History of Creation: The Announcement by Jkm Mbdw
This prequel to the creation of the human universe–History of Creation–is the story of the seven Glorified, who lived in contentment until the name-calling. It was the first any Glorified had been called a name. Suddenly, for one Glorified, having all was not enough. Seh longed for something that creation did not bestow. He wished to be acknowledged as “the master”, to lead the others into a new way of being.
Seh did not share his purpose with the others; the others knew the Glorified were the same–one could not be above the others. As Seh struggled to cast aside that truth, the First, the Self-Generator, asked another Glorified to assist with a task. Seh knew that if Hu completed the task, there would be more name-calling and he did not want her to be set apart from the others again.
Seh and the others accompanied Hu as she journeyed towards the task. As the company neared the task, Seh planned one final gathering of the Glorified. They broke bread and shared ale, while Seh plotted and deceived them, bringing chaos where order had been, so that he could gain what he coveted.
Books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Barnes & Noble
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/history-of-creation-jkm-mbdw/1148275813
Amazon sold as eBook and paperback – https://a.co/d/6Glsiry
https://www.amazon.com/History-Creation-Announcement-jkm-Mbdw/dp/0973103833
About the Author
Jkm is not a professional writer, and he does not want to be. History of Creation: The Announcement is his first book, and there may not be a second.
He has a master’s degree, but it is in finance. He is more of a numbers person than a words person. During his years in Corporate Canada, he carried a small dictionary so he could check the spelling of words, while at the same time committing to memory formulas for calculations such as Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, etc. He chose to respond to the pull to write History of Creation: The Announcement, because it simply would not leave him alone. History of Creation: The Announcement begs for a follow-up book to move the story forward, but jkm is reluctant to commit to writing History of Creation: Part II – The Middle Part.
Jkm would prefer to spend his time doing his favorite thing, which is sitting on the beach anywhere in the Caribbean. But not only is it hard for him to ignore the call to write the story, he could also hear the old West Indian in him saying, Stop being a LAZY-A**. Writing a book, or perhaps another one or two, is definitely a part of jkm’s journey, from the marketplace to home, but to be a writer is not his destiny. I hope you will enjoy reading History of Creation: The Announcement. It may or may not be followed by the middle part. Website: www.africalendar.com/publications
Soignée Intimate Conversation with Jkm Mbdw
SLM: When did you get your first inkling to write, and how did you advance the call for writing?
JKM: I can’t really say that I had a life moment when I said to myself that I am going to be a writer. Even today, after publishing a book, I don’t see myself as a writer. I knew for a long time that I had a story to tell but I had envisioned it to be an oral telling. In my own childhood, people had told me stories. Often these stories led into real history, things that happened in their lives or in the lives of the people before them. I found comfort in those stories, and I had imagined doing the same thing with the History of Creation.
SLM: How did your upbringing or personal experiences influence your storytelling style?
JKM: I remembered as a child being told stories. I used to listen to stories on the radio. I always imagine myself as the one telling the story. I think that when a person is listening to or reading a story, the tale should sound as if it is coming from the voice in the back of their head. That means that the story should feel both new and familiar at the same time. That is what I tried to achieve with History of Creation: The Announcement. I wrote it in a way to try to connect to the internal voice of the reader, so they feel like they are the one telling the tale and not just the reader of a story.
SLM: You carried a dictionary through Corporate Canada while memorizing financial formulas. What made you trust yourself to build an entire mythological world?
JKM: This may just be the Financial Analyst talking, but I think that numbers came from the mind of the Creator, and words are made up by humans. There is a perfection in numbers, and if you read History of Creation: The Announcement, you will understand when I say, there is truth in perfection.
Words have always been a challenge for me, and I knew that in corporate Canada you can lose a lot if the corporate policy is “colour,” and your report says “color”. I knew I could build the world because I understood my shortcomings. I compensated in corporate Canada by carrying a dictionary.
If you know your shortcomings, you can compensate by using the skills of others who do not have the same challenges. That requires a certain level of vulnerability, which most people don’t have. If you are self-assured, you know that it is okay to bask in the joy of letting others shine. When I started to write History of Creation: The Announcement, I knew I would need the assistance of others. People who know words, like I know numbers.
SLM: Take us back. What’s the earliest moment—a conversation, a question, a realization—that planted seeds for this kind of philosophical creation story?
JKM: Several things have planted the seeds of this tale in my mind. There are a couple of them that really stick out and are very much a part of the structure of this story. The first, and perhaps the earliest comment I recalled was someone saying to me when I was a pre-teen that ‘when we were in Africa, we thought everything was God’. It took me decades to understand what she meant. I wish I had asked What do you mean? But in the West Indies, the child’s role is to listen.
The other incident I would like to mention, and this is how the story wouldn’t leave me alone. When I first heard the Jamaican national motto: ‘Out of Many, One’. I absolutely knew without a doubt that it was wrong. In fact, it was backwards. It should have been ‘Out of One, Many’. I don’t know why I would have thought that the Jamaican government had creation backwards, but I did. Obviously, the Jamaican government and I were not thinking about the same thing. Every time I came across a reference to that motto, I was reminded that there is a story to be told. At some point, my mind connected those two things–‘everything is God’ and ‘Out of Many, One’– and the History of Creation burst into fruition.
SLM: Introduce History of Creation: The Announcement to us. What makes this story worth telling?
JKM: History of Creation is a story I had envisioned telling my grandchildren. As such, it is a story that is written for us. A story in which we can see ourselves because we recognize the history and culture at its foundation. When History of Creation: The Announcement references ‘Harambe’, ‘Nia’, or the three colours of being, those are cultural and historical symbols that would be recognized by people of African origin and would allow them to see themselves in the story. One of the ways I describe History of Creation: The Announcement is ‘a story written for us, not a story about us, written for others.
SLM: What came first when you built this world? Did you start with the characters, the betrayal, or the philosophical question underneath it all?
JKM: The way the story came out is a surprise to me. The things in the story, the invention of the drum, transformation, the rapture, I don’t really know when those ideas occurred to me, but I was always driving towards an overall concept. I would say the philosophical questions came first, but that is not because I spent time pondering the purpose of creation. I didn’t even know that that was a question. I would say that I sense that something was off. I would try and get behind that sense, trying to understand it and would end up wondering, what if it is really “Out of One, Many” and not “Out of Many, One”.
SLM: Bring the Glorified to life for us beyond their mythological roles. Who are they when you strip away the theology and just see beings?
JKM: If their mythological roles were stripped away. What you would have are three men and four women of African origin. That is what they would look like, but their Africanness would not matter because they would be functioning at the highest level of their physical and spiritual abilities. What would that look like? Most of us could imagine what functioning at the highest level of our physical ability looks like. It becomes a little more difficult when the words ‘spiritual ability’ are mentioned. I won’t claim to know what functioning at the highest level of the human spirit looks like, but I would say that it would not include greed, selfishness, violence, hatred, etc. Those beings would be living balance and harmonious lives as if it were programmed or ordained.
SLM: Share something from inside the book that would surprise readers who’ve only seen the back cover.
JKM: When you read History of Creation: The Announcement, it says that History of Creation can only be told from the limited perspective of humans. What is meant by that is, if the History of Creation were told from the Glorified’s perspective or from the perspective of the Mystery of Creation then humans would not be able to comprehend it. Therefore, several things from the human world are used to bring the story to life, to demonstrate the characteristics and behaviours of the Glorified and to make the tale meaningful to humans. I think that some of those things will surprise people. For example, there is a reference in History of Creation to the children’s game ‘hide and seek’, which you would not expect in a story like this one.
SLM: Tell us about something you cut from the book that you still think about.
JKM: I mentioned earlier that I am surprised by how the story turned out. Part of that is due to the fact that when I started to write this story, I was aiming to write a satire. I thought it would be humorous to poke fun at how I hear the world. It did not turn out that way. Somewhere in the process, the tale started to write itself, the characters started to speak for themselves, and their goal wasn’t to present a satire. This is not a book with lots of laughter in it. There is one character who has a sense of human–in the Bro Anancy type of way. There are lots of thoughtful moments when you might pause and think for a minute but don’t expect to be stopping and laughing. Even though I think it is a great read and you won’t be able to put it down, I still wonder what it would have been like if I had achieved that satire.
SLM: Seh’s ambition to be called “the master” is something else! What about that specific hunger felt urgent enough to build a whole creation narrative around it?
JKM: Seh is a Glorified. He is one with everything and everyone in creation, but he convinced himself that he is different and that difference makes him better than the others. He believes that difference qualifies him to guide the others, to show them how to live their lives. As the “master”, only he would know the true way, and only he could lead them along the right path. A character like Seh in your life would eventually become God-like and anything you do right would be because of him and anything you do wrong would be because you didn’t listen to him. Even though Seh believes he can get what he wants, it is not a part of the things creation provided. In human terms, it is not among what some people have called inalienable rights. It is simply not provided by creation and in History of Creation: The Announcement, it violates the tenth truth of creation.
In his ambition, Seh is very much like humans. He no longer functions at the highest level of his spirit. He has fallen the spirit ladder and wants to function at the lowest level of his spirit. This caused a difference in him that showed in his thoughts and behaviour. The other Glorified see no difference in Seh. All they see is a Glorified, who is one with everything and everyone within creation. The problem that Seh has is that he knows that only the others can make him ‘the master’. Since they are one with him and are not dependent on him, only through their own volition can he become ‘the master’. Unlike the human world, where humans have figured out how to make people do what they want them to do, i.e., deny them food, use violence, etc. Seh does not know how to make the other Glorified choose the path he has chosen for them. If Seh could figure that out, the difference between him and them would break worlds.
SLM: When you imagine your ideal reader, what kind of person needs this story right now?
JKM: When I think about the reader of this story, I almost always come back to family. This is the story I wanted to tell my family, my children and grandchildren. As such, it had to be a tale in which they could recognize themselves. It had to be literature that was written for them. History of Creation: The Announcement is truly a unique story that would have had a place in Garvey’s Negro World or among the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. The reader who would enjoy this story is someone, who is looking for literature written for us. This is a story about creation that puts our historic and cultural symbols at the centre of it.
SLM: What conversations are you hoping this book starts?
JKM: There is a general theme in this book about creation. It actually asks the question, ‘What is the purpose of creation?’ The answer to that question is given in the story. It literally says, ‘the purpose of creation is …. It would be interesting to me if one person in our world would spend a few seconds thinking, is that the purpose of creation? Could that be true? How would that work in our world, and then move on to check their social media feed.
SLM: Are there more books to follow this one? What other art forms feed your creative soul?
JKM: If I were a writer or wanted to be a writer, I would answer that question with an emphatic “YES”. I would tell you that there are two more books. The middle part and the last part. The description of me as a reluctant writer is real. It is not a media ploy or an advertisement hook. I am truly reluctant; I am sorry, but I just don’t want to commit. I am kind of hoping–, but I know better–that the ideas will just sort of fizzle away.
Writing and storytelling are hard. It must be treated like a job. However, having said that, it is very possible that there might be a part two. Since most of those words are already written. When I first thought of writing the story, I divided it into two and wrote 180,000 words and called it part one. Then, I found out that the literary industry admonishes against publishing books that are longer than 100,000 words. So, I took the first 80,000 words and called it the announcement. The remaining words just need re-writing, organizing, editing, and then again, and again until they become a story that tells itself. Unless this tale continues to be really bothersome, I would prefer not to commit to that job.
SLM: What’s next for you? How can readers connect with you?
JKM: My main priority over the next couple of years is the marketing of History of Creation: The Announcement. I may also attempt to write part two, if my conscience is not satisfied with just this part of the story being told. Next year, I will return to developing and publishing the African Cultural Calendar, something I put off to get History of Creation: The Announcement done. All of that will be secondary to making sure that I have time for family; to making sure that I can listen to the ocean, watch the waves crashing on the shore, and to give the reluctant Beach Bum space to breathe, to be independent of it all.
If I can present History of Creation: The Announcement to enough people and they like/dislike the story, or they have questions, they can reach me on my website. I don’t do social media. I am also not promising to answer every question, but I will do my best. Please note that all questions will be public on the site, with or without responses.
Purchase copies of History of Creation: The Announcement by Jkm Mbdw
Barnes & Noble sold as eBook and paperback
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/history-of-creation-jkm-mbdw/1148275813
Amazon sold as eBook and paperback – https://a.co/d/6Glsiry
https://www.amazon.com/History-Creation-Announcement-jkm-Mbdw/dp/0973103833