Author chat with YA and Children's Novelist, Aniesha Brahma.
But in reality, are some of the trickiest books to write? With the word count being so low and every passage and illustration having to be absolutely perfect for a child to be wanting to read it over and over again it's a bit of a challenge. I'm very curious. How long does it take for you to write a kids book?
Hi, Ramya. Thank you so much for having me on the right early chat. I am going to start it off by saying I've been having it was initially it was hectic. Then it became chill. It was a nice weekend, so it kind of balanced each other out. Secondly. Coming to your question about writing routines. I think I had a much better writing routine when I lived with my parents because I didn't have to take care of the little things
But the thing is, when you actually are with a paper and pen or notepad in hand, the idea that sounded so brilliant a few hours ago doesn't sound all that great. The magic is gone. You can't recapture it. So I think it's a hack that I should also be trying out, and I'm definitely going to be doing it. And I also love what you said about writing for kids, which actually leads me to my next question
And I really hope that other children find a series like that where they get to experience this. So what are your favorite books? Besides Grimm's Fairy tales?
I actually wanted to ask you what made you pick up children's and young adult fiction as your preferred genre, but in a way, you did answer this question in your previous reply. So let me ask you a different question. Most adults tend to write children's stories in one of two ways. They either try to write the kind of books they loved as children, or they try to tell a story based on their idea of what a child is like
So okay, thank you for that question. And I don't think I mentioned it, but it was kind of my extended family, like my little nieces and my nephews and my young, very young cousins, because I have a huge family who could not read the books or they just don't like the kind of the love stories that I write. So I wanted to write something for them. And to answer your next question, how do I write these stories?
Thanks for that, Anisha. Your comment about famous phi really sparked off something in my memory. It's a very keen observation that you just made about how the boys in the group always would, you know, to step up and do all the daring stuff and kind of give the easier bits for the girls to handle. It's a classic example of how the stories that we've been told over and over have these inbuilt, stereotypical portrayals of gender. So it's interesting that you brought it up
And I would tell everybody that I'm going to be an author one day. I'm going to be an author. Everyone who would ask me that, what do you want to be when you grow up? I would constantly say, I want to be an author. And it got to a point where my uncle, every time he would get these diaries, he would give me these diaries. I have so many stationaries
It would be great if you could justify have our own families understand where we are coming from and understand what goes on in our heads of the time
Thank you, Aniesha for sharing all of that. Having a supportive family, a supportive bunch of people around you, egging you on, encouraging you, and understanding the trial and tribulations of a rightly mind does go a long way in getting that creativity or keeping that spark of creativity alive in you. And as you said, not everybody is fortunate enough to have such a nurturing bunch of people around them. And I'm so glad that you do have such a lot right there with you
And believe it or not, a few days ago, I did get a message from one of the readers telling me how much she enjoyed one of my later books called All Things Feedback to you. And she had a lot of questions for me, and I was very happy to answer them for her. But the point of this whole thing is that no matter what story you write, there is always a reader for it, because the story that you are writing, somebody is looking for that story
So, Anisha, thank you so much for taking the time out to join me today and for sharing your writing journey and your amazing perspectives on writing. I have absolutely loved having this chat with you and would definitely love to have you back on more bookish conversations. I have also linked your website here for our listeners to follow your work and connect with you. Thanks again. All the best and more power to your workers. It's
It's nice to do these reflections because it kind of makes you sit back, relax, and go, okay, so life is going well. I shouldn't feel all that pressure right now. I can afford to take a little bit of a break. I look forward to talking more about books and more about writing and more about marketing the books and more about other books that we've we love reading and we would love to recommend to the world as well. Thank you once again. Bye