The magic of writing
Author Temi Oh (OE2009-2011) always dreamed of being a writer. She is now the author of two books, Do you Dream of Terra-Two? and More Perfect, and has written stories for celebrated publications such as Marvel’s Black Panther, Dr Who and Overwatch. Temi is also a screenwriter on the Netflix TV series Castlevania: Nocturne and the CBBC series Silverpoint.
After leaving Emanuel, Temi studied Neuroscience at King’s College, London and was later awarded an MA in Creative Writing at Edinburgh University.
What are your best memories of Emanuel?
I met three of my best friends at Emanuel and I’m very glad that we’re still in each other’s lives.
Did you always dream of being a writer?
I began writing when I was twelve and even then I dreamed of finishing a book that I would find on shelves one day. I remember sleeping in and my mother pulling back the curtains in the late morning and commenting, with some pride, on how I had stayed up late the previous night working on my novel. I remember it now, almost twenty years later, because of how thrilled I was she’d used that word, ‘novel’, how grown up it sounded to me and how grateful I was that she took my ambition seriously.
How did you come up with the idea for your first novel?
It was the summer after I left Emanuel, and as September approached, it occurred to me that I would never again walk to school with all my friends. I grew up in a house with three siblings and my grandparents. I was used to noise at all hours of the day and night, teenagers thundering up and down the stairs. The first night I spent in halls at university was the first I ever spent alone. I realised then that growing up and gaining freedom would always involve some form of loss.
When I was writing the book, I was asking myself what kind of person chooses to leave everything behind? And what stories do they tell themselves to survive?
It happens all the time; people leave their home or country with the hope that they can carve out a brighter life somewhere new. My grandparents left everything they knew in Nigeria in the late ‘70s and came to the UK. In 2013, thousands of people applied for the Mars One project, willing to say goodbye to family and children in order to colonise the airless desert of Mars. It takes daily acts of faith to do this, getting up in the morning and working hard in the wake of everything they’ve left behind. We hope every day that our sacrifices will come to something, and, in my story, that hope is Terra-Two.
What are your fears for the future of technology?
I think a lot of people, especially writers, wonder what their job will look like in a couple of decades’ time. Making art is very inefficient but that’s part of the essential joy of it. I worry that some machine will come along to ‘optimise’ our work and steal what’s loveable about it.
What inspires you in your writing?
For More Perfect, I had been thinking about free will and dreams and wondering, ‘If a scientist could edit out all your bad childhood memories, would it make you a happier person today?’ Those questions were probably informed by my studies in Neuroscience.
In the book, at age 13 Moremi opts to receive an implant, the Pulse, that will connect her brain to the Internet and grant her access to the minds and dreams of others. She believes that the technology will cure her loneliness and depression forever until she meets Orpheus, a young dream-hacker. Their happiness is soon snatched away when Orpheus is arrested for a crime that he is predicted to commit in the future, and the lovers must fight to escape their fate.
In this future, the Pulse can allow you to access the memories and dreams of others. Some think it will be the foundation of perfect love, an end to loneliness, and others believe it’s a violation.
What is your writing schedule?
It changes all the time. I really wish I could say that I get up at 4am, run a half-marathon and then write at the dining table with a pot of coffee. But, I almost can’t remember how writing materialises. Between 3am and 6am before work? Sleep-dazed after midnight? Waiting at airports? Jotted down on my notes app on the tube? During Red Bull-fuelled binges in the small hours before a deadline? I’ll write nothing for a month, then ignore every WhatsApp message and do nothing but write. Coffee is essential. My dog is often at my heels when I’m doing it.
Are you working on a new book now?
Yes! I’ve just started my third novel.
The early stage of working on a new book is the best. It feels like falling in love with a new person. It’s nothing but upside and possibilities.
How do you juggle writing and family life?
I’ve only been trying to do this for a year. So far, my wonderful sister, mother and mother-in-law have all taken the baby to give me time to write. They have looked after her when I’ve had to travel for book events, or wheeled her into a different room when she burst into tears during my book launch. I’m also very grateful for nursery, and for the biological mercy that babies need a lot more sleep than adults do.
What do you enjoy about writing for TV? How is it different to writing a novel?
I really enjoy how collaborative writing for TV is. As a sociable person, novel writing can be quite lonely for me. It’s completely thrilling to watch an actor say words that I wrote, to see a character become flesh. But the joy of writing a novel is that everything happens to serve the story and to make it better. A TV show, though, is where the story meets the world and all its constraints – budget, scheduling, etc.
Do you enjoy the book promotion work which comes with your job?
I got to travel a lot when Terra-Two was published and that was really fun. It’s lovely to meet people who liked my book in person, and reminds me that the magic of writing and reading is forming relationships with people you may never get to meet, people who lived and died before you were born or who will outlive you.
What’s something you might say to your former self if you came across yourself in the playground?
The night after my book was sold I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I kept imagining Temi at 13 writing on her parents’ old laptop or at 14 when a teacher confiscated her novel because she was writing it in assembly, or at 18 during her temping job furtively scribbling paragraphs onto the backs of paper bags in the cloakroom. Moving from Neuroscience into Creative Writing, I wondered if this book or any book would ever be worth the time I spent writing it and if anyone would ever read it. I kept telling past-me, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It happens. It DOES happen.’ And smiling.

Photo credit: Studio Datura