‘Endless ideas do not equate to endless writing’
Why do you write? I have always written. It’s like asking me why do I breathe. I can’t not write without feeling like a part of me is disappearing. Writing is how I process and try to make sense of the world and of my experiences. I think I also write to shape narratives, to […]
Why do you write?
I have always written. It’s like asking me why do I breathe. I can’t not write without feeling like a part of me is disappearing. Writing is how I process and try to make sense of the world and of my experiences. I think I also write to shape narratives, to offer a different angle on issues that are important to me and I assume, to others as well.
So often we accept the narratives that are given to us without questioning if there are other ways to interpret things, or other angles from which to look at an issue or a belief given to us as fact. We’ve had a lot of practice doing this, accepting narratives without question. It starts in our childhood with the way we often swallow whole the “truths” we are taught in our families about ourselves and about people different from us. We often continue to accept stories we are told in the newspaper, on television, at the workplace etc.
I think we fail to realize how there is often a particular spin to the things we accept as truth or fact. We forget that most realities are just someone’s version of the story.
Which novelist inspires you the most?
I don’t know that there is one writer that inspires me the most. I love the work of different writers for different reasons. I love the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez because his stories showed me that sentences could be delicious, intoxicating and could transport us beyond our imagination.
His book, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, deepened even further my belief that there is a blurred line between the sacred and the mundane. Every natural thing is tinted with a shade of holiness and mystery but we rarely have eyes to see it. This book made magical realism seem like a perfectly reasonable way to experience the world. I continue to take Garcia Marquez’s writing as an invitation to remain enchanted with life and open to the miraculous coming from the most quotidian encounters.
I also love the British writer, Zadie Smith, but what’s funny is I sink more deeply into her nonfiction than her fiction writing. She is so brilliant at weaving ideas together, strands from various contexts and offering a new perspective that makes you think: “how on earth haven’t I seen it that way before?!”
And she’s just a fantastic wordsmith. I am also a huge fan of Jhumpa Lahiri’s work. Her stories are such beautiful meanderings into the complexity of human nature and our relationships with one another and with the multiple worlds we find ourselves a part of.
How do you conceive your ideas and what is a typical writing day like for you?
My ideas can come from anywhere; a conversation I’m having or listening to, a painting or photograph I see (I love the visual arts), a news article or another story I read. Ideas are endless if you pay attention to your surroundings and then get quiet enough to process what you’ve taken in.
But endless ideas do not equate to endless writing. I could have a million ideas and not be able to articulate any of them onto my computer because of writer’s block. That thing is real, and is not of the Lord.
I don’t have a typical writing day. I just have a few habits when it comes to writing. My prime writing hours are 9–2. I usually have to reread work from before or read something else to get me into a writing frame of mind.
I need solitude and quiet, close to silence. I’m not one of those who can write very well in coffee shops unless I have headphones on and am listening to classical music. My ideal writing space is actually just being alone in a room with the door shut, preferably locked.
People don’t realize how even just a momentary interruption can throw a writer completely out of the zone they have worked so hard to get back into that day. It’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions non-writers have about writers, that they can just sit down and get into the writing.
When I’m working on a project, every interruption, no matter how small, forces me to painstakingly find my way back all over again to a mental space that is so very hard to reach in the first place.
While you were working on your book ‘Reluctant Pilgrim’ did you think it would gain so much traction?
When I was working on ‘Reluctant Pilgrim’, I wasn’t really thinking about anything but telling my story. I don’t even think I gave enough thought to the fact that it was actually going to be published!
If I had remembered that little fact the book would not have been written as unabashedly as it was. I was too open in that book. But the funny thing is that people loved the honesty. I still get random emails sent from my website where readers have taken the time to contact me only to tell me how much my honesty meant to them. It gave them permission to be more forthright with themselves.
It is a complicated feeling when your words enter the public domain. I never get used to it. But I am proud of that book and I’m grateful it has meant so much to a lot of people.
Do you write every single day?
I write something almost every single day, even if it’s just a journal entry or a short reflection. What I need to do is write longer pieces every day, pieces that actually feed into the projects I’m working on! But I most definitely think about writing every single day, I think about the writing life constantly.
What are these projects?
I have a couple of things I’m working on. I can’t share them all but one is my first novel, another is a multimedia project that has stemmed from my experience in Nigeria, and has become really important to me to develop. And I am also working on a script. I love that being a wordsmith means one can have such a diversity of outlets. Writers are content creators.
What is the most important thing that people don’t know about your subject or genre that they need to know?
Actually, I think for me as a writer, I see myself as constantly growing and evolving. What I wrote about a few years ago may not be what I feel called to write about today, and I might even find ways to blend genres or topics that people may not think readily go together.
But to me, that’s also all about how I view my writing motivation, to help shift perspectives and to offer new lenses by which to view old or seemingly familiar topics. I’ve written poetry, I’ve written a ton of non-fiction. I’ve written a lot on spirituality and faith. I’m writing more these days on identity, narratives and culture. When I get married and have children I may start writing about all that! But all these themes can overlap at any time.
What I don’t want to be known as is “the woman who writes only about xyz.” I want to be the writer who creates content about whatever grips me at different significant stages of my life and my journey, in relation to what I also notice going on in the world around me. The only constant thing is change, isn’t it?