Midnight Echoes (ONLY PREVIEW)

Final Author's Note

*Warning this part may contain spoilers!*

My dearest, lovely readers!

I'm lost at words for which to start writing this Author's Note. I've been postponding it for too long 'cos it feels like a goodbye :(

I'm amazed at the little family we've become since I first published ME to when I finished it. Those of you who followed this story from the beginning would know that it's been a whole two and a half years journey! But you guys held on and followed till the end even with the sometime slow updates and the few times it's been on hold. I've gotten sooo many messages from people throughout the time I was writing this story about how they liked it and I get so overwhelmed with the love!

Really, I couldn't have done this without you, you, you! Thank you so much for reading, for the patience, the support and the endless prayers! For voting, and commenting always- my seasoned commenters- I can't mention y'll but I see you and I appreciate you. Even my ghost readers😂I see some of you have started coming out of your shells lool. Thank you dearies.

Also, my younger brother whom, from ME, has developed a keen and I hope, a never-going-back love for books! He even reads published works now and we sit and have conversations on books!🥺 My mother would say 'you've initiated him too' and I would say 'It's a good thing Mama.'😂 I know you're reading this bro. I'm proud of you!

Maybe if I say I would write all the genesis, the rationale, the story, and all those stuff about ME, I may end up writing thousands of words! And truth be told, I'm not exactly free right now. (I know we are in quarantine but still). *sad* So you'd find most of what I intend to write in the question and answer segment below (which I promised) and I truly hope, that it suffices.

I've tried to compile all your questions over time. If I didn't answer your question it means someone has asked a similar one and I've somehwat merged them into one, or just maybe it got buried somehwere :(

Sooo here we go!

1. Is Midnight Echoes a true life story?

No. ME is just a product of my imagination. Save for some of the true life events in the book (which I've already placed a caveat at the First Author's Note) and the real life locations I've used, every other thing is fictitious or used in a fictitious manner. I just used fictitious characters to narrate some real life events. (I know some of you would be soo heartbroken after finding out that Suraj is just a literary character aftrerall looool I'm sorry.)

The idea of Midnight Echoes came to me from a plethora of reasons one of which was my intense love for War Literature (yes, I love war literature). And also, initially, I just wanted to write a story where the main character dies or disappear at the end (I know some of you want to strangle me but I like tragedies too loool call me weird) but then I guess the story took its own shape after I've designed the plot and all. I know some of you are emotional about the ending but trust me it's nowhere near what I've foreseen it at the beginning.

So anyway I came up with the idea of writing about boko haram because the war is something that's quite personal to me. Not that it happened to me directly but I've always kept a close tab on its happenings from as far back as 2009 when I was in secondary school to now. The chibok girls were abducted a little after I've finished sec sch and I remember being so horrified! I didn't experience the war firsthand but every news, every 'personal story' I hear about it, every survivor I meet or an IDP Camp I visit broke me. It stills break me now. I don't think I have the words to describe how devastating it is.

Last year marked ten years of Bkh activities in Borno state/Northern Nigeria. And I remember reading a post that says a ten year old child in Borno would have known nothing but the sounds of bombs and gunshots and that hit me hard! I felt, this is soo sad, no child had to experience this!