Oswald
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Allow me to introduce myself

Allow me to introduce myself

Dec 25, 2020

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 

  • Maya Angelou

It’s a great quote, but I can confidently say, I have never in my life read a word of anything she wrote. Does that make me a bad writer? Who cares? I don’t.

Who am I?

No one important. Yet! My name Is Oswald Kotzé and I’m a South African living in Dubai. I moved here about a year ago to start a new job at a hotel. Coming here I already had an idea in mind, and I knew for sure I  wouldn’t be working in hotels forever. Because who wants to do that? You? You, the reader? That’s okay, I don’t judge you. It’s just not for me.

Back home in sunny (flippen dangerous) South Africa, I studied Drama, with dreams of becoming an actor and writer, and my dream came true. I was a struggling actor and writer. Or as I like to call it, a bartender. And I’ve been a bartender for way too long and at the same time I've always tried breaking into the entertainment industry in some way. At some point in my life I decided to give up the acting thing for a bit because standing in lines waiting to audition for some cheap commercial of an even cheaper fabric softener doesn't pay the bills and sunblock is expensive and waiting sucks and blah blah blah theres too many reasons to mention. But I guess the biggest reason was that I realised I’d much rather want to be a writer anyway. I get to sit literally anywhere and just write, instead of making small talk with other actors about how well I prepared or how flipped expensive sunblock is. (This sunblock is really an issue)

 The only thing that kept me in South Africa until a year ago was my family and friends, braai’s (BBQ’s or whatever), cheap beer and of course our previous President, Jacob Zuma(he’s my favourite comedian). So, here I am in Dubai.


What would I even write?

Well I like movies. I like television shows. That cant be too hard to write, right? Wrong! Its fucking hard and I have a great deal of respect for people that do this everyday and actually come up with great ideas.

So I got a few brilliant ideas, but as soon as I tried writing them onto paper it sounded terrible and I trashed them. This happened to a truckload of ideas until finally I came up with a good, simple idea and I started writing it. It's called The Irish Pub. It made sense that I write something related to the food and Beverage industry since I know enough about it. 

Heres an excerpt:

INT. PUB. DAY 

We open on a seemingly busy restaurant. Everybody is running.

DANNY, the manager is shouting out orders to everyone. He

seems like he has everything under control, but he usually

doesn't.

                   DANNY

         Jay! Make sure that drink is perfectly

balanced. 

JAY, probably the laziest person to ever step foot behind a

bar, shakes his head like he knows exactly what to do.

                   DANNY(CONT'D)

         Anna, is there cutlery on table 27?

ANNA, typical teacher's pet, is always ready to report for

duty. Quite annoying.

                   ANNA

         Yes! And condiments, and napkins and I

         gave them complimentary buns.

                   DANNY

         Fantastic! Mumbles! How far is that

steak? 

MUMBLES, the chef, can probably speak English, he just

refuses to. He's a scary guy.

                   MUMBLES

              (Replies in Zulu or whatever his

              native language is)

                   DANNY

              (Doesn't understand)

         Awesome! Nick, Michal, do something!

NICK is a Russian guy with a thick accent, good at his job,

but something dark hides behind his eyes.

MICHAL is the most dramatic person you'll ever meet,

constantly complaining.

                   NICK

              (Russian accent)

Da! 

MICHAL

         Fiiiiine!

                   DANNY

         Okay! Here we go.

DANNY stands back. ANNA, NICK and MICHAL each bring a plate

to the guests table. It looks like a perfectly orchestrated

success.

                   DANNY

         Is there anything else sir? Are you

         and your family satisfied?

The GUESTS look very unhappy.

                   MAN

         No! We've been waiting for almost 40

         minutes for this food and still we

         have no drinks. How do we have food

         and no drinks? We only wanted 3 cokes!

         Is that a difficult drink to

         prepare???

We see JAY in the bar. He has three cans of soda water

prepared.

                   JAY

         Did he say Coke?

                   DANNY

         What the f... Jay!!!

A few people have read this and said"hey, I love this!" No one ever says they hate it to your face.

But when I read I keep thinking " this doesn't seem good enough" Anyway Im sure that happens to a lot of people (I’m definitely selling this show one day). I finished a first draft for it then I got another idea. I wanted to create an animated show. So I thought up some ideas and I started writing the pilot episode. Then I got carried away and drafted seven more episodes for it. So that’s my second project that I’m busy with.

Then I thought, “hey! I have a cool idea for a book!” thinking I would quickly churn out four hundred pages for it. Ha! I need about three hundred and fifty more pages.

You see, this is my problem. I created a mountain of work for myself and now I struggle to make time to keep each project the loving attention that it needs.


What do I want to achieve with these posts?

So here’s where I’m at. Right now, I mostly work on a book called Billiam and Hector: Go to Hell. 

I’ll be posting -or complaining- every week about how hard it is to write the next chapter, how I write, what I do for ideas, how boring my day was or how much I hate serving drinks to snobby rich people in Dubai (seriously, they’re everywhere).

And you, hopefully, will be entertained. Sound good?


Maybe you don’t want to read any of my posts because I blabber on about simple things too much. If that’s the case, maybe I could offer my writing services to you or your company. Or you could just take my e-mail and chat with me about ideas for projects or collaborations. Whatever happens, we’ll end up being friends. 

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