dream is going to come true.
One thing that I will say has helped me to jumpstart my career is networking. You can’t be shy in this industry. You have to be focused, driven, and you have to show the people who are already established how focused and driven you are. Don’t be afraid to shoot an e-mail to your favorite author and ask him or her how he or she got to where they are today. You never know what opportunity awaits you. This week alone I’ve been blessed to be featured on ‘The Author’s Hideaway’, I’ve performed spoken word in front of the largest audience I’ve ever been exposed to, and I have several other events coming in the near future, all because I wasn’t afraid to network and go after what I want.
To read an excerpt from Consider Your Ways please contact the author at sexyyoungdiva@live.com.
About the Author
Kimani Nelson was born and raised in Syracuse, NY. She has lived there all of her life except her senior year in high school when she graduated from Eau Claire High School in Columbia, South Carolina. Her love of writing was discovered at the age of 9 when she heard Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman. That poem speech inspired her first poem, Oh, and I Wonder Why. This poem was the first of many, two of which received Act-So awards for the Syracuse Chapter- Been Called Nigger (1997) and Negrophobia (1998).
Ms. Nelson wrote her first novel at the age of eleven, entitled Yours, ‘Til The End of Time. It was published by her uncle and distributed to family members, but to this day she is still working on perfecting this first creation for national distribution. Currently she is shopping for a publisher for her first completed manuscript, Consider Your Ways. She is also working on a book of poems entitled Psalms of a Single Woman, which may evolve into a collaboration with other aspiring writers.
Kimani is the divorced mother of two boys. She currently works as a Nursing Assistant and is in college studying to become a Registered Nurse. Her hope for the future is that her books all become bestsellers.
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