An Adjustable Routine
I
Every experience, if one is conscious enough, yields new lessons and knowledge. While this one was no different, I was particularly anxious that I meet my set goals (which I prefer to think of as a list to be ticked as I arrive at each milestone). The first task of course was determining what the goals are per se, and I had to make sure that they align perfectly with the three months duration of the fellowship, from June to August 2024.
At the beginning, I had written that my long-term goals for my writing career are quite simple. I also stated that, as someone born in Onitsha, Nigeria, much of my writing revolves around chronicling the peculiar business of living in a city like Onitsha, which, in my opinion, has only been passingly captured in literature. Thus, my literary raison d’etre is more or less what you find in the works of writers all over the world whose writing seems mainly domiciled in a particular place, from James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson (in Winesburg, Ohio), to Alice Munro and an enigmatic writer like Elena Ferrante. I have also pointed to how I am also drawn to atmospheric views of place and history as well as an intimate look at the make-up of human relationships and interaction with history, contemporary phenomena, and place—the sort of thing, in short, you find in Cole, Sebald, Borges, etc, on one hand, and Ishiguro, Ondaatje, Adichie, etc, on the other.
My specific long term goal as a writer then, as I stated at the beginning of the Fellowship, is to publish novels and short story collections that capture the atmospheric and human side of Onitsha and its surrounding areas. In truth, nobody knows what the future holds. Nobody knows what will happen even in the next minute. But we always try to pre-empt our own future by setting time-stamps in the form of goals and achievables. A few things I hope to achieve in the next couple of years include the following: get an agent, get a publishing contract, publish my first book (novel or short story collection). As I said, no one knows anything about the future, but these are my goals. Within these goals, there are things I can control and things I cannot. The things I cannot control, I will let providence handle; what I can control, however, is making sure I write the best I can and produce the best work I can. It was James Baldwin who wrote in his “Autobiographical Notes” that he hoped to be “an honest man and a good writer.” My own hopes, aspirations, and simple goals are more or less in that vicinity.
However, the major challenge I think I have in terms of achieving my goals is one I am sure all writers readily identify with—which is the issue of time and space. Time and space is a very tricky concept because time can mean many things for different writers. What is ideal for one can never be for the other. Then there is the question of space, which entails living conditions, which in turn entails the dilemma of funds availability or its lack thereof, which you will agree affects creativity in myriad ways. Hence, the propensity to always try one’s luck with grants applications, fellowships, residencies, etc, and all other creative opportunities that help writers find space and time. On that note, I am especially grateful to LLEAA for this invaluable opportunity.
Another challenge is that of having the right information on what publishing entails. Particularly, this is even more acute for new or young writers who are novices about how publishing—the business side of writing, so to speak—actually works, and what the writer stands to gain in it. Despite all I have stated here regarding challenges, I am not unaware that challenges are a big part of being a writer and, indeed, being a human being in the world we live in.
Finally, I noted that I hoped to add 15000 words to my novel manuscript (5000 each month). Now, considering my fellowship experience, did I achieve all these goals? Did I exceed my own expectations? Were there things I missed or couldn't do? Or did I fail miserably?
II
As far the fellowship went, I would say cautiously that I was moderately successful. My expectations for the fellowship were unrealistically very high; and from the experience that followed it, I learnt one crucial lesson of my writing life, which I will hereupon relate. When the fellowship commenced in June, my first act was to move houses using the grant I received, for I had been previously residing in a location where noise pollution proved to be a constant source of frustration and distraction. (That, in itself, was an achievement of one of my goals, for a writer needs his space—a wisdom to which Virginia Woolf had written famously about.) After I moved to a quieter neighbourhood, I felt very prepared for the job at hand.
Having been writing seriously for at least twelve years, I considered the fellowship an invaluable resource in a country where such opportunities for writers are few, so I wanted to make the most of it. But I would soon realise that my methods were too rigid and stunted. While I was hell-bent that 15,000 words would come regardless, I had not considered other variables such as my job and other engagements, and, most importantly, the quality of the 15,000 pile of lexis. The first month, June, I wrote 10000 words in a great maddening rush. Words which,upon rereading, were far less than what I considered usable. I was disappointed with my own efforts and the time I had expended on really getting at nothing.
In the first workshop meeting, Fellowship director, the novelist Suyi Davis Okungbowa, calmly explained that a writer's goals are more effectively achievable when they make plans according to the peculiar situations of their lives and the contingencies surrounding them. It makes for more effective utilisation of time. There is a particular scientific precision to Okungbowa’s understanding of how a writer can best utilise their time; he offers resources and examples to illustrate how it works.
When I entered into the second month of the fellowship, I decided to reduce my expectations to 8000 words, chiefly in order to achieve the desired quality and to align everything I was doing to my larger goals of getting agented and published. I managed to write two good chapters in July and did a video meeting with an agent. More pointedly, I was more organised, and had a clear picture of what I was writing, what I was doing to support the writing, and what my mental space was in regard to my personal life, which doesn't need to be perfect, only conditioned enough to produce and live as a writer and human being.
It is this ability to adjust my routine and goals that became my biggest lesson during the LLEAA fellowship. A writer is his best self when he finds some form of equilibrium between his life and the work at hand—that sweet-spot where the work can be complemented by a sensibility of time and a self-awareness of its best uses as it concerns one’s own peculiarities and temperament. In that sense, the writer’s life becomes better when he can find his own time, rather than the time claimed by the generality of public opinion.
That certain writers work best at night does not mean it will work for another one; that another writer mechanically churns out 2000 words every morning does mean your best work will happen when you insist on churning out the same number of words in the same time frame. The most important thing is to find that particular territory where your creative powers are at their most alert and potent. Here, then, is a simple but important knowledge that younger writers must be in possession of in order achieve more worthwhile results. And for this simple lesson, I am grateful for the LLEAA experience.
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