In Transition

March 2, 2014 ~ livelytwist ~ 35 Comments

In transition.

The first time I read those words was when I was so little, time loomed so large, and my only care was how to fill stretches of time. Capitalised above a black and white photo of someone’s grandma, I understood the words meant she had died and gone to Heaven, which I simplified to mean, no one would see her again and finally, she could snuff that thing in the little tin she carried about in peace.

Of course, now that I’m grown, my ideas have changed. Life is a series of transitions and death is the final one or another in the series, depending on what you believe.

The quality of our transitions can make or break the next phase of our lives. If you tumbled into adolescence with pimples and a pitch that would not deepen even as each new year brought your peers’ baritone in sharper focus, if you could count the hair on your face and on your chest on four of your five fingers, then you’ve known the awkwardness of bad transitions.

And if at twenty-four, your scars from popping pimples lay hidden under a well-groomed beard, you could croon the words, smooth transition, and we would nod as though Sade were singing Smooth Operator.

In writing, transitions connect paragraphs and pull scattered thoughts together so they make sense. Transitional devices are words or phrases that writers use to cue readers in a certain direction. They are like warning signs: ahead, keep left. A word like nevertheless, prepares readers for a contradiction, while furthermore, warns readers that the writer isn’t done yet; and finally, lets readers know the end is “finally” in sight.

Nowhere is the value of good transitions more evident than when writing short stories, short blog posts, or short anything. Brevity constrains writers to bottle meaning in as few words as possible. Like archers, writers discard word after word, until they find the arrow that will hit the mark.

Transitioning between time periods, i.e. moving from the present to the past and then to the future, before relaxing in the present again, requires more than bow and arrow. A good writer must deploy the right tenses and should never leave home without his adverbs of time. When writing a short story, I think it is better to avoid skipping from present to past to future to past to present. I mean, haven’t we got only one life to live?

But, we don’t listen do we? We station the protagonist in the present, give him momentum, and teach him to fly. Just when our readers blame that small urinary incontinence on gripping stuff, the protagonist leaps back in time. Reaching for a flag, he falls in a rose bush instead, pricking our readers with needles of confusion.

Loyal readers crawl back through our written lines more than thrice to locate the protagonist. But when they pick up from where they left off, they are thrust into a futuristic time travel with no warning. Dizzy from the spatial challenge, they finally abandon plot. Those who cannot lie leave a comment behind: nice one, don’t keep it coming!

So, a long time ago, I tried to write poetry. I showed my masterpiece to a ~~great~~ ~~poet~~ teacher.

“You’ve done a half-decent job.”

“Half-decent?” My eyes widened at her audacity. She told me the truth when I asked for feedback. Who does that?

“Well, you could do better if . . .”

She rambled on about metres and stanzas, rhymes and verses. Her arms flailed like a musical conductor’s: a little alliteration, tenured cacophony, rising assonance, asinine onomatopoeia, and mindless personification. Spent, her arms dropped to her sides. Her eyes searched mine.

“Got it?”

“Uh huh,” I replied, “But, I want to write it like this,” I showed her my poem again.

“Timi?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to write poetry?”

“Y – e – s . . .”

“You can break the rules after you’ve mastered them not before!”

If you read this to the end without losing me, kudos to me, I structured my transitions right. Now, go and work on yours, so I can read your story without crawling through the lines!

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

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Photo of Omari Hardwick courtesy: http://www.omarihardwick.com

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WordPress 106 … Writing and Perception

January 12, 2014July 7, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 39 Comments

Railroad tracks appear to meet at the horizon, but a closer walk disproves this. One of the challenges of writing a personal blog is that fantasy is congruent to reality. Take this phone call for instance.

“I just read your latest post.”

“Without me harassing you? Great! What did you think?”

“Hmmm . . . hmmm, was it about you?”

“No, but I draw on my experiences to weave a realistic tale, to find metaphors that resonate—”

“Cut the crap. Was it about you?”

“No . . . why?”

“Thank God. Em, now I know, I’ll read it again and let you know what I think. Bye!”

If dinner conversation turns to my blog, friends who don’t read my blog pant in anticipation of the backstory to my posts.

“So?”

“I can’t answer that! I’m a very private person—”

“Who writes a very public blog; puhleeze, answer us!” someone protests.

William Faulkner said, “A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.” Some friends think I write about them.

“Stop,” she says using one hand to cover Sola’s mouth. Turning to me, “Swear you won’t blog about it.”

I rise and gather my stuff. Who do they think I am, a gossip columnist? Who do they think they are, The Real Housewives of Atlanta?

“Timi, it’s alright, stay—” Sola frees her mouth and speaks.

I make small shakara, “Look if you guys don’t want me here . . .”

Language is many things and writing is powerful. Writers use words to conjure images and evoke emotion. Words are magic; they make zombies run marathons and sprinters limp. Words are make-up; they hide blemishes and paint pale cheeks a rosy hue.

Words confuse too. They make the writer bigger than life; like that boy I had a crush on. He always sat in the car, looking wicked in Ray-Ban, while his friend who drove to my parent’s house, stood and made small talk. The day he came out of the car, his white crocodile-skin shoes, white jeans, and white t-shirt, did not catch my attention. Leaving his hand hanging in the air, I blurted, “I thought you’d be taller,” and decrushed him for good.

Writers select words that match their objectives. They use words to hint at meaning and sell tell a story unbound by rhythm and verse. With their words, they entice you to dance in a fire you did not light.

My about page is the fourth highest viewed page on my blog so far. I get it. If a piece of writing moves me, I read the author’s bio to confirm or refute my perception. So, you want to know? Let me tell. I’m simple, but my drama has commercials in between. I don’t articulate myself as well as I wish, but I write excellently, the sentences I wish I had spoken. If you live on the fast lane, I will never overtake you. If you sashay to the music that I play, you will find me here in the words on display.

After I draft this, a friend reads it.

“You could have called this, Things You Didn’t Know About Me, and left all the flowery stuff out.” He yawns and reaches for the remote control.

His language is different from mine. He fuels my insecurities. But without him, I would ramble past 800 words.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I argue.

He shrugs, “Writing is a lot like Photoshop.”

Sunday. Doubts nibble on my mind like ants on sugar. I stamp them out. I know I’ve won when the picture of me in your head is the same as the picture of me in my head.

©Timi Yeseibo 2014

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Design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2014

Gratitude

October 30, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 21 Comments

I know activities dot every square inch of your life. I know your commitments stretch you past breaking point. I know you have been planning and failing to go to bed early, to get a good night’s rest, every night for the last fortnight. I know.

That is why your reading my posts and foraging in the archives, sometimes laughing, sometimes sharing with a friend, sometimes shaking your head, means so much to me. If I stood on a hill and shouted my gratitude, the echo would not reach the valley fast enough, would not carry the meaning trapped between the words, would not overwhelm you with the thing bubbling in my heart. I can’t say thank you enough for your being here, especially in October when I wasn’t really here.

Thank you.

My family of bloggers, who adopted me, no questions asked, you understand me more than most. You know what it’s like to fill a blank page with your thoughts and then do what Stephen King recommends: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” For lifting my airplane with your wings, thank you.

I start blogging again in November. I haven’t finished reading the books I planned to read in October. I have some days left from my annual leave—there is hope! I didn’t complete my half-written posts, you know, the ones I planned to develop later. This Friday night na die!

What did I do? Movies. Food. Friends. Family. Laugh. Cry. Talk. Music. And graphic design. Through it all, I scribbled on yellow post-its. My task is clear—to make new things familiar, and familiar things new¹. So, don’t leave me now you know I have half-baked gist to share. Stay with me?

Take lemons & make life!

1. “The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.” Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

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design: ©Timi Yeseibo 2013

Why I Write

September 29, 2013July 7, 2015 ~ livelytwist ~ 23 Comments

I write because I have something to say. I write with intention. I write to inform and to amuse. I write to inspire conviction that provokes movement, because words are not empty. I write because I can.

I do not write for fun. I watch romantic comedies for fun. I read a novel with a wicked plot for fun. I walk on the beach for fun. I cycle through the woody paths of the Veluwe for fun. I don’t write for fun, however writing can be so much fun.

I write because I like challenges, the challenge of taking something ordinary and giving it wings to fly like a kite in the wind. Watching it sail, I ooh and ah as its colours change. Then I ooh and ah again as I see through your eyes, the medley of colours in the comments you leave behind.

I write because I want you to read what I write. When people say that they write for themselves and not for others, and then publish the writing that they wrote for themselves on a blog for the world to see, the irony does not escape me. I write because it matters to me that you read what I write. If it did not matter to me, I would write in my diary.

I write because I enjoy reducing the tedious emails that nearly nobody reads and a few skim, to bullet points that everybody reads. I write because I love to k.i.s.s. (keep it so simple), and make up, that is, stretch a story to breaking point to test the limits of its elasticity. Snap! And start again.

I write to discover myself. As my thoughts change to words, I see who I have been, who I am becoming, and who I might be. I write because my interaction with the world makes sense when I draw it in word pictures. Blue means peace and green means fruit. If I could not write, I would paint. And if I could not paint, I would sing. I would croon ballads about the fact that I cannot write.

I write because I have time. I write because I make time. I write because I lose time when I write. Minutes tick and become hours and hours race into days. I write because it is easy for me to write. I write because I hear words and phrases in my mind. I write because I dream, lofty dreams about never-never land, perfect rag dolls, and vintage family portraits

I write because the gift chose me. I write because I discovered the gift when I wasn’t looking. I write because writing adds value to my life, turning my whispers into loud cries, enabling me to stand tall on crouched knees. I write because the gift continues to unfold with surprises in store.

Mostly, I write because I can. Why do you write?

Gosh, are you still here? Reading? For real? Okay, this one’s for you—three offbeat posts about writing:

One, Two, Three.

Finished? Now, go get a life!

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WordPress 104… In Search of Content

August 25, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 20 Comments

When I wake up, I do not panic. I turn around and enjoy the darkness. I capture my enjoyment of it—the silence, my breathing, and tracing the bizarre shapes floating on the ceiling—in long lazy stretches. But too quickly, it slips through my fingers like water in cupped hands.

Pop! And my brain takes over. It is 1 a.m. on Friday and I don’t have a post for Sunday, which is when I update my blog.

My idea book is filled with words, phrases, whole paragraphs even, written when inspiration caught me mid-cooking, mid-vacuuming, mid-driving, mid-praying, and mid-listening-to-the-C.E.O.-at-the-company-meeting. Each spree ends with the acronym T.B.D.L. (to be developed later). Words that I imagined would bring me fame, have lain there, on hiatus, waiting to be developed later.

This small exercise book is a contradiction of who I am, for I am as organised as the T that begins my name. However, here, my words begin inside the margin and jump the lines, leaping over the light blue boundaries that would suffocate my creativity. I recognise the frenzy of inspiration and the rush of words tumbling from my mind, in my illegible handwriting.

As I scan through, in the glow of my bedside lamp, nothing I read seizes my attention. I cannot strike the balance between what I want to write and what I think my readers want to read, so I power my laptop. If I read other blogs, perhaps I will find it.

Browsing is an apt term for what I do. Channel surfing paints a truer picture. I join the millions who roam the internet foraging for content. Too much choice is a bad thing. It can leave you undernourished instead of well-fed. Skimming headlines, clicking links, scanning blocks of text, skimming headlines again, I am a victim of “content anorexia”. I eat, but I do not digest, never able to hold anything down.

After a while, I see the word diaspora. It is spelt with a capital D in the middle of a sentence, a straight line and a curve that scream my name. Something doesn’t feel right. The pieces come together. Aha, I have spelt diaspora with a small d on my blog.

My weakness shows when my strength is magnified. It is painful to watch. Perfectionism drives me to find the post on my blog. Perfectionism drives me to start a Google search. Too much choice is a bad thing. I cannot cover the 3,647,400 results, which Google search engines deliver in 0.29 seconds, but I can try.

Diaspora from the Greek, meaning scattering, dispersion…. Diaspora, often initial capital letter…. Spell check the word diaspora on our website…. the body of Jews living in countries outside Israel…. African diaspora… the slave trade and its effects…. Diaspora cultures … the dispersion of communities throughout the world. The diaspora of English into several mutually incomprehensible languages…. The Polish diaspora amounts to 40 million… How to say diaspora in Swahili…

When my alarm goes off at 5:45 a.m., I think about three things:

One, that this is the alarm before the real alarm. It is the alarm that I “snooze” while I attempt a half-sleep, punctuated by thoughts of the real alarm.

Two, that I was right. I had spelt diaspora correctly with a small d, which was suitable for my context. This small victory does not bring elation.

Three, that I do not yet have a blog post for Sunday.

My eyelids now feel as though cement bags were dropped on them. And adrenaline departs from me in waves, rousing pain in my limbs. I know much more about diaspora than I ever intended to know. In secondary school, a teacher once said that no knowledge is ever wasted. What will I do with all this information I gathered about diaspora, information that is already fading away, slipping as I am, under my sheets?

The real alarm buzzes at 6:15 a.m., and I “dismiss” it without thinking, for nature exacts her pound of flesh.

When I wake up again, I panic. Light streams through the blinds and I know I need a miracle. 7:05 a.m., in the shower. 7:13 a.m., dressed. I have never put on make-up in the train, but there is always a first time. My black bag is big enough to hold my life, so I toss the things I need and the things I think I will need inside, and because I cannot remember if I brushed my teeth, I fling in my toothbrush and toothpaste for good measure.

7:19 a.m., I begin the sprint. I see a man walking his dog, shoulders hunched up, chin half-buried inside his coat, in contrast, my coat is open, its tails flapping in the wind. And for once the cold is my friend.

7:23 a.m., I stumble into the bus. So, what if people are staring at me? When I flop into my seat, I drink in gulps of air and think, Usain Bolt ain’t got nothing on me; no, nothing, except age! Up diaspora!

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A Father’s Love

June 16, 2013 ~ livelytwist ~ 26 Comments

My father’s love is different from my mother’s love because my dad is not like my mum, as it should be. He is a thinker, not a talker; his low rumble rarely punctuated the soprano-rich chatter that filled our home.

While I can dig up a dozen memories of my mum the superhero, without knitting my eyebrows and closing my eyes, I can only dig up a few of my dad. However, each memory, etched with a permanent marker in my consciousness, represents a turning point that defined me as a writer.

During my childhood, my father was two things to me: Father Christmas and the man I wanted to please at all cost. Perhaps it was because he lived far away and I did not see him every day; the heart often longs for that which is not near. He returned home at Christmas with lots of praise and presents. He brought us tons of Judy, Mandy, Betty & Veronica, and Archie comics.

He made sure I had one Naira every day so I could go to Challenge Bookshop or Leventis Stores to buy a book. That was how I discovered the enchanted world of Enid Blyton and my imagination soared to distant lands and distant shores. I cut my notebooks to mini squares and wrote the stories I would have loved to tell. That was how I learnt about pace and dialogue without going to writing school. Encouraged by my dad, I read and read and read.

As a teen, we read together because he was home every day. I scanned the newspapers daily, but saved the columns and editorials for weekends. Then I would lounge with him in our veranda, he lost in his world of words, I lost in mine, as the clock ticked away. When night fell and the queen of the night flowers released their scent, we slapped the moths and mosquitoes away, turning the pages of our newspapers faster than we had done in the afternoon.

He indulged my love for reading and there was always money to buy more books, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, The Economist, Times, Newswatch, and Classique magazines. That was how I learnt to argue for what was important to me with my words instead of my voice. Enthralled by the magic of words, my worldview changed one sentence after another. I wrote opinion pieces that enticed people to read and not skim, arranging my stream of thought in a logical flow. That was how I learnt about exposition without going to writing school. Encouraged by my dad, I read and read and read.

Now a young woman, it is my turn to be Mother Christmas, heaping gratitude and gifts, so my father can continue to read. When we talk, I listen. I listen for it. I listen for the lilt in his voice as I imagine the spark in his eyes, because something he read has transported him as it does me, to lands of possibilities.

As I connect the dots of my life, it becomes clearer and clearer still: my father’s love is different from my mother’s love. Her love is loud and the spotlight magnifies her heartbeat in motion. In the periphery, my father’s heart beats too, at a quiet even pace that masks its fervency.

My dad is the mostly unsung hero who in a time of uncertainty wrote me a letter that has frayed at the ends and torn at the fold. Whether soaring or plummeting, whether laughing or crying, his words have remained with me, reminding me of when I first dared to dream. Reading and rereading the letter through the years, his writing style has become my own.

Happy Father’s Day dad. Surely, my ink flows in part because of you.

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