Brain Surgery on the Highway

Serializing my book, Gathering the Words - continued from previous articles.

“Writing doesn’t make the world how I want it to be. It makes me how I want to be for the world. It forces me to figure things out, as best I can, and to declare publicly who I am. That, so far, is the best way I’ve found to being who I want to be. It’s what life’s about. And that is why everyone should write.” – Alex Magnin

My favorite activity is to observe the world as it moves around me and to eventually tell a story about it all. I may often be found taking a lonely walk in strange places and countries. Very often would I intentionally travel by bus or train on unusual routes just to sample the mood and emotions of the local people? The market stalls are always a huge mine of memorable dialogue and peculiar nuances. I am forever enthralled by the ways of the world and the amusing or dismal foolishness of it all. Every captured scene is precious material for the creative mill.?

Writing a novel is completely different from writing a short story - the methods are never the same. While the novel would be either a simple long-distance marathon race, the short story may be compared to a sprint. The short story is designed to deliver its epiphany within the space of a few pages, so the writer does not have the liberty to dally and ramble on for too long. The short story is written for readers who desire a quick fix. On the other hand, the writer may take as long as he wishes to conclude the story in his novel as long as he believes there is something to say that someone somewhere could be interested in reading. Some of us writers may think a boringly long novel is a sign that the author is unskilled, but out there are people who love to read boringly long novels and so there is a market for boringly long novels which publishers must take care of.

Once upon a time, very little other entertainment, for me equaled the thrill of getting a good fright. I read scores of horror books and I watched even a lot more horror movies and television series. I also wrote a few horror stories, all sadly lost during a house move which also cost me four huge completed novel manuscripts.?

Stephen King is a writer I respect a lot for his storytelling skill and for his ability to tell very entertaining horror stories. I read more than twenty of his books before my nerves finally gave. Amongst the books of Stephen King I read, were three volumes of short stories - Four Past Midnight, Night Shift and Skeleton Crew. As I read one of his novels after another I could find that many of his short stories eventually became subplots of some of those novels.?

Sometimes I would find that Mr. King has introduced the theme of a previously published short story to energize the main theme of a novel, which could otherwise lose speed, all to delightful effect. I have effectively used the same method too in some of my novels. Somber City and The Crooked Bullet especially benefited from subplots that?started life as short stories. Of course, I have never written a short story so that it may be repurposed in this fashion, only that I liked some of them enough to give them another life.

Brain Surgery on the Highway and Other Manic Expressions, is a collection of eleven stories holding a satirical mirror to contemporary Nigerian and British life.?

In Lagos, an itinerant medicine seller tries to separate passengers in a bus from their money, while a manic millionaire and a schizophrenic advertisement executive attempt to explain life away with mathematical theories.?

In London, a psychopathic writer in Barking, is creating a deadly reality show which is not meant for television; while in the wilderness of Brixton, an unemployed man contemplating a job opportunity abroad is drawn into a grim glimpse into the pitiful life of immigrants.

This collection contains the following previously published stories:

Brain Surgery on the Highway was previously published in Queens Quarterly (2002).?

Road Rage, is included in the New Stories from Nigeria Anthology (CCCP 2009).?

Sucker was first published by Handheld Crime (2000).??

A Stand in the Gap, was a runner-up in an Association of Nigeria Authors literary competition in 1998.

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