Please welcome my friend and fellow author Zaynah Monodee to my blog.
ZM: Hi Sandra! First I wanted to say thanks for hosting me here. I have been by your blog a few times, though a bit shy to comment (but guess that’s about to change!) and it’s definitely a pleasure to be here today.
SS: Looks like we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself. How long have you been writing? Have you always wanted to be a writer?
ZM: Well, I’m in my mid-twenties, technically still a kid as some would say, lol, but I’m married and mom to a six year old terror who’s also the sunshine of my life (I know, that’s an oxymoron. But does sanity exist with kids in the equation?). In my ‘real’ life, I’m a SAHM and a part-time university student in communications science and media management, and in my fantasy life, I’m just a woman who pens the kinds of stories she’d want to read.
I’ve been ‘seriously’ writing for a little more than 4 years now, with the aim of publication. Before that I would pen short stories or craft some fan fiction that would however be restricted to my eyes only! I actually started story-writing per se in school, penning essays and little compositions that closely resembled what we writers call synopses (yeah, that dreaded thing!).
So in this way, I’ve always had the writing bug biting and itching. Reading books when I was a kid, I dreamt up my own little stories and always wanted to put them down. At the time, the only outlet was play dates with a cast of Barbies. So my writing endeavors thus moved from ‘screenplay’ for play dates to essays for school, until it became full blown novels!
SS: What genre do you like to write best in and why?
ZM: I seem to have found my footing with contemporaries. There’s something about this world, maybe because I inherently know what it’s about, that makes it flow easily for me. It’s like, I get into the character’s psyche but his or her world/universe is the same as mine so I don’t need that much of a switch or I’m not in unknown territory or uncharted waters then. I also love the quirks and other things that take place in our world today. It may all look simple on the surface, but behind the screen is a remarkably complex world that teems with life force and vigor.
The culture-based set-up I write about is one that is part and parcel of me. I grew up in it, know practically all the aspects and nooks and crannies of it. So maybe that’s why it feels so ‘familiar’. I’ve also dealt with issues I personally have experienced, so that too has contributed to the comfort zone. My heroines in a way have some part of me sketched into them, an aspect I empathize and connect with on some level.
But this same culture setup was different a generation ago, and though I have toyed with the idea of writing historicals or even featuring two or more time periods in a story, I find that connecting with the past aspects is much, much harder, because you are then in a world that may feel similar but which is inherently more complex and at times completely different under the surface.
SS: How do you find ideas for your books?
ZM: I write about modern women who have some sort of connection/lineage to India’s culture, so this itself is a hotbed of ideas and inspiration as there is the clash of modernity with that of culture’s traditions, customs and values. This leads to lots of conflicts and issues that pertain specifically to these women in today’s world.
This is for the general idea though. So far I’ve worked mostly character-driven stories. What happens is I get this character in mind and she says, this is who I am, tell my story. With my first book, The Other Side, the heroine Lara came to me as a divorcee who didn’t have her footing at all in cultural society after she spent most of her life in cosmopolitan London. Digging into her story, I then met her two sisters, Diya and Neha. Little by little, both of these women too have come out of the shadows and have ascertained their personalities. The ideas to write their stories came from who they were – their mindset, aspirations, and their particular struggle with today’s modern world on the backdrop of a society trying hard to hold on to its roots and identity.
In the same way, other characters have come to me, whispering their name and then a little one-liner of introduction. From this I get into a Q&A with them, where I find their background, backstory, and also ideas how to move them forward especially after identifying what their particular issue is.
SS: How difficult is it for you to get into “writer’s mode”?
ZM: I need to know the characters, at least the main two protagonists, almost as well as I know myself. If I don’t have this connection, I find it very hard to figure out the story or the character’s path. It’s like, by knowing them so intimately, I know almost immediately and instinctively how they’d react in a situation, what they’d do, what they’d say, and thus what can and will happen.
Once I have this grasp of who they are, their triggers, insecurities, secrets, their psyche basically, then I find it’s not so difficult to ‘switch’ to writing mode. However, I need some sort of isolation to be able to write. Not necessarily physical, but I need to get into some sort of bubble where I won’t be interrupted, where no one is going to hamper my concentration. I need to be left alone, as in, no one asking me where their socks are, or when the next meal is gonna be, or if they can have cookies even if it’s the middle of the day. I can work around noise (and believe me that happens with kids around!); I learned to work around the Transformer action figure fights, the Disney and Dreamworks loud, mind-numbing dialogue and music, the Playstation game battles, the fight for GameBoy cartridges. Basically, unless the boys (my son and stepson) are killing each other, and I really mean they’re killing each other, I work around the noise!
SS: Wow, that’s quite a challenge! Tell me a little about your new book.
ZM: My second novel, Light My World, came out on October 2 as the debut release of a new publisher by the name of Eirelander Publishing. It’s a story about a young, modern and trendy girl named Diya Hemant. Diya lives on the island of Mauritius, my home land, and is, like me, of Indian descent. Her mother wants her to go down the route of tradition and culture and get married as soon as possible because at close to twenty-five, she is pretty much on the brink of being tagged ‘an old maid’ by society’s standards. But Diya doesn’t bother with those ‘antiquated morals’, as she puts it. She’s responsible for her fate, her life, her destiny, and for landing her very own Mr. Right. When she meets Trent Garrison, a surly and forlorn British widower, albeit devastatingly handsome, who is raising his 2 young sons single-handedly, he is definitely not her idea of Mr. Right. Trent too has vowed never to get married or try to find love again. But Fate has other plans for them. Neither can renege on their goals and ideals, but they cannot dodge this curve destiny and life throws at them either.
SS: How did the inspiration for this work come to you?
ZM: Well, I actually needed to write Diya’s story when I first met her when penning The Other Side, which is the story of her eldest sister Lara. So there I was with this spunky teenager on hand, one who already showed she never did anything by her mother’s rules and was determined to live her life as she wanted. I asked myself, what would it be like for her to find love? The timeline moved five years forward, and Diya is thus a young woman in her early twenties. She’s reached a good many of her goals – completed her degree, set up her own interior design firm – and life is smiling at her. The next goal on her list – find Mr. Right, even if marriage is not in her plans for the short-term. Mr. Right will suffice for now.
So there she goes armed with her list of attributes that Mr. Right needs to have. This bit came to me since most young women when looking for Prince Charming have a certain idea and ideal as to what he is supposed to be like. Now what happens when you have two sets of rules competing for attention where propriety and goals are concerned? One which is the modern, no limits world where everything is possible, and the other which is driven by specific parameters of tradition and customs and morals?
Diya seemed to me the perfect embodiment of this plight, that of modern girls who have grown up knowing the world has no limit restricting them, yet who find that suddenly at such an important juncture like looking for love and Mr. Right, this same world suddenly constricts and stifles them, with practically no way out.
Pitched to her then, I needed a strong man who would be able to stand his ground against her. The idea of a single father came to me when it became obvious that more and more men come with children in a relationship. Thus I knew Trent had to have kids, the more rambunctious, the better! Light My World is thus as much about today’s Indo-Mauritian society as it is the story of two people who never thought they’d find love in the circumstances that Fate thrusts upon them.
SS: You’ve recently signed with a new publisher. Can you tell me about that?
ZM: Of course! This new publisher is named Eirelander Publishing. It is a small press with focus on quality, where tradition meets innovation. What appealed to me was the non-nonsense and no-fuss-and-drama outset and manner of its owner, Lee Morris. She knows her stuff and thus plans her endeavors with good business and industry acumen.
I also appreciated that they are a publisher that don’t tell you to write for the market or follow trends and the likes. They leave you free to work on what appeals to you, but the bottom line remains – it has to be quality work. You’ve got to invest your all in a story with them, and then they too invest their all in you and your work.
I signed with them because of all this, but also because I wanted to take a chance on a publisher who was invested in quality more than in reaping tons of work just to turn out tons of work. I’d heard that they were starting up, and I sent a query. This got accepted, and then my following ms too was accepted. Having seen how they treat a story with respect and consideration, I knew I wanted to continue with them.
SS: You have some books in print/e-print. Is there a favorite among them?
ZM: So far I have 2 books out, and another 2 releases scheduled for 2010 under a different pen name. There’s The Other Side and Light My World, which I already told a bit about (okay, a lot, lol!) and the other 2 upcoming releases are under the name of Nolwynn Ardennes. The first is Storms in a Shot Glass, which is a contemporary romance with comedic elements set in the world of the London rich and famous, and the second is Walking on the Edge, which is a suspense/mystery with romantic elements set in the French Provence, in the town of Marseille.
I cannot tell you that I have a favorite. Each story holds something dear to my heart, a part of me that got invested in it and characters that I have come to know and appreciate each in their own right.
I do, however, have a soft spot for Storms in a Shot Glass. I had lots of fun when writing this, pitching an unlikely, pregnant heroine with the most eligible (and most overbearing and stubborn too) bachelor of London society amidst a gaggle of really over-the-top characters that people this girl’s life. At the same time, it is also a story of hope and of love that just happens without anyone ever betting on it and especially in such crazy circumstances.
SS: You’ve just sold your first, second, twentieth book. Tell me more!
ZM: Lol. I’ve just sold my fourth book actually, which is Walking on the Edge. It is a suspense/mystery with romantic elements. It features a woman with amnesia, who questions the world in which she wakes up, feeling no connection to this pampered existence of a rich housewife in posh London. In her dreams, she starts to see a man other than her ‘husband’, one who seems to have been her lover. But is this man real, or is her blank mind conjuring him out of thin air?
When on an impulse, she goes to find this man who inhabits her imagination, she is definitely not prepared for what awaits her. He doesn’t recognize her, but as events unfold, wisps of a painful past he had buried very deep start to come to light and enmeshes this ‘strange’ woman with no memory in their web. But danger the likes none of them had ever imagined is threatening to close on them, and in a race to find her identity and what happened to her, an unlikely, almost forbidden, love starts to kindle between the two. Will they live to see tomorrow, or will their next step be the last, literally?
I wrote this story on a roll, penning the full 52K ms in 2 weeks, Friday to Friday. It was a crazy challenge, one I never thought I’d be able to do, but there it was, a story that almost seemed to write itself whenever I sat down with the laptop. Of course, everything else kinda fell off the wayside in those 2 weeks, and the blokes started to complain. But the fire of this story kept me going, and it’s still burning bright today because it was accepted for publication very soon after I submitted it to Eirelander Publishing.
The elation of selling this piled on top of completing the ms in such a short span of time, yet this joy was comparable to the same one I felt when I sold my first. I guess that never changes, the thrill of making a sale and knowing that you have another story to add to your portfolio.
SS: What do you love about your editor (or publisher)?
ZM: That my editor, Lee Morris, doesn’t beat around the bush and puts it all bluntly. She’ll tell me where I’m going wrong without any qualms and the best thing is, she will be right in her assessment. There is simply no bs with her, no drama either. I like this strong persona, and how she also retains her humanity and strikes up a rapport with those she works with.
About the publisher, I said it in another reply but I’ll say it again here – I love that they seek quality work that is outside the box and that they don’t chase trends blindly or want you to do it. They respect you as a writer, they respect your work, and they value your efforts. I like it that they make you feel like you exist with them, that you’re not simply there because they are granting you a ‘favor’ by accepting to take on your ms even if you’re a virtual newcomer/unknown in the business.
SS: Do you have a specific place where you write?
ZM: I usually write in my sun-filled living room. It’s very much like a conservatory, one wall nearly completely consists of windows and French doors that open onto a wide terrace. We live on the second floor (or third floor I think you call it in the US, since you don’t use the term ground floor, right?) so at this height there aren’t many buildings to block the light and it’s almost always a bright, sun-drenched room. I have a bad back courtesy of a car accident I was in during my youth, and the comfy sofas in the living room give me the kind of support I need to not feel like I’ve got a stiff broom stick in the place of my spine! Basically, I can write anywhere that provides me with a good sitting position, so other than that, I’m not picky. I try to give rooms a specific function though, like the bedroom is for sleeping or at worst, a place to read just before I go to bed. Thus the living room is the ‘heart’ of our house, where we do every other activity. I’m lucky to have it all to myself when I write though as I do so when the hubby is at work and the kid is in school.
SS: I know you said you’re a SAHM. How do you balance domestic trials and writing?
ZM: I’m also a university student, so even if those two are not exactly jobs in the sense that I do work and get paid, they do take up a significant portion of my time.
Balancing is a difficult task. It’s very difficult to find the equilibrium and very easy to lose it all over again when you do happen to find it. I find that having a schedule with clearly marked and delineated time and days help me to cope. In this way, each aspect gets its own share of dedication and attention, and thus, hopefully, nothing is neglected. These allotted slots vary, like if I’m close to exam time, I’ll have more study slots fitted into the schedule than say, cooking time. I’ll also maybe do a basic cleaning in those days too. Or if I’m on a writing deadline, I will allot more time to writing and leave off a little of the rest. It’s a question of juggling, but the real issue is – how well can you juggle, and do you manage to catch all the balls before they fall!
SS: What piece of advice do you have for aspiring writers that you wished someone told you when you started?
ZM: Learn all you can about the art of crafting a good, solid story. Then attempt to write! Believe me, it’s much easier trying to pen something slowly but surely than writing something quickly and then find out there’s lots of technical and artistic issues with it.
Resources abound on the Net; read what you can, but also remember, nothing is set in stone. Something should inherently make sense. You don’t go, oh this one says this so I’ll do this as from now, and next week someone else says the complete opposite and you go, oh this other one said something else so from now I’ll listen to the something else! Read without committing yourself, take them all and find what works for you and your writing style and voice, once you find this out, hone your skills. Then you’ll be on the road to writing a story that won’t end up in the form rejection wire basket.
SS: For something fun and different, if you could interview any of the characters in your books, which one would it be, and why? What shocking thing might that character say?
ZM: I would love to interview Gerard Besson, who is the hero in Walking on the Edge. He is a French cop, recently made police commissaire (police chief) in the city of Marseille. Ruthless and gifted with terrific precision and acuity in his job, he takes on the hardest cases and always wins. He stops at nothing to put the bad guys behind bars. He isn’t a machine, because he functions with emotions too, even in a calculating way, but no one would credit him with a heart. A very handsome and sexy man, he has his pick of women but none manages to touch his heart, because he knows he doesn’t have one.
I’d want to talk to him just to know why he thinks he doesn’t have a heart, just to know what made him this way. He grew up in the almost dirt-poor cités (that’s almost like a ghetto, council areas usually in France) and crime, both petty and the bigger variety, rule this kind of neighborhood. How did he come out of the clutches of the gangs and rise to become one of the most efficient and respected police chiefs is a story I’d like to know. Where, along the way, did he lose his heart despite holding on to his humanity?
A shocking thing? I figure he may show a soft spot for his mother. But mind you, it’s not his own, biological mother he refers to, but the Moroccan neighbor who took him under her wing when her own daughter brought her almost feral six-year-old classmate home for a plate of food. Even though she was dirt-poor too and brought up her three daughters single-handedly, she always had time and a place at her table, in her home, and in her heart, for the ‘golden-look’ child who never seemed to have had anyone care for him in his entire life. This strong and intense love for his ‘adoptive’ mother would be shocking coming from a swift and competent, cold cop like he is.
SS: And one more, if you had the opportunity to ask one question to one figure in literary history (either author or a character from a book), what would you ask and to whom?
ZM: I would ask Jane Austen how she started writing and how she built her stories. Hers are some of the best, strongest books I know and I’d love to know how she approached it all.
SS: We’re wrapping up this fascinating look into your writing persona. What else would you like to share?
ZM: That it was a pleasure to be here today! I loved the questions; they were really thought-provoking and made me uncover facets of my stories and writing that had hovered just beneath the surface.
One more thing I’d like to add is that it’s a writer’s biggest joy and privilege to be able to share stories with readers. In this manner, readers’ feedback is almost a lifeline for us. So I’d encourage readers to share their impressions and opinions with writers, to let them know what they think and what they want too. A vital component of our dimension is the readers – without them, we’re next to nothing.
Thanks Sandra for this wonderful opportunity! It was truly an honor to be able to share some more about me and my works with you and all your blog readers today!
Blurb for Light My World: Life’s good until it throws you the one curve you never wanted or expected.
At twenty-four, Diya Hemant faces the prospect dreaded by every modern Indo-Mauritian girl – an arranged marriage to not end up an old maid. But for vivacious and live-life-in-the-fast-track Diya, giving in to her mother’s antiquated morals was never an option. Hearth, home and children weren’t part of her plan for the short-term, even if she’d love to find her Mr. Right.
Widower Trent Garrison has already been there and done that, and has no plan to go down that road again. He has to ride the straight and steady for the sake of his sons, and nothing will divert him. Marriage, attachment, and love are not in the cards for him, not ever.
Neither can afford a U-turn. But they can’t dodge it either.
Genre – Multicultural Romance/AngloIndian
Length – Novel
Heat Level – Sweet
If you’d like to find out more about Zaynah Monodee and her writing personas, checks out these links:
Buy link: http://eirelander.webs.com/lightmyworld.htm
http://www.allromanceebooks.com/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002PHMNRY Kindle edition
Website:
http://www.aasiyah-nolwynn.webs.com/
Blurb: Santa’s nephews have come to Crystal Falls to run a cookie business. If they fail, they’ll have to go back to the North Pole and fill their uncle’s black boots when he retires. But sick of toys, elves, and the North Pole’s influence, that’s the last thing Landon and Aaron want. They’re looking for love.
Off The Moon
Crucifying Angel blurb:
LF: Queen of the Ghost Drakon is the first in The Risen Series. The Risen are females who are born as drakon and either lycan, vampire, fae, or demon hybrids. Here is the blurb for Queen of the Ghost Drakon.
Blurb: Emma looks down at the crowd from a hanging platform. Her father was framed, and she took the blame for the crime to save him from execution. Where is her beloved husband, Nate? She looks around and sees her husband on a horse, guns blazing. In a whirlwind rescue, she hops on the back of his horse, and they’re off, realizing that they will spend the rest of their lives as outlaws.
Blurb for Ring Around the Sun
Hope you’re all having an awesome day! Here, it’s blustery and cold–the perfect day for haunting and mayhem.
Available now from The Wild Rose Press. Buy Link: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/the-haunting-of-amelia-pritchart-p-3684.html 
Be safe when you’re out tonight. There are ghosties and ghoulies on the prowl!
SS: Tell me a little about yourself. How long have you been writing? Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Sandra Sookoo