Its been 9 weeks, 2 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes and 18 seconds since my last blog. I have NOT been on holiday. It’s been 4 weeks, 1 day, 2 hours, 3 minutes and 23 seconds since the last Speakeasy. 6 weeks, 3 days, 1 hours, 32 minutes and 5 seconds since I walked into the first session of Ben Mellor’s ‘Performance vs Content’ workshop one hour late intent on improving my performance skills in time for the Speakeasy stage. 5 weeks, 6 days, 13 hours, 7 minutes and 44 seconds since I walked into the haunted section of my flat and shook the dust from The Invisible Man and started to practice it; putting the sheet away and rewriting it, turning on some music and reciting it, turning off the music and igniting it. 5 weeks, 4 days, 19 hours, 16 minutes and 51 seconds since I emailed out the event to friends inviting them, went to the box-office and bought advance tickets, including theirs, then got home and found out the theme was ‘Black Jesus.’ I catch myself writing poetry for specific events at times. I wrote ‘We of No Name’ for an immigrant-focused event. Wrote ‘The Invisible Man’ for a Black History event. Wrote ‘Blunt Instruments’ for an aggravated audience of poets at The Green Room but ‘Black Jesus?’ 4 weeks , 3 days since my phone vibrated and an email popped that stated: In error, I’ve overbooked the Speakeasy open-mic section. Seeing as you were the last one in you’re the first one up – for termination. And yet if I subtract the frustration, if I subtract the Black History lines from the poem and render it meaningless, if I subtract the Spiritual constipation contributing to a blasphemously themed evening would have given my new-found sense of religion, if I subtract the feeling of reconnection I was hoping to find at my first Speakeasy since Dike died – then add the elation I felt when I remained in my seat when the three poets who went before me, and were chosen, failed to follow their calling, and didn’t show up – there is peace. But I cannot, so there is commotion. Stick with me; the purpose of my blog, as I stated at the beginning, is is take you with me on my journey into both publishing my first novel and my first four poetry performances, so there's more - worse; its been 3 months, 3 weeks, 11 hours, 45 minutes and I don’t know how many seconds since I submitted my ‘Satisfactory Rewrite’ [see chapter 2] to Pete Kalu, my editor, and heard nothing – but that’s another story...