The Gods Are Not To Blame or Why Greek Myths Are for Everyone

One of my fondest childhood memories is watching a play with my classmates – we were probably in SS1 then (the equivalent of 10th grade ) – in our boarding school’s assembly hall. A travelling university theatre group had made a stop at our school to stage Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not To Blame. It was a stunning performance in English and Rotimi’s Yoruba language. That play introduced me to Yoruba gods and sayings. After the perfomance, we were told that it was a retelling of a Greek play: Oedipus Rex. How could it be, we wondered, that this very Yoruba play about Odewale who was cursed with killing his father and marrying his mother, was a retelling of an ancient Greek play?

I don’t recall when I eventually did read Oedipus Rex, but I recall being fascinated by the idea that something written in a different time, for a different culture, resonated so well in a Nigerian context, over a thousand years later. It was mind boggling. Even now, when I think of it, I find it difficult to imagine the characters as anything but Yoruba-speaking Nigerians. 

Perhaps, had my classmates and I been more astute, or more mature, had we read more Greek myths, we would have understood that like our Nigerian folktales, myths are living things. They are not the past, they do not expire. And therefore, like our folktales lend themselves to adaptations. There are no “official” versions of Greek myths. In fact, different versions appear to contradict themselves.  For instance, the myth of Hades and Persephone – the myth I reimagined in The Middle Daughter – has versions where Persephone’s tricked into eating the pomegranate seeds that keep her bound to Hades, and versions where she eats the seeds willingly out of love for her abductor (Stockholm syndrome?).  

Additionally, all the stuff that Greek myths are made of: desire, revenge, oppression, lust for power, love are things that humans – since the beginning of time – have grappled with. The myths remind us that after all is said and done, we as humans have more that connects us than not. There’s nothing new under the sun. 

Furthermore, myths (like our folktales) always speak to the now whatever and wherever our ‘now’ happens to exist in. That is their superpower. That is why they transcend time and culture and race. They give us a lens through which we interpret our own experiences. The myth of Cassandra is one that Ngugi Wa Thiongo, the Kenyan writer used in a radio interview some years back, to describe the writer’s role in his country: doomed to prophesy but never to be believed. It was so apt, so natural, it seemed like the only way to express his frustration at the chaos he’d warned about playing out.

Arguably, it’s not just Greek classics and myths that do this. Any piece of fiction that is well written transcends time and place. Someone once said that it is in writing the particular that we approach the universal, or something to that effect. How true that is. I have read American and European texts set in the most provincial cities, with characters that would seem to have little in common with me, and yet the stories seem to have been written specifically for me, as if the writer had bored themselves into my mind and reproduced everything I was thinking.

Texts are not defined by the origins of the writers but by their content, and how well they articulate the human condition. That’s why we read. Not just to be entertained, but to assure ourselves that we are part of a community, that we are not stranded, islands on our own. That’s how I experience reading. 

Chika Unigwe was born and raised in Enugu, Nigeria. She graduated from the University of Nigeria, KU Leuven (Belgium) and has a PhD from Leiden University, Holland. Author of The Middle Daughter (Dzanc Books, April 2023), Unigwe’s previous work includes novels On Black Sisters Street and Night Dancer as well as the short story collection Better Never than Late. She was also a contributor to Of This Our Country: Acclaimed Nigerian Writers on the Home, Identity and Culture They Know; Lagos Noir; New Daughters of Africa; and Regiones Imaginaires. Find her online at ChikaUnigwe.com and follow her on Facebook, Instagram (@chikaunigweauthor), Twitter (@chikaunigwe), and LinkedIn. 

JL Lycette on How I Write When I Have A Demanding “Day Job”: It’s Okay Not To Write Every Day

Many people are proponents of writing consistently every day and setting goals. For example, 1000 words a day. 

But what if you can’t write every day. If you have a demanding day job or a busy family, or maybe, I don’t know, you just don’t like writing every day. Can you still be a writer?

I am here before you (virtually) to show you that, yes, you can. My first book was published last month (March 2023), and my second book will be published later this year, in November 2023, and I do not write every day.

I didn’t start writing fiction until I was 43 years old. By that time, I had a busy (non-writing) career and family. How the heck was I to fit this new writing habit into my already busy life?

It’s a good thing I didn’t research that question back at the beginning, or I might have given up. 

When I started writing my first book in 2016, I didn’t know if anything would ever come of it, let alone whether it would ever be published. But somehow, I had this story idea in my brain and characters that wouldn’t leave me alone until their story was told.

I mostly wrote on weekends in large chunks of words. I didn’t know at the time that it wasn’t common to write 4000-5000 words in a day. And one weekend, which I remember now like a fever dream, I wrote 10,000 words in a session. (A feat I haven’t been able to repeat).

It was only when the book was finished, and I googled “what to do when you finish writing a book,” that I came across all the writing advice.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned about advice: take what works for you, leave what doesn’t. If the idea of writing in long sessions for hours on the weekends horrifies you, don’t try that. Maybe writing in smaller sessions each day works for you. 

I mean, does it matter if you write 1000 words a day or 7000 words in a weekend? As long as the words eventually get written? One could paint a little bit each day or a lot for an entire weekend, and both approaches will result in a finished painting. 

I mostly write on my laptop, in Word (yes, I’m a dinosaur), but sometimes I grab a notebook and pen; or in the middle of the night, I have to write something in the Notes app on my phone. Sometimes on the commute to work, I get an idea and have to scribble it as fast as possible on a blank piece of paper in five minutes before starting my day job.

Some days, when I get home from work, I’m in the mood to write. Most weekdays, however, I don’t have the energy. So I don’t write those days. I wait until the weekend.

There are a lot of caveats to my advice. First of all, my kids are older. They’re tweens and teens, and they actually sleep now. Like, a lot, on the weekends. So I can write for hours on those mornings before they wake up. I’ve had other parents write to ask me to please tell them how to write with young children. And my answer to them was: I don’t know how parents with very young children write. Maybe some of them can comment here and tell us.

But here’s the thing, none of us are superhuman. Don’t try to hold yourself to some imaginary standard that probably doesn’t even exist. That’s something I’ve had to learn in both my day job and my writing journey.

The best way to write is the way that works for you.

I hope this post will help you to write the way you want, when you want, and not beat yourself up if you can’t—or simply choose not to—write every day.

JL / Jennifer Lycette is a novelist, award-winning essayist, rural physician, wife, and mother. She has a degree in biochemistry from the University of San Francisco and attained her medical degree at the University of Washington. Mid-career, she discovered narrative medicine in her path back from physician burnout and has been writing ever since. Her essays can be found in Intima, NEJM, JAMA and other journals; and online at Doximity and Medscape. She is an alumna of the 2019 Pitch Wars Mentoring program. Her other published speculative fiction can be found in the anthology And If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative (Alternating Current Press). The Algorithm Will See You Now is her first novel and is a 2023 Screencraft Cinematic Book Competition Finalist. Her second novel (title and cover reveals coming soon!) will be out in November 2023.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I am seeking representation for IN THE SPACES BETWEEN, a dual-POV adult psychological thriller complete at 95,000 words. I generally encourage people not to start with title, genre and word count simply b/c everyone who is querying has those - start out with something they don't, the hook for your own book.

There is an ever-growing list of shoulds in ten-year-old Esmee’s life. She should have friends, she should cry after her mom’s suicide, and she should fear the creature that is rumored to live in the forest behind her house. Good hook - I think start with this! But she doesn’t. And when a whisper beckons her into the woods forest, it gives her a sense of belonging and lulls her into a trance, until she exits hours later covered in blood. Not sure about the word "until" here, as it signifies something has ended or changed - which you may be referring to the trance, but I think it needs to be clarified.

Esmee’s dad, Peter, struggles to make sense of his new reality. The pain of losing his wife is unbearable, and the shadowed memories of his upbringing are creeping back in. He reminds himself that he isn’t his father, and his past is behind him. But when a stranger is standing at his wife’s grave, Peter’s grief is stained with questions, and he spirals in search for the truth. This is good until we get to "But when a stranger..." everything after that is extremely vague - graves, questions, search for truth - that could be anybody's book. You need more specifics about what THIS book has in it, that others might not.

Esmee’s reality becomes convoluted by her obsession, the creature’s voice overtakes her and incites increasingly violent behavior. I think collapse Esmee's paras together, this one doesn't really add anything and doesn't deserve to stand alone.

Peter unravels his wife’s secrets.Like what? Again, being vague won't win points in a query. And when he discovers that the same darkness that troubled her may run through Esmee, he attempts to get his daughter help, because he can’t lose her too. He's certain he can keep his family together, and safe… until Esmee’s actions threaten to shatter everything Peter has ever loved. How? In what way?

I work in Finance and live in Salt Lake City. When I’m not writing or working, I’m out in the mountains.

You have a good start here, but you need to get those specifics in there. Right now there's just a vague danger, and I'm not sure what the goals are, and what obstacles stand in the way of those goals. It sounds like Peter is the one who will have those goals, so I would use Esmee's intro (b/c it's quite good), and then have one para for Peter where you explain his struggles, what he wants now, and why he can't have that.