Literary Choices

I was asked to work on my novel Miraculous Boy.  My agent is asking me to do rewrites.  My agent is rare.  He won't give up on this book.  MB has been on the market on two separate occasions and hadn't sold.  Frankly, I'm tired of this book.  I've put in ten years into writing and rewriting this book.  I swear in all the time I'd put into it, I wondered about the job opportunities I didn't take up or the relationships that passed me buy.  I chose art making over everything else. 

Writing a book means that there are other aspects of my life I had to give up or did not pursue.  We are our choices and I chose to write.  This is not a bad choice.  I don't regret the creative process during the last ten years, but I'm nearing fifty.  At what point should I just give up and find other ways to grow my life?     

Literary Again

I'd been updating my CV. A great way of documenting my work was to go through this blog. It was wonderful seeing my posts from the last 10 years. I'd grown a lot. When I started this blog, there was no financial meltdown, I had a new novel coming out--things change.

At some point, I stopped focusing on literary stuff and opened it up to all sorts of stuff.  I was exploring my world, I guess. I wrote on my blog less--as I had other writing projects that took up my time. 

Now, I think I should just focus on the writing. And go back to looking at the world purely through a literary lens. 

Literary is back.

Remembering Ayofemi, Remember Why

Ayofemi Folayan passed away recently.  She was my first writing teacher, and I owe her a tremendous amount of gratitude.  In the early 1990's, I was a few years out of acting school, and not acting.  Creativity had always been a strong tool in dealing with the world, and I needed to be creative.  As any actor will you, you're never acting enough and you're usually waiting for someone's permission to act. 

I started her writing workshop, a space she had for LGBT people of color.  She wanted space for young writers to say whatever they wanted to say.  She encouraged writing exploring issues of being a double minority.  I had been in creative spaces before--I had a degree in Theatre.  However, her class was different.  She asked us to travel deeply within ourselves, uncork our thoughts on truly difficult themes: racism, homophobia, immigration.  She helped me become a person who could comfortably speak my mind--with tact and generosity.  She helped developed my Voice. 

One day, she said she was selling her computer for a newer one.  I bought it.  And still have it.  I typed out stories on this old clunker.  I dug it out to look at it and remember my joy of writing in the first place. 

It's been twenty years, and I may have become a little jaded.  I'm being asked to consider "the market" when I write.  Can I sell whatever story I'm writing.  I must confess I had been having some frustration with my current novel.  I feel like my Voice had been muddled.  I'd been choking on what to say.

With Ayofemi's passing, I'm reminded as to why I started writing.  I wanted to do something honest and true.  I wanted to put something out in the world that was valuable.  I wanted to be the kind of writer Ayofemi would have been proud of.  And I still do.

 

 

Thank you, Ayofemi, for your service.