The First Time I Saw My Name in Print

 

By Nightengale Ben-Onyeukwu

I started writing when I was a little girl. I was very young, but I loved holding a pen and putting words on paper. Sometimes, I would take a piece of paper and write nonsense. There was no story behind it and no particular reason for doing it. I simply wanted to write. I could sit down and put whatever came into my head on paper, even when it did not make sense. Sometimes I would read it again and laugh at what I had written, but that did not stop me from doing it again. I enjoyed the writing itself. I liked seeing words appear on a blank piece of paper. I did not think of myself as a writer then, and I certainly did not know where writing would take me. I was just a little girl with a pen who enjoyed putting her thoughts on paper.

My father, Rev. Prof. Ben Onyeukwu, had a lot to do with my love for writing. He is a writer and journalist, and I loved reading the things he wrote. He wrote articles, tracts, pamphlets and other works, and I enjoyed seeing his words on paper. Having a writer so close to me made writing feel familiar. I could see my father putting his thoughts into words and creating things that other people could read. I would read his works and sometimes go back to them. I did not fully understand what this meant for me at the time, but it became part of my childhood. I was reading, and I was writing too. Even before I knew what it meant to be an author, I knew that I enjoyed reading and putting my own thoughts on paper.

The books I read introduced me to other writers whose works I still remember. I read Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and William Shakespeare. They were different from one another, and I enjoyed that. I liked Chinua Achebe's stories and the way he could tell so much through simple words. I enjoyed reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books and following the lives of her characters. Shakespeare was different again, and some of his language was difficult for me, but I still enjoyed reading his works. I was not reading them because I wanted to write exactly like them. I was simply a reader who loved books. But the more I read, the more I wanted to write my own stories. I wanted to create people who existed only in my imagination and give them lives of their own.

In those early days, I did not take writing too seriously. I would start something and leave it. I could have an idea, write a few pages and then move on to another idea. Sometimes I had a story in mind, and sometimes I had nothing at all. Even then, I could still pick up a pen and write. There was no pressure to finish anything. With time, my writing changed. The few pages became longer, and I started creating characters, giving them names and thinking about what might happen to them. I began to understand that an idea could become a story if I gave it enough time. What had started with a child writing nonsense was gradually becoming something I cared about.

My love for writing also influenced the course I chose to study. I decided to study Mass Communication because I wanted to become a journalist. I wanted to work with words and tell stories about people and things that mattered. At a higher institution, I began to see writing from another side. It was not only about creating characters and imaginary situations. There were real people with real experiences, problems, achievements and struggles. Their stories mattered too. Journalism gave me another way to use the thing I had loved since childhood. I could write about people who were actually living the stories instead of only creating stories in my imagination.

Becoming a journalist did not take me away from creative writing. I continued writing novels, especially romance. I have always enjoyed romance because love can change people in many ways. It can make someone happy, confused, hopeful or afraid. It can bring two people together, but it can also leave people hurt. I enjoy creating characters and following their relationships as a story develops. Sometimes I begin a novel knowing exactly where I want it to go. At other times, the characters seem to take the story in another direction. I may start with one idea and end up somewhere I did not expect. I enjoy that part of writing because there is always something to discover along the way.

Writing has also taken me into other areas. I run a blog, Nightengaleben.blogspot.com, where I publish my writing and other stories. I also edit stories written by young writers. I enjoy doing this because I understand what it feels like to have ideas in your head and want to put them into words. A young writer may have a good story but struggle with how to present it. Sometimes all that is needed is someone who will sit down, read the work carefully, point out what needs to be changed and encourage the writer to continue. I have also written a few biographies. Writing about real people is different from writing fiction because there is a responsibility to preserve their lives and experiences as accurately as possible. Both forms of writing have given me different ways to work with words.

My works are on Amazon, Wattpad, Webnovel, Inkitt, Dreame, NovelUp, Medium, Feedcover and other platforms. I also share my writing on social media under the name Nightengale Ben-Onyeukwu. When I think about this now, I remember that none of these things was in my mind when I was a little girl. I did not know anything about publishing platforms or readers waiting for new stories. I only knew that I liked writing. That is why seeing my own name on my work has always meant so much to me. Behind that name are many years of writing, reading, starting stories, abandoning some of them, changing others and learning from my mistakes.

The first time I saw my name in print, I looked at it differently from the way I had looked at the names of other writers. For years, I had opened books and seen someone else's name before reading the words inside. I had read my father's works. I had read Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and William Shakespeare. Their names were attached to the stories I was reading. Then I saw my own name attached to something I had written. It was a simple thing to see a name on a page, but I knew what was behind mine. I remembered the little girl who used to write nonsense without caring whether anyone would read it. I remembered the many stories I had written since then. I remembered the times I had wondered whether my writing was good enough. Looking at my name in print made all those memories come back to me.

There was happiness in that moment, but there was also a new feeling. Once your work is in front of other people, you cannot decide how they will receive it. Someone may enjoy your story while another person may not like it at all. Someone may understand what you were trying to say, while another reader may see something completely different. I have had to learn not to let that fear stop me. A writer cannot please everybody. If I kept every story to myself because I was worried about what people might say, many of the things I have written would still be sitting somewhere unseen.

I have also learnt through my mistakes. I have written stories that I later changed because I was not happy with them. There are chapters I have read again and wondered what I was thinking when I wrote them. I have started stories and stopped because I could not find the right way to continue. There are also days when writing comes easily and I can keep going without thinking too much about every sentence. Then there are days when I have an idea but cannot seem to get it down properly. I have learnt to live with both sides of writing. Even now, I can pick up a pen without knowing exactly what I want to say. I may write a few lines and leave them for another day. Sometimes those lines grow into something. Sometimes they remain just a few lines. I am no longer worried about that.

Writing has become part of my daily meal. It is something I have become used to having in my life. I write as a journalist, and I write novels and other stories. I edit stories for young writers, write biographies and run my blog, Nightengaleben.blogspot.com. There are days when an idea will stay in my head until I put it on paper. There are other days when I simply want to write because writing still gives me the same satisfaction it gave me as a child. The little girl who used to write nonsense has not completely gone away. I still have that part of me that can sit with a blank page and wonder what might come from it.

My love for writing has also made me want to create opportunities for other people who love words. I am the founder of Nightengale Awards, where I give awards to recognise people and their work. Under Nightengale Awards, I also run the Nightengale Literary Awards, a live writing competition where writers come together to write and compete, after which prizes are given to the winners. This is something I am proud of because writing is not only about the person holding the pen. Writers also need places where their work can be seen and appreciated. When I think about the little girl who used to sit with a piece of paper and write nonsense, it is interesting to know that I now help create opportunities for other writers to write, compete and be recognised.

When I look at my journey, I can see how one thing led to another. Reading my father's works helped deepen my interest in writing. The books of Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and William Shakespeare gave me more reasons to read. My love for writing influenced my decision to study Mass Communication and become a journalist. Journalism gave me a way to tell real people's stories, while writing novels gave me a place to create stories of my own. Along the way, I started my blog, wrote biographies, edited stories for young writers and created Nightengale Awards. My writing has reached readers through Amazon, Wattpad, Webnovel, Inkitt, Dreame, NovelUp, Medium, Feedcover and other platforms, as well as through social media. None of these things happened at once. They came one step at a time.

I did not begin writing with a plan. I had no idea that the simple habit of putting words on paper would stay with me for so long. I certainly did not imagine that writing would take me into journalism, novels, biographies, editing and eventually creating opportunities for other writers. In the beginning, there was only a pen and a piece of paper. I wrote because I enjoyed writing.

Today, when I see the name Nightengale Ben-Onyeukwu on my work, I still think about where it began. I think about the little girl who could write nonsense on a piece of paper and be perfectly happy with it. She was not thinking about readers, publishing platforms, journalism or awards. She was only enjoying the words in front of her. The writing has changed since then. The stories are longer, the purpose is clearer and there are now people who read what I write. But something important has remained the same. I still love putting words on paper.

And perhaps that is the best part of the journey. I started with a pen because I wanted to write, and after all these years, I still do.