NigeriansTalk

Tolu Akanni describes him­self as “a vision­ary and dynamic youth with a rare and unique pas­sion sent on a mis­sion to bring out the best in peo­ple to the end of see­ing men live up to their full capac­ity.” He is a blog­ger I first encoun­tered through his place at El Fiz Con­cept. I liked his writ­ing style and his drive to suc­ceed in his busi­ness see­ing that he was also a stu­dent at the same time. Since then he has started another blog Lobby Expe­ri­ence, where he chron­i­cles his daily expe­ri­ence 100 days to his grad­u­a­tion. He also plans to pub­lish a book titled “A-Z of Life Lessons” from his life so far. The book will be launched in Lagos on July 9, 2010 at Terra Kul­ture in Vic­to­ria Island.

YOU CAN READ THE BOOK EXCERPTS HERE…

Like I have deter­mined to, I got an inter­view with him in order to pro­mote his work and let you guys meet another bud­ding writer and moti­va­tional speaker. Meet Tolu Akanni:

- When and why did you begin writing?

I started writ­ing March 2009.

This was a time when peo­ple were writ­ing “25 things about me” on Face­book. I chose to write mine from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive, so I did “A-Z of school: 26 things that made school life fun in our days” a piece that focused on my pri­mary and sec­ondary school experience.

- When did you first con­sider your­self a writer?

I saw a writer in myself when I started hav­ing up to 40comments on my Face­book notes with peo­ple ask­ing for more. In fact, the editor-in-chief of Mitre Mag­a­zine, Mr Olu­mide Aregbesola fea­tured that “A-Z of school” in the pre­miere edi­tion of the mag­a­zine that was pub­lished August 2009.

- What inspired you to write your book?

I started writ­ing in my intern­ship days, and when I got back to school I took hold of my tran­scripts and I realised I had missed out of the ‘first class hon­ours’ train and hav­ing straight ‘A’s in my 2 con­clud­ing semes­ters won’t get me there.
Hav­ing it at the back of my mind that I had fallen short of the promise I made to my father and myself, I sought out for a lever­age, I knew there was suc­cess in me, but that con­vic­tion wasn’t enough, I had to prove myself to my world, I needed to build a resume that would speak for itself.

As at that time I had my arti­cles pub­lished in 2 mag­a­zines, I was a cre­ative writer for Skye High, I was on the board of Mitre mag­a­zine, I was run­ning a blog (http://el-fiz.blogspot.com), ‘Tolu Fiz Aka­nee’ had become a house­hold name on Face­book for pub­lish­ing cap­ti­vat­ing notes.

Tak­ing my writ­ing to the next level was one thing I could hold on to.

- Do you have a spe­cific writ­ing style?

Yes!! My writ­ing style is a com­plete depar­ture from the con­ven­tional. I like to write like I’m hav­ing a casual con­ver­sa­tion with the reader. I enjoy being ran­dom and I like pub­lish­ing my text in short hand. So my style is freestyle.

- How did you come up with the title?

After writ­ing “A-Z of school” “A-Z of CU” “A-Z of ‘tired’s” “A-Z of Lagos”

The ‘A-Z’ thing was already my brand, so since the book focuses on my expe­ri­ences within a period of time in my life, ‘A-Z life lessons’ came up.

- Is there a mes­sage in your novel that you want read­ers to grasp?

My writ­ing skills was birth out of hours of dis­com­fort in the Lagos combi com­muter bus a.k.a Danfo dur­ing my intern­ship days, and this book is sim­ply a com­pi­la­tion of arti­cles that were writ­ten at such moments.

Life is meant to be enjoyed. Momen­tary dis­com­fort is allowed, it is what you make out of it that counts!

- What books have most influ­enced your life most?

Think big by Dr Ben Carson

How to think like a bil­lion­aire by Don­ald J. Trump

Life as I see it by Leke Alder

Para­ble of Dol­lars by Rev Sam Adeyemi

- If you had to choose, which writer would you con­sider a mentor?

Mr Leke Alder

- What book are you read­ing now?

Brand­ing Unbound by Rick Mathiesin

- What are your cur­rent projects?

I’m run­ning my con­sul­tancy out­fit: El Fiz Concept.

El Fiz Con­cept is all about brands, events, busi­ness con­sul­tancy and con­cept development.

I’m on the exec­u­tive board of Mitre magazine.

I’m work­ing on a monthly poetry show ‘An evening with the poet’ under the hos­pice of El Fiz events in part­ner­ship with Restruct Consults.

- Name one entity that you feel sup­ported you out­side of fam­ily members.

Skye high.

Skye high sum­mer 2009 ses­sion was a major turn­ing point in my writ­ing career, that’s where I met my coach in the school of writ­ing, Mr ‘Yinka Adeleke.

- Do you see writ­ing as a career?

I won’t stop writ­ing till I draw my last breath. Writ­ing is a form of relax­ation to me, it’s some­thing I fall back to after my reg­u­lar career day.

So writ­ing is more of a part-time career for me.

- Can you share a lit­tle of your book with us?

The book makes you appre­ci­ate the undi­luted thoughts of a 21st cen­tury 20year old. Appeal­ing to all audi­ence that appre­ci­ate ‘youth­ful­ness’, It is a prod­uct of a selec­tion from my 365day old archive, and it goes a long way in reflect­ing my mul­ti­fac­eted expe­ri­ence within that period of time.

I also have con­tribut­ing chap­ters from friends who were with me those 365days.

It’s a blend of poetry, short sto­ries and moti­va­tional text; it enjoys a qual­ity blend of pho­tog­ra­phy with each chap­ter hav­ing its unique pic­to­r­ial expression.

It speaks of com­fort and dis­com­fort, it speaks about the con­stant and the con­stantly chang­ing, it talks about our every­day lives. It’s a book you would want to read, keep and re-read.

- Is there any­thing you find par­tic­u­larly chal­leng­ing in your writing?

Keep­ing up with deliv­ery stan­dards. There are things I write and peo­ple love and appre­ci­ate it so much that I find myself doubt­ing if the next will keep up to stan­dards or even beat the last.

- Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Leke Alder. He’s the smartest and deep­est author I’ve ever come across, his con­cepts are out of this world and his deliv­ery is sim­ply unique.

- Who designed the covers?

Pho­tog­ra­phy was done by Mr ‘Wale Ade­nuga of Unlim­ited works.

Graph­ics design by Mr Ade of Rebirth Media

- What was the hard­est part of writ­ing your book?

I did the writ­ings over time, so the main task was devel­op­ing a unique con­cept for a com­pi­la­tion, and find­ing a graph­ics designer to bring it to life.

I want to appre­ci­ate Mr Ade, he brought out the beauty of the book like he was sit­ted right there in my mind.

- Did you learn any­thing from writ­ing your book and what was it?

My life is defined by influ­ence, I’m a prod­uct of influ­ence, if I had not had the priv­i­lege of meet­ing the mem­bers of my cre­ativ­ity team, there would have been no book!

First it was ‘Jaye Ader­ounmu of Restruct con­sult who impressed it on me that my com­pi­la­tions were pub­li­ca­tion wor­thy. Then Omoge black took the pho­tog­ra­phy to the next level, Dupe Macaulay of Teck­ni­coleur designs was a major plus to the team.
Les­son learnt: you can’t rise above the level of your asso­ci­a­tion. Tap into networking.

- Do you have any advice for other writers?

Be dis­sat­is­fied with your cur­rent posi­tion, sur­prise your­self then your world will be equally surprised.

- Do you have any­thing spe­cific that you want to say to your readers?

This is just the beginning.

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First posted on my blog, www.mynewhitmanwrites.com

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