Issue 5: There's Enough Room In The Sky For Us
How great stories stay with us (Eloghosa's 'Good Boy') and how envy is a part of creative writing.
Today’s letter will be short. A deviation from the last set of letters you’ve gotten from me. I’m battling with migraines; I’m currently getting treatment and should be fine soon.
Today, l’ll start with Eloghosa’s story ‘Good Boy’. There are a set of fiction writers from Nigeria that aren’t just good, but defy the odds with their writing and storytelling. When I think of Pemi Aguda, Fope Ojo, TJ Benson, Innocent Ilo (and so much more in this generation of writers!) the first thing that comes to mind is their work, stories that I’ve read that have stayed with me. There’s power in stories that stay, that stretch language, that break the rules. Read ‘Good Boy’ and when you’re done, read the first chapter of Ukamaka’s ‘Ogadinma’ published in Granta. Talk about breathtaking back to back.
My short story which borrows from lockdown and pandemic anxiety was published on Oyster River Pages. A House Full Of Spirits tells the story of three middle-aged sisters, one young woman, her baby (wrapped in yarn) and a dead grandfather. Here are the questions: why can they see dead people? What did the pandemic do to split and break the young woman’s love? I had an insane amount of fun writing it. I hope you enjoy it and that you tweet about it.
Thoughts Day
I’ve spent some time on Curious Cat in the past few days, answering questions about writing. The one question that got me thinking was: “Do you ever (occasionally) compare yourself to your contemporaries? How do you handle that?”. My response was: “I do all the time. But realising that our journeys are different and that there's enough room in the sky for us all to thrive [helps me get past it].”
I was thinking about just how unavoidable it is to compare and how sometimes, comparison leads to envy, then jealousy, and how we rarely, especially in the creative community, talk about these. I remember reading an article a while ago about envy being a vocational hazard for a writer. There’s no easy fix for envy in a world where everyone is more transparent about their wins and less about their loss. We must be brutally honest that it exists and it can be debilitating, asking us to seek for instant gratification, to resent, to kiss-ass.
Last year, a friend who I really admire told me that she felt something akin to envy for me and felt the need to tell me about it. The short conversation changed my perspective about envy, competitions and creativity. It made me realise that the ugly, dirty feeling must be felt. That's one step.
The problem with envy is that it is incomplete. It refuses to acknowledge that whatever achievements the object of envy has received or is being praised for has come from years of hard work and not just out of a vacuum. Envy doesn’t see the story, it sees the end product. It’s irrational, refusing to acknowledge your own achievements, struggles and hard work.
Now, I try to use envy to my advantage. If someone wins a competition that I’ve always wanted to win, or writes a story that blows my mind, I tell them how I feel, I study their work, I try to learn about their process. And sometimes, if the envy is big enough, it’ll motivate me to work towards doing something equally as big or even bigger. And sometimes, meh to it all. That's valid too.
Well, that’s it for today. I hope you had a good week. Here’s to a great month!
