Johannes Mabapa Foundation

Johannes Mabapa Foundation A rare repository of literary advice for writers with big dreams. BOOKS ARE INEXPLICABLY BEAUTIFUL! 1. Values: Integrity and honest interpersonal relations. 2.

Mission: To identify struggling up-and-coming authors who are not considered in the mainstream field of creative arts, and to encourage such other arts as sport, etc. 3. Vision: To build the youth into a powerfully responsible nation that the world can look up to as capable leaders.

Writing✍️:Once you embark on a journey of literary needlework, you should be urged to deliver at all costs. You sew with...
25/07/2026

Writing✍️:

Once you embark on a journey of literary needlework, you should be urged to deliver at all costs. You sew with words. You give them the cutting edge through creativity. You realise that your sentences are structured with words that adopt and maintain a strong relationship through connotation as the sewing thread. If you fear that tenses may take tens in their number to the degree of confusing yourself as a writer in a normal atmosphere, you limit your approach. The storyline does not deserve to be weakened by writing elements of your limited understanding.

More importantly, the wheel of your passionate learning turns steadily as you write. It is the rule. Throw words and marvel at the diverse nuances as they dance in the ballroom of your creative passion. Why? Because writing is not dumping words. It is art. Suppose someone’s painting on a wall were a powerful mosquito repellent, and you were the proud mosquito itself.

Certain words when literarily combined together have now commonly been judged as dead and monotonous in their appeal. As a passionate author with an audaciously creative mind, you can sn**ch them from the dull kingdom of the dead. It is your duty. Curiosity might have indeed killed the cat, but as regards how some authors have got a magic wand in terms of their writings it has never killed the elephant and the extinct mammoth. A curious mind is a fire that hardly dies out.

There is already a myriad of the products of literary needlework out there. Books that you could wish you had the time in its eternity to devour to your pleasure. To climb to this mountaintop, you must pull up your socks. You must be a beaver regarding your craft.

This is a palace of majestically heart-penned stories. “The Direction Of The Sun,” “This Man,” “Heaven And Earth,” “Ruth...
21/07/2026

This is a palace of majestically heart-penned stories.

“The Direction Of The Sun,” “This Man,” “Heaven And Earth,” “Ruthless Ruth,” “Dogs,” “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” “The Foreigner,” and many others.

©️ Johannes Mabapa🇿🇦.

18/06/2026

Books

I have read a number of books. I judge a book not by its cover nor do I rate it low by the degree of its author’s learnedness. When I read a book, the first thing I do is to appreciate the effort invested in it. Some authors are mere storytellers, and by “mere” I don’t mean that they are mediocre doctors as regards the little literary profession. I mean that there are authors who l have been gifted the power of weaving mind-blowing plots, even if their grammar is still dragging its feet. Even if they still struggle as regards the treasure of the tenses in their proper application, their stories have an irresistible cutting edge. They simply tell their stories.

To encourage them to grow, I should first appreciate their capability to tell their stories. Because many others have a very impressive command of English without any capacity to write stories that provoke thoughts. They can read. They can even review or edit, but they cannot write in a compelling rhythm.

A well-penned story is not necessarily that which has won the whole world’s hearts. Even a very bad one can. There are many stories devoured merely for sense they do not make at all, sparking a raging inferno of debate. On the other hand, there are audaciously well-presented narratives that taste like stale food to those with bad taste-buds for them. Not every book can be read by anyone.

Before you judge a book, first put your judgement under close scrutiny. You might be a blind one yourself not capable of sound or constructive judgement.

Dear author✍️:What is your main goal as an author? To fish support from as many readers as possible? To make money? Or ...
07/06/2026

Dear author✍️:

What is your main goal as an author? To fish support from as many readers as possible? To make money? Or are you writing just to swim in the river of fun?

Whatever the reason it is that puts you on a writing edge, it cannot be dismissed as bad. You should, however, envisage what the goal will look like when achieved; that is, if it will present itself with a scope of your satisfaction. My advice is always that you should arm yourself with reading books that matter regarding storytelling. Authors must not read just like everyone else. Your approach must be analytically critical. A fire of curiosity must burn in you as regards the syntactic structure of a book you would be reading. You should be aware (learn) that elements like tense consistency must never be regarded as style but a rule. We do not choose to take water during the course of our life. It is by the law of obligation.

As you pen the beautiful story, learning will open your mind to the direction you should follow. In the end, whether you write to cultivate pleasure or attract a shoal of the fish of readers or any other reason, how you write will accompany you along the journey. Learning must be treated as mandatory for an author who bears in mind that winning just one reader’s heart and keep him or her mesmerized equals is the best he or she should appreciate. Write to let your book belong by its appeal to the shelf. This sense of belonging is rare. It is naturally a high price to pay. The price is study. The price is asking questions if you do not understand. The price is appreciating that not doing it at first attempt is not a reason to throw in the towel but to turn the mistakes as what you should take as a bigger, sweeter piece of the literary cake by giving yourself a second chance. Give your vision the cutting edge.

It can never come to you if it is not by you. Never give up❤️.

Pic credit: Arsenal FC.

22/05/2026

Suppose being a good writer✍️ had to look like a bus, for instance:

You need not write merely because your pen must spit ink. A head with a load of ideas is not a reason one must write either. To write should be considered as a unique voice of conveying a message—which had the same right to be spoken in ordinary terms—to the ear in the form of the mind. As a result, writing commands as sense of a strategy as a method. That’s where rules come in, including the degree to which they ought to be inevitably breakable—but when a need unequivocally commands.

The bus🚌

Are you familiar with the common vehicular structure of a bus? You don’t build a bus by rushing to pour fuel (diesel) in its tank. When we look at a complete(d) bus, we don’t see or smell the diesel. The mechanical structure makes it what it is. In terms of writing, this is about rules like punctuation, tense balance, consistency, etc. We can’t flout the laws of grammar and expect to give the world a book.

The bus’ fuel⛽

Writing rules are not enough, but they are an indispensable foundation of writing. They aren’t the cherry on top but the cake itself. Elements such as “show, don’t tell,” mind-blowing writing-about topics that take breaths of audiences away, and other rich fibres and proteins of style, represent the fuel, because in the end the bus must be a moving asset. In fact, it has been assembled to move.

Most writers rush to the fuel, forgetting that it must never be poured into a tank with holes. Good books, needless to say, make it to the shelves. Marketing doesn’t push or pull them to the shelves but accompanies them along the journey because they do already have an inherent capacity to go and belong there.

Every raining season, a lot of rainfall ends up in the sea as superfluous (redundant) water. Most books follow suit likewise. Not because they are actually bad but because they have been denied a favour or right to edge a little convincingly enough above average.

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