I grew up in Lagos Nigeria. Near the famous University of Lagos (which I eventually attended) for the first ten years of my life and here and there all over mainland Lagos for the rest of my life growing up. Then it was tough telling anyone I wanted to be a writer, because I honestly didn't know any writers nor was it evident that writers could make a living off writing.

There were always books in the house and books at school and it was amazing how they would transport me to a different world than the one I was currently living in. I recall as a child, attending parties with my family and finding my way to the bedrooms and libraries of our hosts, searching for something interesting to read. .I learnt new words and spellings and basically taught myself to write by reading and reading a lot.

Nigeria is an interesting country but it wasn't until recently that I began to look around and le our culture and food and people influence my writing.

I’ve been writing ever since I was a child, and I realize now that sounds rather cliché because almost every writer I know started writing as a child. For me however, the real world was a tad serious and I was more an introspective watcher than a participant. I hated outdoor activities, but I loved nursery rhymes, reading comprehension and composition, and words generally. I loved reading books, and I loved inventing my own alternative story lines to everything I read.

As a child, I didn’t make friends that easily, but writing was a way of escape into this imaginary world where my characters were my friends and I was a heroine, jumping through jungles and doing every brave thing imaginable. As I grew older, writing became my source of relaxation and a good way to vent off my angers and fears. I also realized it was a craft to be nurtured and I went all out for it.

It would be haphazard!

I sometimes start with the end of the book and start writing to the beginning. Sometimes I start in the the middle of the book and fill in the details. Sometimes it’s just a scene that gets stuck in my mind, and I build a story around it.

I mostly just start writing and go with the flow of where my characters are taking me, I let them just tell me the story. Recently however, I’ve taken to writing an outline because it gives me structure and a sense of direction.

My typical day is filled with lots of activities and so I do most of my writing in the middle of the night between 11pm and 2am when the house is quiet and everyone is sleeping and there is no distraction. I have found however that the activities during the day, going to work, meeting up with friends, going for events, sorting the kids, help fuel me with ideas and experiences that find their way into my writing.

Yes, when I build characters, I want them to be relatable. I name them first and then I shape their personalities from people I know and invent a back story for them. This helps me keep their conversations in the whole story in line with their character and with how they would respond to other characters in the same story. In order to do that successfully, I find myself studying people a lot and drawing from real life experiences i.e. funny moments, interesting comments and outright actions.

Oh my goodness, I absolutely love Georgette Hayer and Philippa Gregory (historical romance authors), George R Martin (Song of Fire and Ice) and Adriana Trigiani (an Italian American Contemporary writer).

I also love Francine Rivers because she taught me to find hidden stories in the pages of the Bible, I admire Tolulope Popoola for her boldness in establishing Accomplish Press and for encouraging me to get out there, Kukogho Iruesiri Samson for poetry, and of course Myne Whitman, who made me realize that it was possible to be successful at Self-Publishing. For years I thought one had to just do traditional publishing.

More recently Kiru Taye and Amaka Azie for helping me see that the romance genre is viable.