How I Wrote a Post That Touched the Governor's Heart...

Arts and Craft Centre, Emede, Isoko South, Delta State

Well, it was a few days before Valentine in 2015, and the Governor of  Delta State then, Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, CON, had written a post in one of the popular facebook page I belong to, Umeh Need Road, that he would love to commission Umeh road on Valentine's day. Interestingly, the 7.1 kilometres Umeh road was purely social media-driven and was constructed across the very terribly swampy area of Umeh, a village in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State.

Meanwhile, I had a request that had been gnawing at me to make to the governor about a similar completed
project that would benefit thousands of people if commissioned. The project: Delta State Training Centre for Arts and Craft, Emede. A Centre which has the capacity of training 5000 people yearly.. It was the peak of the 2015 elections and coincidentally, it was a project by a female ex-commissioner who was gunning for the House of Assembly seat in Delta State.

You know that feeling you get right before you publish a post especially when you are not a fan of frequent posts on Facebook?

The angel on one ear says you’ve written a post of enormous importance and depth, one that will get straight to the heart of your addressee and readers. Meanwhile, the devil in black on the other ear calls you a halfwit with the writing talent of a female monkey doped on weed.

The devil was winning two hours after I wrote that post.

“Please don’t publish it,” the devil on the left ear screamed. “You are writing to a whole governor and your language is too formal. The post is crap. It’ll piss him off.”

The angel on the other ear listened politely. The night before, he’d read through my first novel, Suspended Destiny, and the manuscript of my second novel I've been working on for years, confident of my writing genius. But mere hours later I was on my writing desk having an epic freak-out. All because I wanted to write to the Governor!

For the next hour, there was nothing to do but sit at the computer pressing the “refresh” button over and over again. I trembled. I prayed.

And then the post went live after 12 midnight (click here to read it). About an hour later I got a notification on my phone, "Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan commented on your post". I floated around in a cloud of euphoria. Sleep seemed to desert me for hours until I had to wake everybody in my house up with excited shouts of, 'see, the governor commented under my post'. It was a crazy feeling. I won’t lie. I enjoyed all the attention.

I got inbox messages from friends and the most unforgettable one was from a friend, Darlington, saying, "Madam Peace, your post is even getting more attention than the governor's comment under it".

Here are some of the comments under the post:

Is it realistic for you to expect your posts to get to people's heart always?
I’ll be straight with you…

No.

That would be like taking an apprentice tailor just learning the difference between threads and needles and expecting them to be a trainer in a three-star Fashion Designing School.

But here’s the thing:

If you commit yourself to mastering the craft, you can absolutely get there.

Of course, you might not have realized there’s even a craft to master. You might have thought writing is about sitting down, writing a few thoughts, and then clicking “post/publish.”

It’s not. Not if you want anyone to like reading your posts, anyway.

Writing is like any other type of art. There are structures and formulas and rules.

For me, the number one rule is: leave the big grammar for Patrick Obahiagbon and keep it real. And it works for me. What works for you? Please share...