In my perfect imagination, with stern discipline I rise with the first bird, salute the dawn, have a healthy breakfast of fruits, wander over to my faux-oak desk, tap the On button on my Macbook Air, acknowledge the muse, and skip into the world where the story flows over the day and into the night.

Recording stories is a way of honoring the faculty of memory, even if it's recorded, outsourcing memory to technology.

I come from a culture that has refined the art of the dirge to a sublime level.

Kenya is an immense land with a capacity for healing.

The truth, and nothing but the truth, is that dawn begins with a wrestling match with my soul and a systematic rejection of all the other useful possibilities a day offers. I make obeisance to the story, its characters, and the muse with burnt offerings.

Even if you're in charge of the grand story there's still memory. The other stories do not go away.

It may not seem that way, but I am an absolute optimist, an unrepentant optimist.