Introducing Our Thoughts and You

Hi, my name is Dunni Obata. Welcome to my other passion, writing. So, here’s my history. I am already a seasoned blogger, or at least I hope I am. I created Dooney’s Kitchen to showcase my love for food and share my recipes. Almost immediately, I realised I enjoyed writing just as much as I loved cooking. It was a skill I never had to use before, well if you consider writing thousands of words for the projects of my degrees, writing. I have 3 by the way. Hahahahaha. That should have been the cue that I enjoyed writing. Anyways, it was truly a pleasant surprise to read feedback from my readers saying they loved my stories and my writing skills were described as captivating. So, I thought, what’s the best way to harness this skill than to dedicate another site strictly for writing, but this time, I didn’t want to do it alone. I have read some pretty spectacular comments on blogs, some to address the subject matter of the post, others and most times, people sharing their personal stories and how they relate to the topic of the post, and i thought wow, it isn’t just me that has a story to tell, thousands of people do too and they’ve been doing it for years on blogs via the comment section. So, I decided to transfer that experience to a site where I can give a voice to anyone who feels they have something to share with the world. The fabric of our humanity is in the connections that we make, and the internet has brought that to bear more strongly in today’s times.

Some stories i have read online have inspired me, motivated me, challenged me, even taught me life lessons and saved me from making mistakes, so I thought why can’t I create a melting pot of people’s thoughts and ideas and set it out into the world. Hence the name of the site, Our Thoughts and You. Our being for us writers and budding writers, and you being the reader. If you want to come join us and make the change from being a reader to being a writer, you are most welcome. Here, you can talk about anything you want, and I mean anything. May i go ahead and state the obvious, like oh wait let me see, sexually explicit stuff, nope not allowed, there are sites for that, unless you want to contribute to sexually educating people, then sure go ahead. Inciting violence, hate, racism, tribalism and all the -ism’s. That’s self explanatory isn’t it? There is already a lot of hate in the world, please don’t bring it here; but this space is open for intelligent political discourse, challenging the status quo, giving a voice to social issues and standing up for what you believe in, if that belief can uplift a generation. This site is not affiliated to any religious organisation, in fact i would kindly insist that it is a-religious, now it doesn’t mean that matters of faith cannot be discussed, I welcome such discussions, as long as it doesn’t trample upon people’s rights to believe in whatever and it doesn’t raise one faith/religion above the other. We are living in times where religion has been abused to cause great human suffering, so on OTY, religion cannot be used as a tool or a weapon to incite discord. There are no teams here, we are all just people trying to connect with other people through our life stories and thoughts.

Feel free to use #OTY as your personal diary, your personal blog, without going through the hassle of running a blog. Leave that to me and the admins. You know the best part? You can chose to be completely anonymous, or you can choose to put a face and/or a name to your story, your choice. Here we can talk about day to day stuff like career, family, business, entrepreneurship, weight goals and struggles, healthy lifestyle, marriage, parenting, in-laws, life as a singleton, what you wish others told you, I mean anything. Our online space is sooooo besotted with entertainment gist, gossip and the rest. Surely, there’s more to us than that. Surely we have more depth and substance. Our stories need to be told too. You don’t need to be popular or be a celeb to have something meaningful to share to captivate a reading audience. Lets build a site for depth, intelligent discourse, real life. All that flash in the pan you see on blogs, half of it isn’t real you know, and that’s being generous.

I started OTY in 2014, gathered some fantastic writers, but as they say, life happened and it didn’t take off. Now that the new Dooney’s Kitchen has launched, it is time to get the next baby off the ground. I have a lot of plans for this site, I want CNN and The New York Times to come calling one day. I want stories to come from here that would inspire our own corner of the world. I want people to want to come back home from work or during their lunch breaks and open the site, eagerly looking out for what stories other members of the OTY Tribe have put up. I want you to come here and rant at the end of a long day if that will make you feel better. I want us to celebrate milestones together, to be our own support group for each other. Some of the best friends i have today, I met through the internet. All the founding writers of OTY I have never met. We all connected online. The internet can be a blessing if you seek out ways to use it positively and I hope this site does just that. Lets spread the message of love, hope, business, entrepreneurship, community and family through our experiences.

Writers tend to love to read, duh!!!! So, I will be setting up a book club. Once a month, we can select a book and discuss it. There will also the Shop section where you can buy books from the site using affiliate codes or any home and lifestyle items that may come in handy. All income generated will be pulled back into the site. This site also has a forum, where you can raise topics or contribute to topics.

I have run Dooney’s Kitchen for almost 3 years now and have done very well with it thankfully, and while it is growing from strength to strength, it is time to embark on another project, and touch people’s lives outside the Kitchen. This is also a call for anyone who feels moved to help with the site, in form of an Admin or Editor. It is an unpaid role, for now anyway, who knows how big OTY can be in a few years. So, if you are at that point in your life where you feel like you want to take up on something bigger than yourself, where you want to feel useful, like your day matters and you are making a difference, the door is open. You can step up to help run the site and join the group of Admins. See where HONY is now, you could be part of the start up team that launched a phenomenon for African stories.

If I struck a chord within you, please send an email to joinus@ourthoughtsandyou.com if you would like to be an Admin or Editor for Our Thoughts and You. The site is to launch at the end of October/Early November. If you also have ideas on what you would like to see on the site, please also send that email. We are in the development phase of the site, so your ideas will be most welcome.