Simply Hilarie

Simply Hilarie
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Special Feature Interview with Aniiyy!

Aniiyy

Peter & Miryam: When did you start to write and since when did you know you wanted to become an author?


Aniiyy: Hi Peter, Hi Miry! Hmm when did I want to become an author? That's a tough one. I remember my parents bought me this story maker computer CD when I was about 6 and you could write stories and create illustrations with them and music so I think that’s when I started writing stories. Then in 2005/6 I went on holiday to see my cousin and I really didn't like her, but I was there for 6 weeks and the only thing keeping me sane was writing because in Kenya there is not much to do. And when I got back I typed it up and wanted to keep writing it so I could just finish it but I never finished and then of course OTH season 5 started a few years later (I think it was 2008) and I saw Lucas had achieved his dream of writing and becoming an author and so I thought why not? I love writing stories, I want to do English Lit as a degree why not turn it into something more...right? I mean who doesn’t want a career that they would enjoy everyday?


Peter & Miryam: Oh, what a story! Sounds like a really cool CD you got there. You mentioned that you never finished that story you started in Kenya, but now you finished “For Our Daughters,” how come? And how long did it take you to write it? Did you write it in one go, or how did the process go?


Aniiyy: Well if you talk to anyone who knows me well the one thing hate doing unless I really have to is planning. That is what I didn’t do for my first story and all my other ones. I hadn’t planned them. Therefore I just wrote and had no clue where I was going. Sometimes that is a good thing but most times you get stuck which is what happened to me. When writing “For Our Daughters” I knew what I wanted to write and how I wanted to end and what I wanted to happen in each chapter so then I wrote it all out in a detailed plan before I started writing. Also it helped that I had based it OTH for those who haven’t realised. HAHA.

It took me just under a year to write, see exam time and exam time I get really inspired to write and not revise, just like my exam time now. I started writing it and for many of you who know I wrote about 80 pages before I redrafted the whole thing.Then I kept adding to it cause I wanted the relationship between the other characters to grow as well so I just kept writing till I could write no more.


Peter & Miryam: Well, it sounds pretty structured. You had written a plan, mapping out the story and went on to drafting the story. Sounds organized. And a novel in a year sounds pretty good!

It sounds like One Tree Hill has played a major role throughout your entire writing process. Did you get most of your inspiration from there as well? Or what inspires you?


Aniiyy: One Tree Hill has inspired a lot, I do get a lot of it from there but I think all TV shows help because I look at the story lines and see what I would have written and what I wanted to happen which didn’t so I just write from there. I think it OTH plays a major part cause it is my favourite show. I’m also inspired by things I read like FanFictions or people’s life stories from LoveGivesMeHope and KidsGiveMeHope. They really inspire me as well.



Peter & Miryam: So if you write, are you writing bearing in mind which audience you want to write for or is that irrelevant to your writing? And when you’re writing something, are you thinking about how the reader might react?


Aniiyy: I am a bit which is why I give it to people to read, however I was reading a blog by Meg Cabot (Author of the Princess Diaries series) and she said write a book you would read because if you won’t read it what makes you think your audience will? Therefore I am looking at how I am writing it and getting others to read it so I can see how people will react and I love people’s ideas and what they think so I can incorporate their ideas as well.


Peter & Miryam: That sounds like a very good approach. Before you mentioned that you get stuck while writing once in a while. How do you handle those writer’s blocks?


Aniiyy: Oh My Gosh! Writer’s block is the worst, there is never a set way of getting over it. Sometimes I just start writing other things and try and incorporate it into what I’ve written or I ask people that I trust what they would like to see and go at it that way. Sometimes even song lyrics can help, somehow Kate Voegele’s songs are the ones that inspire me most but it might be that I always have her album on repeat. But like I said there is no set way of recovering from it and it is different for different people, but talking to people really helps.


Peter & Miryam: Talking to people always seems to be a good way. That also leads us directly to the next question: it seems like not only OTH but also SoGoPro has been a part of your process. Your current editor for example is one of our Team Members and you had a contest going on here, asking people for ideas for a book cover. Would you like to elaborate a bit on that and give us a little feeling for what SoGoPro meant to you in this case?


Aniiyy: Well for those who haven’t read the blog I wrote a while back the SoGoPro family has made me feel like I belong somewhere. I’m going to quote Haley from OTH 4x13 because she pretty much sums up how I feel outside the virtual world... “Sometimes I feel incredibly disconnected, uncomfortable in my own skin. Kind of like I don't fit into this world. Like I was born at the wrong time, and I don't belong.” Now I didn’t quote Haley looking for sympathy because I am now going to quote something Hilarie blogged a while back on SoGoPro because she describes the community here perfectly, “We all have our weak spots. We're all strange or different or lonely or searching in a way. And that’s what makes us a unit. A bunch of misfit strangers, brought together by this safety zone of creative tolerance.” Hilarie has summed us up perfectly which is why I feel comfortable on SoGoPro and that I knew that people weren’t going to judge me for what I wrote or did. For example when I asked people at school all they wanted was their face on the cover or a character named after them, they didn’t see that I had done this out of love of writing, which the SoGoPro community did. Also the team members have become amazing friends of mine and even though we live in different countries I know I can rely on them to be true and honest and not want to contribute for the fame side of it but for the love of creativity.


Peter & Miryam: That is so beautifully said, thank you for that! It is really amazing to see all of this happening!

Now that your work is finally done, you’re in the process of publishing it. At one point you even thought about self-publishing it. Could you tell us a bit more about your journey?


Aniiyy: Ha well this might take a while so don’t say I didn’t warn you...

Well I first finished my book in about December time and then I found out it was too short to get published (it needs to be between 50,000 and 70,000 words) so I re-wrote the last chapter, because it was in the first person, so I re-wrote it to the third person. I then wanted to add more about Amy and Grace’s life when they move so I added the various scenes in there so you get to see more about Grace’s relationship with Jack and Amy’s with various other characters. I also wanted the readers to see scenes with the other less significant characters to see how they played a role in the final decision making of Max and Amy.

I then went a read though it all again...about five times, before I printed off a copy for me to see like what it would be in print, just so I could get a feel of it. Many of you have seen the covers I made and so I wanted to see what they would look like as well, so if I would need to change it or not (which I did, thus the contest). After showing it to my dad, he took it to work and someone at his work said they could print off 100 copies for a decent price and I could sell them myself retaining all profits. I knew 100 copies would be easy to shift, not because I was cocky, but because my teachers had wanted many copies for the school and many girls had wanted copies as well as my friends and family. However when it came down to the self-publishing part I couldn’t do it. Why? Because of the money. I was relying on pre-orders to help fund the cost of printing however, since I had none that wasn’t really helping. Furthermore for those who don’t know, I am going on holiday to Australia this summer and my parents had just paid over £2000 for a trip I had been wanting to go on forever so I really felt like I couldn’t ask them as they had just made one of my dreams come true. Therefore I thought I would do it myself. However another hurdle came upon me...University. As I am starting university in October I needed to book my accommodation which cost me £200 booking fee. My parents said I had to pay this for the reason that they are paying for all my other uni expenses, which is fair enough, so I paid that which now leaves me with a balance of less that £10 therefore I have no money to self publish. Although I do have a job it pays minimum wage and I only work 4 hours a week so it doesn’t bring in much, plus I have to spend it on other necessities e.g school stuff.

So I thought why not go the traditional method? I know that it is hard but once you are in you are in for life right? So I’ve written to I don’t know how many publishers and agents and I am waiting for a reply. I’ve had many rejections but so did J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyers right?


Peter & Miryam: So true. And you show such a huge determination. Seems like the publishing process is a journey for itself! For the people who maybe don’t quite know how the publishing process works, could you maybe go a bit more into detail about how self-publishing differs from being published. What are the steps you have to go through to get your work published?


Aniiyy: This is a toughie, I have learnt a lot form this process. There are 2 types of publishing (well 3 but I shall explain). The first is traditional publishing where you write to various publishing houses/agents sending them your book/idea and basically trying to sell it to them so they take it up and then send it to the big publishers for them to print and sell. From that you get the relevant commission as set up in your contract and so does your agent.

The second is self publishing which basically means you become a mini business where you pay for printing etc and then it is up to you to get it into stores etc, this is much harder however if successful you get a higher return, but places are less likely to take a self published writer as they do not know if they are going to sell or not as they do not have the backing or a reliable source (i.e. an agent)

There is another method called Vanity Publishing...DO NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP. This is when a company will take your book and ask you to pay them to do everything for you...this is called a llegal scam, because although they follow through they aren’t like an adgent who will help with promotions etc, they will get it out there and leave it, and you won’t necessarily get your moneys worth. And from the amazing Jodi Picoult herself, “You are right to NOT publish with a vanity press - if you do, it will be much harder for you to ever get a publishing contract with a big house.” (that was from an email she sent me *fan girl swoon*) haha.

I hope this helps

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Peter & Miryam: Wow, that sound very serious and tough. Seems like you really did your research on that ;)

Are you working on a new project already?


Aniiyy: Well like I said exam time is when I get most motivated and inspired to write. I already have a few story lines up my sleeve however I have some other background things I’m working on. For those of you who don’t have me on twitter you may have not seen my recent tweets on needing help on script writing. I am trying to write my first script but it is pretty hard, however I am using the same story line and writing it as a book version which is a bit easier but I really would like it to be a script, but who knows. Also I am helping my friend write her first novel, it is actually a fanfiction she has written and it is doing very well and I am trying to convince her to work on it as an actual novel. However I do have some news since I last talked to you. Laura McCann knows because she’s been a star and said she will try and help but I know she is busy, so that is fine. I got an email from a Publishing House I wrote to and they are very interested in “For Our Daughters” however they feel due to the fact I have too many flashbacks the audience are not getting to know the characters well enough so if I can amend that they would like to draw up a contract with me...so who knows, but at this point with finals coming up I’m pretty swamped with that, but who knows I have a 26 hour plane journey, a lot can happen in 26 hours.


Peter & Miryam: That is so fantastic news, congratulations. How do you feel about changing your work towards what they are asking for? Is that ok for you? And can you imagine yourself writing for the screen and novels or would you like to focus on one or the other?


Aniiyy: I was a bit wary at first, that may be why I am not writing much atm, but then I have exams as well. However I am trying to ammend it however it is really hard for me because I wanted the flashbacks to show how they go to where they are now and how Max’s and Amy’s past decisions affected their new ones. But I’m adjusting to it but it does mean I lose a lot of words so it may take longer than anticipated. Well I am working on a screenplay and a few other novels. I do not want to restrict myself to just novels just yet so I shall see. However the screenplay I am writing I am also writing it like a novel so I do have both options.


Peter & Miryam: Yes, I guess it is difficult to find the balance between staying true to your own work and also adjusting it far enough to get published. I guess that’s the beauty of self- publishing and independent companies such as SoGoPro, where you have more power over your artwork.


Aniiyy: Ah yes, but like I mentioned before, self publishing, although can be very rewarding if done well, is hard to do well in unless you have amazing contacts which is something I don’t have. So I think I’m going to stick with traditional publishing and hope that I get a good agent who will let me have a say in my book, even if it is something small, fingers crossed.


Peter & Miryam: Yes, fingers crossed. We wish you all the best with it. But I’m sure you’ll keep us updated, right? Thank you so much for this great interview, it was a pleasure talking to you.


Aniiyy: Of course I will, to be honest SoGoPro cbox is the first place I come to when I get good news. Thank you Peter and Miryam for choosing me for this interview and I shall let you know how it goes =) *hug*

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