‘How I studied Time Magazine to master writing’

Bookshelf: Your office is filled with books. How many do you have? Sam Omatseye: I have thousands. I have many at the office and some at home. I cannot even say how many books I have because I don’t keep any inventory. I will keep buying more because they keep making more books. Every minute, […]

Bookshelf: Your office is filled with books. How many do you have?
Sam Omatseye: I have thousands. I have many at the office and some at home. I cannot even say how many books I have because I don’t keep any inventory. I will keep buying more because they keep making more books. Every minute, people write books. Reading books gives knowledge and knowledge is infinity.

Bookshelf: Are you saying reading is the only way to get knowledge and ideas?
Omatseye: Reading is not the only way to get knowledge. Knowledge can also be gotten by interacting with people, from visual experience and studying interesting things around. Someone can get insights from attitude and psychology of people around and even from personal experience. But reading books is a vital part of it.

Bookshelf: How has reading many books influenced your writing?
Omatseye: They have influenced my writing in a psychological way. While reading, we imbibe the thoughts of the authors. When you read a thousand books, you are imbibing a thousand spirits that merge into something technically yours.

Bookshelf: Approximately how many books have you read?
Omatseye: Maybe a thousand. I have read so many. I have written two novels, ‘Crocodile Girl’ and the one I have just written, ‘My Name is Okoro’. I have published three volumes of poetry, and have written a number of plays that are published, also books on politics and development, on Babatunde Fashola, Bola Tinubu and Emmanuel Uduaghan, including two collections of my essays.

Bookshelf: How are you able to explore different genres?
Omatseye: I just feel like it’s something I have to do. It is a matter of where my impulse pushes me. I feel there are some things that I want to express on the stage and some that I have to write in terms of extended prose, which I do in novels. If I want to reflect it through flowery words, I delve into poetry. I have written about four short plays and one has been staged. It was dedicated to Prof. Wole Soyinka. It was a poetic drama.  Writing different genres is not easy. It’s just hard work.

Bookshelf: People write for different reasons. Why do you write?
Omatseye: It is wrong to write books for money or to become famous. Whoever does that has lost the essence of the values. Rather, one should write because he or she has something to say, whether that makes you famous or infamous. You do what you do out of the personal obligation to express yourself.

Bookshelf: How do you find time to write despite your busy schedule?
Omatseye: I don’t find time to write, time finds me. When you want to do something, you will always do it. A drug addict finds the time to smoke, the beer drinker, no matter how busy he is, must find a session with his bottle. Those people who find time to press their cell phone and waste precious hours and money for chatting, is in pursuit of their own addiction.
So, that’s how it is with writing. I can use that precious hour someone else is wasting, to work on a chapter. I don’t have a time or schedule for writing. It could be at the office or at home. Sometimes I write in the early hours of the morning, or late at night. It takes a lot from me but I do it. I will refer to myself as an enthusiast and not a book addict. I know that although I read, I also make sure that other things don’t suffer.

Bookshelf: How do you view publishing in Nigeria?
Omatseye: The problem with publishing in Nigeria is that our publishing industry is not organised. There are no great editors to edit literary works before publishing and the capacity to get your work out has to be done mainly by the author. Nigerians have a bad reading culture. If you don’t publish, who will read? And if you publish and they don’t read, you are wasting your time.

Bookshelf: Many people give the excuse that combining journalism and literature is not easy. What advice do you have for journalists who are aspiring to become authors?
Omatseye: They should follow their dreams. If they want to do it, they should not hesitate to.
If they can manage their time, it will be good for them. I was able to manage mine because I know my schedule and I have to fit it into it. I practised journalism when it was more laborious. As a reporter, I used to jump on molue in Lagos and I walked long distances because I had no car. I had no time because I always gave myself an assignment that I was not sent. Many journalists tell me they don’t have time to read, and I always tell them that, most of the things that I referred to now in my columns, were things I read in books as a reporter many years ago.

Bookshelf: How did you start writin?
Omatseye:  It all started in 2000. Although I did not get published, I wrote. I wrote a collection of poetry that was shortlisted by ANA in 1989. It was titled ‘fangs’.
I will keep writing till I have written everything inside me.

Bookshelf: What do you think it takes to win an award?
Omatseye: The person has to pray to meet a jury that will like his or her work. Winning an award does not necessarily mean that you have the best work. The best work is usually a matter of the judges’ opinions. Some will come out with a shortlist and a different set of judges will produce a different shortlist. To buttress this, in the Man Booker Prize of 2015, the Nigerian author, Chigozie Obioma wrote ‘The Fishermen’. It was on the top four shortlist of the Booker prize. Booker prize is like the number one or two top prizes for novels in English language in the world. This same book did not make the shortlist of Etisalat Prize in Africa, but made the long list. Race car star, Lewis Hamilton once said about prizes that if you are sufficient without it, then you can do without it. So, you don’t need the prize to validate you. It helps, but it doesn’t make you any better than you are. Chinua Achebe did not win the Nobel Prize; I don’t think anybody looks at him any less than those who won. 
To become a successful writer, put your energy into it, believe in something, horn your skills, and read well. All great writers are great readers. Tiger Woods said he was not very good as a child, but it was enthusiasm and the encouragement of his father, that made him become who he is today. When you keep doing something, it becomes part of you.

Bookshelf: How did your journey as a writer begin?
Omatseye: When I finished school in 1979, I didn’t count myself as one that is good at writing, but rather, good at speaking. When I left high school, I decided to write an essay every day as though I was writing for a newspaper. I was the only one who wrote and read it. I wrote an essay every day for one year. I had a notebook that I used at that time to write my essay on farming, corruption, anything. And I tried to be better. When my father saw that I was buying Time magazine with my money every week, he decided that he will be buying it for me instead. So even when I gained admission to Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife, he gave me a special allowance to buy the Time Magazine every week. He saw that I was studying it and underlining strange words and phrases that I come across and memorizing them. My father was my hero.

Bookshelf: Who are your greatest influences?
Omatseye: The greatest influence to me as a writer was Joseph Cornrad and Roger Rosenblatt. Rosenblatt was an essayist for Time magazine. When I read his essays as an undergraduate, I told myself that I have never met anybody write essays as good as this and I want to write like him. I have actually met him, sent my books to him and he sent me a letter in September this year.