Oge Is Always Telling Stories—Whether With Fictional Characters, Brands, or Films

What started with ghostwriting on Upwork has turned into a full-blown storytelling career—Oge is crafting her future

Oct 22, 2024

Stories are emotions, and Oge is determined to have everyone feel hers, either through books or films. When Oge started writing, it was to express a 12 year-old crush. In 2020, she came across a ghostwriting opportunity that opened her up to the vast amount of possibilities her writing could bring. By 2021, she was balancing ghostwriting with survival, working with clients who didn’t always pay up, but she kept going.

In this interview, she talks about storytelling, the different paths she has explored, living out her storytelling dreams through video content and spending all her money on food.

* The interview has been edited for length and clarity. (npw - Naira per word)

When I met you, you were a writer. That was in 2021. How did that begin for you? And how far did you take that?

Well, it began on Facebook. I saw a Facebook post by Idongesit Akpan, and it was someone who was looking for writers. I reached out to her, she gave me the person’s contact. I reached out to this person on WhatsApp and we got talking. The person gave me a job. Her name was…I don't know if I should mention her name, but she gave me a job. At the time, she paid me 1.2 naira per word (npw) and I was happy.

Very funny times.

Yes, I was elated because to me, that was a lot of money. I mean, imagine writing 30,000 words and being paid 36,000 naira at the time. For someone whose highest payment was 10,000 from a phone shop I worked in 2020 as a sales girl during the lockdown, you can imagine that 36,000 entering my account was a lot of money for me. I worked for this person up until 2022. Around late 2021 to early 2022, she told me that she would be increasing my payment because I was delivering really good. It was a very big deal. But within that period, I missed a deadline and she told me she would not pay me that amount anymore as punishment.

Wow!

Of course, I was sad but there was nothing I could do. But in 2022, I made up my mind that I was going to quit working for her. I don't even know why I made that decision at the time. But I'm so glad that I did. After that, I got a new gig from one of those people who write for all these story websites. She was recommended to me. I reached out to her and she gave me a job to write 155K words in a month and I was to deliver 6K words daily. My payment was supposed to be 1.45 naira per word. I don't quite remember. I was very excited. I wrote this book for her. According to our agreement, I would be paid in installments. I was supposed to be paid on the 15th of May.

Long story short, the payment did not come. After that, there was another experience where I wrote a book for way less than I would naturally collect. This person didn’t pay me, so I had to go to lengths, as far as finding the client on Facebook, to get the money myself. I found out then that he was lying to the client and was giving me only half of the pay. It was only when the client (Nsikak) confronted him about it that he came to ask why I went to him. He said he saw the book I wrote and it was really good and he would like to work with me. I like to think of Nsikan as my breakthrough in the writing world because he paid me 2 npw. He was the first person to pay me that much and he also connected me to his friend, who was also getting gigs from Upwork.

In December 2022, Nsikan and another guy held an Upwork class for 10,000 naira which was how I got into Upwork. For the first few weeks, I did not have any gigs. I was just sending proposals. Then around 10 p.m. on the 31st of December 2022, I was telling my boyfriend that I would reach out to Nsikan and I would ask him if he could be sending gigs my way through Upwork for a percentage for me to build my profile.

I did not tell Nsikan this. I was just discussing this with my boyfriend. That was the fastest prayer in my life that God ever answered. I told my boyfriend this thing around 10 p.m., I went to a vigil mass and returned home. When I opened my phone at 1 a.m., I saw a message from Nsikan. He said, “Oge, I was thinking, how about I send jobs your way through Upwork instead of outsourcing to you on WhatsApp”. See, the happiness that I felt, the praise and thanksgiving that left my lips, that morning, it was amazing.

That’s Amazing.

I was like, God, you listened to this, you heard this, and you knew that it was a good thing to do. And just like that, my prayers were answered. That was how I started working through Upwork, getting gigs. Whenever there were a lot of invites on the account, he would also send some of it my way instead of declining, he would refer me to the clients. Clients were inviting me directly through Upwork. Yeah, so that's my story as a writer.

Was there a whole process that you had gone through before you started writing professionally? Did you write or read a lot while growing up?

I wouldn't quite say it was a process. I've always had an interest in fiction. My sister used to beat me. All the things that people would say, “I used to use my lunch money to buy books” (laughs), I never did that. Instead, I would wait for my classmates to bring “storybooks” to school. That's what we used to call them then. They would bring story books to school, and I would say, “I'm after you.” That was how I started reading books. And I would even take some home and hide them under my bed because if my sister saw them, she would beat the living daylights out of me. She always complained that me reading fiction books instead of school books was why I never came first in school in my entire life. I would come second, third, but never first. So, that was it.

Then, when I was in Jss2 or Jss 3, I was 12. I had a crush on a boy, but he liked another girl. So, I brought out a used notebook and I just started scribbling down my feelings inside. Total rubbish. Now that I look back at it, I wish that I can go back in time and beat myself up. I left it where we kept our books only to come back from school one day to see that my sister had seen it. That was my first piece of writing. In 2020, during the lockdown, I would tell my mom to give me money, 200 naira, 500 naira because I was watching YouTube videos on how to write. I would look at pictures, images from Facebook or Opera Mini. I didn't know about Instagram at the time. I would just look at these pictures and I would make up a story. I don't know if to call it an article, but I would just make up something and write it in relation to that picture. That was how I just got better and better at writing.

So why were you so confident to take the job when it came?

Sincerely, I wanted money, and I didn't want to go back to school being broke. When I saw the job posting, and I reached out to this person, she asked me for an example. I just shared those writings I had done with pictures with her. And she said she thought I could do this. And I said, yes. (giggles excitedly) That was it. I would also say I'm a very creative person, because I just sat down and I wrote this book, and it was a science fiction book, something I had never done before. But I did it really, really well.

I'm aware that you transitioned to brand storytelling sometime in 2022. Why did you move when Upwork was going well?

The thing is, I realised that I cannot be a ghostwriter for the rest of my life. And I want to be in a space where I'm given the opportunity to work with brands and companies to provide solutions to their problems. And I figured that, okay, I'm a good storyteller, and there is this space for storytelling in marketing. So how about I use this approach as a storyteller and just mix it with marketing and branding? Yes. Instead of starting something afresh entirely, I could just mix the skills I have and, yeah, progress.

Share Docutellment

How has that been? What were the results of that transition?

I will not lie. Like everything else, it was very difficult. That's also because it was a new field for me. I was confused. I took a couple of courses on Udemy. But if you have taken courses, you will know that it's not easy to start and finish a course. I discovered that one of the best ways for me to learn would be to actually do it instead of deceiving myself that I'm learning it by taking a course. So I started looking for where to volunteer.

In the meantime, also, I was looking into getting into videography and video editing because I love telling stories. And I want people to, if they cannot read my books, look at my stories in a film setting, in a wedding setting, anything at all. I want them to be able to see and feel the emotions because stories are emotions. I want them to feel it. So that's just why I got into video editing while I was also looking for where to volunteer as a brand storyteller.

I found someone and I volunteered for her brand in June of this year. We've been working together now. As a matter of fact, we've signed a contract. She gets gigs, gets paid and gives me a percentage. So I'm working under her now as an assistant, and she's also teaching me that storytelling in content is not as grand as I used to see it. It's just a process.

For instance, when you meet someone, the person will introduce themselves before telling you what they do, telling you how they do it. That process is storytelling. I used to think that it was something grand, something that has to be fancy, that you have to put many, many big words to drive home a point. But brand storytelling is not like that. It's just a method of telling your audience what you do, who you are, and how you're going to solve a problem for them. And it's also a way where your audience can see themselves in your brand because it's not about you at the end of the day. It's about your audience, how they can see themselves in your brand and relate with it.

Also, outside editing, I've shot three videos. The first one was in February. I just shot for a friend. It was her birthday, and she had never gotten any videos before. And I just said, okay, let me just do this as a way of practising. That was the first time, then I shot one last month. I shot another one in June. I'm looking to shoot another one soon.

Your academic background. You’ve mentioned these three things you,ve done. Is there any relation?

Well, no, actually, because I've always been in the sciences. I'm looking to get back into school. Like, you know, I didn't finish the first time. So I'm looking to get back in. I wrote JAMB this year. The first time, it was science laboratory technology but I’m looking to get into computer science now. We are in Nigeria. What you study is not what you have to do. You just have to...At my age, I'm just looking for the easiest way out. So that I can just say, okay, I have a degree. Before proceeding to do the major thing that I want to do with my life. Which is storytelling. Either in visual form or in written form.

Is that why you left the first time?

Yes, that too, was one of the reasons why I left school. I was trying to find my way. I realised that this was the only thing I enjoyed doing outside of school. And sincerely, if today there's an opportunity for me to either go into the university again or a film academy with expenses paid, I'll choose a film academy. I've not really given much thought to how I’ll balance school with this. But I know that I'll do my best to excel at both of them. It will not be an easy feat. I will not pretend like it will be something very easy. It will not be a walk in the park. But I know that there is always a way for balance. There is always a way. As someone who has had to leave school for something before. I do not want that to repeat itself. There will be times when one will have to come above the other. I just pray that in those times, God will give me the wisdom to choose that which is more important. Or which will be more important in the grand scheme of things.

On transitioning, do you see yourself moving to another path any time soon?

No, no, no. Because filmmaking is something that I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to see it reach the highest potential. I want to be able to look back and say that I used my entire life to chase this thing and I saw it till the end. Yeah, so it's something that I want to do with everything in me. I'm doing it, it's not even that I want to, I'm doing it with every single thing in me. I'll fall down, I'll cry, I'll get up. But I will do it.

Fun question. What do you spend the most money on as a creator?

Food. I know that's not a typical response, but I mean, all this brain, the brain power, I need food to fuel it. Do you understand? I can't work or think or be creative if I don't eat. So yeah, I spend the most money on food. As much as yes I need other things like gadgets, if I've not been able to eat food, no. Also, because I've been out of work, I've not had any high paying job in the last six to seven months, any small money I have, I put it in food. I also put it in data to be able to learn how to get better at my craft.

I also bought a mini tripod stand. That's what I've been using to hold my phone when I go out. And I bought an iPhone last year because of this career path. So yeah, these two things have been really helpful and I have the laptop too. So, so far I've had the basic things that I need. I need a camera, but I know that that will come along the way. It will definitely come. So yeah, I'm not putting so much pressure on myself as long as I can eat food first to “see road” to be creative enough to shoot videos and edit them, I'm good right now.

On visibility. How are you managing that? Do you also subscribe to the thought that every learning process should be shared?

I think that everybody should do what they want to do. If you feel like you can carry people along as you're learning, that's okay. But if you check my Instagram, I archived every other post I've ever put up in my life and I have just two posts and the caption of each of those posts just tells about my experience when I was shooting that particular video and during the editing process too. That's what I intend to keep doing. I will not come out to share tips and tricks that I have learned as an editor or a videographer. I do not have the time for that because I am not trying to be a content creator.

I'm just using social media to show people that this is what I do and what I enjoy doing. So even if nobody is looking, I don’t care. I post on Instagram and YouTube shorts and I'm always surprised by the analytics. Instagram analytics, I was pleasantly surprised that it reached a large group of people. 67% of the people it reached were people who did not follow me. On YouTube, it got 418 views and 11 likes. This is not something that I am looking at. So social media is not like my main factor or my main push for doing this thing. No, no, no. I feel like if I do that, I'll burn out and I won't even have the opportunity to actually be creative. So I'm just investing time in what I love.

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?