Urban Vine Media

Faith and Favour: Odes of Gratitude for Unmerited Grace — debuted in June 2024 — self-published at the humble age of 28 years old.

Honestly, when I think about that book, it was ejected. It was taken from a mother a bit earlier than expected—out of fear of not being brought to full term. My first book was basically a C-section baby.

And this is the reason:
I’d find every reason not to publish.
I’d focus on everything it lacked.
I’d make every change possible under the sun to meet the expectations of the million and one critics I engineered in my head.

So, I brought my book to the operating theatre and allowed the forces that be to take their scalpel, peel back the layers, and retrieve a beautiful 25-poem book — one that had to spend a little time in incubation, but is surviving and slowly, but surely, thriving.

Being a writer is so much more than writing.
Even though I came out of the womb with a pen in my hand, it took me 28 years to put a complete publication into the world. Why?

The Block

At 21, when I wanted to write my first book, writing didn’t want me.
There was no space for it to comfortably sit amidst the inner turmoil I faced—coming face to face with the first dire realities of adulthood.

For the first time in a long time, I faced what they call writer’s block—an unwanted mental blockage disabling the writer despite her greatest efforts.

It’s jarring. It’s dreaded.
It’s like those 20 seconds that feel like a lifetime spent in sleep paralysis—a daunting moment spent being awake yet still asleep, held captive by whatever Incubus has fallen in love and is now unwilling to let you go.

Sometimes these demons aren’t nameless. Oftentimes, they come from the family of that monster of a matter we call mental health.

Yes, the best stories, scripts, songs tend to be written from the darkest places.
But darkness chooses whether it wants to guide your hand or hold on to it.
If the latter prevails—until you break free—no stories will be told until you move into the realm of memory.

Time

You can’t really question the ancestry of Damian Marley when he said:

“What you won’t and what you will
Working for your dollar bill
Sad to see the old slave mill
Is grinding slow, but grinding still.”

6–7 AM: prepare for work
7–8 AM: bear or beat the traffic
8–5 PM: labour for the man in charge
Do it all again, just to survive.

And that’s the ideal situation.

If kids are involved…
If the job is demanding…
If the pay doesn’t cut it and you need to find income elsewhere…

Then you do the math.

Where does the artiste find time for passion, unless it’s the fruit?
The hamster wheel never brings you to your pen—
Until you find the will and the way to jump off.
This is what you’ll do ‘til the end.

And that’s probably why my first poetry book is just remnants—
Fragments of the few moments I’ve been able to sit with myself and my thoughts,
And allow them to manifest into words on a screen or on paper.

Oh, how I would love to sit for a few months and really dedicate time to a script or novel.
There are so many of them—sitting like neglected children—waiting to be loved again.

But there’s also another aspect of time:
Divine Timing.
Things cannot happen before their time.

Because consider this—
By the time I published my book, I knew everything I needed to know to self-publish.
I didn’t have the money to pay for most services,
But by this time, I could:
– Design a cover myself
– Edit and format my book myself
– Copyright it myself

The only thing I had to pay for was the ISBNs.
And I was able to put the book on Amazon myself.
All I had to do after that was pay to get it printed.

So now, I’m not only able to help myself publish,
I can do so for others as well.
I’m actually considering making a business out of it—
But that’s something to talk about another day.

Perfectionism

Remember how I said I had to eject this book?
It was 25 poems.
I wanted it to be 50.
But guess what?

If I put myself to the test of writing another 25 poems to match the theme,
Perhaps it would still be unpublished.

It’s hard to say if my book is a chapbook or an anthology—
It meets the requirements of neither.
But it does meet the requirement of “collection.”

And I chose to meet the requirement of done.

By choosing to be imperfect,
I now have three published—imperfect but published—collections.

I knew I just had to publish.
Otherwise, I would’ve been caught in the web of perfection, still unable to get out.

And that is it, in the end.
You just have to be brave enough to get off the hamster wheel,
Get out of your own head,
And get out of your own way.

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That’s how I moved from just living in the expectations of Kerece—
Who is wonderful, a brilliant employee, making everything work for others,
An ideast, a businesswoman—

To also living up to the expectations of Lilanie—
A writer. A dreamer. A visionary.

Lilanie is my middle name.
The name my mom intended to give me as my first, but was talked out of.

It is a name of reclamation.
A name that means I don’t have to be what I am expected to be.
It’s a name that means I can be who I was meant to be
And walk in my creative purpose as a writer.

And that is why Lilanie now has three self-published books:
– Faith and Favour: Odes of Gratitude for Unmerited Grace
– Above Water
– Kisses and Lies

Learn more about Lilanie, by visiting my linktree.

by Kerece Williams

Writer and Administrator, Urban Vine Media