The confession of an olodo (SAUDADE)

Dear Olodo creators, In light of the recent Olodo uprising, I have a confession to make. I wouldn’t lie to you, I have always been a reader. Since I was a little girl, I was probably already being pushed towards writing because of how much I consumed books. I was an avid Wattpad girlie. I even wrote a book of poems on Wattpad, but I never published it. In fact, this is the first app that is seeing my work outside my journal. But that is not my confession. I promise I will get there soon. I had a very good collection of books. In fact, Booksellers Ibadan was one of my favourite places in Ibadan. I loved the smell of new books it was therapeutic. There was something about holding a new book, opening it for the first time, and getting lost in another world. When I left the country, I was gifted an abridged version of the complete works of Shakespeare. It was three different books covering his prose, poetry, and drama. This was where my problem started. I had read Shakespeare before, as any Art student must have, but I discovered this year that it was actually the last hardcover book I owned. And the funny part? I didn’t even read it. I gifted it to my mum because, at the time, I believed Shakespeare wasn’t practical. And maybe that was the beginning of my betrayal of books… because how did a girl who loved books so much slowly become someone who stopped collecting and reading them? I met Z-Library, and from there came TikTok and the era of the dangerously short attention span. Somewhere along the line, my relationship with books changed. Between 2023 and now, I can confidently say I have probably read a total of 10 online books. For someone who used to love books the way I did, that is honestly a shocking confession. Anyways, today I found myself around Booksellers, and something in me came alive again. I got myself a book, a physical book, and I actually intend to read it. So let’s see where this thing goes. Maybe this is me finding my way back to the girl who loved the smell of new books, got lost in stories, and thought every book was a doorway to another world. My vocabulary has always been heavily influenced by what I read. I remember reading a bit of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, and trust me, at that age my vocabulary was strong. I could feel the impact of the words I consumed showing up in the way I spoke and wrote. Recently, I realized that most of what I write now is coming straight from my head ,old knowledge, old exposure, old things I absorbed years ago. To say the least, I am running on a very old supply. Because the books I have read recently have mostly been PDFs for exams, and let’s be honest, academic materials don’t always feed that creative part of you. I am sure there are many writers here who, like me, don’t actually read as much as they should. We love creating, we love writing, but we forget that every writer is first a reader. So my advice today: stop writing for a bit and pick up a book. Feed your mind. Refill your vocabulary. Give your imagination something new to work with. It will do you good. Finally, I might be doing a book review soon. Hold me accountable because if I don’t post the review in two weeks, just know I have abandoned the book. 😂 No excuses, no “I will get back to it” stories. We all know how that ends. So this is me publicly committing to finishing a book and sharing my thoughts. Let’s see if the reader girl in me is truly back. Wish me luck, Olodo creators. 😂

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