I Hate {redacted} So Much

from a diary to the internet

I don’t want to be cliché and say that I started writing because I wanted to be the next chimamanda or that when I was 5, I had an epiphany of some sort.

I started writing to keep secrets. Yes. I started with a diary in junior secondary school where I’d complain during my serious “nobody gets me” phase. I wrote about how my classmates used to act to me and how I felt when my sisters annoyed me. There was usually a line saying, “I hate {redacted} so much.” This sentence appeared frequently. It was consistent, if nothing else. Dramatic? No. I refuse to accept.

My diary was my safe space. Unfortunately, other people did not agree. I realized people are strangely attracted to what they’re not supposed to have or see, and in this case, it was my diary. A lot of snoops everywhere, trying to read what was in my head and then drop it and leave traces of their oily hands on the pages of my book.

I stopped for a while and then started my diary again in my senior year of secondary school. I think I became smarter and wrote names and everything else in codes so nobody would understand it except me. But the problem is, years later, I have the book and I can barely decode what I wrote. I might’ve outsmarted even myself with that one.

Also, I used to send letters to my friends outside school, and it was fun having a means of communication when I was in boarding school. Even if it would take two weeks to get one back, it was usually worth it getting many pages worth of gists, updates and very unnecessary details. Peak excitement.

I think it’s safe to say writing has always been a part of me, my life. But it was never anything I took seriously. It was something I did privately, casually, and mostly to complain.

Until last year.

I got a nudge from a friend to actually do something, and I started. It was hard and it was quite scary because I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did it anyway. I started my personal blog, this substack. I made all my friends and family subscribe, and often times I had to use some kind of force. I was growing, but they couldn’t see it yet.

Publishing publicly felt like the opposite of keeping a diary. There was no lock, no code, no guarantee of safety. Just me, my words, the risk of being seen, and the very real possibility of embarrassment.

And then I got my first 100 subscribers. I was ecstatic, over the moon. I was happy that I had 100 people subscribed. I became consistent, writing and writing and writing on different things. I started with personal essays. It was very fun writing about childhood memories and other funny and interesting things that had happened to me.

Then I moved to writing fiction. I noticed the people enjoyed the fiction a little too much, so I had to put a pause on that for a while to remember how I really started, my essays.

I also branched out and started submitting to literary magazines. I wasn’t ready, but my friend made sure I did it anyway. I submitted to many different magazines, and then I waited. The waiting period is really the hardest, knowing a group of editors are mulling over my work and deciding whether to reject or accept it.

Replies then started to come in over the course of the summer break. Acceptances. Rejections. Then more acceptances. From one, to five, to twelve. Rejections still showed up too, just to keep me humble.

Each acceptance taught me that my voice could travel. Each rejection taught me that my voice still needed work. Neither was personal, even if they sometimes felt extremely personal.

It was stressful, having to work with different editors before publishing the finished piece. But the end result was always very satisfying. Seeing my work on each of their websites with my name and my bio. Becoming known in the writing community, basically.

Another fun thing that happened was that two of my stories got turned into audio versions by a voice over artist. It was interesting to hear my writing read aloud with such strong emotions.

The plan is to become even more consistent than I was last year. Writing to you, my loves, my subscribers. Sharing stories and whatnot with you people. Thank you for being here. Happy new year!

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Click the link below to access my Published works on literary magazines. Enjoy!

Tomilola Adejumo’s Linktree

Audio Version (if you’d like a listen)