Writerly Wednesday with Hema Natarajan!

Drum roll pleeeeease foorrrrrrr… Hema Natarajan! Hema, welcome to AZ Pascoe and thank you for joining us here today to talk all about yourself and your writing! It’s been a while everyone, but if you enjoyed learning about Meagan Noel Hart, MM Schreier or any of our other brilliant guest writers, then you’re in for a treat.

1. To start with, we’d love to know a little bit more about you as a person. Where are you from and what are your passions? 

Thanks for having me on your lovely blog, Ana! I grew up in India, moved to London for a bit, then to the US for long stretch and finally to Singapore, where I currently live. So “home” is a fluid concept for me. I like to say I’m from everywhere. In another life, I used to work as a Human Resources professional. Now I’m a kid wrangler most of the time and sometimes, I write. 

Some random facts about me –

• I love to travel. Peru is a dream destination.
• I’m a polyglot. I speak 7 languages. 
• Give me puns and cheesy dad jokes and I’ll be your friend for life. 
• Oranges are to me what garlic is to vampires.

2. Wow, you have lived everywhere… and you speak seven languages?! Hema, that is amazing: I’m about 10 seconds away from moving to your house and asking you to teach me your ways. Of course, I’d pay you back with babysitting time, because you’ve recently become a mum for the second time—congratulations! How are you handling the juggle of parenting two young kids and yet continuing to write… and getting pieces published?! 

Thank you! I honestly don’t know how I handle it. I drop a lot of balls, lol. These days, I mostly write micros. They’re not easy in any way, but bite-sized pieces are mentally less daunting. I try to write when my daughter is at school and my baby boy is napping. But his nap schedule is getting a little erratic these days, so my writing is like my neighbor’s second-hand car. It coughs and sputters, starts up and runs for a bit, dies down and fires up again. I must really like this writing thing, because I keep coming back to it.

3. I think the hardest part would be having less sleep; I’d be napping every time the baby was! I, for one, am glad you do keep coming back. You are a master of short fiction and flash: I love reading your work! Do you prefer short-form fiction, or are you working on any larger projects as well? 

Gosh, that’s high praise! I started writing flash fiction about 6 years back. Until then, I had no idea you could write a complete story in less than 1000 words. So, I’m definitely partial to flash fiction. It’s first love. I am working (and I’ve been saying this for the last three years!) on a YA novel. I’ve only written three chapters and I intend to get back to it someday, haha. I’m also working on a picture book which I’m really excited about. 

4. I am so thrilled about the prospect of reading your picture book! And I love connecting with other people who are writing YA novels (I think that’s what mine is, anyway). What do you think underpins the creation of a powerful protagonist-antagonist tension? 

Talking about protagonist-antagonist tension, I immediately think of Harry Potter and Voldemort. Or even The Da Vinci Code. The common theme in both these stories is characters that we’re invested in and high stakes – we care about what will happen to HP if Voldemort is successful (I actually cried when Dumbledore dies), or if Robert Langdon can decipher historic symbols in time to stop another murder. 

5. Dumbledore’s death was devastating, we’re in complete accord. I also couldn’t agree more about the characters we’re invested in: it’s something I always find a challenge. Noting your reference to Harry Potter, what genre do you prefer to read? Do you think this is reflected in your preferred writing style? 

I’m a history nerd, thanks to my mom, who is the best history teacher I’ve had, so yeah, historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read and to write. I also love falling down the research rabbit hole while writing histfic. Is it reflected in my preferred writing style? Sometimes, I guess. I have written a few pieces which some editors liked enough to publish them. Having said that, I’m also trying to get out of my comfort zone and read & write varied genres.

5. I love that your mum inspired your connection to historical fiction! It’s wonderful the impact our parents can have on our reading habits, and it seems like a lovely link for you to share with your mum. I agree with trying to broaden your reading and writing habits though; I’m in the same boat. I feel that as a writer, there’s always a sense of striving to improve and to grow. What do you think is an area in which you’re killing it, and what’s an area in which you’d like to grow a bit more? 

I think I’m slowly getting the hang of layering my stories and writing flawed characters. However, when I write dialog, they all end up sounding like me. That’s an area I’d love to grow.

6. I can empathise; sometimes I feel like my protagonists are too similar to me in some ways… In fact, the things you think you’re getting the hang of are the ones I’m struggling with right now. Is there a particular phase of life or type of situation you find yourself drawn to writing about more than others? 

Motherhood! Because I live it every minute of every day, it just flows into my writing. Most of my stories inadvertently have a parent or a child in them.

7. Of course! Parenthood seems to be so all-encompassing that I think it’d be hard not to reflect that in your work. What I love is the way you explore the dynamics of those relationships with such a deft touch; your stories never feels recycled, they’re always fresh. What role does intuition or ‘flow’ play in your writing process, versus the role of plotting/planning/logic? 

My writing process is a weird mix. I’m a plotter and a pantser. When I have a story idea, I need to know where it begins and how it’ll end. Figuring out how to get from point A to point B is where “flow” comes into my picture. Sometimes it ends the way I planned it, sometimes it doesn’t, but for some reason, I find it incredibly hard to begin a story if I don’t know where I’m going with it.

8. The tension between plotting (even if it’s just a general sense of where you’re heading) and going with the flow is an eternal one! Is there a theme or key idea that you’re particularly passionate about and seek to reinforce/highlight in your writing? 

Stories with diverse characters. As a kid, the books I read were mostly by Enid Blyton where the kids ate scones and clotted cream and went on adventures. Although I loved those stories, I never saw myself in them. So I strive to write diverse characters in my work. My roots are in India. There’s always something Indian in my stories. Some stories are set in India, while in some others, there’s a woman in a sari in the background or an Indian dish, something. When I started writing, I used to italicize Hindi or Tamil words, but I don’t anymore. People can look words up!

9. YES! I love that you’re passionate about sharing #ownvoices stories and creating that depth in your writing: writing should reflect the incredible diversity of the world around us. I also love your choice to stop italicising words. I read an article about that a while ago by a writer of colour and loved her argument for doing so, because you’re both totally right… We can just google it! As a writer, if you could write anywhere in the world, where would you choose, and why? 

Ooh, what a great question! I love beaches, but I also love climate control. Someplace with a window overlooking the beach. Or even better, in a library surrounded by books! I find coffeeshops and public places too distracting. 

10. A library… Is there anywhere better? Speaking of books, I can’t let you leave this chat without asking a key question: one which is rapidly expanding my already-gargantuan ‘to read’ list! Please pick one book that you think is seriously underrated—why? 

“Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows” by Balli Kaur Jaswal. The title probably draws a lot of attention, but it’s so much more than that. The story telling is crisp, the pace is great and it’s a master class on how to write flashbacks that aren’t boring. Every character is perfectly etched, with all their flaws and quirks and you care about them.

11. Adding it to the list, thanks Hema! Finally, I’d love to hear the one piece of advice you would give to other writers that has served you well in your journey so far? 

Read your work aloud, to yourself or to an audience. It’s amazing how many errors which you were previously blind to will show themselves. 

Thank you so much for sharing a bit about yourself with us today… but now you’ve given us a little insight into your wonderful writer’s brain, we’d love to know more! Where can we find more of Hema Natarajan — your wonderful published work and social media profiles/webpage/blog? 

My most recent work is up on SoftCartel, Paragraph Planet, The Sunlight Press, & The Brown Orient. Check them out, they’re all wonderful journals. Mixed Bag (www.hemas-mixedbag.com) is my blog and my writing playground. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to give it a lot of attention lately. Twitter is where I go to procrastinate (which is basically all the time). But then, I did get published on a “Twiterrary” journal called Mythic Picnic and earned some $$(yay!), so it’s not all that bad. I go by @m_ixedbag. 

Thanks once again, Ana, for interviewing me! 

See you all again soon!

A.