Wonderful time speaking at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute's After Afropolitan conference at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn. I screened my film, and was on a panel with Binyavanga Wainaina, Farai Gundan, and Zola Dube, moderated by Sean Jacobs of Africa Is a Country. An amazing experience! --AL.

Earlier today at #AfterAfropolitan at @Weeksville Heritage Center cc @AlligatorLegs @YoliZama @BinyavangaW pic.twitter.com/2fC9u8fDvE
— AFRICA IS A COUNTRY (@AfricasaCountry) February 21, 2015

Check out my new Gawker essay! I submitted it on a whim, and am super excited they published it. Please comment, share, and spread the word! --AL.

"Last week, I attended a screening of Ava DuVernay's Selma about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 voting rights marches of Alabama. 

Desperate for inspiration, fresh off my second rejection from Sundance Screenwriters Labs—this time, unlike last year's form letter, a lovely e-mail from the program director praising my "empathy" towards the story's characters—I took the subway uptown to the Academy Theater in Manhattan. 

A light rain fell as I pushed my way into a modern building at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, the East Coast home of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In the lobby, a lone security guard manned the front desk while a mousy-haired woman handed attendees tickets to the post-screening dinner." 

-- Iquo B. Essien, Selma and the American-ness of the Academy

I recently read some letters by the late, great playwright Lorraine Hansberry on display at the Brooklyn Museum. She wrote lists of things she loved, hated, and regretted on her birthdays.

There was no rhyme or reason for which years they picked, but I found her writing so illuminating. At the age of 30, she liked “the insistent penetration of autumn sunlight” and also:
     
     the fact that I have changed
     have stayed the same
     have grown more self-conscious and -- at the same time --
     become less aware of myself
     mushrooms, out of the can
     The first drink of scotch
     the second
     the third

Today isn't my birthday, but I wanted to capture what I think right now about all these things. That is the thing about writing, it creates a time capsule of the present. :) --AL.

MY LIST

I like: Sneakers and jeans. More than I really should at my age. I like them because you can go anywhere at any time and be ready for anything that comes your way. I always end up running--to catch the bus or a train or just because. And it helps to have a good pair of sneakers on.

I love: Writing in my favorite coffee shop in Brooklyn. Sometimes in the afternoon when the place clears out and I'm really getting in a writing groove, a really good song comes on the radio and it becomes the absolute perfect place on earth. I also love to travel, meet new people, cook, sing, and to fall asleep on the beach when the sun's just right. And I love a good adventure, which gives me all the material I need to make art.

I hate: Violence. In all its forms. Especially the mundane, everyday forms of spiritual violence we inflict on ourselves and other people, like the ones we love. I realize that, no matter how much I hate it, sometimes I'm guilty of it, too. And I hate talking about my feelings, although I'm getting better at it as I get older. I prefer logic to emotion, because at least it's solid ground. There are simply too many feelings. I also hate celebrity. It's an insidious concept, that some people are better than others. It breeds classism and differential treatment. If I had the power, I would do away with it.

I regret: All the time I wasted being angry at my mother. It was only adolescence, but I did not know our time together would be so short, that she would die before I got a chance to tell her how much I really admired her. I think she knows now that she's on the other side, but it would be really great to hug her again. I also regret not becoming a musician, and all the years I spent feeling deeply unattractive. I look back and realize I never looked that bad, I just got teased a little bit and thought that meant something was wrong with me. And I regret that, though I've spent my life surrounded by people, I've also been somewhat incurably lonely. Lastly, I regret that I have so many regrets.

I am proud: That I've finally gotten up the skill, courage, and determination to finish this book, to put it out there, and become who I'm supposed to be. Lupita was right; inadequacy is seductive. I'm also proud that I'm almost done with my second degree. It's been a really tough road and maybe I should have given up a long time ago, but I think it means something that I stayed the course. And I'm never going back to school again.

I should like: New York City, but I've grown weary of this town after almost 10 years of living here. Sometimes I wonder where I'll end up next. I believe that people and places come into your life for a season and you should enjoy them, give and get the most you can, and then figure out what the next thing is. I keep getting stuck on my next thing, though. I don't really know where I belong, though, have always been a bit of a wanderer.

The truth is: I'm not really a writer. I mean, I can write, no question about that, but it isn't my heart's joy. That being said, writing has taught me the discipline it takes to create art. And for that I am ever grateful.

I am five (or six or seven) years in to this memoir project and just today realized what I am writing. I have been talking about the book for some time now, but it takes awhile to sit with it, let it marinate in your bones, and have an epiphany. What I realized is: There were the people who stayed after the Biafran Civil War, and those who left, like my parents. I am writing about the latter. It is an interesting kind of experience contextualizing it, understanding where I fit in. It somewhat blew my mind for a minute today, but I am glad to be able to articulate it succinctly now, having spent so much of my life on this project. Writing a book is hard. There is the writing that, for me, comes before the understanding, the organizing and consolidating. Then there is the process of figuring out what it all means. Then you go back and add in the context as best you can (at least, that's how I do it), once you figure out what the framework is, how to see your life as a push-pull of historical, social and political forces. Then of course you have to make all the inner voices you have been over the course of five (or six or seven) years sound like one. It takes a lot of patience and more wisdom than you can imagine. I am writing the beginning last. I had thought I had already written it, but I realized that I hadn't, so I am doing it now. And now I think it's really best to write the beginning last when you realize what is at stake. This is not a roadmap, these are just my thoughts. I applaud and appreciate people who know where they are going when they put pen to page. But I think if I had put that much pressure on myself and even sought to articulate the project in these specific terms before starting it, I may not have written the first word. So it is okay. The work is coming. I am here.

I am 10 the first time I remember being asked this question, Do you have a boyfriend? We are sitting at a church table for religious education on a Saturday morning. It is our first session and we are getting to know each other. The teacher tells us to write a secret about ourselves on a slip of paper and fold it up. I cannot remember what mine said, perhaps that I played the violin, or some such. She collects the slips and opens one at random: I HAVE A BOYFRIEND, she reads, and asks us to guess who wrote it. 

There are only two girls in the class: me and Kisha. Everyone turns to me. Do you have a boyfriend? they ask. I say no; they are surprised. I should have one, I am told, because I am pretty. I look at Kisha, who giggles into her palm. She has not come clean yet, and I realize they do not believe me. She has a nice smile, round cheeks that squeeze her eyes shut when she laughs. I wonder whether I am prettier than her. Is that why they all guessed it was me? No matter how much I deny it, my cheeks flushing red, the others do not stop peppering me with questions. Finally Kisha confesses. She asks me why I don't have a boyfriend, says I'm supposed to. 

It is the first time I remember feeling there must be something wrong with me because I do not have a boyfriend. 

More than 20 years later, I still do not have one. At times it is a badge I wear--single black female, like a rallying cry. I have a Bachelor's and (almost) Master's degrees, attended an Ivy League(ish) school and am well on my way to a brilliant career. For women like me, I am told, eligible men are an endangered species. 

Yes, in fact, I have been single for the majority of the past two decades. I am not emasculating or threatening, at least, I don't think I am. I just have never been in a stable, long-term committed relationship. There have been deaths and grief--frequently enough over the past ten years, beginning with my mother--that have greatly affected the way I relate to other people. I am always looking for the exit, for what's wrong with me or the other person. In all cases, I have found something that has made me leave. Then there is the knee jerk reaction, before birthdays and holidays, to get out of something I am in so I do not have to feel disappointment at what someone fails to do or say. 

I think it is hard, having grown accustomed to not having one, to have a boyfriend now. To meet someone you like, to get to know them, and keep trying even when they get on your nerves. What if they hurt you? Leave you? Die? With planes disappearing mid-air and buildings blowing up in Harlem, I have started avoiding construction sites. I will not date a policeman, fireman, or soldier. I will not date someone who climbs rocks or mountains or shoots guns, real or fake.

To make it harder, at my age, most people assume I should have a husband already. How does that work? I wonder. I have not had a boyfriend in years. When I have had one, I have picked the wrong guy, stayed for the wrong reasons, left for the right ones. I consider myself lucky that I knew enough not to marry any of the men I dated. I could have been an adequate wife to any one of them, just as I could have been an adequate doctor. 

But I am looking for something more.

I neither know what that thing is, nor do I understand what I mean by that. All I know is I keep meeting better versions of myself as I age. More confident, more self-aware and loving. I feel more beautiful, especially given that I never remember feeling that way as a kid. I am kinder and more patient, less selfish than I used to be. 

I am thankful to the handful of men who tried to be my boyfriends, to the ones who flat out rejected me, and those who were merely passing the time until someone better came along. I appreciate how much they taught me about how important it is to like myself, to not run around mad looking for someone else to complete me. 

All of that said, I am genuinely scared sometimes that I will never meet someone. Not because I have any trouble meeting people, or carrying on a conversation, or being asked out, but mostly because I am no longer merely happy to be chosen, as I was when I was younger. I should be with someone equally special who also treats me well. Sometimes I worry that I will never meet this person or, if I do, that they won't pick me to walk with them through this crazy world. 

I would probably be a good girlfriend now. And maybe, one day, even a good wife and mother. At least I no longer think there is something wrong with me because I'm none of these things. And I think that is a start.

Love,
AL.

(Disclaimer: I realize that this is a blog, but it is really a message to myself. I needed to send it into the universe, so thanks for reading.)

Elizabeth's Daughter: In Words and Pictures is a volume of essays and photos from my memoir about a would-be nun in post-war Nigeria who became my mother, and my experiences as her daughter, an artist, and Nigerian-American woman. 

Proceeds from sales of the essay collection will be used toward a broader project incorporating video and photography. Consider making a donation today to help me realize this vision. 

DONATE: http://bit.ly/elizabethsdaughter

(Pictured here, L-R: My mother Elizabeth and her friend Philomena as Girl Guides)

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light on blogs these days, turning my gaze inward. i thought, upon returning to new york, i might easily descend into apathy. haven't yet, at least i don't think so. tho it is unbearably cold and alternately snowy and rainy, and always gloomy. suddenly i can't remember why i live here, can feel myself outgrowing this town. the problem with the new york artist is we all live in a bubble. at a certain point everything becomes endlessly self-referential or irrelevant. i don't know what to make of it anymore. i'm not quite sure where this is going. sorry. what i wanted to blog about i don't feel like blogging anymore. ah yes, apathy. --AL.

Wow. It pays to google yourself from time to time. I didn't get the memo, but apparently I was a semifinalist in the 2011 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellowship. Not sure what that means, apart from getting my name on their nifty web site, but it's definitely cool. I will most certainly apply again next year and, if you're a first or second generation immigrant writer, you should too! --AL.

"Emerging Voices is a literary fellowship program that aims to provide new writers, who lack access, with the tools they will need to launch a professional writing career. Over the course of the year, each Emerging Voices fellow participates in: a professional mentorship; hosted Q & A evenings with prominent local authors; a series of Master classes focused on genre; and two public readings. The fellowship includes a $1,000 stipend.

The Mentorship Project grew out of PEN USA’s forum 'Writing the Immigrant Experience,' held at the Los Angeles Central Library in March 1994, which explored the issues, problems and challenges faced by first and second generation immigrant writers. It was evident from the forum that many of the culturally diverse communities of writers in Southern California have special needs and are often isolated from the literary establishment. In the fall of 1995, PEN USA initiated Emerging Voices as a literary mentorship designed to launch potential professional writers from minority, immigrant and other underserved communities.

Participants need not be published, but the program is directed toward poets and writers of fiction and creative nonfiction with clear ideas of what they hope to accomplish through their writing. There are no age restrictions."

up late last night wrapping up this fulbright. man. i have put so much energy into this thing that i really hope i get it. but i think the lesson is learned anyway. it was a lengthy, and involved process of writing the grant proposal, personal statement, drafting the writing sample/script (i might share some of it on here since i had a devil of a time finding good samples online when i looked), not to mention getting the recommendations, affiliations, and transcripts. in the end, it amounts to a synopsis of my personal and creative development thus far. and with the word dredging i've been doing, it sort of feels like i'm excavating my life.

that's me, above, at my first birthday. today is my 29th, and i'm a lot taller and less weepy now, planning a grownup dinner party with friends and then going out dancing. i feel good. better than good. it occured to me yesterday that, if i had a million dollars, i'd be doing exactly what i'm doing now. so i must be blessed. and lately i've noticed that i don't care as much what other people think about me. showed up to my friend's traditional ibo wedding in queens last weekend in a dress slightly too short and low-cut, but didn't feel too self conscious about it. looking forward to more of the same--confidence, that is, not cleavage--in the coming year.

two days ago was my mom's birthday, and about a week before that the anniversary of her death. october's always been a tough month, but it didn't feel so heavy this year. i think the fulbright application was an engine keeping me going. it's now less than a week to my naija trip, when i'm supposed to work on some kind of memoir essay collection about my mom and me. to visit and revisit places that were important to her, to me. i'm not sure i'm ready to do that--in fact, it took a great deal of prodding to sit myself down to read the beginnings of the essays i already started--but i'm surrendering to the divine force at work. it will carry me there and back safely, perhaps will carry the muse also.

travel mercies.

i'm still working my way through the artist's way. this week, our main assignment is reading deprivation. (my cyberfriend msafropolitan mentioned that this was where she called it quits, or some such.) though i've contemplated ignoring this assignment, i am dutifully NOT reading as much as possible given that i remember how useful this was at hedgebrook, allowing me to access a deeper level of my inner thoughts.

and since i can't read other people's work--books, newspapers, blogs--i'm taking the opportunity to read my own, which brings me to the title of this blog. since there's not much else to do (no facebook status updates, no twitter, no cnn news crack), i am finally going over something like six years' worth of writing, which also involves organizing six years' worth of writing.

i am outing myself as completely disorganized (and i have it on good authority that i'm not the only writer out there who is). i've been wanting to get my shit together for some time now, so i suppose that this seems like a very natural progression. but it is entirely unnatural for me to be mining my literary archives for whatever gems lie buried there. to sit and read and assess with care. to try to figure out what i meant when i wrote this or that, where i was in my head, in my life, whether there is some usefulness to it or it belongs rightly in the scrap heap.

i think i've struggled to feel good about my writing my entire life. i've actually hidden most of it away from inquiring eyes. julia cameron, of the artist's way, calls it the internal censor--the inner monster who says This is no good, get rid of it and start over. mine has been rather overactive, but i am shutting him up now.

there are entire lives and families and mini-universes buried in my laptop. it's quite astonishing. at least maybe some of them, by grace, will have a life outside the notebook. i pulled some words from the pile above:

everyday i wish to
know and
stimulate
the ancient miracle of flow,
inviting the
lost muse
home.

--AL.

i have noticed, with a degree of surprise, that several of my recent followers have been devout Christians. so devout, in fact, that they have faith blogs. i am not against this; in fact, one of my favorite commenters is also a faith blogger. i am simply curious as to what attracts her and others to my blog.

though i was raised catholic, i have of late joined the scores of heretics who profess an amorphous "spirituality" untied to any religion or prophet. call me a lost sheep or the devil (and some have and gone to their knees in prayer), but i prefer to live my life this way rather than to suppress all my human (and, therefore, Godlike) urges for a higher calling.

there was a time when i thought about becoming a nun; in fact, my mother almost became one. but i now feel like some of my friends must have in the past when i ran around thumping a bible and quoting scripture. i am uncomfortable around catholics. and baptists. and muslims. and anyone who knows with certainty that their way is the right way.

all of this to say. this is a religion-free zone. i welcome people of all faiths and creeds, perhaps even those who dabble in the occult sciences (as i've always had a minor curiosity!). but as i said to a friend (this past weekend, on a long trip home after an open mic/house party), i practice creativity as my religion. i show up every morning and write. and when the words flow out of me, i know that God is real.

i imagine that i could have come to a different conclusion, that i (such a lonely letter) am somehow great and powerful, but i (there it is again) choose instead to believe in something greater than myself.

but please be advised that this is not a faith blog and there will be no proselytizing here. this is just a disclaimer, lest i be accused of misrepresenting myself. i do, nevertheless, welcome all your comments, questions and contributions in the quest for knowledge, truth and light.

last fall, after reading a short collection of speeches and correspondence by eleanor roosevelt, i decided to become a woman of letters. i figured that writers should really be writing everything, not texting or posting missives online.

there's a level of care and attention involved in writing letters that is unmatched in electronic communication. you have to think as you write (unless you use a pencil or erasable pen), cross things out (unless you use a pencil or erasable pen), maybe even crumple up a page and start all over again.

since my netbook crashed, and i've struggled to get it started again, i've returned to writing by hand and, despite the carpal tunnel, have fallen in love all over again -- with the anticipation of filling a blank sheet of paper, the certainty of the ink smudges on the edge of my hand. it feels real; while laptops and the internet, sometimes, feel so fake and empty.

so i sent a letter off to a college friend in Colorado. she is South African, married to a white Oklahoman, now relocated to Denver. the letter came as a total surprise to her, but she called me after getting it, very excited about the prospect of becoming pen pals. but she's taken awhile (8 months) to write back, and i haven't written any more letters since sending her that first one.

so. in the end, i have not been as successful at this endeavor as i thought i would be. but i am still trying. i think i will send another letter and see what happens. if i can get her to slow down for a minute, to pull out a pen or pencil and write to me.

how i would love to open up a letter and see her handwriting, perhaps a coffee stain, too, in the bottom corner. --AL.

between work and a doctor's appointment and a very long conversation with a friend of mine who got into a car accident on the way to akwa ibom int'l airport (the brakes failed and the steering wheel locked, he crashed into a roundabout), i somehow forgot to eat my lunch today. i usually carry a sandwich, salad, some snacks with me to work, but i had so much on my mind that i never got around to eating them.

so the two afterwork margaritas (pomegranate-flavored and frozen) that i drank hit my stomach quickly, the effects of the alcohol like little hands massaging my overstressed brain. after parting ways with my work mates, i passed by a bookstore and couldn't resist walking up and down the aisles, dragging my hand along the shelves, pausing to look at all the old, familiar titles and the shiny, new ones. marquez. adiga. diaz. delillo.

i fancied myself, after leaving the bookstore, coming home and writing for hours in my semi-drunken state. it all sounded so romantic until i fell soundly asleep on the train-ride home (thank god i didn't miss my stop!). nearly all the buzz has worn off now, but i still feel like there should be more writing in my life, in the world. i think i'm in love. good night. --AL.

there are a great many things i'd like to do with my life, and every day i add another to an already very long list.

eventually we all die, and i've always felt the clock ticking -- perhaps too loudly. so. i have finally stopped making excuses for my lagging progress on my novel and taken the (very great) step of going down to four days a week at work. it is only a small step, but it feels so magnanimous, like i am daring to ask the universe for exactly what i want (more time to write!).

tuesday was blissfully long and tiring, first writing all day at home, and then starting my new writers' workshop in brooklyn. the class isn't exactly what i thought it would be, but it is something new, and that's good enough for now. needless to say, adding in a couple of dance classes and yoga, plus my job, has left me quite exhausted this week, in a place of surrender that can be its own blessing.

but i am so grateful for this moment of transition. learning about the creative process and commitment is all that matters to me now.

i am quite certain that heeding the call to write -- or to create whatever art lies within you -- is one of the most challenging and instructive lessons in self acceptance. i might complain that i still don't know what i'm doing (and i don't), that i'm tired, that i'll never make it through the nine weeks of this workshop PLUS apply for a Fulbright, but i've chosen instead to accept it. the alternative would mean rejecting the only thing that gets me up in the morning.

i believe that if i create more space in my life to write, the universe will respond in kind. so i'm just going to keep making space and, hopefully, new blessings will fill it up.

today is my first day as a part-time writer. yes, i have been writing for years, but i've finally decided to go down to three days at work and write the other two (or four, depending on how things go on the weekends). i feel absolutely wonderful. i feel infinitely powerful even after just one hour of writing for myself on my own time (8am to 9am no less!).

technically, today is just a vacation day to sample the full-day-writing thing, to whet my intellectual appetite (picked up a copy of suki kim's the interpreter at the library yesterday) and remind me of the wonderful luxury of my writer's residency at hedgebrook last fall (now accepting applications for 2011!).

i hope you're having a wonderful morning or afternoon, wherever you are. let me give a shout out to cameroon for the wonderful effort yesterday. i cannot believe that goal in the 83rd minute that clinched the game for the netherlands! boo.

yes. writing is very much like running naked through life without concern for who may or may not be watching or wearing clothes. (and now i have forgotten where i'm going with this, but i'll push on all the same.) i have a sense that we are all pretending, in some way, to be who we're not. pleasing our parents, friends or lovers. our bosses. masking our naked reality.

but when i write, i am not pretending or pleasing anybody but myself. i do not know why i do this, what the urge is, what it means. i can only say that i wish to live as a writer. bold and authentic and free. i aspire to be the woman i am writing, though they are still very far apart.

i must admit that i have written six or so blogs in the past few weeks that i didn't publish. halfway through writing i began to feel self conscious, like standing naked in a room of fully clothed people. when the writing is not flowing, i feel the need to cover up and run away. perhaps, though, there is something to showing up to the page anyway, even when it is not working.

i must admit that i've been hiding. trying to figure out why the creative well dried up; but, alas, i am not God. i hope the end of the trickling is upon us.

Went to a memoir workshop last night at my new favorite bookstore, taught by Gotham Writers' Workshop instructor Cullen Thomas. I have been lagging in all matters of writing lately, had a moment last week when it all seemed rather pointless and stupid. But I showed up late anyway, grabbed a seat near the back row that somehow ended up directly in Cullen's sight lines.

We did a short character exercise and some shared their meager sentences with the mostly female, white, and slightly older crowd. He went through the basics of plot, character, setting, dialogue, and theme, did a plug for his memoir and for Gotham.

Then he said, quite simply, that we all have a story to tell. (I have always believed this, perhaps I needed someone to say it out.) That we needn't come to the workshop and the page expecting to publish, but perhaps to have a cathartic experience that helps us understand a moment in our lives better.

He offered a quote by Anais Nin: We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.

I suppose I should mention, perhaps I have already, that the novel I am writing was first a memoir. I might also add that I am now developing (whatever that means, I haven't touched it in weeks) a collection of memoir essays loosely about identity, language, loss, and alienation. They are the little bits and pieces of thoughts floating in my head on the subway, that I jot into my notebook.

I find that I am always writing, whether on purpose or by chance, yet I am also somewhat obsessed with getting published. Ever since, as a child to whom such things came easy, I published a poem at 14, I assumed it was a simple matter. Come to find, as an adult, it is nothing of the sort. It is challenging and requires more determination than I sometimes think I have.

It is also the biggest emotional-mind-fuck ever conceived.

In truth, the novelization of the memoir was intended to create a safe psychological distance for myself. But, the deeper I get into the work, that distance slowly peels away, layer by layer. The writing also creates a type of "silence" that is only broken through the act of sharing those words.

I imagine, then, that I am really learning to speak, to find my voice through writing.

...until further notice, I suppose. Thanks so much for your words of encouragement. I think that the interaction also helps me as a novelist, spending so many hours alone in my own little universe. It is at once both enriching and disorienting.

One of the main reasons I blog, of course, is that it is one of a handful of tools with which I can document my random thoughts in a virtual, infinitely accessible and searchable format. Kind of brilliant, actually. I am still trying to understand Twitter in this regard, am not yet fully imposing my every thought on the world.

If you measure the ratio of time I spend blogging to writing these days, it's become quite pitiful. Of course, I am still trying to recover my netbook. As a solution, one of my Twitter friends suggested I blog less. I think that is a very good idea. However, lately I also find myself with too much time to kill at work. (C'est la vie.)

...you've faced rejection again and again, yet keep writing anyway.

Two residency rejections in one day tonight: I-Park and Edward F. Albee. What made the latter rather poignant was their choice of words: "At this time every year we regret to inform a large number of applicants that we are unable to grant them space. And so we must inform you. We are very sorry." How thrilled I am that they are very sorry and not simply sorry.

So that makes three rejections so far this year including Jentel. I will not hold my breath waiting for the others. I am pretty tough, but am having such a bad day (week?) that it all seems particularly shitty. Days like today there seems an impassable gulf between me and the end of this novel.

I've been planning to "gift" myself a residency this summer anyways--two months in Nigeria for writing, research and relaxation. I've saved up a little bit of money and am going to indulge myself in myself.

If I were someone else (white? perhaps male? recently unemployed or divorced?), I'm sure I could sell the concept and get a book deal out of it. But my plight is far too ordinary.

I keep a notebook that I write in almost every day, religiously. I carry it around in my purse with a pen, pull it out on the subway ride to work every morning. I use the writing to become present to my surroundings and feelings (what people are saying and wearing, what the weather is doing outside, how uncomfortable my shoes are), but also to open up my creative imagination (where the woman next to me is going carrying a box of bubble wrap). When the noisy thoughts of my day start to creep in to my mind, I silence them and focus my mind on the present.

You might call it a meditation; in many ways, all writing is a form of meditation, a kind of focused presence. And the only thing keeping me sane.

At any rate. Really fascinating thing happened in the course of writing the Jerome Travel and Study Grant application this week -- my novel morphed back into a memoir. I opened up my writing notebook and came across all these essays I've been scribbling about losing my mother, remembering my mother, going back to Nigeria, trying to trace her story. After submitting the latest novel chapter for critique to my writers' group, I just thought it needed far too much work to send out, when these essays fully encapsulated all I was trying to say about memory, loss, language, alienation, identity, tradition, and spirituality (hey, I could add some more :).

The best thing about having a daily writing practice, apart from cultivating an almost Zen-like presence and centeredness, is having a slush pile of odds-and-ends that can be edited and transformed for any creative purpose.

I fully realize that the decision to write a novel was born of the fact that I am not ready to share certain things that these essays expose. But there is something really compelling and honest in them. I will let you know what comes of the application. At the very least, I am going to try and publish a few essays in some literary journals this year. I think it's about time I step up my game and rescue them from where they languish in my marble composition book.

I'm supposed to be working on another application today, for a National Geographic All Roads Seed Grant to do a documentary on my ninety-year-old grandmother. But my head is kind of foggy so I think I might just sleep. I'm home sick with a sinus and bronchial infection, which is far more unpleasant than it sounds.

Hear more on Zen and the art of writing from Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones.