Episode #135: What do you do when you run out of things to write about? with Saadia Faruqi

Welcome back to another wonderful episode of Kids Ask Authors! Today we are joined by Saadia Faruqi and she answers this great kid question, “What do you do when you run out of things to write about?”

TRANSCRIPT:

Grace Lin: Hello. I'm Grace Lin, Children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle grade novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and the picture book, A Big Moon Cake for Little Star. Today, I'm here with Saadia Faruqi, the author of chapter books like, The Yasmin series and the Must Love Pet series. Saadia also writes middle grade novels like Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero and A Thousand Questions. Welcome, Saadia.

Saadia Faruqi: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Grace Lin: I am too. We had a couple of technical difficulties, but I think we are all set now. Are you ready for today's question?

Saadia Faruqi: Yeah, let's go for it.

Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a kid named Asha. They ask.

Asha: What do you do when you run out of things to write about?

Grace Lin: What do you do when you run out of things to write about?

Saadia Faruqi: That's a really great question, especially because it happens to me a lot. It happens to all authors, but especially those who write series like I do. Like you know, I have a very long running series called a Yasmin series, which is an early reader series for younger kids. It's now at 20 books. I'm ready to write more Yasmin stories, which means the list of things that Yasmin does in these books kind of has to be almost never ending. What's she going to do next? What challenge will she have? What problem will she solve? Then of course, the Must Love Pets, and I actually also have a new chapter book series called Marya Khan, which is going to start here as well.

Saadia Faruqi: Send them middle grade novels, and the graphic novels. Once I come up with something French, something unique, obviously, like every author that will keep my readers intrigued, but yeah, I always have a need for more ideas for all my books. Very often, I'm just sitting, staring at my computer with a blank screen in front of me, airing my hair out, having no clue how to move forward. It's very normal for me and probably many other authors I know to be frustrated like that.

Grace Lin: 20 books of the Yasmin series. That's incredible. Is there a certain trick that you do when you write it? Do you just sit there and it magically comes for all 20 times, or did you have... Is there something?

Saadia Faruqi: No. It's not magically, but I do sit there a lot. My kids will often wonder why I'm just... They think I'm wasting my time just sitting at my desk staring off into space, but it's a lot of thinking that goes into, like I said, when you have to repeat characters and stories. In any case, once you get to a lot of books, that kind of happens.

Saadia Faruqi: The good news is that I have a lot of help. I don't have to only use my own brain for coming up with ideas, but I can pick other people's brains too. When I run out of ideas, the first people I ask are my kids. They're both teenagers now, but they've been with me through this journey. In fact, if you don't know, Yasmin is based on my daughter. She's 13 now.

Saadia Faruqi: But anyway, I ask both of them, what do you think my characters should do next? Or what should I write about? Did something happened in school, or did you have a conversation? A lot of times when I'm talking to my kids, something sparks for me. A lot of my books currently started out with ideas that they suggested or they told me happened in school. That's one way.

Saadia Faruqi: Also, my editors help a lot in idea generation, especially the editors of my series. Like Yasmin or Marya Khan. We actually brainstorm on the phone, or by email. They come up with a lot of different suggestions, and then I often choose what feels right. They'll say, "Okay, what if Marya did this?", or, "What if Yasmin had this problem?", and then if I'm feeling it, then I'll be like, "Oh, perfect." There's a lot of back and forth and talking about it with people who are close to me in that way.

Grace Lin: Which one was the most difficult to come up with of the Yasmin series?

Saadia Faruqi: I think that this year I had a lot of trouble. This year, the four... There are almost four series, books in the series that come out every year, which is how we get to 20 in such a short period of time. I was kind of depleted of ideas when we sat down to write these. They were all kind of... I asked my editor, "Please, tell me what to write and I'll write it." She said, "Okay, let's calm down." There's a lot of that with a lot of people who are in my life where they're trying to get me off the ledge. But she had some ideas. That always happens. She'll give me ideas, but it was hard now. She sent me an email just last week saying, "Yes, new Yasmin stories. What have you got?" I'm like, "I got nothing. Give me whatever you got."

Saadia Faruqi: Another way that I do it is also to read the news. Sometimes that starts a story. For example, Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero started out like that. I read a news item a few years ago about a boy who'd been wrongly arrested. I was like, "Wow, what if that happened? How would that feel like?" A thousand questions started out because we, me and my kids went on a vacation to Pakistan. I thought about writing about that. It is just all kind of things.

Saadia Faruqi: Actually, which is the most fun for me, is that sometimes my readers give me things to write about. Fans send in emails with suggestions, or when I visit schools, they tell me, "Why doesn't Yasmin do this?," or, "Why don't you write a book about that?". Often, that ends up being a book. For example, Yasmin, the Soccer Star started like that, Yasmin, the Singer. They wanted a sports story, or they wanted a story with a singer in it. Thankfully, I don't have to be completely stuck when I run out of ideas. I just ask other people and they're always so helpful.

Grace Lin: I love that. I love how your readers send you ideas. That's sweet.

Saadia Faruqi: Oh my gosh. They're great. Sometimes, I'm not feeling them, but I write them down. I have a long running list, a document on my computer of all the different things that I could write about. If I'm really stuck, I go back to that and see. Sometimes, it's an idea I wrote down 10 years ago, but now it's relevant, or now it's something I feel excited about, which I wasn't before. You never know.

Grace Lin: Yeah, that's kind of similar to me in some ways. I've been asked a similar question to this is where do you get your ideas? For me, I carry a notebook, or now we have our phones. Whenever I get any idea, even if it's good or bad or whatever, even if I think it's the silliest thing, I still write it down because when I go back to the studio and I can't think of what to write about, or I'm looking for ideas, all I have to do is open up that notebook, or open up that phone list and all of a sudden, something... The list is so long because I've just been collecting for so long, that there's always something in there that, if it's not the exact idea, it inspires something new. It's a lot like what you said, things at the time when I wrote it, I'm like, "Oh, this is so silly," then years later you're like, "Actually, that's brilliant."

Saadia Faruqi: Well, we're all brilliant, aren't we? I love that. But I want to encourage, especially new writers, aspiring writers, and writers that sometimes they feel like there's something wrong or they're not good writers because they just can't come up with a story, or they're stuck somewhere. But no, that happens to all of us. I've been writing for a long time, but I still get stuck. I still get frustrated. I still think that I'm not a good writer. But those are just all things that you go through and you figure out. There are challenges, but you can always ask for help. That's what I learned. People are willing to help. There's nothing wrong with asking people to help you in coming up with something.

Grace Lin: I think to recap, it was the things that you are running out things to write about, you can correct me if I am recapping incorrectly, was you can collect your ideas maybe from your readers, but if not your readers, from your friends and family, and editors, or you can... What was the other ones? You were collecting the news.

Saadia Faruqi: I read the news.

Grace Lin: Or newspaper. Then, lastly, you can ask for help. Is that correct?

Saadia Faruqi: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Grace Lin: Great. I hope that was really helpful to you, Asha, the person who asked this question. Thank you so much, Saadia, for answering this question.

Saadia Faruqi: Oh, it was great. I love questions like that. They make me think too. I realize after so many people to be grateful for in my writing career.

Grace Lin: Yes, we all do, especially the readers.

Saadia Faruqi: Absolutely. Next time you read any of my books, you can wonder where that idea came from.

Grace Lin: Yeah, and if they like it, they can send you another idea.

Saadia Faruqi: Absolutely. Always. Always.

Grace Lin: Then we will see Yasmin in book 873.

Saadia Faruqi: Oh my gosh. I don't know. Yeah, absolutely.

Grace Lin: All right, well thank you so much.

Saadia Faruqi: Thank you.

Grace Lin: Bye.

Today’s KID BOOK REVIEW comes from Wenyuan! Wenyuan is reviewing, A Thousand Questions, by Saadia Faruqi.

More about today’s authors:

Saadia Faruqi is a Pakistani American author, essayist and interfaith activist. She writes the children’s early reader series “Yasmin” and other books for children, including middle grade novels “A Place At The Table” co-written with Laura Shovan (a Sydney Taylor Notable 2021), and “A Thousand Questions” (a South Asia Book Award Honor 2021). Her new book “Yusuf Azeem Is Not A Hero” details the experiences of the Muslim American community twenty years after 9/11. Saadia is editor-in-chief of Blue Minaret, a magazine for Muslim art, poetry and prose, and was featured in Oprah Magazine in 2017 as a woman making a difference in her community. She lives in Houston, TX with her husband and children.

Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook, instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.

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