What Do You See?

Today is all about planning and maybe a little writing. I'm working on a collection of short stories - 10 stories with 10 characters all connected by a series of minor, random events. The collection is a satiral homage to the city I was born; Lagos, Nigeria.

At this stage of the writing process - mapping out the characters and their stories - although the actual writing and the wrought emotions that accompany it are only a keyboard away, for now, I am free, and determined to enjoy the thrill of doing something new.

All things being well, Eyo will be published in the UK next year. It's a bit of strange book and as I've hinted over the last year or so, a marked departure from my previous work. I'm not sure what people will make of it and as I've been told by those in the know, it is not an easy read. It's probably one of the reasons why I temporarily stopped working on The Gay Bishop. It was getting rather dark. I'll go back to it but for now, I think I'll stick with the laughter, the macabre and strangely surreal in the short story collection.

Stop, look, observe
I walk everywhere. I like to look around and observe people and things around me. A lot of the time I get lost but I don't panic. I just keep on walking and somehow, I manage to get to where I'm supposed to be.

Many people think I know central London like the back of my hand. That's not necessarily true. I still get lost but wandering around like I do, I find my pleasure lies in discovering the streets never travelled. My recent academic forays in anthropology has made this habit worse - a lot worse. Now I wander further and further afield, looking, observing and asking, why?

What do you see?
A few weeks ago, I met up with someone. We trawled through Soho looking for a restaurant I used to frequent some years back. On our travels, I pointed out my favourite haunts. 'Look, there's Gaby's Deli, quite possibly the most famous deli in London. Wonderful food, reasonably priced and loved by civilians and celebrities alike.' We went up the back streets, down a narrow alley and emerged in the courtyard of a pub in Convent garden. 'See how low this pub doorway is? You can tell it's been there for at least 100 or so years. Look at the architecture.' We paused and looked. We went to some other places and I pointed out other places of interest. The girl's jaw dropped. She said, 'Do you know, I've been chomping up and down this place for quite a few years now and I've never noticed all these things you pointed out to me. I feel as if I've been walking around with blinkers on.' I told her she wasn't alone. To some degree, we all meander our way though life, not pausing to reflect and take hold of the now, the visible. It's the same reason some people will spend their entire lives in London and die without ever seeing Big Ben.

Common sense newspaper column of the week
Isn't it fair and natural that a religious school should be free to prefer to admit children from the relevant faith, in order to maintain the ethos which is so important to its success as a school? By what morality are such things wrong?

Overheard

Woman on mobile: I tell you, it's fa*king freezing. Faaa*king liberty. I tell you. Faaa*king liberty.

I understand the fact that she was cold. But what's with the liberty taking?

That Saturday Feeling

Reading the Saturday Times, Smooth Jazz is playing in the background and I'm looking for organic wine online. Afterwards, I'll resume reading my book, World Without End.












A day of simple pleasures.

I haven't done this in a long time.

It's blooming marvellous.

Royal Mail

I have a lot to blog about. Unfortunately, I have a running dispute with Royal Mail which is effectively clouding my blogging abilities. Needless to say, my postman appears to be semi-literate as he keeps on delivering other people's mail to my flat. And secondly, someone sent me a parcel almost three weeks ago which is currently in Royal Mail land somewhere. I'll say no more. It's either that or I get my blood pressure up - again. Suffice to say, this article in the Times sums my view of Royal Mail brillantly, namely that, it is a disgrace and needs to be dragged into the 21st century.

On another note, it seems like Eyo might be published in the UK after all. More news when I get it.

Kitchen Fiction

I was introduced to a lady.

'Go on, tell her you write,' the introducer urged her.

'Yes, I do. I write,' she said.

'What kind of stuff?' I asked.

'You know, about relationships. Marriage. Stuff like that,' she said.

My first instinct was to take a hammer to her head. The second was to stifle a tsunami-style yawn. The third was to scream, enough of the kitchen sink drama! Give me some originality for gawd's sake!

It goes without saying that most writers' write out of their personal experience. If you're high-flying professional, the negotiations of office and industry politics will find some form of expression in your work. If you're a homemaker, unemployed or what have you, the politics of that environment will also find expression in your work. You write what you know because you write out of your reality.

The kitchen sink debate...
...has been going on for a long time. And it's not going to go away any time soon. A few years ago, I followed a debate in The Guardian on kitchen sink fiction. The debate featured quite well known male and female writers. The general consensus was this; the quality of the writing is what mattered, even if the book was 'kitchen sink drama.' Some writers had a few words to say about the term 'kitchen sink' arguing that it was pejorative and by default dismissive of women's fiction. I'm inclined to agree.

Having examined my gut reaction to the lady who wanted to write about marriage and relationships (domestic drama is, I believe, the industry term), I've come to the conclusion that I felt strongly about her work because I thought she was contributing to the women's writing=kitchen sink drama=bad writing=letting women down in the literary arena debate. And not in a positive way. But why should that be the case? The lady was a homemaker so it stood to reason that her creative writing would flow out of her personal situation. Was that so bad, and isn't that the point of writing anyway, its accessibility to all? And why do I equate domestic writing with bad writing?

Kitchen Sink Fiction (2)

Just because I'm a woman...
Many years ago, I was introduced to a man as a writer. The man asked me what I wrote. I shrugged and tried to change the subject. I don't like talking about myself - it's dull! Dull! Dull! Anyhoo, the guy paused, looked at me and said, 'Let me guess, you write romance, like Mills & Boon stuff?' I said 'no' and wandered off, fuming. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that all I can do or all I'm limited to is writing romance. The cheek of it...

I admit it. I was insulted. I equated romance writing with bad writing. In the years since, I've had good reason to rethink that position. Romance writing, just like any writing genre, has its own fill of good and bad. And to label all of them as bad because of a questionable sense of intellectual superiority is just crass. And even as I write this, I am well aware that there are many who equate Christian fiction as plain bad and nothing anyone will tell them will convince otherwise. This, despite the fact that nowadays, quality Christian fiction regularly tops the NYT bestseller list.

I've come a long way in my writing journey and I'm still learning. There are things that veterans in the business have told me about the craft of writing and the art of the storyteller that didn't make sense then but have in the last year or so suddenly made sense. Writing, like life, cannot be put in a box and told to follow the rules or else. It's meant to be fluid. To allow our imagination to soar. So what if it's kitchen sink drama? It's the delivery, the quality of the work that counts not the label - however belittling it is - that is attached to it.

Follow the debate:
Women's fiction and misery lit
Do female writers today lack imagination?
Women authors must drop domestic themes

An Author's Take on Seinfeld

I've had an interesting month and the only thing that's kept me sane, literally, is Seinfeld, or more specifically, George Constanza, a character in the comedy series.

For the uninitated, Seinfeld was/is the world's best comedy show. It's also famously, the show about nothing. Stuff does happen but because it's a show based on the ordinariness of life which in itself is made up of inconsequential everyday things, the storylines stay true to life. A famous episode was based on the entire cast waiting for a table in a Chinese restaurant. There are so many ways that particular episode could have gone wrong but it didn't. For instance, filming the entire episode in just one set; the waiting room. As any director will tell you, a change of scenery helps keep the audience tuned in otherwise they get bored. But not that episode. The central storyline was the process of waiting for a table in a restaurant, how demoralising it is and yet, they managed to fit in two other storylines with the waiting theme which worked like magic.

Yada, yada
Seinfeld works because it doesn't take itself too seriously. The gags are spot on, executed with pitch-perfect timing and delivered in that deadpan way that many have tried to emulate and failed. Spectacularly. The show has a cult following and you only have to watch one episode to understand why.

Everyone has their favourite Seinfeld character. My brother's is Kramer, the wired freak who lives opposite Jerry Seinfeld, the central character in the show. Kramer's character is high-energy. Everything he does takes on epicurean proportions. Kramer cannot walk into a room. He comes in like a whirlwind and devastation follows in his wake. He doesn't work but somehow gets by and no one quite figures out how.

And now for George Constanza.

All about George Constanza
First of all, he's tight-fisted. He's lazy. He tries but never quite manages to figure out a way to make money without working. He despises his parents - and with good reason, they're freaks. Somehow, he manages to land himself a fiancee who dies from licking too much envelope glue (she was going to send out their wedding invites) to his delight because he didn't want to marry her anyway. And he has many, many issues.

Oh yes, there are many reasons to despise George Constanza. However, Jason Alexander (the actor who plays him) plays him in such a way that he remains essentially vulnerable, human and endearing.

The short story I'm working on has a character called Baba and he was inspired by George Constanza. Baba is a man of no consequence. A loser with no sense of self nor dignity, he is aware of his failures and happy with his failed state of being. And then, one day, he has an idea. He is going to meet one of the most famous people in the world and make a difference to the lives of the people around him. It is an idea that is doomed to failure from the very beginning. Baba is an illiterate African and the person he's determined to meet is a Hollywood celebrity. How do he do it, if indeed, he does meet the celebrity?

Well, I'm not telling. You'll just have to wait for the short story to be published. In the meantime, pop down to Amazon and get the complete series of Seinfeld, now half price.

My Very Own Micro-Fiction Competition

I blogged about the Times micro-fiction competition a few days ago. In a bid to get away from working on my anthropology essay, I spent a few fun hours working on the following:

The conference dignitaries swilled wine and ate lobsters as they debated world poverty. B******* to that, the Ethiopian locals thought.

‘You don’t know who I am? I’m the most famous actress in Nollywood!’ ‘You don’t know who I am? I’m the most famous actress in Hollywood!’

Prove your love, I said. With a confident smile, he assembled the Top Gear memorabilia. I smiled when it went up in flames.

Today, she drank my coffee. Ditto yesterday. Lunchtime, she turned blue. I went to the kitchen and exchanged the coffee packet.

I have to say, I've really enjoyed working on them. It's a great way to loosen one's creativity and just play round with words. What about you, got any to add?