Doing Dangerously Well

Author Q&A

20 Writerly Questions for Carole Enahoro

1. How would you summarize your book in one sentence?
“A glass of water… for the soul.” Actually a friend came up with this lofty description to pretend he’d read the manuscript, which he hadn’t.
 
2. How long did it take you to write this book?
6 months to write, 6 months to edit, after work most days. I was extremely surprised when the editor insisted on rewrites.
 
3. Where is your favorite place to write?
Anywhere with people, preferably with food, as long as the people make no noise whatsoever and don’t chew with their mouths open.
 
4. How do you choose your characters’ names?
The meaning, the sound or friends’ names.
 
5. How many drafts do you go through?
I go through two. It appears the editor likes me to go through far more than that. It’s a cross I have to bear and I do so with quiet grace. I simply have to inform her of this, as she’s under a giant misapprehension on this point.
 
6. If there was one book you wish you had written what would it be?
There is, but I’d blow a lot of the passwords to my many offshore accounts if I revealed it. My favourite Canadian author is Miriam Toews.
 
7. If your book were to become a movie, who would you like to see star in it?
Anyone who would bribe an author for a part. Even if they were riddled with Botox and couldn’t form any facial expressions.
 
8. What’s your favourite city in the world?
I don’t know because I haven’t seen all the cities yet and I have very volatile tastes.
 
9. If you could talk to any writer living or dead who would it be, and what would you ask?
The philosopher Wittgenstein and I wouldn’t ask him anything because on the whole he refused to talk to women. He also spoke nonstop and didn’t like to be interrupted. So I’d just blink intelligently.
 
10. When do you write best, morning or night?
Night. Besides which, I write best after I’ve complained to someone that I have to write.
 
11. Who is the first person who gets to read your manuscript?
My editorial group, Critical Ms, which likes the smell of crispy human kebab.
 
12. Do you have a guilty pleasure read?
No. I am sociopathic. I feel no guilt.
 
13. What’s on your nightstand right now?
Nightstand? Wow. I smell inherited wealth. On my floor I have At Swim, Two Boys; Elizabeth George x 2; In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo; Tristram Shandy; Death of a Cozy Writer; War Games: The Story of Aid and War in Modern Times; poems of John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo; The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; Gods Behaving Badly; and, yes I’ll admit it, Bourdieu Language and Symbolic Power.
 
14. What is the first book you remember reading?
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. In the original Greek. Then, when I was three, I read it in Sanskrit.
 
15. Did you always want to be a writer?
No.
 
16. What do you drink or eat while you write?
Whatever is unhealthy.
 
17. Typewriter, laptop, or pen & paper?
I think I saw a typewriter in a museum once. I use the others unless it’s quill and parchment if I’m trying to make a point to someone chatting loudly in a café.
 
18. What do you wear when you write?
A negligee. Usually have a poodle on my lap too. In an unrelated incident, the library has since banned any form of nightwear on premises.
 
19. How do you decide which narrative point of view to write from?
I don’t. It’s always multiple points of view through 3rd person. Voice of God has never bothered me either.
 
20. What is the best gift someone could give a writer?
Lots of close friends who like reading manuscripts and hearing complaints. I’m actually pretending I wouldn’t prefer a great deal of money.