I grew up seeing my mom read a lot, from newspapers to anthologies to novels. She reads so much that she read all of Pacesetter’s books. She reads any genre, but I remember Silhouette Intimate Moments, a romance novel line published by Silhouette Books from 1984 to 2007. I read some of these books as an adult. But growing up, I read a lot of Ben Akponine Samuel storybooks. At the time, I think each storybook cost fifty naira, except for the two-in-one books that were a hundred naira. My mom constantly complained that I used my money for food to buy books instead of buying food in school, but I couldn’t stop. Almost everyone in my class — I was in JSS one, and I was nine years old — had a copy or two every week.
We usually discussed the book during free periods. And whenever the book conversation was going on, I knew I wanted that for myself. I wanted to write books so people would discuss them. I wanted to write books because I wanted people to see what was going on in my head — I used to wonder what went through these authors’ heads. I wanted to write books for many reasons, except money. Not because I didn’t want money (who doesn’t want money), but because I didn’t know I could make money from it. My major goal was for people to see my books, buy them, and talk about them.
Besides storybooks, I read everything. Stories in newspapers — my grandpa bought newspapers every day, so there were always newspapers in the house. I read everything I could see. One of my favourite books was Winnie the Pooh: Pooh’s Honey Trouble.
A lot of the books I read were about good girls who went bad and suffered for it, or girls who were maltreated and later made it in life. Basically, most of the books were about being a good person.
Reading all these books made me want to write; more like they created more stories for me. The stories that came to me made me think more deeply; I wanted people to read them and take a moment to think about them. Why my characters were the way they are, why they made the decisions they made, why every reaction and decision made sense from their perspective, and so on. I don’t remember how the stories started coming to me, but I was always talking to myself and acting them out (my close friends would joke that I’ve been crazy since I was a child). I also don’t remember the day I started writing, or even if I’d started writing before writing my first book, but I knew I wrote my first book — I remember it as my first — titled Daniel and Daniella.
Daniel and Daniella’s story was about twins whose parents liked one more than the other, so one of them — I don’t remember who — killed the other and buried them in a shallow grave. People in the community found out; they confessed and were also killed in the village. I was nine when I wrote this story.
I gave the book to my classmates — well, my book readers’ group — and they passed it round to read it, and we all discussed it. The whole thing was like dopamine; I wanted more, and I got more. Because I wrote more stories, and we talked more about each story. My mom’s complaints now went from me buying storybooks to me buying exercise books to write stories. I was always buying 20-leaf exercise books to write stories.
As time went by, I went from wanting to write books like Ben’s storybooks to wanting to write novels. Again, I don’t know when the transition happened, but I remember it was after reading some of my Mom’s novels and books like Last Days at Forcados High School, Sweet 16, In Dependence, Purple Hibiscus, and plays.
I don’t remember how I found Worldreader on Opera Mini (I used a Nokia 5300 then), but I would read books by Ruby Yayra Goka. Titles like Plain Yellow (my favourite), The Step Monster, Perfectly Imperfect (my second favourite), and Those who wait (I want to read this again).
Ruby Yayra Goka is the second author I experienced through my reading journey. Later, I found out that Ruby is a dentist and an author, and I realised I could be an Author and still be a pharmacist (I used to worry I couldn’t be both at the same time).
In 2018, I was introduced to Wattpad, and I’d spend days and nights reading. The first book I read on Wattpad was Roommates by Kimmy Herz; then I read books like Two Gangs and a Golden Girl, Three Gangs and a Silver Sin, and One Gang and a Bronze Battle by Holly Shmit. I read Stay With Me, Still With Me, and She’s With Me by Jessica Cunsolo; McKenzie by Lolalovessprite; In 27 Days by HonorInTheRain; Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board (book one only); and After books 1 to 3 by Anna Todd (all before the movie came out). Then I met Nigerian Authors whose books I read.
Authors like Bisoye (even though she never really writes anymore), Donald Uzoka, JoeBrown and his twin brother, Daniel, and many other Authors whose names I can’t remember.
I read mystery, fantasy, thrillers, and literary fiction, and that is what I enjoyed writing.
In my Wattpad era, I wrote a lot of books. Many of these books are still in my drive, and they helped me write better and write more. The books I read influenced the books I wrote. My Wattpad era lasted four years, and during that time, I wrote most of the books I have today. Many of these books are still in my drive, waiting to see the light of day. Not to exaggerate, I’ve written over 60 stories from age 9 to now. And I’ve read over a hundred and twenty books from then to now.
As a child, there were days when all I wanted was to write books people would discuss and, maybe one day, sell storybooks like Ben Akponine Samuel. Over time, I grew into wanting to write novels and maybe be lucky enough to print just one book. I remember submitting one of my books to a publishing house in 2020 and getting aired.
Looking back now, I realised that the reason I had the dream of being an author or even being a writer today is that I picked up a book to read and never stopped.
The books I read are why I write, and still write, today. They fueled my imagination and made me want to be more. If I had never read any book, I might never have written, or maybe I would have. But who knows?