Early this morning, I wore a new coat, tag and all and walked down the empty high street.
Occasionally someone would pass by, exhausted and grey-eyed, but I was largely by myself.
I took this walk ostensibly to see if my new coat was warm enough before I committed (it was not), and with the tag as big as my right hand, 6 am seemed the best time to do it. On the way out the door, I grabbed Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. On a whim. In case I got bored. (Bored doing what? Walking down the street?)
I am writing my life’s work so far, my novel. Years and years of thoughts, conversations, ideas and disappointments have been distilled in me and now the story is ready. It’s been ready. But am I?
This past Christmas, my Uncles and Aunties (Shalla to the NigerianUnclesandAunties Club) asked me what I was doing, a question I have always dreaded, often because their children work at multinationals. I would say I was writing a book. Most were kind, if not a little condescending; ‘Aww that’s nice’, their smile stretched across the whole of their faces. Many proceeded to ask me what I studied at University. ‘Law’. Their eyes lit up; ‘Ah! So when are you coming back home to do the Nigerian Bar?”.
I am writing a novel and it is all I am doing and I am scared. This is the first time in my life when it has not played second fiddle to the other practicalities of life. I have fought hard for the time, to create this space, the space to write. It has cost me many things, but committing to this will cost me even more.
I am officially cold, So I am sat in a Starbucks, writing this with a green colouring pencil I rustled up from the bottom of my bag. I am jotting these thoughts in between the lines of Show Your Work. The writing is so faint, I can hardly read what I am writing, which is sweet relief for someone who has an evil self-editing-monster on her shoulder (I have already jotted -google disappearing ink- in a corner).
Outside the window, everything is tinted blue and the dark has left. I remember talking with a Writer and Photographer I admire, Eloghosa Osunde, and she saying to me, pointing at her exhibit at a gallery, ‘This is what I do now’. As if it were the simplest, most sensible thing. And I went home wondering when I would be able to say the same.
So thank you Eloghosa, thank you Austin Kleon, thank you to all the people in my life who have encouraged me. (I am grateful that you are many).
