Sometime in the year of our Lord 2020, a few friends and I tried to start a podcast and as you can tell from the title, we ultimately got toasted. I still remember a little blurb I wrote to go along with our launch. I believe it is one of my best pieces of writing and it hurts that it never saw the light. So here it goes:

Fire Podcast Intro

I blame the cabinet crisis of July 2020 and Whatsapp status updates for this podcast . These two things are responsible for bringing together five former secondary school classmates and starting a podcast. Fire podcast is the brainchild of Bridgitta Flao and four of her friends decided to join her on this wild ride and spend part of their time talking about nothing and everything. Apart from being career professionals, Bianca Mwale FKA Naomi Mwale, Ulemu Tukula and Joyce Singini run catering businesses while Linda Mchawi AKA Lindani and Bridgitta Flao just love to eat food basically. What started as whatsapp banter regarding the controversial cabinet appointments led to the formation of this awesome group and we cannot wait to share what we have with the world. We are hoping to use this platform to speak about the many things that happen within the borders of Malawi and beyond. Malawi has so much to offer and this statement has been uttered so many times that I am pretty sure every Malawian journalist or writer has it in their draft folder. The time has come for Malawi to start offering and spaces where people can come together and share their thoughts, creativity and talent are crucial. We are planning to use our platform to do that. We will be having guests from Malawi and beyond sharing their stories and passions with us. We will be amplifying the voices of women and fighting for equality in all aspects and spheres of society. For the majority of us who grew up in urban areas, we grew up seeing what the other side of the world has to offer 2020 has been one heck of a show and bittersweet for the majority of Malawians. If there is one positive takeaway from this year, it’s that anything is possible. The Highcourt ruling and election rerun just proved that. So why must we still be dealing with early marriages, teenage pregnancies, lack of of opportunities for young people and high internet costs. It must be said that podcasts are being started every other day and almost everything in the world has a podcast about it. So what sets this one apart? We all went to Marymount, lame I know, but as someone once said, every guy has a Marymount story, so think of how many stories we have? a lot. So do join us as we discuss business,professional careers, mentorship, entanglements, why data must fall or not, feminism, hair and also feature Marymount Alumni and ask them whether they are Nayvadius or Jada level of toxic.

So why did we fail: Lack of commitment and perhaps because there were 5 of us. We were excited at the prospect of doing this awesome thing together but we did not realize how much commitment it would take to start it and keep it going. Once we run into the scheduling and stable internet stumbling blocks we just gave up. It is now that I realize that being a creative is a full time job of its own and one cannot reap the benefits without putting in the work. When I see people advocating for creators to be paid fairly, I completely agree. When I started this blog, I thought ideas would magically appear every week and I would have a topic, almost 2 years later, I have less than 20 articles on here. Time management, research, planning ahead and commitment are very important skills to have regardless of what one does professionally. On a vlog I subscribed to recently, Professor Ato Quayson talks about how he schedules his writing time and makes sure he has no conflicts or disturbances unless if it’s an urgent matter. I found that particularly educative and plan to implement it in the near future. It is important to dedicate time to one’s craft. One of my favourite things about #WinterABC is that it is teaching me to plan ahead and I am proud to say that I have a planner of sorts and I have started to reach out to people I would like to feature on here. It is easy to see the finished product especially on social media and think it did not require much work, but know that a lot of labour has gone into it. Financial reasons also play a role in how much one is committed to an activity, I started blogging as a hobby and did not expect to make money from it but I know that for a lot of creatives, making bread from their art is important and to those folks, know that I am rooting for you. Just as a phoenix rises from the ashes, I have not given up on this dream of ours, one day is one day, we will get it together and officially start our pod. So to my fellow creatives, let’s put in the work and we shall reap the benefits. Happy creating!!