My Journey As A Writer
#Writer's Life
Many years ago, I was listening to a local radio station –Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Co-operation, a State-own Broadcasting station situated in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. An article written by my elderly brother, Valentine Ekpo, was aired on the radio by a veteran Broadcaster Mr. William William in his deep bass-voice after the news recap.
Of course, the burning desire to accomplish this dream set me on the motion. My foray into
writing started when I was still a young boy. I started writing some
interesting articles about corruption, social ills in the society, and immoral
decadences among the youths. Having finished writing these articles, I will
give them to my brother to look at it and do some necessary corrections being a
good writer.
Through my
brother’s tutelage, the nitty-gritty that concerning writing was really
exposed to me. For example, through him, I learned how to use concord, tenses,
and how to organized flowing streams of ideas or thoughts into writing in a
chronological sequence. More so, he took me on how to arrange the paragraph and
to link them with one another bla… bla… bla… .
Armed with
this writing skill, my writings took a dramatic shape, as I was able to start
writing articles effortlessly. When he discovered that my writing has improved
tremendously, he advised me to keep on writing and filed up all my write-ups
for record purposes.
Nevertheless, great
writers like late Prof. Chinua Achebe and James Hardly Chase have influenced my
writing a lot. Achebe, the literary icon, being a good story-teller had
explored his narrative techniques in such a way that the readers will find his
novel very quite interesting and colourful. His narrative style is well
appreciated in his masterpiece Things Fall Apart
Also, Hardly Chase is being noted for
thrilling his readers with a literary device such as suspense. The writer in
all his literary works give able to give a vividly forensic description of
progressive events in his story writing, that catches the attention of his readers,
and forces them to yearn for more reading.
The passion for
become a writer pushed me into the world of writing. As a newbie in writing, I
wrote my first published article with the title “What has happened to the love of
neighbour” in 1998. The article was published in a Youth Chronicle, a
publication of Youth’s bulletin of a Church. I was so particular happy about my
giant stride in writing.
Moving a step
further to the realm of creative writing, I took a course in the English
department, while I was in the University. The course title was creative
writing. The main aim of the course was to groom students on how to showcase their
talent, creativity and confident in literary writings.
At the end of
the course, our Lecturer told us that we have to practicalize on what we were
taught in that course. The course actually exposed me to how to write in
aesthetics and creative manner. This gave birth to my short story titled “The pains of mind”,
which I also published on my blog at http://kufekpo.blogpost.com.
In my local Church, I have been contributing
to writing a lot of write-ups that have been published monthly in the church’s
bulletin. Based on my writing contributions for the publication, I was
appointed an Editor of the Editorial Team of the church. The position I have
been holding since three years ago. Frankly, accepting such a post was quite
challenging and rewarding to me.
The zeal to
continue in creative writing spurred me to start a blog in Google+ blog. I
carved out my niche in creative writing that centers on humanity, business, and
lifestyle. The blog that was launched in the month of February 2015 has many
readerships. Within a few days that I started blogging, I posted a blog titled “Blog on: give the
world a piece of your heart”.
Interestingly,
the post became popular that attracted the highest readership then. As if that
was not exciting enough, I dropped another blog post titled “what is your name?” To my
greatest surprising, this post has become the most viewed post by my teeming
readers and eventually became the most popular post ever since it has been
published.
My blog
readers have increased steadily and the traffic source showed that apart from
Nigerians, many other foreign nationals from other countries like USA, Germany,
India, Indonesia, Ghana, Italy, South Africa, just a few to mention visit my
website day in, day out. This, of course, has given more vibes and more
inspirations to write daily.
Initially, I
was thinking that this love project –blogging will be a flop because I was
worried about where to get contents for my blog posting. However, that fear
vanished immediately when I read a book written by one Mohammed Tosin
Abdullahi, another young Nigerian writer, who has made a distinguished mark in
writing.
In Tosin’s
book Your
right to write he x-rayed the secrets of writing. According to this
writer, the secrets of writing lie within the mindset of a writer. To cap it
all, he said “you must get it right, in terms of tactics of composition, rules
of grammar, and techniques of audience engagement. This fired up my writings
since then. Any time the inspiration comes; I will just on my computer and
started writing.
Looking at in the next few years, I envisaged myself not only flying but make an
indelible mark in the field of creative writing. I am working so hard and
strongly looking forward to publishing my books in the coming years.
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