A Decade of Blogging | Incessant Scribble

19 Y.O. The night before I turned 20

Ten years ago in an internet cafe on the University of Nigeria, Nsukka campus I created this blog site and published my first blog post titled My Blogenesis. I was there that night with Onyeka Nwelue but he was at a different computer station because that night the cyber cafe was packed. I had needed convincing by my friends Eromo Egbejule and Nwelue (both of whom had blogs at the time) to begin blogging because my major worry was starting the blog and lapsing into irregularity. I was also secretly worried and nervous about putting myself out there and opening myself to scrutiny and criticism. That night I took a leap of faith because they gave me wings and here I am ten years later. Ten years. I was nineteen years old sitting in the cafe that night, 14 days away from turning twenty. I'm twenty-nine years old right now sitting in my apartment, trying to compose this post before heading out to work, 14 days away from that scary number THIRTY. 30 years old. Ohhh myyy gawdd. "What am I doing with my life?" is a question I've asked myself countless times in the past. It's a question that pops into my mind with increasing frequency as these few last days of my twenties flash by.

29 Y.O. This morning. 

I had long imagined that to celebrate this anniversary I would conjure up a thoughtful and lengthy blog post chronicling the last ten years of my life but when I woke up this morning I knew it wasn't going to happen lol. However, it's necessary that I point out the three years break I took from blogging. I started working on getting into pharmacy school the year I moved to America and by 2010 things were heating up. There was lots of stress and pressure as I combined school, secular work, and increased responsibilities at home for the first time in my life. No matter what I had on my plate I needed amazing grades to get into pharmacy school. I was scared of failure and did not want to be distracted so I abruptly restricted all access to this blog site. I locked it up and threw away the key. I have zero blog posts from August 2010 to March 2013, a span of about three years. My leisure reading dipped really low during that hiatus but I'm glad I kept reading. One of the books I always regret not blogging about is Brian Chikwava's Harare North. I wish I had shared how much I enjoyed that book. It wasn't until the end of my first year of pharmacy school that I returned to blogging as a way to deal with the stress of school. Chimamanda Adichie was about to release Americanah and the email from her Nigerian publishers requesting that I announce their release of her novel was the extra push I needed to get back to blogging. I haven't taken any breaks since then.

I had hoped that by today I would have reviewed at least 100 books on this blog site but 77 book reviews from 18 different African countries isn't too shabby. Incessant Scribble has been an incredible blessing in my life. The fact that I've done all of this single-handedly makes me so proud. So freaking proud. I need to thank Onyeka Nwelue & Eromo Egbejule for the love and these wings. I need to thank all my readers. I need to thank all my favorite bloggers who constantly inspire me to work harder at this. I need to thank everyone who visits this blog, subscribes to this blog, tweets, comments, shares and likes my blog posts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you soo much. You encourage me in more ways that you know. The next decade of my life will undoubtedly bring a lot of change and I'm not yet certain about my plans for this platform that I've cultivated. Whatever I decide I'll keep you posted.

Much Love,

Dr. Osondu Nnamdi Awaraka