Names: ADOBS Got An Upgrade

It seems I get my blog post inspirations at the crack of dawn these days! I remember some months back, I posted about getting most inspirations at midnight. Now, I wake up at 6am and before 9am I’ve cranked out one or two blog posts. Sometimes while brushing my teeth. Yay for inspiration!

Anyway, my A Desert Of Bleeding Sand series is getting a name overhaul. Yay again!

It started when I decided to create an official-ish map; one that looks much better than my hand-drawn one. (I’m no artist and rely heavily on emojis hehe.) While drawing the more standard map, I realized that I didn’t like some name of places in ADOBS. Some I’d known for a while that I didn’t love and had felt I might change them eventually, others that I did love, but now felt differently about.

You see, ADOBS is inspired by the #bringbackourgirls movement and some other tribal clashes we’ve witnessed over here. I wrote about Nigerian youths—who take the brunt of these—confronting the very old and selfish leaders, and taking the situation in hand for their futures. And when I drafted it, I was burning with so much passion that I either left many things literal, or as close to literal as possible. I used real tribe names and real place names because I wanted, in my own way, to hold our bad leaders accountable.

However, since then, I’ve been deciding that some distance would be better. Why?

• Changing Villains

The political tides have turned and since the last year, we now have a new set of oppressive rulers. Knowing this political landscape will continue to change has made me decide to leave my fantasy world as that. A fantasy world. It is still a satire criticizing oppression and bad leadership, and one day I will speak more on the specifics of the story’s inspiration.

But it will be timeless and more encompassing of the general wrongs of a bad government with non-specific names.

• Meaning

I’ve also been changing other words. Some, I thought meant only one thing during my earlier research, then found out meant much more than the initial meaning. For example, a ziggurat. They are ancient structures built by the Mesopotamian Empire and I used the word to give a snapshot look of the palace in my book. But recently, I found out it mostly has Islamic ties. I don’t want to step on any toes, so I’ve taken out and replaced the name.

Another example is the takouba. I originally saw that it’s a type of sword Nigerian Hausas use. But recently, I realized it goes beyond Nigerian Hausas to other people of the Sahel region—and southern Nigerians don’t have the best relationship with the region. (Considering many of the mercenary terrorists that attack our country are hired from there.) So I traded the word for the name of a sword once used by only Nigerians.

And a few others like that.

• Sound

As mentioned before, another reason is just because I decided I didn’t really love the name I originally chose. APOF, my first fantasy book, has a lot of pretty location names—that I still adore!—and so with ADOBS, I thought I wanted to be less flowery and more “down to earth.” After a while sitting with the story, however, I’ve decided that those names are a bit too stark/blunt/unflattering for my tastes. I do love my pretty-sounding names. So I’m changing them to the style of names I do like.

I reckon that by the time my agent sees the manuscript again, other than the plot, she might think she’s looking at something entirely new haha. I hate being on submissions for this long, but this is one small boon of it I’ve seen so far. I think I’d stand by whatever is in the final version of the book when it’s published, knowing it can’t be changed anymore, but in some part of me, I might’ve been discontent with these names if I hadn’t gotten to change them now!