Go! Go! Go For It!

2010.

It was a very good year. These 365’s been twelve months of prolific adventures for me.

I got in touch with lots of exciting stuff in my search for ideas for blog posts. I think I owe it all to my muse for recognizing the knock of opportunity, or I might quite possibly have run out of gas.

Making a comeback to blogging was like witnessing my own rebirth. Last year, 2009, I could afford to blog a little over four posts before I spluttered to a halt. This year offered prospects on a platter of gold yet, I wasn’t living up to it. It was not until the turn of October, September slash October actually, that I would give blogging another shot.

Faced with an intimidating feat of creating 50 poems to immortalize my country’s 50^th Independence Anniversary − to be up front with you about this, I almost caved in and got rid of the jibe – now opportunity wasn’t knocking on my door, it winged it all off the hinges. The initial plan was to post a poem a day, sort of like what I did with the twelve days of Christmas poetry sequence. A countdown to the D day. That wasn’t going to happen though, cause I blew the whole thing out the front door from the outset. I got myself buried under a heap of officious chores the first week I was to set it in motion and had to consider the possibility of doing my usual thing − wait until Independence Day (that’s October 1 in Nigeria) and post just one poem in honor of a great nation.

Something way down the basement of my mind wasn’t willing to go with the usual thing and just plunge into the flow. I mean, like you only get one chance at celebrating a Golden Anniversary, right? There are other interesting elements in Nigerian history that strengthened my resolve, the simple fact that for 50 some odd years, a nation of millions – of different tribes, dialects (over 300 of those), and peculiarities – has hanged on as one nation is a theme busting with enough proton particles to initiate a poetic odyssey.

So, I plugged into the charge. Every day, on my way home from work, riding the bus, I would pull out my journal and write. I thrust myself right back into my journal once I got home, writing into the still of night, many times falling asleep at my writing desk. The next day, on my way to work, I would write again. I went on and on until I hit the fiftieth verse. You ask, how did you feel after you blogged the poems? Like a Patriot. Yeah, I felt like I was part of something great and unique. Like I earned a deserved spot among the Heroes past who put this great nation on the world map!

Poetry has helped me out of unpleasant situations and it did one more time. I set out with a plan of posting two blogs a week which would place me at roughly twenty four articles by the end of December. I think I outdid myself with over forty of those. And if I have to count each poem in the Mission Impossible (the 50 poems I wrote for my country’s Independence Anniversary) sequence as individual posts, I would have hit the 100 mark. I’m not arrogant, just proud of what I achieved.

About 2011 and New Year Resolutions, I think I’ll cut myself some slack next year, cut back on the articles. I need more time to focus on my short stories plus I got an eye on NanoWrimo coming way up November. I got a lot of digging for information to do, so much research work.

I’m looking at thirty 2,000 word short stories by the end of 2011. That’s going to demand strict concentration but I think I’m up to it. The goals are meant to keep me on my toes, remind me of who I am. If I never achieve all I set out to accomplish, I would only be a few inches off the bull’s eye. And that’s alright by me.

For me, 2011 is abbreviated in two words – short stories.

Here’s mine. Where’s yours?

Have a Happy and Monstrously prolific 2011!

Let your pen keep bleeding!

Eneh