NAME: Sabaa Tahir

CLAIM TO FAME: Sabaa Tahir is the bestselling author of a YA fantasy series that began with the smash debut hit, An Ember in the Ashes, and was followed by A Torch Against the Night, and A Reaper at the Gates (coming May 2018). A first-time author, before which she was an editor at the Washington Post, Sabaa immediately won a legion of fans for her world building and vivid characters.

WHERE TO FIND HER: On Amazon, Twitter, and her website.

WHY’D WE PICK HER IN 10 WORDS: Sabaa’s life and work is as inspirational as they come.

Let’s start with the basics: What time of day do you start writing? Is it easier for you to write early in the morning? Late at night?

I start writing in the morning, but only because I have to! I drop off my kids at school and then head to the office. Then I try to wrap up by 5:30 so I can have the evenings with them. But when I’m deep in draft or edit mode, I prefer to work at night—my best ideas usually show up around 2 a.m.

What’s your preferred tool for writing—a word processor like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, etc.? A pen and paper?

I can’t settle on one. I use Scrivener for when I’m drafting, because my books have multiple POVs and it’s a bit easier to see how I’m arranging everything with Scrivener. I use Microsoft word once I have the structure of the book down. And I hand-write in between, particularly when I’m struggling to either get into or develop a scene.

Do you listen to music when you write, or do you prefer silence, or something else in the background?

I listen to music! All of my books have enormous playlists divided up by character or character pairs.

Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits? Alternatively, any good luck charms or talismans?

I need coffee to get me started, music to keep me going and chocolate as a reward. ☺

How many words or pages a day do you produce, or try to produce? How much of that ever sees the light of day?

That’s sort of a difficult question because it depends on where I am in the draft. Very early on, I’m lucky if I get 500 words a day. As I get in deeper to the story, I try to produce 1,000 words a day. And when I’m pushing deadline, I have done as much as 8,000 words a day. I call it momentum writing—instead of slow and steady wins the race, I sort of build up steam over the course of weeks and months until, by the time my deadline rolls around, I am writing 18 hours a day in a crazed fury.

It’s tons of fun for the people unfortunate enough to live with me. 😉

When you first sit down to write, how do you start? Do you review what you did the day before? Do you start from the beginning? Do you pick up where you left off? Something else?

I used to start by screwing around on Social Media, but a friend of mine told me she found her productivity increased when she ignored the internet and all its lures until after lunch. Once I started doing that, I’d usually just go in to the last place I left off and start from there.

What’s your process for editing your own work, if you have one? How does your mindset shift from the creative process of writing, if at all?

I go from being kind to myself to being brutal. Every word is suspect, every sentence a potential embarrassment. Every idea has to be interrogated, every bit of dialogue examined, every scene put the to the test of “What does this contribute to the story? Why? Do I need this scene? What does it add?”  It is a very different mindset, much more punishing. I’m way grumpier when I’m editing because I’m reminded daily of how crap I am at my job until I start editing.

Everyone says that the first step to being a good writer is to read good writer’s’ writing. What do you read? How much do you read? Who is your favorite author to emulate?

I read a lot of adult literary, Young Adult contemporary, poetry and long-form journalism. I do read some fantasy, but I dislike reading fantasy while I am writing or drafting, which is for most of the year, so I’ve found I’m reading less and less of it. I try to consume other media too though—I find that movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, etc. are all just as important as books when it comes to filling the creative well.

As someone who spent a lot of time in and around the Mojave Desert as a kid, I have some insight into how that vast expanse can affect a young mind long after the exposure has abated: how does/did your upbringing down in the desert, in the unique environment of running a motel, as the child of immigrants as well, affect your writing? Does it continue to influence your POV or your choices as a world builder? Has it simply slipped into your subconscious? Or do you not think about it in that way? If not, how do you think about it?

I think it affects everything I write, always, so deeply that I don’t really know how to pick it apart. It has absolutely slipped into my subconscious. To some degree, it’s like writing as a brown person, or as a woman, or as a parent—the desert sunk into me. It is me. So I can’t really separate it out. I guess one thing I can say is that it helps me find the darkness in my books. Because if you know the desert, you know it can be a vicious place.

From whom do you find you get your most constructive feedback? And at what point in the process is that feedback usually the most valuable?

My editors give me the best feedback. Usually I get it after I’ve turned in the first draft.  

When did your aspirations to become a writer begin, and at what age did you start writing in hopes of living off of it/making a life out of it?

I always wanted to write but it didn’t seem like a practical job. I didn’t consider it something I could actually do with my life. It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that my husband convinced me that I should go for it. Until then, it was something I did on the side. My “real” job was always editing, before that.

With the third in the series now officially into the publisher, which book would you say was your favorite to write? What is the hardest part, or biggest problem to solve, when you’re world building beyond a single book? Does it get easier or hard, or both?

Oh man, they were all miserable but also glorious? I think Book 3 has been the absolute hardest and I’m not done with it yet…so I’ll reserve judgment on that question. But it absolutely gets more difficult. Ha ha, sorry to say…

What are your favorite books on writing if you have any?

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, The Writer’s Home Companion Anthology, The Writer’s Life, by Marie Arana

For some writers, the act of writing is torture; for others, it’s bliss. Where do you fall on that spectrum?

I ping pong all over it. Some days are wretched and I want to tear my hair out and hide under a blanket. I ask myself why I’m doing this. But every now and then, the words come easy and it’s so wonderful that it makes all the rest worth it.