I need Adelaide even if, for now, she is unattainable. This is what I was thinking as I walked home later that day with Ugo and Eddy, as we came out of the Russian language class that we had just finished with Sergei Nikolaivitch. I couldn’t quite understand the strong sense of connectedness that I was starting to feel towards her; she didn't yet know me but it was as if I was developing a feeling of love for her! How can I love someone who already belongs to someone else and who, from the way she always looks composed and classy, I was starting to feel is out of my league? Yet i felt drawn to her; as if there is something about me that destines me to wanting those things that exist beyond my reach and which are able to hurt me.

The guilt started to flood back. The guilt has always been there really; lurking in the shadows, and waiting for that opportunity to present itself when it would remind me that I am less than a man: you see, real men do not become emotionally involved with prostitutes the way I did with Betty.

It happened at the University of Jos. After my registration on that first day-when I had crashed into Funmi near the admission clerks office-I was allocated a room at the Bauchi road hostel. This temporary accommodation was the only available space for most of the new students as the Naraguta hostel complex and the students village were already filled up. And it was located next to a noisy motor park on the very busy Bauchi Road. At the back of this hostel was a densely populated slum area where students visited for their groceries and for some leisure activities.

One Saturday evening, barely a week after I moved in, my room mate had invited me for a drink and pepper soup at one of the beer parlours that can be found on the long stretch of unpaved road running right through the neighbourhood. The beer parlour turned out to be a seedy brothel. And as we entered the large dimly lit hall we had been greeted by the oppressive smell of cigarette smoke and bodily sweat hanging thickly in the air. Loud music blared from the speakers, that hung at the four corners of the large hall and you could see men and women dancing lazily in the centre of the large hall, holding their bottles of beer in their hands as they danced. We sat at one of the few unoccupied tables and my roommate had ordered some beer. And while we waited for our drinks to arrive, two scantily clad women hastily made their way towards our table possibly to get to us before their competitors.

“Una wan f…ck?”The larger of the two women asked, wanting to know if we wanted sex. The one that spoke was plump and was verging on the boarders of being obese. Neither of the women would ever pass as being beautiful as they both stood trying to strike a pose, which i am sure they believed was seductive. I was speechless, never having been confronted with such boldness from women, but my room mate who had been glaring at them both hissed. “Make una commot here, useless ashawo!” he spat out at them asking them to get lost.

Our bottles of beer came and we finished them and then went back to our hostel without really discussing what had happened. It was as if my roommate was used to the whole scene so didn't see anything worth talking about. But the very next day I had gone back alone. And it was there that I made the acquaintance of Betty;the smaller of the two prostitute who had approached us the previous day. Betty was in her late 20’s and had been in the trade since her late teens. And it was she who dis-virgined me and introduced me into manhood, after she had collected her price for the privileges; leaving me also with a lot of guilt and a vow not to ever return to that brothel again.

But I did; again and again. And each time, I would feel even more defeated from the time I sneaked out of my room under the cover of night…with my heart forcefully pounding against my rib cage in beats of anticipatory excitement…hoping that nobody would see me in my moment of weakness and in its inevitable aftermath; an aftermth characterised by a lingering feeling of intense guilt, which would always remain until the very next time.

It was always on those days when I had a close encounter with Funmi that I would find myself craving the warmth of Betty’s embrace; on most of our lecture days I would sit at a corner of the hall from where I could relish in the flashes of her smile and in the fleeting caress of the gaze from her lovely brown eyes; rare privileges that she would dish out to me unconsciously but which always left me weighed down by a realisation that those endearing looks and the smiles were not inspired by me. And on those days, after the darkness of night had encroached, I would sneak out in search of recognition in the arms of Betty the prostitute; It was there alone, that I have come to know what it feels like to be accepted as a man. And it was there, in the warmth of that acceptance, as I was receiving my fix of flesh, that my guilt was birthed.

I was walking through the park with Ugo and Eddy who were now chatting away about “Russian babes“. I was thinking of how fortunate it is that we can not read each others minds and glimpse at the secrets that we all hide. But even with those secrets, it was the image of Adelaide that was the strongest in my mind. And it started to feel as if she is the one who holds the key that will liberate me from the guilt,which gnaws slowly away at the fabric of my fragile soul.

Well written prose.
Very good title.
Please, complete it.

@ Orinkinla:
Thanks a lot for your comment. And I will take your advise. I have also seen the work you mentioned.

On the title for the novel I've been toying with this one and other such titles for sometime now.
The thing is, the more I work on this draft of the manuscript, the more it seems that the original titles ( first  "they called me nigger", and then "the memoirs of a marginal man" no longer seem the most appropriate. I've seen that there's need to explore the deeper psychological themes of guilt,  and of love (not of the superficial straight forward one, but of the more complicated type, such as the one that Oscar Wilde talks about when he said that "every man kills the thing he loves".

Yet the issue of prejudice is still there in the book. And so titles like "Guilt and Love; Love and Prejudice; Guilt and Prejudice" may be the one that i will eventually use.

But then, once i'm through with the editing and so on, I'll let the agents decide what title is the most marketable.

Good one,man!Though u can still lay on a patina of polish.And tighten up some parts.Then some spelling errors like boarders instead of border etc. Keep it up!

@Soulthief
Thanks for your observation and corrections.
The current draft of the work is not the final one. I'm still working on the structure of the story. Heck i've not even decided on a title yet!

When i'm done with this draft i'll still go over the whole thing again and adjust the places that need adjusting. And only then will I be sending out the manuscript for editing by a professional .

I've been re-assured that most-if not all-best selling authors edit their works and then edit them over and over again until they achieve the final structure they want. And even after they have done that, they still get somebody else to look through the work before sending it out for publishing! So i'm not even near that stage yet

I'm only on my second draft. And i know that there are loads of spelling and grammatical errors in this draft as well. Its a lot better than the first draft which was just an experiment but it still has a long way to go. At this stage in the development of the book i'm more concerned about the story line and its readabilty. When i'm done i'll pay a professional to do the final editing for me; that's their job while mine is to write them a story to edit.

Before i used to wonder how comes some people say that they spend years trying to write a book. Now i know; i've already been on this project for about 3months and i'm sure that this draft will probably take me well into the new year.

But thanks anyway for your constructive feedback.

Keep up the good work. By the way, there's more money in script writing. Just saying. Cheers!

@ Seun
Thanks I feel encouraged by your comments!
I know that script-writing is more lucrative!And I have been thinking about doing something along those lines but I want to get this project out of the way first; writing this novel has become like an addiction and is beginning to eat into my proessional work

Once i have brought the manuscript up to the standard that i want and sent it out for publishing, then i will channel my energies into learning how to write movie scripts.

Most Mexican Soap Operas are based on novels, so your novel can be used in many ways.

I'm thinking that this one may be a bit difficult to make into a Nigerian soap because of some logistic problems . But i do have ideas of the kind of stories, which i will like to make into interesting movies.. Heck we've not even started to harness the world of psychological thrillers!

But for now i need the ego boost from finishing this particular project. But thanks for the information.

I can tell that you can write this novel successfully, therefore I am not bothered.

We have only very few good novelists in Nigeria.
They are not up to 30 since Cyprian Ekwensi to date.
Only 10 of the 30 are great.

Four from Chinua Achebe's generation.
3 from Festus Iyayi's generation and
3 from Ben Okri's generation.

Some of the recently celebrated young novelists are getting over-excited, because of writing only one or two successful novels and winning some prizes. But none of them has won the Booker that Ben Okri won in 1991 at the age of 32. And I don't like their works, because they are deliberately writing impressionistic novels to win literary prizes.

Only Ben Okri is really great among the younger generation since 1980 to date.

Bibliography of Ben Okri.

Flowers and Shadows (novel); Longman, 1980
The Landscapes Within (novel); Longman, 1981
Incidents at the Shrine (novel); Heinemann, 1986
Stars of the New Curfew (short stories); Secker & Warburg, 1988
The Famished Road (novel); Cape, 1991
An African Elegy (poetry); Cape, 1992
Songs of Enchantment (novel); Cape, 1993
Astonishing the Gods (novel); Phoenix House, 1995
Birds of Heaven; Orion, 1995
Dangerous Love (novel); Phoenix House, 1996
A Way of Being Free (essays); Phoenix House, 1997
Infinite Riches (novel); Phoenix House, 1998
Mental Fight (poetry); Phoenix House, 1999
In Arcadia (novel); Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002
Okri, Ben (August 2007). Starbook. Rider. ISBN 9781846040825. 


Anybody can be a good writer, but not everybody will be a great writer.

I have read the novels of Dostoevsky and Tolstoi and my favourite novelist to date is still Leo Tolstoi.

Make your novel a great novel.

@ Orikinla
Thanks again!

Like everybody who starts on the journey of trying to write a novel, I dream of writing THAT great novel And in my transient flashes of hypomania I wonder whether my book will not become the novel that the world is waiting for. But when i come down from my pedestal of grandeur and stare at my blank screen, waiting for those great words-which will nudge me over the borders of mediocrity-to flood my mind, i realise that greatness does not come that simply

So one asks, what is the ingredient for greatness that some writers have, while for others it remains eternally elusive?

Are great writers born? And if the answer is yes, then what happens to the rest of us?
If they are not born then what needs to be done to become one?

For sure, I will commit time-and other resources-to bring this work to the standard, which i will be proud of. But i wonder whether commitment alone is enough  

What say ye?

beneli:

@ Orikinla
Thanks again!

Like everybody who starts on the journey of trying to write a novel, I dream of writing THAT great novel And in my transient flashes of hypomania I wonder whether my book will not become the novel that the world is waiting for. But when i come down from my pedestal of grandeur and stare at my blank screen, waiting for those great words-which will nudge me over the borders of mediocrity-to flood my mind, i realise that greatness does not come that simply

So one asks, what is the ingredient for greatness that some writers have, while for others it remains eternally elusive?

Are great writers born? And if the answer is yes, then what happens to the rest of us?
If they are not born then what needs to be done to become one?

For sure, I will commit time-and other resources-to bring this work to the standard, which i will be proud of. But i wonder whether commitment alone is enough

What say ye?

You are staying close to where Ben Okri is, so go and see him.

Ben Okri has suffered indignities in his sacrifices to write his great works.

What makes a great writer?
Deep meditation.
Deep imagination.
Deep vision.

Your education and your imagination are enough to produce great works.

I wish you all the best.

@ Orikinla.

Ben Okri is accessible to the public only through his agent but she's on leave at the moment (until January), by which time I should be through with this draft of the manuscript. I will send her a copy of the manuscript once its come up to a satisfactory standard, though.

But do you know Ben Okri personally? I will appreciate it if you can suggest other contact options other than through his agent (You can PM me because of the confidentiality issues).

I really appreciate your encouragement. And i will work on the "greatness" thing 

Thanks.