Barely two months ago, the National Assembly had approved $8.9 billion loan for the current administration and, of course, in the days in the last 48 hours, President Mahmoud Bari has once again sought another $4.9 billion loan. Nigeria's current debt profile is about $3.35 trillion higher and climbed in. Both political parties have once defended or come against this loan and, of course, early in the morning, we had spoken about Senatali Undume who was berating the National Assembly for the speed with which they went ahead to approve the request of another $4.9 billion loan by the current administration. This morning, we're speaking with economist Ken Ife to share his thoughts on this. Good morning, Mr. Ife. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Good morning, and thanks for your welcome. Now, let's start with your views or your thoughts on another $4.9 billion loan request. Looking at where we are coming from in, you know, from 2015 and what Nigeria's debt profile was then and where we currently are, do you agree with the narrative that Nigeria needs to continue to borrow in order to build? Yes, I see yes. The reason is because there are so many things that we need to do and all of them require investment. Even to fight corruption, you need investment in technology systems. Anything security you need, you need investment. To pay jobs, you need public investment in public money. To fight COVID, you need investment. And if you don't have the money, if you don't have your savings, the alternative you have is to either sell your assets or gamble. There are laws guiding our borrowings. This time round, like in 2005, 2005, we didn't even know how much we were going. They said it's just about $30 billion. 40% of that money was actually penalties and implement all kinds of things. This time round, we have, first of all, borrowing is on the exclusively stated list. Also, it is governed by fiscal responsibility Act 2007. And the law says if you want to borrow, it doesn't matter what that makes you go for it. It has to be your actual expenditure and human resources development. And then it also states that you need to have a fiscal strategy prepared for what you want to do and make an expenditure framework. And then that borrowing has to be on processional terms and a long term frame. So the law is very, very clear on what needs to be done in connection with having more transparency, accountability, and transparency in public finance management. But if it's a nice, really neat to borrow. And the answer is, of course, we need to borrow. And even crying about this particular request, this part of 2018-2020 MF, we are still going to borrow more and more under the 2008-01 and 2008-04 million expenditure framework. Now, the particular money is asking for has already been foreseen by the fiscal strategy that has been captured in the million time expenditure framework. It was is in the growing plan. It's been approved by National Assembly on all relevant authorities, all of them. And all happens at the point of dying. You still have to come back to the National Assembly and still seek permission again. So it is in the works. The second question is how necessary is it for us to borrow? Every country in the world, even the richest country America, losing billions of dollars. In our own case, we are confronted with major challenges. But first of all, visions of Nigeria today from the WC is that in 2030, our GDP will rise to 1.64 billion. And in 2050, it will rise to 6.4 billion. And the thing is that it's inconceivable that in the current state of our GDP, we're ever going to get that level of outlook without investing in infrastructure, which is the infrastructure base that supports a lot of revenue that we expect. So we need to invest in infrastructure. And the stock of infrastructure in Nigeria is only 35 percent of our GDP. And just compared not to South Africa, as is 8 percent of the GDP. Many countries are 100 percent or more of their GDP. It helps you to tell you of the city of infrastructure. Now, you come to the second aspect, which is security. The security situation that we have in Nigeria is existential. If you do nothing, that's not an option. Because it would be publicly the headers, the terrorists, the bandits, and the kidnappers. They would take all of us out of a lot of these countries. Because as has happened in the world, this country again, it's not the package that was in the world, this country that has just come down. It's not an option at all. And the second challenge, which is COVID, is existential as well. Because COVID is a matter of life and death. And you couldn't do nothing. Do nothing is not an option. Because people are dying in thousands. And you can't sit back. Nobody does that. And even the promise from the international bodies that we're going to give us 20 percent of our population, which is 14 million percent. You haven't seen that. We've only got four million. So the government has to brace up to find money to buy COVID to save our population. Or is it the employment that they are going to say, oh no, we're not going to put the money in public works? Don't do that. And then you see all the young boys and girls who are on the same of our population, of our unemployment rates.  So some of these challenges are existential and we have to do something about it.  It's not possible. Okay. Mr. Ken Ife, as of June 2021, Nigeria's external debts, you know, climbs to over 13 trillion Naira. And as of June 2021, Nigeria's domestic debts, you know, was over 21 trillion Naira as well. So would you say that the current state of Nigeria's infrastructure justifies our previous borrowing? Okay, let's look at the first two. Now, though before this administration, I'm not the sportsman of the administration, but because before they came in, what we had was all roads abandoned. In fact, because we are not getting paid, they all abandoned the roads. But when they came in, they didn't go to our fresh contracts. They just said, oh, everybody should get back to site and they start paying whatever they have. And of course, they have to borrow some of that money. So what you now have is that all highways everywhere in the country, there's somebody somewhere dead doing work. We haven't completed most of them at work. And far from it, the work is going on. And the people have been dead. They are not going on. Look at rail. The last investment in rail. Now, why rail? Rail is the cheapest and most efficient and effective means of transporting large goods across long distances. See, that is a start, just as a non-fight. Now, look at the impact of what has been, is a very expensive project to play in practice. Look at the ones that have been successful. Look at the impact of that. Everybody's happy about that. They look at Lagos, they bother. See, the impact is going, he's happy.  We are planning to have rail for big goods because the big sea port is more than the capacity of more than all the other ports put together. All the roller ports and the canapes and all of them put together. This is more than capacity. So for you to not plan for rail, for a bad question, means you are saying forget Lagos as an economic center. And that's not going to happen. And I remember when I was writing a bid for handling for Lagos to go back to Medjugorje, East Anglosal, at East Anglosal Rail, I remember that I did a plan. I showed that by 2035, we could generate one billion dollars of GDP in that coastal corridor, that in East Anglosal corridor. That gives you an idea of the kind of revenue that you could bring in in the country when you have the rail. I'll give you another example. If you're moving trains from anywhere in the north, at Sina or Kaby, if you're moving one ton of grains from there to Lagos, it costs you between 75,000 and 100,000 Naira per ton. And that's one of the reasons why you have this runway inflation when it comes to food. Now the thing is that if you are using rail, and some of the people that have gone back and done it in one day, spend three days on the road because of security challenges. If you are using rail to move back, it will cost up to 5,000 Naira. So the rail is so visible in the range of infrastructure. Of course, nobody would pay less money. Mr. Kenife, can you hear me? Yes, so when we talk about infrastructure, it seems that in the Nigerian situation because of the poor state of our roads, you seem to focus just on road and rail. But there's so much more to infrastructure, including aviation infrastructure, water infrastructure, waste management infrastructure, communications infrastructure, infrastructure regarding bridge, regarding power and energy. So when we look across all these types of infrastructure away from road and rail, even inclusive of road and rail, would you say that borrowing of to the terms of trillions of Naira and the government has been able to use all that money to invest in these different parts of the country for the betterment of Nigerians? You just mentioned power. 60% of the manufacturers in this country say that they provide power for themselves in 90% of the time. If you go to the website of man, 77% of the manufacturers say that their greatest challenge is power. Power accounts for 80% of the cost, transportation to 80%. This to a low is giving you 50% of the cost. It cannot be compensated going forward. And you talked about communication infrastructure. We have the highest electricity in Africa because of the huge investment from the on infrastructure. If we said, how is it aviation, it just built 500 million dollars to build five new terminals, international terminals in our international and that is a boost to aviation. And we're looking to concession codes. So the issue is this only 35% our stock of infrastructure is only 35% still so far away compared to our economies. So we have to invest in infrastructure. We should move the debate appropriateness of the investment and the equity of the investment and the sustainability of the investment. And here I will tell you that the law says we have to carry out cost benefit analysis on any debt. And you see that the government office tries to do that. And the issue about whether we are succeeding and voting with your feet. I'm not here to defend government. I just here to be facts down. And then we can have a useful discussion over this in financial ratios that the law describes. I have not actually been violated so far. Because there's only one financial ratio in the effort in 2007, which is fiscal receipt to GDP, which it wants to be kept a percent. It's gone over 3% about 3.6%. And the finance act has amended. And then now the whole act is now been amended by the Senate. So otherwise, this is certainly standard for the others. The benchmark for other debt to GDP is about 40%. That's the international benchmark for low income countries like ourselves. But for other advanced countries, 60%. The thing is, we are still around 30%. If you add everything, it's about 40%. And that is including, including the 10 trillion dollar central bank government, $5 billion as over that. Of course, that is now being put at a long-term loan every two years when I put them, which says that they are not going to start paying in the life of this particular climate. So that is this story. Now, what they have, I have to tell you, is that most countries in the world are violating those limits because they have infrastructure. And it's about 250% GDP issue. America is almost 100%. And all these other countries are between 80% and 100%. That is because they have infrastructure. Whereas we don't have it. That's why we have to invest and make sure that investment has to be economic projects that are people of repaying that loan and retiring the loan. If you invest it in anything like, you know, if you want to use it to put loans to the ministers home or whatever you own, they're supposed to collect up industrial and economic centers so that they would energize the economy and have a reasonable return on the investment. And one challenge we have is this. The second class of infrastructure, government has to build them before you bring in the private sector to run and manage those. That is one challenge that we have. In the health infrastructure, you still have to build those before you get the services and people to come and manage. Education the same. Luckily, we have private sector investing heavily in education, more invested than federal government. You still need to build the basic and then enable them. We can also go further with this. The picture that you've painted mostly, you know, it's almost a picture that seems like Nigeria is not making money. And so the only way that we can survive and continue to build infrastructure is to- You're losing your voice. I'm not here to hear you. I'm saying the picture that you've painted really is that Nigeria is not making any money. And so the only way that we can run the country and continue to build for what is to borrow, which may not be very, very true. And also, you know, it seems like we have completely ignored multiple ways with which Nigeria can save funds and use some of these funds for this same infrastructure that we are borrowing for. So I want you to speak on wastage of funds in Nigeria and also the social economic rights and accountability project has, of course, sued the government and acts that this loan not be approved until the government is able to show spending details of the trillions of Naira, you know, debt that we've gathered since 2015. Do you agree with Serap? To separate things there. Yes. Compatibility is what we all have to be pursuing. Legitimacy of the debt is something that we come across in question. The sustainability of the debt is key issues that we need to focus on. And I agree that the challenge is more around the ability to repay. But that is where the trouble lies. In a way, we don't have this in the law. The international benchmark is that your debt service for your government revenues should not really be more than 40 percent. Last year, we started with 91 percent in the first quarter and ended up 20 to 80 and 80 percent. This year, the government projected that the debt service would be around $6.8 percent. But as I, if you saw the initial part yesterday, it is the headline of the Chairman of Business and Advisory Council, Economic Advisory Council, Dr. Salami, said that it was 98 percent. As for the first quarter, first half of the year, it was 98 percent. That is the debt service GDP. That looked alarming. But I had to come back in some of the interviews I had yesterday. Now, the issue is this. Do we do nothing? And I've told you, I gave you three examples, where doing nothing is not an option. So the thing is now, how do we raise more revenue? Nigeria is, our government revenue to GDP is 6 to 7 percent. The lowest in Africa could increase that. How do you increase that? Are you going to increase that by simply doubling the tax on existing footprint? You can't do that. And I can tell you the reason why you can't do that. We do more by widening the tax days and bringing more people into the tax net. Two, you block bleak edges. These rules have a $8 billion a year on EDC transfers. Block bleak edges and the government is aware and they're doing something about that. We also recon that, I remember when I went to speak to the Senate Committee on Finance, two extremists ago, they were saying, the chairman there was saying that the money was spent on tax waivers for some of the mantra currents and also new cases in the system are actually higher than revenue that government is getting. So I can now see government trying to reduce that exposure and doing more. And we also saw that this whole necessity has pushed government to sign the PIA as the Economic Industry Act, which has been going on for over 20 years. And they are at a good at the good act. So it's a starting point in playing with this substance in a petition. Just as it has been asked, I'm going to let them in here and say that next year expecting the public area revenue that they will be over 10 billion. And which means that the likelihood of this whole revenue doubling next year is there. That means there is less fiscal stress. It's the aspect of fiscal stress. So there are many things. Now yesterday again, the central bank announced that they are paying out to raise 15 billion for the infrastructure company. Now, infrastructure PLC has been capitalized at 1 billion by 2020. And that's the private sector on the page. And the impact of that is that they are going to grow an area of 15 billion. And now offload all these projects that government is spending so much money, putting so much on the private sector will roll and roll with these projects. So that's a free federal government. But all of this is for the infrastructure. I want you to please talk about what you think Nigeria's strategy for repayment is. You've mentioned that about two times now. So with all this borrowed, what's our strategy for repayment? How do you think our debt profile might affect our economy? And lastly, the People's Democratic Party has been saying that the APC is simply accumulating debts and just high spending. Wrecking Nigeria. That's what the PDP has said. How do you respond to that? I'm not interested in what the politicians are saying because I'm a technocrat and I also have to figure out some facts and in that medium as I can. But I have a blade for you. A measure that I have seen that I'm taking place, including the government industry act that is now going to give us more comfort measures. You've seen sub-national levels have also been pulling their weight in revenue generation. And that technology has come in. If you see in your state, I've been putting and pulling their revenue because our technology to drive the ITR and meaning most states are going, it's a metal. And if you look at federal government in fighting leakage, I have to think in ITIS, which is the aerial software and can chief mix. And I also heard about the single account, how it has continued to shrink the breaker of both ITIS that are eating our money. So, and you've seen when they run DVM over the ITIS, you can see some systems and have 44 accounts, 45 accounts, a lot of accounts. So all of these are technologies, but you also invest in those technologies. And if you help fight corruption, that's the thing. Technology is going to do a lot more for us in helping us to help you out and investing in those. So there are many ways the government is looking to improve our revenue and bring more comfort operation in terms of how I have placed all the key elements.  And I've said you must be looking because it's going to get all the home people out on the street. And it's not an option. All right, Kenny, I think we can wrap it up here. Thank you very much for joining us and for your analysis this morning. Thank you. We wish you a very interesting weekend ahead. Thanks once again. Thank you very much. Absolutely. And this is where we will be wrapping up the conversation this morning. Thanks so much for being with us all through the week. Remember where you can catch up on any of the conversations you may have missed this week. It's simply on our social media platform at plus TV Africa on Facebook and Instagram. And thank you very much for being a part of our week. It's the final edition for this week in the month of September. And do have a great weekend. I am Annetta Felix. And I am Usaugi Ogbama.


Hello writers, hello readers, how you doing? Hope the writing's going well. Thanks for tuning in. So we're doing a Q and A, pretty much covering everything, writing, and I guess YouTube or reading related. I'm not too sure I haven't read the questions yet. But hey, if this is your first time tuning in on this channel, as the name suggests, I make videos about writing and the journey of being a writer. And I'll try to keep my answers brief, but I have a habit of rambling. Super quick interruption, just cutting in for one minute. I filmed this video quite a while ago, like a month or two ago. And since then, on the 9th of December, my book of horror short stories, Darkest, Deepest, has actually come out. It's launched, it's released, it's available. I had to take some time off from YouTube due to some health stuff. I'm fine, 100% fine, but I needed a bit of a break. And unfortunately, that kind of cut into the, like marketing preamble for that release. But again, it's out right now. So if you like horror, if you like short stories, then check it out. I'll leave a link below. And you would be supporting me, which would be amazing. It really would mean a lot to me. That's about it. Thanks, back to the video. Would you ever do writing vlogs where you write a novel showing us your progress until the book is finished? That would be interesting. It's funny you say that, okay, because I actually have been toying with the idea of filming short clips along the journey of publishing the first book in my new fantasy series that I'm working on right now. What I mean is that I would, for example, film a short clip after I finished the first draft, saying how, when, what my experience was, film another clip after I'm done with all the drafts and it's being sent to the editor, another short clip when I publish it, another short clip when I'm doing the marketing, and then just squeezing them all together to make a kind of timeline video where the progress of the book at the start of the video and the end of the video is very different. What do you do to keep yourself motivated, stop yourself from being overwhelmed when editing your first draft? Like when you find a plot holder, patch it up, or when you grind to a complete halt because you end up doubting yourself and start thinking that the entire story was a mistake. Luckily, I've never really felt demotivated when I get to the editing stage. It's always writing the first draft that is always the most difficult thing for me. If I can finish that, then it's pretty much smooth sailing towards the end because when I get to the editing stage, I actually kind of enjoy it because I know that the hardest part is behind me and even if I do end up having to make a lot of changes, which I usually do, I already know how the story starts, rises and ends. So it's pretty easy for me to make those changes in a way that makes sense. That's my experience so far. It might be different in future, especially in writing fantasy now. It could be very different. It could be a lot harder. Maybe when I'm doing the editing for this book, I will be pulling my hair out. I'm not too sure, but in terms of keeping myself motivated, I guess this goes more for writing than editing, but I'll always just go back to the media that inspired me to do it in the first place. So I'm writing an episodic fantasy series and that was inspired by episodic fantasy style stuff like the Witcher, Dresden Files, Supernatural even. So if I know I need a bit of a burst of motivation, I'll just go and watch or read those things and I usually end up feeling pretty inspired. The best thing you can do is just finish the first draft, fix the other stuff after you do that. Hi Cam, I've always heard that writing a blog is good for promoting your book and author career, but I don't actually know what I could write about. Blog related, I'm finding that harder than I thought it would be. Could you give me some ideas for themes that would be interesting? I would also like to ask if you have any tips on writing a story with multiple characters with different plots, each one that are related to the main story plot. Promoting your book and author career, this is a fun one because there is one piece of advice you will hear a lot and it is very, very true, but it's also got a lot of nuance that not many people go into, so I'll do that for you now. Marketing your book is going to be exceptionally easier if you have a platform and even bigger platform than mine. I don't really sell a lot of books as it is, which is okay. I sell some, I get some feedback, that makes me happy. That might change in future, I might get more of an audience, who knows? But the point is if you have a platform, it will be a lot easier to market yourself. That's just how it is.  More than that, they're going to be able to tell that you're kind of using them or you're kind of using this purely to push a product on them. Whether you believe me or not when I say this, I don't make videos on this channel to push products. I will plug myself like I did at the start of the video because I'm a self-published author and it would be silly for me not to. But I don't make videos about writing on this channel purely to push books. I do it because I kind of wanna have something I can look back on when hopefully one day when I am a much more successful writer, I wanna have something I can look back on and see kind of how I went along the way. When I started this channel, I did do it purely with the purpose of selling a product. And I think I can honestly say my content back then was nowhere near as good. I'm starting the ramble again. My point is you can start a platform with the purpose of, or with the goal, I should say, of selling books, but you should only do it if you also enjoy just making content. As for how to come up with ideas, this is another thing I should touch on and it's the reason I have two YouTube channels. If your goal is to ultimately just to sell books, which is fine, I would probably advise you to make content on book reviews, that kind of stuff, rather than making content on yourself and your own writing or writing advice in general, because it can work like Jenna Marashi or whatever. She makes videos purely about writing and it has obviously helped her writing career. However, when you make videos about writing, a large, large portion of your audience are only there to kind of help their own writing, which makes sense. That's if you're making writing tip videos, people are coming there to improve their own writing rather than to see what book the creator is writing. Whereas if you make a book review blogs or videos, people are coming there because they have an interest in those kinds of books. For example, like me, I have a separate channel where I make horror and fantasy book reviews. Again, I didn't do that purely just to sell books. I don't think I've ever even plugged a book on there yet and it's been like over a year. I did it because I wanted a creative outlet for me to review books that I like reading. I love reading fantasy and horror, so I wanted to be able to review them in video format. But what I'm saying is I have created an audience there that are interested in fantasy and horror books. So if I was to go on there and say, hey, I have this horror book you might like, I would expect a lot more people on that channel to take interest in the book than people on this channel that are here for writing. Anyway, I went on a long, long tangent there, but hopefully that answers your first question. In regards to writing a story with multiple POVs or multiple characters with different plots, I'm really not an expert with subplots, that kind of stuff. Although going back to me writing episodic fantasy, I guess it is kind of the same thing. Every single book has its own separate plot, and then there is a greater, more dangerous high stakes plot that link all of the books. I don't know if I'm doing it well, but one thing I have been keeping in mind in doing this would probably be that in most cases, I think it works when at the start, the B plots are more important than the A plot. And then as the story progresses, the A plot becomes more and more important until it overwhelms the B plots. I don't know. I don't know if I am qualified enough to give too much advice on multiple characters, that kind of stuff, because I haven't written a lot of multiple character stuff. Most of my writing has been short stories with one or two characters. My psychological horror book has multiple characters, but it is a very intimate story about one man. This fantasy series is really my first dive into it, so I might be messing it up. Who knows? Our short story is the best starting point for beginner writers. I have an idea for a book series, but I feel that's a big step for me. I will always say that you should write whatever you feel is right for you to be writing. If you have an idea for an epic fantasy book, write it. However, I think it is just a fundamental truth that starting with short stories, if you are a new writer, is a good idea. Writing short stories is very different to writing longer stories, and you have to approach them differently. But in writing short stories, it will flex those creative muscles and help you a lot with not just grammar and sentence structure, that kind of stuff, but also it'll help you get an idea for how pacing might work when you stretch it out a bit. But at the end of the day, if short stories aren't for you, that's fine. Hi, Cam. I have some difficulties in character development. Can you give us some tips on how to properly execute it? Character development is a very tricky thing to advise on because it can be very, very different. Character to character, story to story, genre to genre. Character development in a horror will be very different to character development in a fantasy, but one tip, I'll give you one tip that was given to me that I have always found extremely useful, and that was in the first chapter, show a major flaw that your protagonist has. So if your protagonist is selfish and you want them to change during the story and become selfless, have them do something in chapter one that shows the reader they are selfish. All protagonists should have some kind of character flaw. So all I would say is show that in chapter one and then throughout the story, maybe in the climax of the book, show them doing something that they wouldn't have done in chapter one. Is there an author whose covers you really love? Rather than saying an author with covers that I love, I will tell you the name of an artist that I love. I think he is legitimately making probably the best fantasy book covers right now. I think he's absolutely exceptional. His name is Felix Ortiz. Every single cover he makes is just incredible. He's had a lot of attention on him recently because he makes a lot of covers for self-polished authors. And it could be argued that his work has contributed a lot to the success of some of those books. Who would be your dream author to do a back cover blurb for your next book? I feel like I would have to say Brandon Sanderson, not even that he's my favorite author or anything. He's definitely one of my favorites. But just because he is probably, in my personal opinion, the best author putting out fantasy stuff right now and he's definitely the most popular modern fantasy author. And if you wrote a fantasy book and you had a blurb written by Brandon Sanderson on the back, I think you could sell the book on that alone and still be wildly successful. So yeah, Brandon Sanderson. Plus, I adore the guy. I have a lot of respect for him. I'm someone who's fallen into the seemingly common trap of doing my world building and character development before fully developing a plot. Now I'm not sure how to throw my characters together. I'm spending too much time frustrated with this project and I can't think when I try to do other writing. Have you encountered a similar issue and did you overcome it? If so, how? That's a super interesting question and I think you would be surprised by how many other authors do the same thing. I don't really think that's necessarily a problem doing the world building and character development stuff before you actually have an idea for a plot. So to speak, a lot of stories, not just fantasy, but horror, whatever, a lot of stories start with an idea for a character rather than a story or a plot, that's fine. But once you've done the world building and the characters coming up with a plot is a very, very tricky thing. And it's not something that could be fixed by me just giving you a bit of advice. Unfortunately, this is the part that will separate the okay writers from the great ones. It's the creativity part. This is something you need to kind of imagine and come up with and be creative with. I know that seems like a cop out answer, I'm sorry, but it's unfortunately true and it's a situation I have been in before. So I know how you feel. I won't just leave you on that though. I will try to help you out a little bit. I suppose what I would do is when you're doing the world building and the character development and you need a plot, think about the danger. Let's say you've done the world building because I feel like that's easier for coming up with a plot. Danger and conflict is always going to be the main crutch of the plot. That's what drives it along is knowing that there is a danger or a risk or stakes or a conflict and how are they going to overcome that? So if you've done the world building, what is something there that could be posing a danger? Could it be enemy kingdom or could it be evil God or a plague of monsters? Who knows, just come up with a danger. And once you've done that, you can kind of reverse engineer and work backwards. Maybe go back to how that evil kingdom rose or how it became evil or what that kingdom is up to. Once you have an idea for a danger, you can start narrowing down their motives. So let's say evil kingdom, what is their goal? I feel like that's a lot easier to come up with rather than coming up with a major plot because once you have their goal, then you know quite simply that the protagonists need to oppose that and then you can just kind of fill in the middle. How do you deal with writer's block? And when you get inspiration for another story while you're working on your current one, what do you do? Those are the problems that I'm currently suffering with to be honest. There have been writers that have done completely fine with writing multiple stories at once. Me personally, I know that if I start on something else, I won't finish the first one or at least I won't finish it for a very, very long time. So at a certain point, you have to set boundaries for yourself. And one of the boundaries I set for me is that I will not start another story until I've finished at least the first draft on the one on one now. You just have to set that as a rule if you know that it's a problem. As for how I deal with a writer's block, I think I mentioned before that usually I'll just dive into some of the media that inspired me with the story I'm working on. What genres would you be interested in getting into or writing in the future? Second, will you do more book reviews in the future? I would love to hear your opinion on some books. So I'll answer your second question first. I actually do have a separate YouTube channel where I review fantasy and horror stuff. It's called Wolf the Story Nomad. So if you wanna check that out, go ahead. This channel here is purely just for the writing side of stuff. As for other genres that I'd be interested in writing in, fantasy and horror is really all I'm thinking about right now but I guess in the future I would like to, this is gonna be a complete 180 but I would like to write kind of a contemporary not necessarily a romance but just a simple, very, very vanilla plot story about just people doing something that a lot of real life people could relate to. But just something kind of cozy. I would like to write a story like that just something short where you can just kind of, you know, like a rainy day book where you just sit on the couch and you read it and it's just about simple people having a very simple, I don't even know how to describe what I'm talking about. You know what I mean? I'm currently in the world building character development stage of a fantasy novel. The problem I'm having is tying it all together into a plot that matters to my characters, brings in setting and magic ideas I have in a way that is world-paced and feels natural. How do you pick plots that will fit into your world with your characters? So the question here about world building and character development, I feel like I already kind of answered that in the other question about this exact thing. But you mentioned that, but you did ask, how do I pick plots that will fit into my world and with my characters in regards to my episodic fantasy series? What I will say is that it's very not easy, but it's a lot easier for me to come up with plots for this episodic fantasy series because of the characters. So the characters are essentially sell sorts. That's not what they're called in the books, but they are given jobs by people to fulfill. That can be hunting monsters, pulling off a heist, basically just jobs that are technically outside of the law kind of thing. And because I know that's the premise of these books, it makes it pretty easy to come up with stuff. Also makes it pretty fun to come up with stuff. I can just say in this book, they'll be hunting a monster and then I come up with the monster and then I try to come up with a unique scenario as to how this monster ended up where it is. What is the monster doing that's causing issues? That could be one book. The next book could be that they need to steal something that someone else lost. A fun spanner to throw on the works I usually find is by the end of the story, a fun question is, are they doing the right thing? So let's say the characters have been tasked to steal something from this mansion and it used to belong to a town's person.  Doing a little bit of a twist at the end and having the characters kind of multiple choice it, kind of like a video game, like do you give the thing to the town's person? Do you give it to the person at the mansion? Do a little multiple choice a fun thing where the reader can be a bit interactive I find is always fun. The characters are faced with a choice that isn't exactly simple to answer. That way the reader can kind of pick a side. Do you favor a specific kind of environment when writing? Are you quite relaxed about it? I do. So I don't know how people can just like sit on the couch with a laptop and write. I hate that. I need to be at an actual desk. I also like it to be kind of dim and like very, very like cozy. My ideal writing environment would be when it's like storming outside.  I like it to be very cozy. I need to be very comfortable and like sitting back on a couch with the laptop rocking back and forth while I write just definitely isn't comfortable for me. How did you push forward and finish your first draft when all you see is mistakes and other writers' first drafts are amazing? So I kind of answered this one a while ago as well. What I'll say is if you read someone's first draft and it's amazing, that's not their first draft. I don't buy it. I don't buy that for a second. If you read someone's first draft and it is amazing then I would be willing to bet both of my nuts that they have been going back every now and then in fixing things along the way. This is called live editing. Basically just means you are literally doing the editing stage of the process while you write your first draft, which is fine. That's okay if you do that, but I think it does raise a question as to is that really a rough draft, a rough first draft? But how do I push forward and finish it? I just think about the finish line, baby. Very best thing you can do, I promise you, is just to sit down and start writing. I know everyone says that. I know it's a cliche, but it is so true. Once you sit down and once you start clacking keys, at least for me personally, it's very easy to just keep going. The hardest part is just starting. I'm not a professional writer, man. I'm just a YouTuber who likes writing and will hopefully one day have a career in writing. So I'm not an expert. I don't want to pretend to be. There it is. There's my Q and A for today. The videos run on much longer than I expected. So I'm going to end it here. But as always, thank you for tuning in just to check in with me on my little writing journey. And hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Catch ya.


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