Wole Adedoyin interviews Lola Fabowale: I Began Writing in the Year Wole Soyinka Won the Nobel Prize for Literature

WA: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU THINK SOMEONE SHOULD CALL THEMSELVES A WRITER?
LOLA: The appellation of "writer" comes with the conviction and deepening of the vocation: once you recognize that you have a calling to leave an imprint on your world through writing and you begin diligently to do so, you are a writer.  While external validation--others hailing you as a writer--can be gratifying, Amos Tutuola and Annie Ernaux have shown us--with their subsequent successes and recognition--that initial (and sometimes condescending), external perceptions matter less than the vision the writer has of herself or himself as a creative artist--as a weaver of words.

WA: WHAT DIFFERENCE DO YOU SEE BETWEEN A WRITER AND AN AUTHOR?
LOLA: Generally, an author is an artist who has created or has legal right over an original work for a certain medium--writing, painting, or singing.  Being creators, most writers are also authors.  But by definition, not all writers are authors. A writer is an author only if she or he has published a work over which she or he has full legal rights to call it hers or his.  For instance, Emily Dickinson was a prodigious writer, now of great renown, but arguably, she was never an author while alive because her works were not known outside of her small circle of family and friends.  She only became an author posthumously when her works got published and in her name!  Ghostwriters of works that celebrities pass off as their own represent the other end of the spectrum.

WA: WHAT DO THE WORDS “WRITER’S BLOCK” MEAN TO YOU?
LOLA:  Ah, writer's block is the mental obstacle to your being able to put your ideas on paper.  It usually is an indication that you are either trying too hard (and need to let your writing lie fallow for a bit so that you can come at it more productively) or you are on the cusp of a major breakthrough.  Only you would know which is which to be able to take appropriate measures.

WA: HOW DO YOU PROCESS AND DEAL WITH NEGATIVE BOOK REVIEWS?
LOLA: Nobody likes bad news.  At least I don't.  I believe everyone wants to be admired.  However, no matter how negative, if a review is constructive and strikes at the chord of weaknesses in your writing that you know you have, it can inspire you to begin to whittle down such failings.  On the other hand, if a review seems to be aimed only at withering your spirit, you may blithely ignore it.

WA: WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT PART OF YOUR WRITING PROCESS?
LOLA: When it comes to creative writing, I focus mostly on Nigeria from memory.  Being of the diaspora challenges my ability to concisely recollect the taste, smell, touch, sound, sight of things in the environment I write about including the essence of people, flora, fauna, starry constellations etc.

WA: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WRITING OR WHEN DID YOU START?
LOLA: My first foray into writing began in 1986 when I penned the short story "A Woman Wronged?" and the poem "Notes to Night".

WA: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO A WRITER WORKING ON THEIR FIRST BOOK?
LOLA: Before you do anything, do a detailed outline of the plot and characters if it is a short story, play, novella or novel.  If it is poetry, identify the unifying themes.

WA: WHAT, TO YOU, ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENTS OF GOOD WRITING?
LOLA: Good, clear, deep ideas about life or existence; relevant research into your subject matter to boost authenticity; choice of a genre you are comfortable with and an adroit style of storytelling.

WA: WHAT COMES FIRST FOR YOU — THE PLOT OR THE CHARACTERS — AND WHY?
LOLA: Both are simultaneously suggested: it is impossible to have a good plot without thinking of the characters too.  Still, more often than not, the plot is primordial.

WA:   HOW DO YOU DEVELOP YOUR PLOT AND CHARACTERS?
LOLA: I develop both half by half: half through detailed outline and half loosely so as to cage neither the plot nor the characters--to allow them some free rein to evolve and define whom or what they choose to be. 

WA: WHEN DID YOU FIRST CALL YOURSELF A WRITER?
LOLA: In 1986, when I published my first short story and poem.  Subsequently, I went on to write professional, nonfiction articles on women and entrepreneurship based on empirical research for diverse journals.

WA: HOW DO YOU USE SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN AUTHOR?
LOLA: I used to share my creative writings with friends and family via social media until many urged me to consider publishing.  Now I use social media more as a marketing than as a diffusion tool!

WA: WHAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN ABOUT WRITING?
LOLA: That I should widen my circle of influence and seek a global audience  for my work beyond friends and family.

WA: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST WAY TO IMPROVE WRITING SKILLS?
LOLA: The best way is a to hold a five-pronged fork: you must read widely; do research germane to the terrain you are venturing into be that medicine, sociology, politics. economics or an admixture; choose your preferred genre--non-fiction, fiction, play, novel, dystopia, utopia, mystery, fantasy, etc; write prodigiously to hone in your ideas; and rest whenever you must.

WA: WHAT HAS HELPED OR HINDERED YOU MOST WHEN WRITING A BOOK?
LOLA: Not sketching a detailed outline is truly an imped to realizing a good story.  Knowing what you want to write about and taming the flow through sketching are a few of some tremendous helps.

WA: HOW MANY HOURS A DAY DO YOU WRITE?
LOLA: That depends on when and how the Muse visits!  Most of my current collection of poems were written a long time ago and are just being edited now for publication,

WA: WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE BLOGS OR WEBSITES FOR WRITERS?
LOLA: I love Niyi Osundare's online collection of poetry.  

WA: AT WHAT TIME OF THE DAY DO YOU DO MOST OF YOUR WRITING?
LOLA: When I write actively, I prefer dawn for that it is when all--my Spirit included--is most alert yet quiet.

WA: WHAT’S YOUR WRITING SOFTWARE OF CHOICE?
LOLA: Macbook Pro Pages and Microsoft Word

WA: HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH CHARACTER NAMES FOR YOUR STORIES?
LOLA: It depends.  Sometimes the plot will suggest the characters and they will be summoned from imagination. Being Yoruba, I love to give characters names that correspond to what the plot augurs will be their traits.  At the same time, like Margaret Atwood, I strongly believe that many a character and her or his name are based on impressions left by real life.

WA: DO YOU PARTICIPATE IN WRITING CHALLENGES ON SOCIAL MEDIA? DO YOU RECOMMEND ANY?
LOLA:  Not many that I have participated in.  Still, I deem ANA, PAWA and Commonwealth writing challenges worthy of response.

WA: WHEN YOU’RE WRITING AN EMOTIONAL OR DIFFICULT SCENE, HOW DO YOU SET THE MOOD?
LOLA: Usually, the mood will be set, drawing on my intuition, experiences and imagination..

WA: WHAT BOOKS DO YOU ENJOY READING?
LOLA: All genres of World Literature including: African Writers Series, and works by European Writers, North American and Latin American Writers.  I wish to read more works on Asia and preferably by Asian writers beyond Memoirs of a Geisha, Breaking the Tongue, and Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China and Pearl Buck’s iconic works.

WA: ARE THERE ANY BOOKS OR AUTHORS THAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME A WRITER?
LOLA: It is no coincidence that I started writing the same year that Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I told myself: if a child of Nigeria and Ogun State can do it, so can I!  Reading the Death of the King's Horseman and the familiar scenes of life in NIgeria it evokes and depicts convinced me that I too have the basic building blocks of what it takes to be a writer.  Until Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize, I was just an avid reader of literature, not a writer.

WA: WHAT BOOKS HELPED YOU THE MOST WHEN YOU WERE WRITING YOUR (FIRST) BOOK?
LOLA: Many, many books that I had been reading all my life all contributed their fair share of drops to my writing well (pun fully intended!).  However, the Death of the King's Horseman which I read following Wole Soyinka's Nobel win helped to coalesce and catalyze my writing..

WA: WHAT BOOKS DID YOU GROW UP READING?
LOLA: At first, I gorged on popular novels such as those by James Hadley Chase and Denise Robbins, and on the famous Yoruba pulp drama known as Atoka.   Then,  I developed a penchant for classics in the African Writers Series tradition including the likes of Rivers Between by Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Wole Soyinka's Interpreters and the Trials of Brother Jero, Peter Abrahams' The Mine Boy, Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country, Camara Laye's The African Child.  My insatiable appetite made me gobble works by North American,  European and Latin American writers such as Tennessee Williams' Arthur Miller's, Henrik Ibsen's and Anton Chekov's plays,D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers, Charles Dickens' Great Expectations,  A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Mayor of Casterbridge, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground, The Idiot, the Brothers Karamazov, Alexander Dumas's The Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte-Cristo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Isabel Allende's Paula, Mario Varga Llosa's Gracias por el fuego or Thanks for the Fire.  The list is fairly long and continues to grow. 

WA: WHAT AUTHORS DID YOU DISLIKE AT FIRST BUT THEN DEVELOP AN APPRECIATION FOR?
LOLA: Somehow, I have read mostly books that I found enjoyable at one go.  James Joyce's Ulysses, however, was a tooth-breaker until his inimitable Dubliners, like a seasoned dentist, led me back into chewing the ideas of Greek gods living mundane lives on the soil of Ireland!

WA: IF YOU COULD BE MENTORED BY A FAMOUS AUTHOR, WHO WOULD IT BE? 
LOLA: Ah, there are many famous authors I would like to learn from!  I must confess to being awed and star-struck when Professor Emeritus Niyi Osundare took interest in my poetry.

WA: IF YOU COULD BE MENTORED BY A FAMOUS AUTHOR, WHO WOULD IT BE?
LOLA: Ah, now not just one but many, many.!  I would love to get Professor Wole Soyinka's opinion on my writings.  Ditto Professor Femi Osofisan’s, Margaret Atwood’s, Ben Okri’s as well as Oyinkan Braithwaite's.  The list of living writers that I admire greatly is rather long.  I know, I know: I should focus but who can ask an artist not to dream?

WA: WHAT BOOKS HAVE YOU READ MORE THAN ONCE IN YOUR LIFE? 
LOLA: Death of the King's Horseman and Kongi's Harvest by Wole Soyinka, Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God and A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe, Mother to Mother by South Africa's Sindiwe Magona, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, the Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, Paula by Isabel Allende, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Handmaid’s Tale and Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood, Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, Lawrence Hill’s Book of Negroes, Washington Black by Esi Edugyan and Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis are among some of my repeat favourite reads.  You have not asked me which book I would love to re-read but I volunteer that it has to be Maria Vargas Llosa's Gracias por el fuego which I dare say will make a more lucid read in Spanish now, given my firmer grasp of the original tongue of its author.

Lola Fabowale is a retired social policy analyst, essayist, poet, and short story writer with a background in managerial and administrative sciences. Her notable publications include works on gender and financial institutions. A member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Oyo State Chapter, her creative writing includes "Notes to Night" and "A Woman Wronged?" both featured in Shanti the Trent International Program Newsletter in 1986. Her debut poetry collection, Nostalgia and Tears F'Orile, was published in June 2023. With a Master's degree in Business Administration from Carleton University and degrees from Trent University and United World College of Lester B. Pearson, Lola contributes to global peace and understanding through education. Fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Yoruba, she discusses her works and passion for writing in this interview with Wole Adedoyin.