‘How social media inspired me to become a writer’
Funny and witty writer, Eketi Edima Ette has a collection of short stories in the works. Having discovered writing through social media, where she also post funny video skits featuring herself, she has abandoned her Law degree and is focused on making a c
to sell. Basically, I’m a hustler. I write, I do business and I’m also a farmer. The farming bit of is on hold for now because ever since I left Calabar, I have not had the space. I’m into poultry and I’m a fisherwoman at heart. From when I was a child, I was doing poultry. Fishery I wasn’t so much involved in but as I grew I loved farming.
Why did you take to social media as the platform for your writing?
Like fish to water, social media came naturally. At the beginning I had only a small circle of like 100 friends and followers but with time the circle grew. Also I like the immediate response from people. Critics help me develop my work. I took to social media because I wasn’t really writing for money but now things have changed, I don’t mind the money.
You said that your writing differs from time to time, so what inspires your writing?
Everything inspires me, I could be here, see an expression on someone’s face and I start wondering how the person got that expression. Why does the person have that expression. I could hear children playing or I could just be driving by the road and I see something that tickles my imagination and I write about it. I’m inspired by life itself, people, everything.
Okay, so when these things come to you, does it take you time to decide to write about it or do you just get home and say I’m writing about this thing?
Sometimes, for some things once they occur to me I write them down in a jotter, think about them and I explore to the farthest reaches of my imagination on what I’m going to write about them. For others, once I get inspired the story just comes and I know exactly what I want to write.
Do you have to research before you write?
Not always. If a story has to have a technical subject like Law, Medicine or Architecture, I will definitely do my research because I don’t want someone to get the wrong idea. I believe that in as much as we entertain, we also teach or if I’m writing a story on something that happened in the past, a historical story, I do research.
Maybe if I’m writing about Africa, Nigeria, our culture, I ask my grandparents, older people. But, if I’m writing about contemporary issues maybe not so much because somehow, in the course of Law, I know a little about everything. Research is not necessary for everything I write.
Has your work ever been criticized and how do you handle critic?
[Laughs]My work has been criticized a lot. I remember a particular piece I wrote, I said that brave women choose prostitution, that it takes bravery to meet a stranger and sleep with them not knowing what is going to happen, especially when you have to go to their place and do that over and over again, most especially if you are doing it to survive. Till date, I think that’s the piece that brought the biggest backlash for me.
A lot of people did not like the sound of it, moralists thought I was propagating that prostitution is a good thing; there were hypocritical people, holy people and all sorts. I’ve come to realize that not everybody will see things my way so as long as I am not verbally abused I will take any criticism there is to take.
Tell me it’s not right, tell me I should have structured it a particular way, tell me I