Day 14

There is someone that wakes me up at four every morning by banging their door very hard. Usually I just lay and try to go back to sleep with difficulty but today I stayed on. It was very dark. If I knew who it was, we would not tell each other good(I’d give him a piece of mind).

I typed the query to the editor, a synopsis, and table of contents. I went through it a couple of times and it felt ready to be sent.  So I composed an e-mail and sent.

To my cousin. If you know my cousin this is as good as sending to some guy in specs at a publishing company. When I finished highschool and was very sensitive and conscious with my looks, it was my cousin who told me- You can never be a model, you don’t have any boobs. What followed was pure circus, a few had dropped jaws, others were waiting to see what would burst (what would happen)in the room, I was swirling, insulting and threatening. My uncle lit a cigarette and went to dig a hole behind the house.

He was right anyway,  so sending my manuscript to him was the bravest thing I did all week. He’ll probably look at it and ask me-why don’t I concentrate on writing love poems?

I also sent it to my friend Estah, because she likes a good story and will correct me. She told me the names are not all that so I need to find  good names for a novel.  

I did not meet the deadline, but I’m happy I have the query, the synopsis, chapters 1,2 and 3 and a  scope of how long the rest might take to type.

In  a sense, I did beat the deadline since I am just waiting for the critics then I can forward the e-mail to EAP.

This morning I remembered something about my first language. It reads this way  B C D E G H I J K M N O R T U W Y The vowels are a e i o u ĩ ũ , and we have syllables like nga, ngwa, twi, ng’e  ng’we, ndwa, ng’u. I was trying to spell the greeting – wĩmwega, are you fine? To a European, it was like me trying to write Tamil.

I will send the manuscript  this week, when I have  no doubt that I’ve done my best to present  myself well.

What I don’t understand is their asking for a picture. I remember the last time I did some freelance.   Meeting my boss in person cost me my job, somehow. He didn’t think someone my age should write a society column. As if we don’t have google to tell us everything. So I’m not happy about being asked for my picture, what does my picture got to do with anything? I don’t even have one decent picture to send to publishers, They should say what type of posture, not just passport size, I’m not applying for and accounting job

 I'm considering sending them these.

  pictures can bring long stories, you might now hear them asking for  a chromosome test based on the pictures. That will be the end  my career.