True talk #1: On Inktippeddreams and battling with my words

I’ve been here before. Maybe you have as well. I don’t mean here, here. Like, not this platform. I mean inktippeddreams. I mean taking the leap to share my writing in this way. To be brave with my words. To build a community.

To better explain what I hope to do this time, I want to start by reflecting on where I have come from. Where inktippeddreams came from.

I have always been a writer. I have always derived pleasure from playing with words; from writing poems and stories. I have also always struggled with trying to “put myself out there”. With submitting to the judgement that inevitably comes when my words are laid bare.

This is my reflection on what sharing feels like:

Every single time I share,

I feel like I’m standing in the street

With my top off

Screaming that you love me.

That you look at me first,

And then love me.

But my eyes are closed,

Because I can’t bear to see

A flicker in your eyes,

If I find that you don’t.

I’m exposed.

It’s cold here.

Regardless of this feeling, sharing is what had to happen when I realised that my words, in all their abundance, needed somewhere to go. That there is nothing glorious or beautiful about creating for your own consumption. About speaking into an echo. And so, as well as the more traditional efforts to submit and publish my work, I decided to create my own platform.

Inktippeddreams 1.0

The first time was in 2012, when I was 22. I created a wordpress blog, and I called it inktippeddreams. I chose the name because, all the creative things I enjoyed— writing poems, stories, thought pieces and drawing— were ink-related.  On that platform, I shared these types of art. I wrote diligently every week for a year. And then I let self-doubt get in the way. I had applied for a writing opportunity alongside 450 other Nigerians/ Africans; and although I got shortlisted to the top 50, I didn’t make the final cut. Unfortunately, I let this destabilise me instead of internalising it as an accomplishment, and I went back to being a closet writer.

Inktippeddreams 2.0

In 2021, I decided to give it another go. In my own time, I had been toiling away at my writing. I was two years into my most ambitious writing project. I had attended several writing workshops. I had written countless poems. In short, I had kept at it, but it felt like such a solitary thing. So, I wanted to share. This time, I wanted inktippeddreams to become a community. I knew how scary yet worthwhile it was to put my words out there, so I wanted to encourage others to do the same. On Instagram, I released prompts every 2 weeks, responding to each of them alongside the audience. Each time, I would share all our responses to create a conversation around these prompts/ themes. Once a month, I invited a guest writer to respond to the prompt and hosted live conversations where we discussed the theme (such as passion, heritage, faith) and read our responses. It was wonderful, and I succeeded in creating a real community. Every week, I was receiving writing from various people, as well as comments on my own work. I loved it, but it was such an intense process. To find guest writers, to set up live conversations, to create templates, to come up with additional non-writing content to drive engagement, etc. After about a year, I decided to take a break to focus on my ongoing writing project. I needed to give myself fully to writing, and all the technical/ logistic things I was doing were distracting.

Inktippeddreams 3.0

So, I’m here now. In 2023. I’ve poured myself into my writing project for 4 years. I’ve “finished” it a few times. I’ve gotten one step closer on that journey by receiving endorsement from an industry insider, and I hope to attain the rest of the steps (and tell you all about it then). I’ve had some of my poems published and will soon have a story published as well. Outside of this, I retreated to my personal Instagram, where I would share writing every now and then. But it felt restrictive. It was a small audience, and it felt like there was a limit on what I could post— poems were the only type of writing that made sense for that platform. I found that there was so much in me that was waiting to be given space. Not just poems, but stories; pieces on my battles with self-doubt and sharing my words; tales of my travels and my life in Paris; updates on what is happening in my writing life. I wanted to share in a way that was not limiting. On a platform that would let me be as creative as I liked, without committing myself to a specific timeline. I also still wanted to preserve the community aspect. In short, I wanted to take what I had learnt from my two previous experiences and create the best of them all.

Perhaps you can see this in the logo. I drew the first one in 2012, and it was a picture of me, in braids and pyjamas. The second one in 2021 was a community-focussed logo, less personal. And this third one is a balance of both. I drew myself again, in braids and pyjamas as an ode to where I started, and to show that I would be sharing more of myself here. Sharing without limitation. Sharing with ease. But the community logo is still present, because your comments, your words, are important to me. Every piece will end with a related prompt that you can respond to. And I would post this on the Instagram page.

You might ask what’s different this time. Why I’ll stick around. Well, because I’ve realised the importance of creating and maintaining a space for my words, for having a community, regardless of whatever else I may be working on or aiming for. And I’ve found a better way, a more sustainable way, of doing that.

So maybe you’ve been here before, or maybe you haven’t. But I’m glad you came. And I hope you stay. I have so much to tell you. And I’m sure you have things to tell me too.  

Love,

Ehae xxx

Prompt:

What have you battled with? What keeps coming back to you, for better or worse? Write a piece about it and share it with me (by sending it on instagram, or replying if you’re a subscriber), and it will go up on the Instagram page!

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